As far as the global war of economic ideology is concerned, capitalism seems to have the upper hand.  Everywhere, absolute monarchies and state-run economies are being displaced by barely regulated and unregulated free-markets. Although this allows for unprecedented opportunity and rapid change, it also means that there are bound to be unsteady booms and cycles of development and depression as speculators raise the ante on the future and are then "corrected" by market forces.  For capitalists, by which I mean literally, people with capital, this is the big game.  The world becomes a shifting curtain of value and worth.

Of course for most of the people on the planet, economic shifts have real and dire consequences.  They represents jobs and food and homes.  For small business people, such as myself, security is mostly a matter of how brave you feel each day.  When things are busy.  I am mostly thinking about management, keeping up quality and putting out fires.  During the inevitable slow times I am presented with an opportunity to try new things, reorganize, re-evaluate and plan for the future.

Value is a slippery figure.  For a service such as ours, value is ultimately determined by what people are willing to pay or trade and what I am willing to work for.  In the simple supply and demand model, if there are ten or twenty equally qualified people lined up waiting for each available job it certainly diminishes the value, and the hungrier I get the less I'm willing to accept for my labor.

To help combat hunger and deal with rising food prices, people all over the country are growing vegetable gardens and raising their own food in other ways.  I'm not as hungry since the chickens out back started producing lots of eggs.  By itself, an egg isn't worth very much, and I don't expect the eggs to make much in the way of extra income, but they really taste good, and I am experiencing the unexpected benefit of the flock.  The hens are sweet birds that cluck around and contribute to a sanguine  atmosphere and the roosters are beautiful and protective.

Perhaps an even greater benifit from the backyard chickens is the symbolic and gradual transition that they represent to me, to a permanently sustainable culture.  The more I study the permaculture philosophy, the more I am in accordance with the basic principles.  According to David Holgren, "Permaculture principles are brief statements or slogans that can be remembered as a checklist when considering the inevitably complex options for design and evolution of ecological support systems."  Permaculture rests on learning from natural and other successful systems that depend on energy stability, and on steady replenishment of food, air and water.  From Holmgren again, three ethical considerations for establishing a  permanent cultural system are:

•    Care for the earth (husband soil, forests and water)
•    Care for people (look after self, kin and community)
•     Fair share (set limits to consumption and reproduction, and redistribute surplus).

Oviously if these become primary considerations for a business enterprise or a proposed family or community living space (and I think they inevitably will), we might shape a different result, and the overall effect on our economy may  be changes in commerce, zoning and transport that reflect our altered motivations.

These changes are happening all around, in people's homes, commercially and politically.  Large and small business are finding niches in recycling and local production of everything from energy to spare parts. A few years ago the local Chevrolet dealer spent five million dollars grading a serpentine hillside down the street in order to build a new showroom and repair shop.  It was big and modern with colorful new cars and bright lights shining all night.  Last year the dealer closed its doors and the facility stands empty.  People simply aren't buying cars they way they used to.

As always, change comes from within, incrementally.  It is driven by econonomic necessity and environmental adaptation.  Social change is imperceptible and unstoppable.  When my son tells me I am making a petroleum-based decision, he is using terminology that didn't exist fifty years ago.  It represents a social paradigm that is as natural to the next generation as texting.  As always, our policy-makers and established business leaders, with the wisdom and the shortcomings of experience, are failing to change the established patterns that have worked so well to put them at the top of the heap.  It's not their fault.  They don't know how to live differently.  Our President can't give us change.  The Ford Motor company can't make us change.  A million people growing onions and beets and strawberries, or not flying to Bermuda, or walking to work, can make a change.