Kenya's all-female village
I've been trying out different news services, and am very impressed with the Washington Post (thanks for the recommendation, Randy). This morning's top story is about Kenya's all-female village of Umjoa.
Two days after the London Bombing, this is a more important story. Nothing much has changed with the London story, but this Kenyan story gives hope for how we can fix this crazy world. To summarize, the Kenyan women wanted a different kind of society. So they found some unwanted land and started one. The local men tried to start a competing village next door, but in a fair competition the women did better. This illustrates what I mean about "choose your own government" - let everyone chose their own way of living and see which one does best on the open market!
Of course, the Kenyans relied on having unwanted land (or very low cost land). This kind of land is not available in most modern countries. And that is why we need land rent, to provide a healthy low cost market in land. Then we can have real freedom and real choice, just as in the Kenyan example.
posted by Chris Tolworthy at 8:42 AM
1 Comments:
I recently read something on the web about a village in Haiti that is tied in with a Catholic religious order. There is no central government in Haiti outside of Port-au-Prince, so people are left to their own devices. In this village, the Catholic order is helping out with a plan to build up local resources to make the place self-sufficient. The biggest project involves planting trees to stop catastrophic mud-slides and enhance the agricultural potential of the land. Over 98% of the trees in Haiti have been cut down, which makes even average tropical storms catastrophic there. Un-freakin' believable.
The Dominican Republic, on the other side of the same island, has managed to avoid the appalling mismanagement (of both the right and left) that has led Haiti to such a sad state.
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