What Choice Do We Have?
As systemic solutions fall short, we must grasp the nettle of making our own arrangements in a time characterized by burgeoning demands and diminishing resources, capital and security.
The idea that our large-scale problems could be fixed with systemic reforms is enticing: replace the thousands of pages of tax code with a simple flat tax without deductions, for example, or the replacement of too big to jail/fail banks with community-owned banks that served the public, not shareholders.
But the attraction of reforms is a siren song, because our system is run by vested interests for vested interests, period. Any real reform is Dead On Arrival (DOA) because any real reform threatens the swag and security of vested interests.
One person’s livelihood is another person’s vested interest.
Toss in The Enchanting Charms of Cheap, Easy Credit and Our Spoiled-Brat Economyand we have a toxic resistance to systemic reforms that require any degrowth, direct democracy, writedowns of debt, devolution of centalized power, i.e. any real reforms of the unsustainable status quo.
So where does that leave us? With no choice but to submit? No, it leaves us with private solutions, by which I mean arrangements made on the individual and household level that do not assume the unsustainable status quo will magically continue to issue us our “we wuz promised” share of the swag.
Private solutions subdivide into practicalities (securing multiple income streams, choosing where to live, arranging access to healthcare, food and energy, proximity to friends and family, like-minded colleagues, etc.) and what we might term self-fulfillment: aligning our internal goals, priorities, personality traits, values and skills with the practical externalities of daily life.
Longtime correspondent Bart D. recently responded to an email in which I expressed the all-too common sense of being overwhelmed–by work, duties, responsibilities.His response gives us a starting place for choosing our priorities and goals:
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