The Roots of Change – in Ourselves, or Government and Industry?
“The American Frankenstein” |
I could very much relate to an article I read today, albeit with some reservations:
WOULD ANY SANE PERSON think dumpster diving would have stopped Hitler, or that composting would have ended slavery or brought about the eight-hour workday, or that chopping wood and carrying water would have gotten people out of Tsarist prisons, or that dancing naked around a fire would have helped put in place the Voting Rights Act of 1957 or the Civil Rights Act of 1964? Then why now, with all the world at stake, do so many people retreat into these entirely personal “solutions”?
Part of the problem is that we’ve been victims of a campaign of systematic misdirection. Consumer culture and the capitalist mindset have taught us to substitute acts of personal consumption (or enlightenment) for organized political resistance. An Inconvenient Truth helped raise consciousness about global warming. But did you notice that all of the solutions presented had to do with personal consumption—changing light bulbs, inflating tires, driving half as much—and had nothing to do with shifting power away from corporations, or stopping the growth economy that is destroying the planet? Even if every person in the United States did everything the movie suggested, U.S. carbon emissions would fall by only 22 percent. Scientific consensus is that emissions must be reduced by at least 75 percent worldwide. – Orion Magazine
I have heard so many people tell me that the way to change the world is for us each to change our own lifestyles. It’s all "in the simple things we do every day" they say. Take shorter showers, change your lightbulbs, keep a garden. While many pass responsibility for our present condition on politicians and faceless corporations, these lay the blame squarely at our own feet as individuals.
What is the average concerned consumer meant to do (after determining, once and for all, to stop calling himself a consumer!) – should he concentrate on only his own actions, or should he concentrate on changing the system, or both?
The article I quote above, in my personal opinion, is on the money in many respects, although perhaps a little imbalanced as well – and I also think it falls short by not providing some kind of direction or road map to address the issue raised. This post is a small attempt to do this, and stimulate discussion on the same. Please forgive the length, but I think it’s an important issue.
First we need a little background on why focussing only on our own individual behaviour, on its own, will never be enough.
Note: The next section covers the realities of the corporate takeover of the world. This is information everyone should know. If you’re already painfully aware of these things, then feel free to skip the first half to jump to the solution.
Industry and government teamed up = democracy for sale
A little while ago I wrote about global dimming, and how it is veiling our true predicament in regards to climate change. Today I want to consider another facet of this story – how politics and industry are effectively doing the same, not just in regards to climate change, but in regards to every aspect of our lives.
Power is shifting away from governments and politicians and being invested instead in transnational corporations and institutions. We now live in a world where corporations are taking over from the state, where business appears more powerful than politics, and where commercial interests are paramount.
There is plenty of evidence to back up these assertions. Multinationals are now as big as many nation states – 300 TNCs now account for 25 per cent of the world’s assets. Individual companies now have more wealth than whole countries. Mitsubishi is the 22nd largest economy in the world, General Motors the 26th, Ford the 31st. Each is larger than the economies of Denmark, Thailand, Turkey, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Norway, Finland, Malaysia, Chile and New Zealand, to name but a few. Corporate sales account for two-thirds of world trade and one-third of world output, while as much as 40 per cent of world trade now occurs within multinational corporations.
Their economic dominance gives TNCs huge amounts of power. Their unprecedented strength and mobility means that they are increasingly able to play one state off against another in the search for ever lower standards and cheaper locations to base business. Governments are becoming trapped in a regulatory ‘race to the bottom’ to achieve international competitiveness. Under economic globalisation, democratic efforts to ensure corporations pay their fair share of taxes, provide their employees with a decent standard of living, or meet environmental targets are met with the response that such measure could undermine their international competitiveness – followed closely by a threat to relocate to countries with less stringent controls.
The implication is, as Hans Tietmeyer, former president of the German Bundesbank, has said, that, ‘Politicians have to understand that they are now under the control of the financial markets and not, any longer, of national debates.’ The sorry tale of Oskar Lafontaine, the former finance minister of Germany, is a case in point. Revenue from corporate taxes in Germany has fallen by 50 per cent over the past twenty years despite a rise in corporate profits of 90 per cent. In 1999, Oskar Lafontaine dared to attempt to raise the tax burden on German firms. He was simply blocked by a group of companies all of which threatened to relocate investment or factories to other countries if government policy did not suit them. Their threat was successful – and it was Lafontaine who was relocated, out of the government. – Green Alternatives to Globalisation, p. 18, 19.
