43 Comments
Feb 18Liked by William Hunter Duncan

Even if the plan never materializes, the effort to imagine it and expound upon it is worthwhile.

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Feb 17Liked by William Hunter Duncan

My principle is that it's easier to transform everything than it is to transform any one thing without transforming everything, because the former may be hard but the latter is impossible.

It's hard to get people interested in the abstracts of economics. It's when you start thinking about specific projects like this and how easily they could be done under the new system that they become exciting. This is just the sort of idea that would flourish in Duncanville, your vision of the future possible under my system.

In Santa Cruz, I've had my eye on Wilder Ranch, a former cattle ranch that's now a state park with land that's been degraded and needs to be restored with regenerative agriculture using good animal husbandry practices. I picture each block of the Westside, closest to it, having a plot of land and two days a week when a shuttle takes them there, to work under people who know what they're doing while others prepare lunch at the ranch house. Food is something we should all be involved in!

Here's the system in the latest episode: https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/caretology.

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I read your piece yesterday, and I'm still trying to understand how you would build something like this with caret, if a caret cannot be used for private gain, and the amount of carets issued to any one person is limited? Building anything large like a house or business requires a great deal of capital, regardless what it is called. How could one build a business too if carets cannot be used for private gain?

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Feb 17Liked by William Hunter Duncan

Yay, I'm so glad to talk about the specifics!

As a public bank, the commonwealth can issue debt in dollars against any property at FMV within its borders. So if the golf course was owned by outsiders, it could issue the dollars using eminent domain to buy them out. But then it becomes transferred into carets for repayment, as a debt to itself. So it can issue those carets to repay the debt over 30 yrs to the community it serves, maybe at the hamlet level of thousands of people or a village of tens of thousands? And I might do an interest rate of 1.5%.

The commonwealth could also issue the debt against the property to give the hamlet or village the money to develop the golf course into a food forest, farm and restaurant. The debt would be issued in carets, so that internal labor would be cheap and tax-free. But if they needed to get materials and equipment from outside, they can always do a 2:1 cash out of carets for dollars.

If this were my fiefdom, I'd make that loan contingent on the commoner group agreeing to match or double-match the caret loan repayment with their own funds for an operating budget. So let's say their loan repayment, including interest, came to ^7.2M. Over 30 yrs, that's ^240K a year or ^20K/mo. Divided by 1000 people, that's 20 bucks a month. The debt repayment is issued monthly to the hamlet as a whole and comes right back to the commonwealth bank. But this match comes from earned money and creates ^240K a year to pay salaries or hourly wages or buy materials.

In return for their investment, those 1000 people would have membership privileges to partake in the farming and harvest, and get discounts at the restaurant. There might be farm boxes they can buy into, if they're not sharing in the work, and even prepared or ready-to-cook meals. They'd have priority over outsiders for jobs there, that can't exceed the maximum wage set by the collective. They'd have voting rights over decisions.

One caveat is that if the loan is for development, where it might be cashed out for dollars, the commonwealth needs half that amount in its cash reserves to cover it. That doesn't apply to paying outsiders to buy the property but once that's done, they can't issue dollars out of thin air, only carets. But every repayment will free up more cash for future caret creation.

Complicated, I know, but exciting once you see what's possible. No?

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author

240K however does not seem anything like sufficient as an operating budget for what I am talking about, unless the general cost of living is radically reduced. The yearly operating budget for this would be, just guessing, closer to 1.5mil? Also who is making the decision to "eminent domain" the golf course/land? Also, what if there are 1000 people who want the food forest, farm and restaurant, but 2000 who want to keep the golf course?

It seems to me too, you might be underestimating the concept of fiat currency, and the monopoly on violence of the State? Central bankers brook no competitor to their monopoly.

Part of the issue at Hiawatha was/is, it is owned by the Park Board, so theoretically by everyone in the "commonwealth" of Minneapolis. Everybody then had an idea about what they wanted to do with the land, so there was nothing like consensus to be found. The Park Board like I said tried to please everyone, thereby pleasing no one, ending up with stasis.

