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Politics : Rat's Nest - Chronicles of Collapse -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: Wharf Rat who wrote (8887)2/9/2009 12:29:57 PM
From: Wharf Rat  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 24230
 
Building the sustainable economy
Marcin Gerwin, Permaculture Research Institute of Australia
The world seeks an alternative to the current disaster of globalisation. If we decided to change our economic system, what can we actually do? How can we create a sustainable economy?

Building the sustainable economy
by Marcin Gerwin
Tiger’s nest in Bhutan
Photo: Thomas Wanhoff In 1994 the government of Haiti lifted tariffs and allowed imports of cheap, subsidized rice and other crops from abroad. This policy was recommended by the International Monetary Fund and urged by the U.S. government (1). Over the years this tiny change in policy led to an estimated 830,000 job losses, it damaged food security and rural livelihoods, and eventually led to food riots and hunger in 2008 (2). If people in Haiti were to decide by themselves on their country policy, would they choose the recommendations of the IMF that brought them into starvation? Would people of Ecuador allow toxic pollution in the Amazon for the sake of Chevron Texaco profits? Would people in India accept genetically modified seeds of cotton that caused crop failures, spiral of debt and hundreds of farmer suicides? And would people in the USA support bailing out banks with their own money in a way that is not transparent and does not lead to the recovery of the financial system? They wouldn’t. These things happen around the world because we still don’t have true democracy, where people set the rules for themselves.

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