Just in my own ‘neighbourhood’, where I was recently stationed in Eastern Europe, I witnessed several large Trans National Corporations being granted incredible privileges by the current government in a bid to attract them to locate there. Amongst other benefits, these businesses secured a ten-year grace period, excusing them from all taxation. Once this period has elapsed they are free to pack up and move elsewhere if subsequent conditions do not suit. In the meantime, taxpayer dollars are being diverted into roading and other improvements so as to make life easier for their large scale transport needs, whilst workers’ rates are set at a bare minimum, with employees being sold the idea that the privilege of working for them should be reward enough – that having their globally recognised name on their resume is of more value than present financial security.
To attract companies like yours … we have felled mountains, razed jungles, filled swamps, moved rivers, relocated towns … all to make it easier for you and your business to do business here. – Advert placed by the Government of the Philippines in Fortune magazine
The trend is the same the world over. If cheap labour, and lax or non-existent environmental regulations make it cheaper to relocate, then that’s exactly what happens. Incentives to build and invest in the ‘people and place’ of local communities thus give way to the primary concern of shareholder profits. In a world where, as mentioned above, the vast majority of world trade is under the auspices of these companies, and the primary motivation is to look out for the interests of the corporation and its shareholders (this motivation, unfortunately, being built right into the corporation’s central charter), then our present environmental woes should have been not only easy to predict, but also recognised as the only logical conclusion to our present ‘Democracy-for-Sale’ combination of corporate feudalism and political commercialisation.
… We are witnessing a ‘slow motion coup d’etat’, a process of political osmosis by which power is seeping out of increasingly flaccid national governments to swell the already turgid TNCs and international trade and finance institutions. Any resistance to the coup from conventional politicians ceased long ago. They have become its willing accomplices and the distinction between government and big business is becoming increasingly blurred. – Green Alternatives to Globalisation, p. 20.
This is true in several ways – from industry sponsored ‘progressive governance’ events designed to ‘educate’ politicians in ‘correct economic systems’ (‘correct’ according to the WTO, IMF, and World Bank’s view of the world – i.e. policies that favour TNCs), to direct ‘donations’, to the revolving door hiring process that sees industry heads being absorbed into politics – where they end up being responsible for forging (relaxing) regulations for the very industries they’ve just left.
One would wish that our governments were, without vested interest, objectively considering the fate of present and future generations – making wise and precautionary decisions that will improve the long term sustainability of our society whilst working for the betterment of our lot in the present. But, this is clearly not the case when regulations and subsidies all favour the very industries whose underlying strategy is out-competing and swallowing up the community-minded, locally based, Ma & Pa type stores of yesteryear.
And, if the environment somehow manages to become a pressing concern in the eyes of the public, instead of bringing actual solutions to the table – government and industry instead attempt to veil the realities of our predicament, granting us either a reluctant admission of the same, or a watered down rhetoric expressing the need to implement ‘positive strategies’ for resolution – especially focusing on those ‘positive strategies’ that result in increased benefits for those same corporations – at yet greater costs to people and place.
A current and alarming example of this, amongst many, is the topic of biofuels. I’m not talking about your recycle-the-chip-fat scenario here – but the land/food-for-fuel scheme that is blindly marching across the world’s already-strained topsoils. This topic is of great concern amongst many in the public and scientific sectors, regarded by many as a “science fiction solution” to climate change, but it’s interesting to note there’s little to no debate about it in political circles:
on Biofuels Once She Decided to Run for Office
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bT3q3PVZ_ck
McCain Changes His Stand on Biofuels
The whole ethanol craze is centred on economics only, but discretely covered in a light-green mantle of ecological concern. It is aggressively pushed forward despite being scientifically and ecologically unsound. Rather than reasoned public debate, the most likely hurdles to its progress could be the complete collapse of the agricultural systems it relies on. It shouldn’t have to be this way.
An excellent, practical example of how change at the top is essential to get agriculture back on track, is the U.S. Farm Bill. Every five years in the U.S. legislation is reworded and renewed that impacts to some degree or another almost every person, field and creature in the U.S., and also a large percentage of the rest of the world’s population. Yet, most people in the U.S. are blind to this fact, leaving politicians and industry lobbyists alone to beat out a ‘deal’ most satisfactory to themselves – to destructive large scale monocrop, fossil fuel intensive, chemical laden conglomeratic industrial farming – and even when the average Joe does take note, industry lobbyists inevitably get their way. (Read more on the Farm Bill here.)