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Feb 17Liked by William Hunter Duncan

I also just reread and realized this is a project you're now dreaming and scheming (the title of my episode ;-) for your current hometown. So the problems and possibilities and obstacles will be different. And probably much more doable in population size and availability of land.

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Yes, because I am from here there is a greater chance of making it happen. The fundamental difference too, it would be a private business on private land, as opposed to a non-profit on public land.

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Feb 17Liked by William Hunter Duncan

There is certainly the possibility that 'They'd never let us get away with anything that would work.' In that case, we're all doomed, yes? But thinking that way defeats you without them lifting a finger. You don't know what the future will bring and what might be possible that isn't possible today. What you do know is that what you want hasn't been possible in this system. So it doesn't cost you anything but some time to consider what you'd do if communities did own their own mortgages and therefore labor.

Minneapolis' population of 430K would make it 3 commonwealths under 200K people. I know we share the expectation that food scarcity will become a reality under our current consumer processed food model. I don't think any system change will be possible until that happens.

Is the golf course big enough to feed a third of Minneapolis? Likely not. Maybe a village of tens of thousands. I don't think you'll have to argue against the golf course when people are hungry. For urban areas, I'd divide them geographically perhaps in a pie-shaped wedge, so that each has a 'crust' of arable land. I'd expect big cities to empty out when food scarcity hits. But internal parks managed for food production could be a buffer.

Of the $1.5M annual operating budget, how much of that is labor? Would you have some doing the work but everyone getting an equal benefit? Would there be no money coming in? Under the caret system, the housing backs the carets and the entire mortgage debt is distributed to the population monthly. If 20,000 people contribute ^20 of their ^100 monthly targeted dividend for food to the project, that's ^400K per month or ^4.8M a year. But you may not be able to support 20,000 people. You may want to have people contributing labor from the surrounding neighborhoods and even divide the golf course into sections for each.

But it's not a question of whether or not my plan will work but only if it would work better than yours. What would be your plan under my system change to take back our mortgages and labor from the bankers? Or what's your system change that would give us long-term control while they own all the houses? Thanks for wading into this with me, William. Is it okay if I print our conversation in my next episode? I'd like to show how this can be applied.

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Print whatever you like from it, of course.

I used to say, there aren't gardens in the greater Twin Cities metro of 3mil to feed 100,000 for even half the year. As to that, necessity will dictate terms.

I only brought up the monopoly on violence reference because you talk about exchanging carets for dollars. As long as the dollar is fiat, however, alternative currencies seem a non-starter, especially as they wish to institute a CBDC. A CBDC however would likely sprout alternative currencies like weeds, especially after they shut out whoever they please.

The 1.5mil operating budget would be mostly wages and the associated fees and taxes, as it is with most private businesses. Under the current regime, it typically costs a business 2.5-3 times for an employee compared to what you pay them. It is almost as if they are trying to do away with small business and jobs, especially when you consider there is no tax on, say, pollution or automation.

But I do believe in a local control, decentralized world, and alternative currencies. I'm also no believer in utopia, so I play devils advocate a bit anyone starts talking about how the new society will be organized. I'm not clear about how yours would deal both with the entrepreneurial spirit, competition and criminality.

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Feb 17Liked by William Hunter Duncan

Yes, big cities make my head spin when I think about how they could be self-reliant. They just can't. Glad we're talking about something more manageable.

The more that the dollar or CBDC 'inflates' (meaning, dilutes in how much housing it buys), the stronger the caret will be. I foresee making the exchange rate 3:1 or more for people trying to buy up local housing. The difference between the caret and other alternative currencies, and it's the critical difference, is that it's backed by the housing and so will always be in alignment.

The caret doesn't take away any money or forms of money that are available now. All the money it generates is now being extracted by bankers. So whatever form of money you use, it's still there. This is an entirely supplemental system.

I'm no believer in utopias either, which is why I push back against vague feel-good verbiage like The Greater Reset and The Sovereign Way. But unless you propose an easier, more doable system change, the current system is what you're defending as devil's advocate.

