'D - DAYS-----?'
The weather's been frosty cold here now for a few days and bird feeding's been at full swing, the highlight of which has been being able to get within two paces of a gang of nine long-tailed tits whilst they were avidly feeding. Such beautiful delicate little livewire birds, surviving in harsh natural conditions - no woodstove comforts for them - only a bit of help from human friends. It's not got above freezing all day here at the eco micro-holding (small smallholding) in midlands UK now in mid December. The woodstove's doors are open and the heat is belting out -how on earth the poor souls on the news that are apparently having to choose between 'eat or heat' are getting on, goodness knows. Somehow, though, doesn't seem quite the ticket in a so-called advanced relatively wealthy country - ? The UK police are even reporting today of increasing crime activity for 'basics' - food, nappies and suchlike, citing 'desperate times', for some, as the cause. Seems to make just a bit of a mockery of the politicians' 'Big Society'? More of an 'un-society' maybe, as Margaret Thatcher sort of predicted those years ago - ?
The paper too today says another 300,000 will be here in the UK in 'fuel poverty' by Xmas, taking the overall total to over a million. The answer according to one large energy company boss is better house insulation, which doesn't seem to offer too much in the way of short-term relief. Another, according to a government minister, is to take benefits away from wealthier folk via a means test to then help those struggling - but, after the costs of means testing, would there be a residual benefit - ? Others, of course may be of the view that if you want to solve a problem effectively, then it's probably best to identify its actual cause, which some - many(?) - might say is the use of oligopolistic (a few powerful suppliers) power to profiteer via high prices (one smaller supplier recently dropped price due to cheaper wholesale energy supplies, whereas the main 'big six' suppliers have put up prices by about 7% - ??) The Pope's also just pontificated at Xmas about the potential negative social effects of the 'excesses and greed' involved in the over-chasing of profit. And the free-market's mean't to be beneficial to consumers - ? (if it's a 'true' free market this could well be true, as then there'd be many buyers and sellers in the market, rather than just a few powerful players, with none then powerful enough to overly influence price).
A very recent Which? ( UK consumer organisation) report states that bank staff for instance, are still heavily focused on high sales targets rather than, say, giving good customer service, seemingly indicating that high profit making is the strong priority. Profit making is important to any business: the question, for some at least, may be as to whether there can be a too strong a one-dimensiona, short-term focus on it - ? Strong focus on making high profits presumably means creating the main beam on the firm's needs (i.e. profit making), then by default losing vision and understanding of customers' needs - ? Certainly the firms locally to here who are recognised for good satisfaction of customers' needs (along with lack of 'customer pressurisation)', seem then to have considerable customer recommendation and ensuing repeat sales, not then needing any hyped-up longer-term sales push. They may, of course, not hit quite the same high level of short-term sales or profits, but their long-term business sustainability and survivability looks pretty good - not really rocket science, when you think about it.
D - serted
Heading down the fields, well wrapped up in winter clobber, with good mate Hipster Pipster (Scots Border collie), the white countryside looks and feels forlorn and deserted, which with the general heavy, misty atmosphere, has given a pleasant 'lost in space' sensation. It's not exactly picturesque 'pretty' countryside hereabouts, but it's pleasant enough, plenty of trees thankfully, and in fact all the pleasanter for being true 'working' countryside, it being good ground, capable of supporting most types of farming. Unusually for these days, there are six dairy herds located within a two-mile radius of here, all operated by independent 'small' rural business people. How long they'll last is anyone's guess, as the price of milk seems to be continually squeezed by the larger milk buyers.
'D for --- Dis-economies-----?'
In this age of 'big being beautiful', small producers can be seen to be anathema to the large operators who seem to be pretty wedded to the 'economies of scale', 'biggest is best' story. Of course, being 'bigger' can mean economies can be had, although the benefits could perhaps tend often to be swallowed too whole and 'undigested'- look at the financial sector, with it's 'too big to fail' operations plainly just having done that, and of course as the scale of operations goes up, then further 'infrastucture' overhead costs are then occurred - size maybe isn't always quite the gravy train it's sometimes made out to be. Maybe it could be more of a case that in a 'free (for all?) market' there's a feeling it's safer being one of the bigger predators - ? In terms of pure efficiency, though, a case can be made that smaller, nimbler, leaner, often family-run enterprises without significant overheads are among the most efficient operations, in classic input/output relationship terms.
It could be the case too, that being small and 'powerless', individual's rights could be under pressure in an 'un-feeling' 'biggist' world that sometimes seems to struggle at times with the notion of 'respecting the individual' - ? Such a trend appears to be already in process here in the UK -the government, for instance, seems to have an agenda to reduce individual's employment rights, having just halved the redundancy employees consultation period, and having reportedly announced intentions to allow employers to dismiss staff without reason, and to offer cash incentives for employees to give up other rights.
