Thanks for your comments Terry.

You say that Ted “does actually have a fairly definite idea about how to implement this vision. He thinks an organization like Transition Towns should start setting up an alternative economy not dominated by market principles (but more by permaculture ethics)”.

This gets to the disconnect I see with Ted’s ideas. The notion of a Transition team actually setting up an “alternative economy”is quite unrealistic, given that Transition teams are unfunded, community-based organisations. Clearly, something like this is of mega-project scale and well beyond the capacity of a community organisation.

If you mean that Transition teams can set up local economic structures, they already have, including issuing their own currency. It must be pointed out, however, that was done in northern NSW in the late 1990s through the regional LETS system. Often, such schemes have a limited life because they find difficulty in establishing exchange in basic and daily life needs.

Secondly, an economy is necessarily something based on markets. Even a reciprocal economy is still a market economy. The term ‘market’ is not one confined to a narrow economistic, monetary definition. Rather, a market develops when people exchange goods in any way, whether through the representative medium of cash or credit, or through direct exchange such as barter.

The statement that “You would permit or allow businesses to operate depending on whether they would help the community to achieve self sufficiency”implies a high level of community sovereignty.

Who would be the “you” and on what legal basis would such a decision be made? It implies the existence of statelike functions, with judiciary, courts and agencies of enforcement to enact such a ruling. This seems to stand in opposition to libertarian anarchism where the role so the state is diminished and where community enterprise is valued.

Terry says that I dislike Ted’s “blueprint” and that “some vision of what we propose as an alternative is actually necessary – in other words, what are we transitioning towards?”. Let me agree and disagree.

It’s not that I have a personal dislike of blueprints of future societies, it’s just that I think they are most unlikley to become likely. Societies are complex adaptive systems that give rise to their own evolution. This makes trying to forecast or guess the structure of future society a doomed exercise. It’s fun and it stimulated thinking to do so, but we should only take our findings as rough ideas of what could happen but probably won’t. I do agree, however, that we benefit from identifying the values we want in a future society and it is this that provides a vision for Transitions.

Perhaps it’s true that the capitalist mode of production is incompatible with environmental goals. There are currently a number of ideas running to reform capitalism to these ends and I suggest we observe these over time and see what evolves. Then we will know whether the two are compatible.

I don’t see Ted as “an out of touch ‘grumpy old leftist’”. I see Ted’s approach as transcending both the Left and the Right. Both of these political ideologies have landed us in the trouble we are surrounded with today and I think it’s reasonable to view both directions as wrong directions.

I think the world has moved on substantially from how it was when Ted wrote his earlier books. Ted’s ideas have a basis in the Limits to Growth theories that appeared in the 1970s. They were ahead of their time and it’s only now that we start to see the validity of much of what they say. My comments about Ted’s dialogue were about some of the cliches he uses to describe what he still sees and an ‘environment’ movement.

My observations that come through participation in social movements suggests that the term ‘environment movement’ is itself somewhat dated and is unrepresentative of current thinking. That’s why I sometimes make a distinction between the environment movement, some of which originated decades ago in reaction to pressures on the natural environment, and the broader and more contemporary ’sustainability’ movement that incorporates urbanism, resource use, economy, localisation and other current foci. This is so much more than a mere focus on natural systems and, in fact, subsumes that focus.

Rather than the older, professionalised environment movement, it is movements like Transition Towns and Permaculture that are today’s grassroots initiatives. Both of these remain community formations with all of the resource and capacity limitations that comes with organising in civil society. Of the two, it is Transition Towns that shows signs of greater political savvy as its program calls for eventual collaboration with local government. Doing this requires an approach largely absent from Permaculture.

I especially relished reading your closing paragraph. It outlines very well why the Permaculture and TT movements are such successful ways of getting people moving. While it is important to vision possible future economic and social systems, change does not come overnight.

I was a bit surprised by the lack of answer by Dr. Ted Trainer on the question of how to achieve the goals he aspires to. Argumenting people out of their hopes and excitement for possible change will not get us anywhere at all. It is a recipy for collective depression and/or burnout. All big things start with a small step, as Confucius wisely pointed out.

Greetings from Belgium,
Antonia Vorner

Looking forward to more groups starting up similar systems all over Australia!

Alison, FC Brisbane