All I'm mandating under my system is the maximum population size that has the right to issue credit against properties within its borders. I don't think 360M or 36M or even 360K works. After that, it's up to you to propose how your new society will be organized. How will you encourage entrepreneurship and healthy competition, and discourage criminality? I have some ideas on those but I'd be interested to hear yours.

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Feb 18·edited Feb 18Liked by William Hunter Duncan

Thanks for sharing your beautiful vision brother. Every time I drive by the golf course here near our place (southern Ontario) on land that used to be Carolinian forest filled with Paw Paw, Shagbark Hickory, elderberry, oak, wild ginger and ramps I shake my head and imagine all the beauty and abundance a space like that could produce for the community (human and non-human communities).

If you ever need to get the word out for a crowd funding for a plan like you describe above let me know and i`ll share in my networks.

Thanks for dreaming big and striving to honor the land.

Keep up the great work.

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author

Much appreciated. This is coming on the immediate heels of a take-down from a friend of mine involved in the local project, me connecting the requirement to put in a 50-100 thousand dollar sprinkler system, the Censorship Industrial Complex, 70 different governments now Geo-engineering chem trails, and mass migration, to the global managerial blob. "You have lapped up the Kool-Aid quite well it seems...you [will] help eliminate what little democracy we have left," he says to me.

I need to check myself more often. I can't build this if the extension of that blob locally is hostile to me.

What is healthy for people will be healthy for the land and waters. I would like to leave my local region healthier than what it has become.

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Feb 17Liked by William Hunter Duncan

I wonder why a lot of people feel it won't happen, or can't happen?

It is obvious to me that the issue is not logistical. Your plan would require us to do anything we aren't capable of doing.

If we collectively were serious about living in a good way and having the things that a food forest, etc. would provide, we could have that sort of thing everywhere, in every town, and everyone could benefit from it. So it seems like it is due to a spiritual sickness that we have. And obviously how so much of our culture has been moving in the opposite direction --- a lot of people may not even value what you are proposing...

Thanks for writing about things like this, it is good to see possibilities.

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The chief complaint I heard from neighbors of the golf course was, what about the homeless? What is going to stop them from foraging, and moving in? Some of those same people would argue that it is immoral to break up a homeless drug and sex market - as long as that camp is not within sight of my house, apparently. I was also making the argument for a kind of public/private partnership insofar as creating a lot of jobs not subject to Park Board control, but this was before the sudden DEIing of everything, and now frankly I cannot imagine trying to build such a thing in a place like Minneapolis. I'd be run out of town for misgendering, micro-aggression or whatever.

Another complaint was, what about all the bees? Fallen fruit of course draws a lot of bees and wasps, esp in the fall. I was like, don't go in the food forest in the fall then. So yeah, it is very much like a spiritual sickness. https://williamhunterduncan.substack.com/p/bio-phobia

Also, people would say things like, city government is incapable of what you are talking about. That might be true even within the city limits of my small town. Building regs are increasingly hostile to small business.

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Feb 17Liked by William Hunter Duncan

great ideas - can feel the synergy and cohesive nature - perhaps stay flexible with regard to location

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Thank you. The idea of the non-profit was to sell the idea such that anyone can decide to do this anywhere. My best chance is probably here, as I have a lot of support locally. The choice locally would be inside city limits or just outside. It would be more expensive to build in town, probably.

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Sep 28Liked by William Hunter Duncan

I had been thinking of this post. Read through all the comments. I don't pretend to understand economics, or all of what Teresa said in your threads.

I have been reading Hans-Herman Hoppe. That led me to the Mises Institute. I had planned on reading "Human Action," or "Anatomy of the State" next. These texts seem somewhat antithetical to your philosophy. Not trying to be adversarial. Just contemplating where you are. I don't personally know anyone who is reading or contemplating these ideas.

I've been wanting to read "Sacred Economics" by Charles Eisenstein. I was wondering if you had read it. If so, what are your thoughts?

