Saturday, May 30, 2009

Wal Mart's Prices Depend on Socialism

Michael Shuman writes in The Small-Mart Revolution that there are so many Wal-Mart workers below the poverty line that they receive a combined $2.5 billion in federal welfare assistance, with similar sums coming from state assistance as well. So according to Shuman, taxpayers are footing the bill for Wal-Mart's low prices. In addition, all Wal-Mart store managers receive booklets on how to prevent their employees from organizing titled "Manager's Toolbox to Remaining Union Free."

I am new to understanding the nuances of how big box retail takes wealth from communities, so this is the beginning of a dialogue for me. According to
a Business Week article, the average wage of a Wal-Mart sales person was $8.23 in 2001. According to Wal-Mart it rose to $9.68 in 2005 and is now at $10.83, for "full-time workers". However, according to Shuman, Wal-Mart hires more employees to fill part-time positions rather than fewer full-time employees to reduce the company costs of providing benefits. I did a tiny bit of research. At full time, $10.83 is just shy of the 2008 $21,200 poverty line for a family of four.

So, Wal-Mart exploits the labor of its employees, systematically discouraging employee organizations (when the meat-cutters department in a Texas store voted to unionize in 2000 the entire group was promptly fired) and denying benefits. However, Wal-Mart is working within a system that not only allows these business practices, they are supported by political leaders. While Wal-Mart is paying their employees $10/hour, the federal minimum wage is $6.55, rising to $7.25 in July of this year. With no deductions, that wage meets the poverty line of $14K for a two person household. Try supporting two people off of that wage in a city. Or try living in a suburban or rural community and paying for all the costs involved in owning a car. Need to get a check-up or flu vaccination? Sorry, Wal-Mart doesn't promote the health of its workers because they are just that expendable. The leaders of this country--who get elected on the premise that they are looking out for the well being of their constituents--think that it is an acceptable cost of business to set wages so low that workers cannot provide for themselves. They set policy that clears employers of the responsibility of providing basic services to their employees (often access to the very products the company sells). Then the costs of social programs to clean up the messes that the corporate and government collaborations have created is put onto everyone.

Digressing takes a lot of effort. What I want to investigate is that corporations that that claim to provide low prices to the consumer and thus need to rely on a low wage labor model are relying on the public perception that this is the only viable model and that it actually makes sense. There are two issues here. Low wage labor leads to increased costs for society, thus the prices to consumers are higher than the listed price tag. There are alternative business models that keep wealth circulating in communities and provide a higher quality of life for employees, producers, and consumers. Small, for-profit businesses guided by an ethic of promoting local and global human health relies less on social welfare programs and less on global exploitive and extractive businesses. Local is also generally going to be more ecologically responsible because they are relying on resources and ecosystems from their region.

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

The Efficiency of the Bicycle

The most efficient transportation machine homo sapiens sapiens has ever built is the bicycle. It is the only transportation machine that is more effecient than walking. Modern trains can transport one person one mile using 210 KiloCalories. A bicycle can transport one person one mile using 20 KiloCalories, the energy in about one bite of a banana. A mid-sized car on the other hand can transport one person one mile using 3 times as much energy as a train, or 30 times as much energy as a bicycle. 99 percent of the energy delivered by the rider into the pedals is transmitted into the wheels. Only about 15 percent of the energy delivered from a car engine is transferred to the wheels.

Obviously, trains and cars can provide speed that a bicycle cannot provide. However, cars do many of the jobs that bicycles should be doing. Short distance trips to work or a store do not require a car. The problem is that infrastructure and economy of the U.S. is set up to promote cheap oil production and consumption, displayed here in the form of the personal car. Everything from the highways, extremely wide suburban roads, vast asphalt parking lots (all structures made with petroleum based materials) to the visual prominence of the garage in suburban houses, the sprawled layout of municipalities, and size of shopping carts supports cheap oil and cars and discourages pedestrian and bicycle traffic. Are there designated bike lanes in most of the U.S. cities and towns going from residential to commercial areas? (The new bike trail movement promotes recreational biking, not biking as a means of transport and utility.) Are there tax incentives for purchasing and maintaining bikes? Is the federal government giving billions of dollars a year in subsidies to bike manufacturers?