Isn't too, just arguing a case just from the 'economies of scale' point of view, got to be coming from a bit of a one-dimensional angle - ? What about community and social aspects, ecological and environmental aspects, and maybe above all, people aspects? A concern in the rural sector is that, for instance, the small independent dairy operators will be forced out by the large operator-controlled low product prices, as is here in the UK seems to be actually happening, for large operators then to bring in giant-scale 'factory' farm operations (as seen on TV recently - 30,000 cows in one US operation , under cover and with the cows kept in for most if not all the year). Great, maybe for the returns to the large-scale owners and operators, but not too great, maybe, for all the independent operators squeezed out (and for independence itself within society-?), maybe too not so great for rural community in general with now faceless corporate operations rather than real rural community folk, and not so great for the animals themselves, being denied the opportunity of 'natural life behaviour' within the giant industrial-scale operation - -??
'Han-D-y - ?'
The fact that the general mindset these days seems pretty set on the 'big is best: might is right' lines may not be too good news for those souls ('freerangers' - ?) who wish and need to 'gain the space' to explore and develop fully their own individual natures - a need the eminent western business guru, Charles Handy, exponed and supported as 'honourable individualism' and seemingly operating outside any 'power play' culture. It's relatively easy to see that the 'big is best' mindset can proliferate, and that people will 'join' it as a self-defence and preservation exercise. To go against or counter any 'largist' movement too may not always be too easy to do for the power-bereft microcosm that is the individual, particularly if the current tide is 'biggist' and away from 'honourable individualism' - ?
'D v G - ?'
How can, for instance , the micro-small individual possibly 'know better' than the 'giant' 'power-based' operations? (a 'David v Goliath' situation-?). The 'largist' culture operation itself can also inhibit individual self knowledge and confidence, as the prolific use of socially-conforming measures such as league tables might well illustrate, as too, for instance, might the lower degree of independence self-responsible professional-type folk appear to have experienced in recent years. Schumacher, of renown for his 'Small is Beautiful' work, expressed the reservation back in the 1970's about growing 'giantism' and its need and tendancy to exercise 'high control' strategies, and was of the opinion that the merits and value of 'smallness' therefore had to be consciously taken into account. Robert Pirsig, of 'Zen and the Art of' fame, also championed 'small' in the form of the individual, believing that the individual rather than the organisation was the source of 'quality', by which he could well have mean't the more positive human values such as generosity, longer-term vision, compassion, social 'fellow' feeling, 'respect for nature', life respect, personal spirituality and so forth.
George Orwell warned in his seminal work '1984' of the inherent dangers of organisational power getting too great, as did Aldous Huxley in his chilling - for the individual - work 'Brave New World'. The philosopher Kant apparently was an early proclaimer of the dangers of the 'over rational/logical' approach in terms of channeling thinking down too narrow 'tramlines', as was the aforementioned Pirsig who again suggested that the modern 'church of reason' (i.e. life run on mainly logic lines) was too lacking in terms of 'quality' content. Organisations, then, good for 'quantity', but also need to 'widen' to incorporate 'quality' - ?
'D - licious----?'
'Small', though, 'is still beautiful' here on the eco organic micro-holding, where hedging and lopping operations (providing quite a few new needed beansticks) have now been completed, and the clippings and brushwood burnt to provide potash fertiliser for the veg ground at a later date.
Still some tasty produce to eat here in mid-December: leeks, winter greens, celery, onions (from store) and for todays lunch, fresh-picked, tasty salad - lettuce, landcress (like watercress), purple-top turnip and artichoke, all along with some extra mature crumbly and taste-full Cheddar cheese.
Not too much to do on the ground itself, just one patch to clear of grass and weeds by shaving them off with a spade and onto the compost heap. Although quite a bit of the woodstove's fuel is purchased, there's still some sawing of the wood that's been collected 'for free' to do, normally by electric chainsaw for the bigger stuff and the small sawbench for the smaller stuff. Having said that, the sawbench came back from its sojurn up the road beautifully sharpened and has been something of a revelation, now being able to take on quite sizeable pieces of wood and saw them with ease and speed. The cold, bright days have lent themselves to woodsawing as solar electric production can still be quite good then, and the activity comes with its own 'warm glow'.
'D - moves----?'
All in all, the solar electric installation, now 17 months in production, has proved to be pretty useful, cutting actual domestic electric costs by over a third. Sometimes in the short-term the effects can be even more dramatic- again on the bright cold winter days the two daytime cottage living rooms can be heated courtesy of the sun via halogen heaters. It's main drawback is that electric generated in the day can't be short-term stored for use in the evening. A partial way round this is to use as many rechargable items as possible, recharging them in the daytime when solar electric is available: computers, phones, vacuums, electric tools, hedgecutters, electric vehicles and suchlike spring to mind. They're already talking in the papers of further swingeing energy cost rises for next year, so solar power is one independent 'freerange' way for the individual to counter any possibly exploitative cost increases- a 'D' move. In these parts, there's now schemes available to be able to have a domestic solar installation without any upfront cost - the installing firm provide a loan which the government payments due to the homeowners pay off over time, in the meanwhile letting the homeowners have the benefit of the free solar power.
Ah well - all grist to wee 'freeranger' mills, giving at least a semblance of an independent life in the 'free (for all?) market, big beast jungle'.
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