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I have not read the whole of Sacred Economics, but I am dubious, just as I am of Tereza's theories. Tereza seems mostly to be building large long-houses, while Charles is writing of the world as he would like it to be. I am not overly familiar with the work of Mises, but I consider it loosely to be more in keeping with human nature. An economy spontaneously arises, wherever there is a need and a want. People don't need to be told how to do it. The best economy would be the one with a government that is mostly out of the way, only really existing to resolve disputes and preventing monopoly.

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Sep 28Liked by William Hunter Duncan

If only we could restrain government to that.

"Any notion of limiting its power and safe guarding individual life and property is illusory." Hoppe

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Apr 5Liked by William Hunter Duncan

Brilliant idea, and could have been taken-up by the people there. Unfortunately the George Floyd fiasco, and insanity itself, flooded the entire city. Who knows when, what, or how that disaster will be reconciled? But now I'm sad and homesick, having left in 2022, and being reminded of it all- the lakes, the trees, the snow, the mosquitos (just kidding). 😢

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I left in 2022 as well. I don't really miss it, as I still have snow and mosquitos....

As I mentioned, we were just about to go public, then covid, then Floyd, then the park board announced they were going to dedicate the new and improved golf course for black people. So I'm not sure Minneapolis or America is capable of such a concept.

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Apr 5Liked by William Hunter Duncan

The concept of farming, gardening, cooking, and eating in an urban public setting with public educational classes definitely would have been popular there until the BLM thing took over. I heard of a small park ( MLK Park ?) that neighbors wanted turned into a dog park. The city lefties stopped it- surely because too many white people wanted it.

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If you have not seen The Co-op Wars on PBS, it is worth the time and a study of where BLM would take the Twin Cities if they could.

https://www.tpt.org/co-op-wars/

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Apr 6Liked by William Hunter Duncan

Wow- thanks for sending that. Weird tying together several people there that I knew or knew of from the 70's. When I married I left Powderhorn neighborhood, not wanting to raise my kids in that counter-culture. Yikes- still processing...

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Feb 20Liked by William Hunter Duncan

Go with the magic, man. Me being a musician and a chef, I love your idea! Every life-affirming effort is movement in the right direction. I don't know yet how I could help you, but please know you've got Ron's and my support. An onsite apothecary + teahouse would be a lovely addition! We have one in Atascadero now, and it's a fabulous vortex.

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Feb 19Liked by William Hunter Duncan

I think your problem is, you’ve forgotten who you’re dealing with. Figure out how to work butt secks and reparations into the plan, and you’ve got a winner.

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I am categorically naive about things that are absolutely obvious to me, like it is absolutely obvious to everybody, like reparations is extortion for chislers, and butt secks is no measure of integrity or competence.

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Feb 18Liked by William Hunter Duncan

You wouldn't want to grow food where a golf course has been anyway, certainly not organic food...Hate to think all that crap is getting pumped into MN water tables...

Good luck with your new ideas. I just hope the small communities are not too fractured. Here, we have kept a summer time weekly market (and a few off season markets) alive. There is music and people bring in organic food and produce (and crafts, jewelery, etc). It's based out of an old grange building. Maybe you can find such a place and start small before going into building it totally.

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The Hiawatha course was later forced to stop using chemicals, though there was some indication they continued to use fungicides on the greens. Even a typical farm field takes roughly three years to heal the soil for healthy vegetable production.

One of the guys I am working with is talking about setting up some music shows this summer, at other venues. It wouldn't be related directly to what we are doing except as an example of what we are about, once we start looking for money and filing for permits.

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Feb 18Liked by William Hunter Duncan

As an old timey vendor of hand made crafts, refound objects and folk art, I wish you the best! No community should be without its commons/gathering space. Music is a good way to raise money and awareness.

Fungicides are so fucked fungus/mycelium keeps the damn world turning.

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We see a lot less edible mushrooms around, than when I was a kid. This is farm country, and edible mushrooms seem to be about as abundant as pollinators.

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