Sprawl and the automobile also have dangerous public health consequences. Residents of low-density communities are more likely to be the victims of automobile accidents and more likely to be obese. Obesity and car accidents have quickly become the leading causes of death in the U.S. Car accidents are the leading cause in the U.S. for people between the ages of 3 and 34, while health issues relating to obesity--largely heart disease and diabetes--rank in the top three for much of that age group and number one or two for people 35 and older.

Being a participant in a descent culture means utilizing bikes for transportation. Bikes are elegantly efficient machines that are almost independent of dirty energy, promoters of individual and community health, more dense human populations, narrower roads with slower, less dangerous traffic, and revegetated natural landscapes. In more dense communities, bikes with trailers can generate revenue by hauling resources, collecting trash, recyclables, and organics like the Pedal People of Northhampton, MA, and taxiing people. Bikes can also be used to generate pedal power, a small scale or domestic energy generation that could power small appliances or perform tasks--grinding, stirring, pumping--now done by electric machines manufactured with built-in obsolescence.

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Urban Composting--carbon carbon everywhere but not a drop to decompose

I have started composting over the past month. I live with my girlfriend on the seventh floor of a 25 story apartment building in Manhattan. We have small balcony on which I can play around with decomposing matter. I have the material in a 5 gallon bucket and a small cardboard box now, but the volume quickly grows and I will need to expand again soon. The material has a pretty strong ammonia smell, which is a symptom of excess nitrogen. It is tough keeping up with the kitchen waste even for the two of us because it is hard to find decent moisture absorbing carbon sources in the neighborhood. Right now I am using mostly discarded newspapers, cardboard boxes, and brown paper bags that I tear up. No matter how much carbon I add right now, it is still too much nitrogen!

I see this process as exciting and empowering. Composting in the ultra-urban context that I am in poses many challenges that require creative problem solving. I am trying to divert waste streams in the neighborhood by searching for carbon sources on the street. I want to create a speedy system, which means hot compost, which means a lot of mass and a lot of carbon. I want to reduce odors and flying insects and maintain proper moisture and oxygen levels, which again means monitoring the carbon. I want to reduce the amount of labor I put in, which is intensive now. I have to search for and tear up or cut the carbon, which takes time and tires out my hands. I have to turn the piles more often than they need because they are too moist right now. To the dismay of my girlfriend, I am passionately committed to my compost and fascinated by what I turn up. I am noticing a lot of white, blue, and green molds right now. Molds are fungi, which are part of the organisms that decompose organic matter, but are these molds part of the composting process? They thrive in the moist, relatively cool environment of my bin, but are they the early feeders in a long line of detritus loving microorganisms? Do they thrive in warmer, less moist environments? I will find out...

Saturday, May 16, 2009

Introduction

This site is designed to be a forum for those interested in using the lens of Descent Culture to discuss books and current events. The goal of this site is to incubate our will to act on our ideas.

Our current exploitive and extractive fossil fuel dependent civilization and "growth is inherently good" economic atmosphere is directing us toward resource depletion in a planet that is reaching its environmental limits. We need to start thinking about how to power down our societies in order to create true health and wealth for all people while working to sustain the life support systems on this planet. In a Descent Culture, we are aware of the resource streams that come into our bodies, homes, and cities. We re-train ourselves how to localize and cycle those streams on our own sites or in our communities. We refocus our economies on local energy and local labor that seeks to economically empower the people that work to grow or create the resources we depend on.

Whether we like or not, we will soon be descending from this peak of energy production and consumption because scientific research--an institution dependent on current cheap energy economies--has shown us that the planet we live on has physical limits.

Descent is not bad and growth is not good. Let us reconfigure our values away from the fears and fantasies of the profit driven American Dream. The G8 lifestyle is no longer possible because it has created a world of exploited labor of humans and all other species, depleted and polluted resources, destroyed or fractured ecosystems, and changing climates. Let us take from the earth and from each other in ways that make sense and that will keep our species around for as long as possible.

This site is a place to discuss the systems that currently exist and the work we can do as networks of humans to take care of ourselves and life forms we depend on to co-exist on Earth.