Economic Justice
By Ed Howes, Fri Dec 9th

The people who have enough to eat in this world, either producethe food, hunt and gather it, or pay others to provide it. Infew instances do these people produce meaningful surplus forthose who do not have enough to eat. Until the well fed careabout the hungry and starving, there will be no economicjustice, only privilege. That is how simple or complex the issueis. The minute an individual takes on the responsibility to feedher or himself, s/he begins creating low cost surpluses forthose unable to do so. It makes sense to grow more plants in aglobal greenhouse. The more surplus an individual produces, themore likely starving people will eat. Economics affect everyaspect of life, including spirituality, yet it is the leastunderstood of the sciences because economics are poorly taughtor not taught at all. Most economists have little understanding.That little understanding makes them the experts.

The global value system determines economics. That value systemis based on scarcity, commonly called the law of supply anddemand. Thousands of years ago the arbiters of value and wealthdecided that gold, silver and precious stones were the rarestand therefore, the most valuable. Of all resources, people werethe least scarce. So people have the least value in this oldsystem. This is foolishness of the highest order and createsdisposable people. There are few people living today, who cannotin their lifetimes, produce more value than their own weight ingold. Use yourself as an example. Multiply the current marketprice of gold by your body weight. Divide that by a typicalproductive life of 40 or 50 years. Are you earning more or lessthan this dollar value each year? Keep in mind most folks arepaid less than half their market value or earnings.

The economic system we support undervalues life, because lifeis not scarce. The corporate world would rather have your weightin gold than you, even if you can produce five times that value.That corporate world might not harvest twenty percent of yourlifetime value, unless you support their system. If you dosupport it, you will probably give them a big cut in your homemortgage or business loans and every paycheck. But they willalways treat you as expendable, because your kind is neverscarce. If we want to be fairly valued in the market place, wemust be scarce in that market place. A coming labor shortagewill help. Becoming scarce means lifestyle changes people do notwant to make. Therefore, people will continue to support thesystem that makes them the least valuable commodity in it and bethankful to do so. There is little evil in this world that isnot supported by the Western lifestyle. As long as we embraceit, there will be no economic justice.

Nowhere on this planet are people more capable of selfsufficient living, than in the modern West. Yet these people aretaught to be dependent on others for the very basics of life -wage and salary slaves. Had the back-to-the-land movements ofthe 60s and 70s caught on, the West would now have great modelsto share with poor world cultures. New technologies like fuelcells will be ideal for home and neighborhood power systems thatwill end dependencies on grid supplied electricity and scamartists like Enron.

In the West, we pay a dollar for a ten cent loaf of bread,because we are willing to pay the other ninety cents to have itat hand when we want it. Much of the rest of the world can'tafford the same bread at ten cents a loaf. Who do you supposethe bread makers would rather sell to? This means no bread forthe hungry at any price. If we really want to help the rest ofthe world, we make a personal commitment to slash ourconsumption and increase production. This creates a glut in thecorporate market and forces prices down. Third world producerswill complain because this drives down export prices and makesexporting unprofitable. The focus then must shift away fromglobal trade to local trade and that is a major step toward selfsufficiency and economic justice.

I heard a radio report last week that India is doing well inthis global recession because ninety percent of their domesticproduction is sold in domestic markets. Before the greatcorporate marketing chains drove the mom and pop operations outof business with their economies of scale, local industry andmarkets were well understood as markers of economic health.Nothing prevents us from returning to local production andmarketing. We can even use global marketing to subsidize thetransition - transformation.

Food is a good example. The knowledge is now available thatallows anyone to produce superior food at less than typicalmarket prices. If I decide to raise food crops on an acre ortwo, I can also plant high dollar cash crops that can be sold ina nearby city or sent anywhere in the world, as a mail orderbusiness. The wealthy purchase these valuable crops and provideprofits that allow me to obtain more land. I can then expandinexpensively on adjacent land and split the crops with theowner, or market some on her behalf. I can always expand mylocal production, marketing and my high dollar global and nearbymarketing.

