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Tuesday, 03 April 2007 15:29 |
 | | Carl S. Milsted, Jr. |
According to many statistics, the wealth of our nation continues to grow. And yes, this includes most of the poor ≠ó if you look in terms of cars, calories, air conditioning, etc. And yet, there is great dissatisfaction. We have become fat and unhappy.
This is the subject of an excellent piece by Bill McKibben in this monthís Mother Jones. (Read it!) Within, he cites many studies showing that wealth correlates poorly with happiness after people pass a rather low threshold. Once that threshold is reached, other factors such as friends, family and community are far more important.
Our
modern world is one of televisions, computers, big houses, long
commutes and superstores. We might be better off with smaller houses
and more family interaction. Main Street stores and farmersí markets
with higher prices and more human interaction might provide more
happiness than big-block stores and supermarkets with impersonal
service and low, low prices.
ìFortunately,î
Peak Oil may rescue us from our out-of-control materialism. With high
oil prices, we need to live closer together and buy from local farmers
and manufacturers. This is the dream of many who warn of the looming
oil peak. For them, Peak Oil is more an opportunity than a crisis. A
group calling itself ìThe Community Solutionî expends most of its
efforts these days promoting the Peak Oil theory, even though its
original mission is that of promoting small community living.
ìUnfortunately,î
there may be no peak oil crisis. Better batteries and solar cells are
in the pipeline. And in the interim there is a wealth of
energy-efficiency technologies ready to be tapped as energy prices
begin to rise. Many people like their big cars, big TVs and suburban
lifestyles and the market is ready to provide for them.
A better bet for
restoring our lost sense of community and family is to promote such on
its own merits. Fortunately, the Peak Oil eco-liberals and the kind of
people who read Mother Jones are not alone. There are plenty of
potential allies on the other side of the left-right political spectrum.
Social
conservatives have been pointing out for years that womenís liberation
has come at a terrible price. In return for a second income, we are
producing semi-feral children raised by a succession of professionals ó
along with that electronic babysitter: television. The stay-at-home
moms of yore also did much to create communities, via volunteer work
and informal networking. Some social conservatives also point out how
forced desegregation ó especially busing ó has destroyed many
communities.
Meanwhile,
economic conservatives and libertarians are prone to pointing out how
families took care of the aged before Social Security and how the needy
were taken care of by churches and other charities. The welfare state
has rendered family and community superfluous. Some would also point
out how zoning laws and the interstate highway system have mandated and
subsidized suburban sprawl and long commutes.
The call for community comes from many quarters. This presents both opportunities and challenges.
Opportunities,
because there are many people concerned with the problem ≠ó people who
bring a wealth of different solutions to bear.
Challenges, as
many of these groups have a history of hating each other and there is
much to hate among the many solutions. Big cars, fast highways, big
homes, womenís liberation, racial integration, economic security ó
these are all good things!
We need the
different communitarian groups to start working together, to share
their respective solutions ó and objections. With some deep thinking it
may be possible to come up with a large menu of partial, but
acceptable, steps towards restoring family and community: better
suburban designs, food markets, ways for women to balance career and
family, welfare systems, zoning laws, etc. This is not an easy project,
as trade-offs lurk at every corner, but it is an important one, far
more important than boosting the GDP another point.
ï
Carl S. Milsted
Jr., former chairman of the Libertarian Party of Buncombe County, may
be contacted at cmilsted-at-holisticpolitics.org.
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