Our politicians are: 1) skillfully presenting themselves as concerned environmentalists, 2) excusing and promoting the industries that are the biggest contributors to global warming and environmental destruction, whilst 3) shifting the guilt for the same onto the average Joe Citizen (one factory can do more environmental damage in a single afternoon than an ordinary citizen can in his entire lifetime), and 4) veiling our true ecological predicament to mute public outcry and to protect the status quo.
Often, any attempt to scrutinise the actions of big business is met with the cry ‘protectionism’. We would do well to note that ‘free trade’ organisations like the WTO encourage their own kind of protectionism – working within a framework that is either above the law, or shaping its own; a system that protects corporate profits at the expense of the public good. This is not democracy at work. It is, in fact, quite the opposite.
For example, WTO ‘like product’ rules render it illegal to discriminate between imports of similar products on the basis of the way in which they were produced. They therefore prohibit discrimination between GMOs and non-GMOs, or between imports of clothes made with child labour and those made in decent conditions, or between meat and dairy products made through the appalling mistreatment of animals and those made with high animal welfare standards. Governments are now unable to exercise their responsibility to protect their citizens from products that damage the global environment, or from foods made with appalling animal welfare standards. By giving up the right to condition investment in a country on certain societal standards, or to make the entry of products into domestic markets dependent on compliance with national rules, governments have deliberately eroded the leverage they once held over corporate behaviour on behalf of the people. – Green Alternatives to Globalisation, p. 22.
Getting to the heart of the matter: Corporate greed is a CEO’s legal obligation
Most of us have watched The Corporation, prompting us to go "tsk, tsk" and giving us increased scepticism about the pro-social and pro-environmental claims of Big Industry. Hollywood even presents us with dramatisations of David and Goliath type stories of small community underdogs battling greed and corruption – winning after mega effort and against the odds – or they present us with the tale of an idealistic, yet sincere and determined employee changing the course of his company for the better. These kind of stories appeal to our inner desire to see good triumph, but they never examine the root obstacle to that change – that being the legal structure of corporations themselves.
The following passages begin to shed light on why we’re in the mess we are in, and can also get us thinking about how we can, finally, get out of it.
After 23 years as a corporate securities attorney–advising large corporations on securities offerings and mergers and acquisitions–I left my position as partner at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom because I was disturbed by the game. I realized that the many social ills created by corporations stem directly from corporate law. It dawned on me that the law, in its current form, actually inhibits executives and corporations from being socially responsible. So in June 2000 I quit my job and decided to devote the next phase of my life to making people aware of this problem. My goal is to build consensus to change the law so it encourages good corporate citizenship, rather than inhibiting it.
The provision in the law I am talking about is the one that says the purpose of the corporation is simply to make money for shareholders. Every jurisdiction where corporations operate has its own law of corporate governance. But remarkably, the corporate design contained in hundreds of corporate laws throughout the world is nearly identical. That design creates a governing body to manage the corporation–usually a board of directors–and dictates the duties of those directors. In short, the law creates corporate purpose. That purpose is to operate in the interests of shareholders. In Maine, where I live, this duty of directors is in Section 716 of the business corporation act, which reads:
…the directors and officers of a corporation shall exercise their powers and discharge their duties with a view to the interests of the corporation and of the shareholders….
Although the wording of this provision differs from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, its legal effect does not. This provision is the motive behind all corporate actions everywhere in the world. Distilled to its essence, it says that the people who run corporations have a legal duty to shareholders, and that duty is to make money. Failing this duty can leave directors and officers open to being sued by shareholders.
Section 716 dedicates the corporation to the pursuit of its own self-interest (and equates corporate self-interest with shareholder self-interest). No mention is made of responsibility to the public interest. Section 716 and its counterparts explain two things. First, they explain why corporations find social issues like human rights irrelevant–because they fall outside the corporation’s legal mandate. Second, these provisions explain why executives behave differently than they might as individual citizens, because the law says their only obligation in business is to make money.
This design has the unfortunate side effect of largely eliminating personal responsibility. Because corporate law generally regulates corporations but not executives, it leads executives to become inattentive to justice. They demand their subordinates “make the numbers,” and pay little attention to how they do so. Directors and officers know their jobs, salaries, bonuses, and stock options depend on delivering profits for shareholders.
Companies believe their duty to the public interest consists of complying with the law. Obeying the law is simply a cost. Since it interferes with making money, it must be minimized–using devices like lobbying, legal hairsplitting, and jurisdiction shopping. Directors and officers give little thought to the fact that these activities may damage the public interest.