Local production and marketing allows us to hire local labor.The unemployed and under employed get some paid work, free foodor both. The idea is to reverse the centralization of 20thCentury production and marketing, which in turn, decentralizesother aspects of our lives. We save the costs of heavy farmmachinery, bank loans, transportation, taxes, processing,packaging and pay it out to hand labor instead. We also adoptproduction methods, such as Square Foot Gardening, which reducewater, fertilizer, land and labor costs by as much as eightypercent. The savings can then be invested in expansion and wecan market in nearby communities. We can encourage more smallscale production, teaching the techniques we have successfullyapplied in our own production and marketing.

As local marketing returns in the West, corporate foodproducers lose their markets, reduce their productionaccordingly and poison much less land and water. That is, unlesstaxpayers continue to subsidize them. When an individual onlyproduces the value of the food s/he consumes, s/he can now livewith ten to twenty percent less income. If s/he produces asurplus, other income could be cut in half. Should s/he lose themain source of income, s/he eats well as s/he increasesproduction with mostly personal labor, which essentially removesthis person from the corporate value system and all its hiddencosts. Economic justice becomes a lifestyle.

Food is so basic to life and health as to be the first needaddressed in the Lord's Prayer. So it is in any economy also. Itis the foundation of economic prosperity. Food has usually beengrown so inefficiently, only people who loved the work orimmigrants would do it. Making agriculture a chemical andmachine operation was one of the huge mistakes of the MachineAge. Individuals are now in a position to make it right andwould be wise to do so. I understand about nine million peopleare out of work in America. Use those unemployment benefits togrow and store food and have more money for housing.

As local agriculture replaces corporate agriculture andhydrogen becomes the new fuel for power, water becomes veryvaluable. Rainwater, which is superior to ground water in somany ways, for plants and people, can be collected. Largestorage containers, such as swimming pools are not onlyjustified but necessary to food production and home security.Use enough water gathering capacity to weather three years ofserious drought. A back up well can be a handy thing for aneighborhood association. Indoor and outdoor water can be storedconveniently and provide thermal mass for moderating home andgreenhouse temperatures. It can be raised to high temperaturesand pumped through radiators in winter. We could all live incozy, clever, greenhouse homes. Eat fresh strawberries yearround and earn lots of money for as long as it is worth anythingto do so. Feed your neighbor. Feed your community and encourageothers to grow. Food independence is true independence for anindividual, a group, a town, a nation.

When we love our neighbors more than we love our money, wecreate economic justice. We move the least valued things to thetop of the old value system. We know there is great intrinsicvalue in the other. We want to know each other's thoughts onworld issues and be free to respond. Freedom exists in service.If we love our neighbors, we include them in our work, as time,need and desire requires. Who do we wish to

exclude fromrelative prosperity in global crises? What if the world demandswin - win solutions for every problem, instead of win - lose?Can we not create such a world by increasing our chances ofsurviving its plagues? Green plagues would be a perfect reasonto keep and produce much of your food in your home, where youcan have environmental control and protection. This isespecially so in the city where cultivating land may beimpractical.

What is wrong with living with one's food as a lifestyle? Howmany people need to choose this to make a positive change in thebalances of external, material power? One thousand? One million?Ten million? They don't have to congregate in Idaho, though it'sgood for like minded folks to congregate anywhere. Most folkscan be far more independent in their choices than they are. Ithelps when they know they have the choices, regardless ofcorporate, political and bureaucratic systems. When there arepeople starving anywhere, someone has made poor choices and itmight be you and me that made them. Governments feed people inemergencies. Will you be needing government food in the future?What will you do to get it?

Stored grains, nuts and seeds provide ready food you can eatdry, while sprouting pounds of tender, delicious, baby plants;in anywhere from one to seven days. These are fine food storageitems when vacuum sealed to keep insect eggs from hatching. Addwater, increase nutritional value and eat, fresh, live food.Meat, fish and poultry can be stored in cans for quite a whileif desired. Jerkys will also satisfy a taste for meat and keep along time. Build stacking sprout trays according to youravailable space and begin indoor food production. Go meet yourneighbors with samples. They will soon be your customers.

It is the Boy Scout motto to Be Prepared! It applies to all ofus today. The hard times are so much writing on the wall. Whowill you and I help through them? When will we begin to practiceeconomic justice in our personal lives? When will we divorce ourold world corporate masters?

About the author:Freelance writer published on many websites and newspapers.edhowes@hotmail.com justanotherview.com