2. If you own the land you work and that investment represents a
significant fraction of your net worth (note you own the land not you're
owned by the landlord) you have a stake in the long term productivity of
that land because you expect a stream of benefits accruing to you - the
owner. This same logic applies to small corporate farms as well as long as
the net worth provision applies. The opposite is true of the
hunter/gathering corporation which exhibits a Quarterly Report Bottom Line
Mentality. This is not to say the hunter/gathers cannot shepherd their
resources or that corporations cannot be responsible land owners with
assets in many places on the globe. The difference is the hunter/gather
who squanders his resources dies but managements are hired and fired on the
basis of Quarterly Profits and Stock Prices not long term sustainability.
3. Social benefits accrue to society from a settled existence. Even
relatively simple technologies would be hard or impossible to invent, if
you are continually on the move and others would be down right impossible.
Can you envision someone developing the equipment necessary to build a
computer or GPS satellite if they moved every few days looking for food?
4. Finally on a more practical level given our current situation, the
hunter gather lifestyle can support only a fraction of our current
population. I had to laugh when I heard about the Anarchist group that
came up to Seattle from Eugene, OR and started breaking windows at the
Micky D's (their leader felt the world should return to a hunter/gather
lifestyle). Right. Who chooses which 5 billion or more of the world's
population gets to starve without any organized agriculture?
Local bands such as corporations
>and denominations provide ad-hoc community. This is becoming virtualized
>and delocalized. In effect, community is no longer tied to the land either.
I guess this is a matter of where and how you live. As for the notion of
corporations providing ad-hoc community that would rival the community of a
small farming town, I would like to quote part of a recent Dilbert comic
strip.
Boss " I can't send you to this class, Alice. We need you here. And after
we use you up, we'll need you to be someplace else."
With that kind of insight does anyone wonder why Dilbert is such an
enormously popular cartoon strip for those of us who have worked for
corporations up to and including corporate managers? Corporations
providing a community that matches the community of a small farming town?
I don't think so.
To paraphrase a little midwestern ditty, Use 'em up, wear 'em out, throw
them out. Corporations do that not real communities. You can have
comradery with fellow workers, but don't ever fool yourself into thinking
that the corporation won't dump you the minute you became a "burden" to the
bottom line.
Mike Miller
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