Lower-level employees know their livelihoods depend upon satisfying superiors’ demands to make money. They have no incentive to offer ideas that would advance the public interest unless they increase profits. Projects that would serve the public interest–but at a financial cost to the corporation–are considered naive.
Corporate law thus casts ethical and social concerns as irrelevant, or as stumbling blocks to the corporation’s fundamental mandate. That’s the effect the law has inside the corporation. Outside the corporation the effect is more devastating. It is the law that leads corporations to actively disregard harm to all interests other than those of shareholders. When toxic chemicals are spilled, forests destroyed, employees left in poverty, or communities devastated through plant shutdowns, corporations view these as unimportant side effects outside their area of concern. But when the company’s stock price dips, that’s a disaster. The reason is that, in our legal framework, a low stock price leaves a company vulnerable to takeover or means the CEO’s job could be at risk.
In the end, the natural result is that corporate bottom line goes up, and the state of the public good goes down. This is called privatizing the gain and externalizing the cost. – How Corporate Law Inhibits Social Responsibility – A Corporate Attorney Proposes a ‘Code for Corporate Citizenship’ in State Law
No environmental movement will meet with success if it only operates on the typical patchwork process – that of trying to scold and chide industry and consumers into lessening their impact on the world. Indeed, regulatory controls alone will never be sufficient either, and work on the same after-the-fact premise. What is required is major surgery to the central chartered legal responsibilities for businesses (currently just to protect their own interests), and personal accountability for their directors. Without embedding broader social and environmental responsibilities, inter-business competition and shareholder demands will always ensure investment in the future gives way to a mere striving for market dominance, at any cost.
By the people, for the people
In no way am I discouraging noble efforts in all the little areas of our lives. It is through our purchases, activities and habits that we create ‘niche habitats’ for industry to thrive in, but at the same time we must recognise that society is shaped by more than just consumer demand. Indeed, consumer demand itself is shaped by industry, through stealth marketing tactics, planned obsolescence and more. Big industry is favoured and even subsidised by government, and government is increasingly subservient to industry demand. As shared further above, the line between industry and government is blurred.
At the moment we live in a world of ‘corporate watchdogs’ and ‘whistleblowers’. We have law suits where powerful well financed corporations ably defend themselves against the small budgeted claims of people’s whose concerns are well off the radar of stock-tracking shareholders. This scenario is farcical. Why do we bother? Since it is a legal obligation for industry heads to make the interests and profits of the corporation their primary concern, then trying to get them to consider the collateral damage of their activities is like trying to get water to flow uphill.
The good news is that, unlike the law of gravity, we can change the laws governing corporations.
The Corporation documentary showed clearly how corporations have been given the rights of ‘individuals’, yet actual individuals learn ethical values from an early age, and suffer shame or penalty for their indiscretions. Decision makers in industry, however, hide behind the ‘corporate individual’. The Corporation may come under scrutiny, but the real life people behind the logo are almost never subject to prosecution. This needs to change. Personal accountability needs to be ‘incorporated’ into the laws of incorporation.
In this sense, I have to agree with the author of the initial quote at top, that we do indeed need to confront and take down the systems that have been taking so much from so many for so long. The growth economy must go. The every-man-for-himself mentality must die.
If we are to hook our ailing planet up to a life support system – shouldn’t we double check who is holding the stethoscope? Those making the greatest profits from our resources have garnered the support of government to all but completely externalise the real costs of their plundering. Yet, we have fallen, or have been manipulated into, a level of social and political apathy that’s far beyond any previous generation that has ever existed. We watch and wait for those in power to solve our problems – ignorant of the fact that whatever ‘solutions’ they have will only be a profit-making hybrid of any potential real solutions, since no action can be taken unless profit is the result. This is not a time to allow ourselves to be serenaded by political and industry greenwash. While we’re greening our personal lives – let’s not ignore the fact that our composting and light bulb swap-outs will mean little in the grand scheme of things if we leave unchecked the great industrial machine that put us into this predicament in the first place.
We need to see democracy return to a community hall near you.
Further Reading:
- Can Permaculture Save the World?
- Forget Shorter Showers
- The Corporation
- The People’s Business: Controlling Corporations and Restoring Democracy
- Sins of the Fathers: How Corporations Use the Constitution and Environmental Law to Plunder Communities and Nature
Craig, thank you for all your info and great work to keep us update
Great article. I’ve realized this for a long time. Nothing will change on a large scale until the large scale systems themselves change. These systems are too large and pervasive and constantly push people in the wrong direction. People with far less understanding of these issues than you or I.
