EcoVillage Community Principles

and Philosophy

PREFACE

Prosperous and peaceful communities everywhere on earth well may be our best opportunities for the highest qualities of life for all people and nature. Locally, there are real possibilities for Equality, Diversity, and Abundance for all. Ecovillage communities offer higher individual and group achievements that help all people and the environment. Numerous unique and highly self-governing ecovillage communities, each in cooperative and mutually beneficial associations with all others, may be the best way to enrich all life on earth.

CONCEPTS AND INTENTIONS

1.) Culture Co-Creators: As individual, family, community(s), and global beings, we can be mindful that thriveable culture is life affirming for all people and the environment. Local people have the best knowledge and wisdom about the needs and aspirations of local people and the environment. Each of us can be active contributors to the continuous cultural changes going on all the time. We are powerful beings for self learning and self organizing.

2.) VALUES: The values (principles, ethics, morals, etc.) we hold, knowingly and unconsciously, shape our behaviors and achievements. Values are multidimensional, with different considerations depending on personal, family, friend, community, etc., orientations. Good value systems keep all people and environmental improvements as highest priorities.

3.) Changeagents: As individual cultural co-creators and designers, working together locally, WE create the best opportunities for personal and group advancements. “I think, therefore I am” is complemented by “We are, therefor I can be.”  Thus, as individuals, our contributions are enhanced by the degree of our self-realizations and self actualizations. As groups and communities, these individual realizations combine to achieve higher levels of individual and group accomplishments.

4.) SKILLS: Changeagents and good citizens often recognize the usefulness of lifelong education as the primary means of improving oneself and serving others. We can be lifelong students and teachers, each having unique and important gifts. Communication skills are extremely important – absolutely necessary – for each of us to grow within ourselves, and in cooperation with others. We succeed when we can communicate and work together well.

5.) VISION: Do we want equality or inequality? Do we want community or centralized cultures? Do we want egalitarian or plutocratic cultures?

6.) BRIDGES OF CHANGE: As changeagents, it can be helpful to think of the process of change as a bridge. One abutment is the present culture, the other abutment(s) are the future visions and intentions, and the spans are the pathways from now to then. We keep the good things in present culture,  envision improvements that better serve our individual and community needs and desires, and then define spans, or pathways, for change. Proactive changes are complex and challenging, which is why we tolerate and endure ineffective cultures and systems in failing conditions. Proactive change is far more productive and fun.

7.) CHOICES: Human beings have created powerful organizations and vast hoards of centralized wealth. In the U.S., 400 people own more than 180 million people. Six Waldron heirs, each in the top ten wealthiest people in the U.S., own more than 20 percent of the lower wage earners. Economists estimate that corporations are now hoarding about $15 trillion in cash, and that off shore, non-taxed, hoarded wealth  in the range of $20-30 trillion. The function of money is to circulate easily, helping shared goods and services, social evolution, and environmental improvements more attainable. Do we want plutocracy or communities?

8.) PLUTOCRACY OR DEMOCRACY: All wealth has local origins, among people and the other resources of nature. Is it natural that wealth automatically jump into the possession of a few people? (No!) This abuse happens by abusive and often illegitimate powerful organizations such as corporations and governments, or both, confiscate local resources with little or no regard for the local people and environment. Such powerful and abusive organizations are exploitive and self-destructive. Agrarian Age cultures, with vast hoarding and centralization of wealth and power, have relatively short cultural life spans, terminating in the Empire Stage, wherein known world dominance is the highest and most self-destructive pursuit. Giant authoritarian systems are not found in nature. There is no ”King of the Lions” or “Queen of the Bees”. There is no regional or hierarchical dominance expressions in nature. Non-local governments and corporations may be a failed Agrarian Age experiment. There is biomimicry of democracy, as we now know that, for example, bee hives and ant colonies have ways of making democratic and egalitarian policy and other decisions, and that the members of these species are each more self actualizing and broadly competent than we suspected. Plutocracy promotes central wealth and vast inequalities, while democracy tends toward equality and equitable sharing of wealth, power, and the environment.

9.) CAPITALISM: Capitalism is an economic system for securing and concentrating wealth. Our history texts refer to the East India Company as the organization form – corporation – for obtaining wealth from colonies. Military organizations generally serve the same purpose. The U.S. foreign policy as defined by George Kennon in the late 1940’s noted that the U.S. is about 5 percent of the earth’s human population, but it consumes about 30 percent of the earth’s resources. It was deemed vital to the U.S. that its military maintain global access to the earth’s resources by the corporations. The motto of capitalism is TINA – There is No Alternative – which is true for the most wealthy and powerful small minority to maintain their status. Non-local capitalism is incompatible with democracy. Local capitalism that exists in one or a few adjacent communities is an important means of local creation of wealth within democratic cultures. Capitalism has a dominate tendency to promote competition. All of nature, including each member of every species of life, is a massive interconnection of beingness based on highly cooperative methods and means.

10.) COMMUNITARIANISM: Are ecovillage communities the best and highest forms of human settlements? There are numerous local community options, each unique to the local residents and conditions.

11.) ECOVILLAGE COMMUNITIES: Perhaps the best general template for human settlements can be the ecovillage community. The implication is that all people, and all other life, and the full environment is held in highest regard, the top priority and guide for democratic planning, deciding, and acting. Many regional adjacent ecovillages, and those around the planet, comprise magnificent multicultural opportunities and experiences.

12.) ECOVILLAGE COMPONENTS AND DEVELOPMENT: All human settlements are ecovillages! We humans do not exist without some aspect being regularly present in our lives – food, air, water, and so on. Abundant nature is more nourishing for us.

CLUSTERED DESIGN: Buildings for all purposes – residences, businesses, etc., are adjacent for easier access. Ecovillages are not sprawled and malled. Open space is available for yard gardens, community gardens and farms, fields and meadows, and wilder nature.

COMMONS: Commons are shared areas, which encourage creative teamwork and enterprise development, making life easier for all. In addition to land and water, Commons include shared buildings, equipment, information, and other resources. The Commons are the basis for community wealth and health improvements.

(“The law punishes the man or woman who steals the goose from the Commons, but lets the greater felon loose who steals the Commons from the goose.”)

ENTERPRISES: Food systems are the vital and necessary foundation of the ecovillage economy, without which there can be no real attainment of freedom and security. Local abundance is possible in food with local perennial and annual food producing plants, greenhouse growing, permaculture, and other methods. Local abundance in energy is possible with solar cooperative enterprises and installations. Cooperative enterprises can be used for improving local education, health and wellness lifelong, financial systems, transportation, media, entertainment, and so on.

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