September 29, 2001

• Originally, this was going to be a comment on one of GoinHome’s ‘blogs, but it took on a life of its own, and now here it is on my ‘blog.
  
  One of the deals with the ‘antiglobalization movement’ is that it doesn’t exist as that. I don’t know many people who think we should close our borders and trade only with ourselves, and that there should be no transnational corporations. Folks who believe that are tremendously naive, or not very bright, or both.
  
  No, talking about the ‘antiglobalization movement’ is like talking about the ‘pro-abortion movement.’ Bad taxonomy. Most folks that I know who are concerned about globalization want to take political and cultural power away from corporate concerns, not to keep them from trading and making a profit. The global economy *could* be a good and wonderful thing for everybody, if we design it right. However, as it is, it’s all about centralizing profits and resources at the expense of everything valuable.
  
  Also, I know people who live in the woods, are totally off the grid, compost their own human waste to feed their gardens, and so forth. Those are the people who are walking their talk. I personally don’t have the guts to try something like that.
  
  I also know folks who make an effort to buy local organic produce, frequent stores that sell fairly-traded merchandise, and so forth. That’s good, too, because making those purchases pushes sustainability ever further into economic profitability.
  
  I also know folks who talk a lot about these issues, but who wouldn’t know a compost bin if they fell into it. That’s fine, too, because everyone’s got to learn, and you can’t learn if you don’t talk about it.
  
  One of my favorite shirts is from The Gap. It was assembled in Hong Kong, probably by sweatshop workers. However, I bought it at a thrift store for $3. Does my shirt count as a symbol of capitalist oppression in the third world or a symbol of using what’s around you to make something better? It’s wool. I’m warm.
  
  See, there’s such a thing as unrealistic expectations, and I think that’s the main problem facing the sustainability and environmentalist movements in the US. There are a lot of folks who want everyone to be ashamed of their ways, but really, shame isn’t a very sustainable motivator. You can’t expect a person to give up their culture at the drop of a hat, simply because that culture is brought to them on the backs of slaves. (And make no mistake, that’s what consumption is for us in the US: culture. And that’s where it comes from: slaves.) Lively public debate is good; lively public lynchings of people who wear Nike shoes is not (though that does give me an idea for some street theater…).
  
  I recently read a book called Natural Capitalism which really opened my eyes and blew my mind. It says that the problem isn’t greed, especially since greed is so much better a motivator than shame. The problem is design. We design our industrial and economic systems in a way that rewards waste with profit. We design our governmental systems as ways to concentrate more and more power in the hands of fewer and fewer people. Approaching the world with a better plan instead of a wagging finger wins over more minds, and towards that end, we need better designs for a sustainable lifestyle, economy, and social order.

  • 8:56 pm
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