Corporations must be made to have a legal responsibility to the public good, and more importantly environmental and social costs can no longer be externalized. This alone would swing momentum in favor of widespread systemic change. Hopefully leading to a massive reduction in unneeded manufacturing do to the now unprofitable “unexternalised” costs of production. These costs would then of course have to be passed onto the consumer, making consumption less attractive.
The other part is ending the other huge public subsidy to the rich, corporate welfare. That is the spending of public monies to fund corporations or through them not paying taxes. That’s harder because it means people accepting that they are not “entitled” to be provided with a job and livelihood by corporations.
Another point is that things like planned obsolescence and sickeningly pervasive advertising must be eliminated. Anyone who claims that advertising is just “providing choice” is sadly ignorant of the psychological effects of receiving these consumption messages hundreds of thousands of times before we even step foot in a classroom. Public education is another large piece to the puzzle that must change from a system designed to provide a relatively ignorant, willing labor force to one that produces engaged citizens with a holistic, historical and contextual understanding of the world we live in.
At the same time, as you said, the little things we do are also very important, but they surely cannot solve the problem. For me, I will not practice permaculture to save the world, but to save myself and my family. I will work for relocalization to make these large systems as irrelevant as possible, hoping others will realize the largely irrelevant aspects of their existence, and helping them to do this. In that way I hope to provide myself a living that isn’t being gained on the backs of future generations, the degradation of ecosystems or the world’s poor.
I am not naive to think that I can exist outside of everything else however, as we are all connected and things such as climate change don’t discriminate by address. Nor do I want to. But faced with choices like “republican” or “democrat”, what opportunity is there to change the system from within? Can that happen by a public, peaceful uprising demanding representation and immediate change to the law? Does the public have the will to take on such massive change? Or does it all just have to crash and burn? Will we wait, as you said, until the water is lapping at our doors, and we haven’t seen a wild creature in months, to say, “hey maybe I should actually accept that I must change and to be able to do that I must demand that the systems governing our lives also change?” The only personal solution I can see is moving to the mountains, designing a sustainable property and teaching these things to whoever will listen.
Craig, I fully agree that lifestyle changes are not enough, that we need to change the whole political and economic system as well. In order to do so, what kind of social activism do you actually have in mind? Permablitzes are great, but are you sure they are enough to change e.g. the law that governs corporations?
Hi Marcin
No, Permablitzes and the like are great, but they won’t change the laws/system that frames all that we do. We need to change laws as well. This will be much harder – but if we don’t, industry will continue the race to the bottom until there is nothing left. Good ‘ol community involvement in local politics, combined with public awareness of this very issue must help here. The issue I’ve raised, I’ve seen raised almost nowhere – it’s not even in the view of most activists, etc. We keep chastising corporations, trying to ‘urge’ them to do good, but it’s impossible for them to do so, as a CEO would not be living up to his legal obligations.
So, at the moment we just keep applying bandaid treatments – never getting to the root cause. Big Industry of course doesn’t want the world to know about this root problem, as beginning a whole new paradigm of behaviour would mean systemic change that takes thought and action, etc. It’s far easier to just externalise and try to use PR gurus to gloss over any unsightly activities that might get noticed.
I don’t have all the answers on how to change this – but I do believe that unless we change the laws that govern the legal obligations of corporations, we will battle them to… er… the very end.
You do relize that the quote from Orion was from Derrick Jensen who wants us to blow up dams and cell phone towers. It’s vitally important for political diatribes like this to clarify what the suggested course of action is. Otherwise radicalization and violence can result, and that’s not something I permaculture supports, does it?
Hi Straker – no, violence is certainly not on the agenda. The thing I’m concerned with is that the longer we delay necessary change, then the more likely we will end up really caught between a rock and a hard place (we already are…), and then violence will ensue. If only more people would understand what is happening, and what will happen, then maybe, just maybe, we could find a way to get people’s attention away from the televisions for five minutes to discuss the best way to transition to a sustainable platform whilst minimising disruption (and death) as much as possible.
P.S. I have never come across Derrick Jensen before, and know nothing of his thoughts other than the article I read.
Thanks for your comment Isaac – I agree with all the points you’ve said. Re the public subsidising corporations, etc., this is the kind of stuff I’ve been railing against for a couple of years now. The last indented quotation I inserted into this post is worth a look in this regard (and the PDF linked to from there).
