Community Reflections


As the calendar ends and the Wheel of Life turns it is an ideal time to reflect on who we are and why we are here. I like to briefly engage in this process by talking about community. I know this article strays from my usual fare but there are times to wander and dream. This Season is one of those times.

"It depends upon how you view the world and what you expect to see when you look at it." Charles de Lint, The Onion Girl The Community Issue

Much can be done now at local levels despite the unfavourable ordering of economic and political life. Indeed, if communities do not now exercise such power as they have to sustain and improve their community life, there is danger that they will not effectively employ the improved context we propose be provided for them. Herman E. Daly and John B. Cobb, Jr. (Redirecting the economy toward community, p.360)

"Without prosperous local economies, the people have no power and the land no voice."

Wendell Berry

My thoughts:

It is time to get beyond the talk and begin the action. The following quotation from the open money manifesto gives us a place to begin:

The problems with money stem entirely from how conventional money is normally issued - it is created by central banks in limited supply. There are three things we know about this money. We know what it does - it comes and it goes. We know what it is - it's scarce and hard to get. And we know where it's from - it's from "them", not us.

These three characteristics, common to all national currencies, determine that we constantly have to compete for a share of the limited amount of the "stuff" that makes the world go round. This money can go anywhere, and so it inevitably does, leaving the community deprived of its means of exchange.

It is simply the nature of conventional money that by its coming and going it creates conditions of competition and scarcity, within and between communities.

So we have to scramble for money to survive, we are forced to compete for it, often ruthlessly. Intent on getting the most for the least, we strive for the best bargains, as individuals, businesses, non-profits, governments, and nations.

source: http://www.openmoney.org

The copyright of the article Community Reflections in From Field To Table is owned by Bob Ewing. Permission to republish Community Reflections in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

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