Thanks for all the comments and insights. This “fight” towards a sustainable change will be a long haul but I like to share with you folks “down there” that what a small town of Bundanoon who recently voted to ban bottled water last Wednesday have caught the media attention in Singapore. It is causing some positive ripple and has caused many to rethink including some key people. So do not loss heart doing the small things for in no time bigger things will be given or come along towards a bigger change.
Keep up the good work and keep on sharing and living the talk.
Mark Lim
There is NO doubt that the root of changes is in ourselves. The Government, the Industries and the Corporations are all built by human beings anyway.
I believe most of “us” agree that simply change our lifestyles a little bit do not have any effect to the overall situation. However, we have to admit that we are only minorities in relation to those who still haven’t wake up. Our population do not large enough to change any political decision. I tend to agree with the movie “The Day the Earth Stood Still” that radical event have to happen to wake up significant amount of people. By then, real changes will happen. May be 2012. May be the end of the Cenozoic era as predicted by Thomas Berry.
For the time being, the only thing we could do, as Isaac said, is to get ourselves prepared and try to influence as many people as we could.
Hi Craig. Thanks for your insights. You never fail to distill information from the seemingly complex to its simpler meaning.
Anyway, I’m a Filipino follower of this website and it never ceases to amaze me how shameless our current government is. Would you care to share with us the date of the issue of Fortune magazine where you found the advert? Needless to say, this matter should have been on the front news!
Hi folks
I personally side with Derrick Jensen on this. He advocates a whole raft of things, and where necessary as a situational tool, violence in defense of community and landbase, just as indigenous people have been doing for some time.
He also advocates non-violent civil disobedience, teach people how to grow food, how to preserve and increase bio-diversity, live a low-footprint lifestyle. Don’t paint him into a “violence-only” corner, go read his books! As he says constantly “we need it all.”….including Permaculture.
Go watch “What A Way To Go: Life At The End Of Empire”
(https://www.whatawaytogomovie.com/), and yes my name is in the credits, I was on the research team.
I think the Permaculture design aka Transition Towns is a great way to wake up communities and break them out of the cultural crap (individualism, consumerism, industrialism) we’re now stuck in.
The “sustainable technology” is functional community:
“Fall in love with your landbase, preserve and protect it as if your lives depend on it, which sooner than later,they surely will” Derrick Jensen.
If you find his urgency and passion off-putting, remember, we’re already into the 6th Mass Extinction, and some of us are speaking out in defense of our brother and sister species in this bio-diversity collapse, as those 200+ species disappearing each day have no voice in our culture. Derrick and others choose to speak up in their defense.
Regards
Ted Howard
Nelson, NZ
Hi Audi – I’m not sure of the exact publication, but apparently it was 1975.
Ethanol done the permaculture way is the diametric opposite of the production methods being practiced today. It’s always possible to do a smart thing stupidly, but we can create abundant food AND fuel for the whole planet — not only sustainably but regeneratively, with NO new technology. Check out http://www.alcoholcanbeagas.com. The Press Room has plenty of myth-busting information. As mind-blowing as Geoff Lawton’s work …
Hei!
I too believed in the capital system untill I bought a new flat from the biggest construction company in Norway, called Nordbohus, but their houses really does not fith to a northern climate (Nordbohus means houses fit to northerners). During the construction I understood it was pure garbage, using only the simplest materials, the simplest techniqes, very poore work, filled up with plastics, toxins and a disasterous indoor climate. The forms, measures and shapes were inadequate, and nothing had any personilasation. I could not live there.
During this process I understood that when this was the best the capitalistic system could deliver, capitalism is not in benefit for human life and nature. I was teached the capitalistic system with competition would lead to better and better products, but realised that the outcome was the most inhuman garbage dwellings ever prodused in the history of mankind. So I throw avay capitalism at the garbage site of history, like I had done with sosialism before.
First I found http://www.baubiologie.de and http://www.buildingbiology.net, and I understood all my observations about the construction industry in Norway were correct. I’m now a dedicated “Baubiologist”. But still, after loosing my belief in capitalism, I had no system to fill my soul. Untill I learned about Permaculture a few months ago. No my soul is filled with Permaculture, and my life has again got meaning and direction. I will use the rest of my life to fight all these evil powers of our Western sosiety, like capitalism, sosialism, the middle class, New Age, sectorialism, parlamentarism, individualism, consuming culture, industrialist argiculture and construction and so on. I now feel like a living person again, my life is filled with meaning and goal. THANK YOU PERMACULTURE!!!!