With the current possible sale of Saratoga Springs' sole full-service grocery store--known in the vernacular as the "Ghetto Chopper"--we could all stand to see how we got to this tipping point and what can (and ought to) be done to prevent losing this and other community assets that, under our current legal and economic systems, are held in the private domain.

A Brief History of American Capitalism

American Capitalism was created to encourage the conversion of "natural capital" to private capital and was a necessary first step towards growing the wealth of the nascent United States. Additionally, John Locke saw a need for private holding of property as a driving force motivating people to work. Locke sought to balance the privatization of the commons by stipulating that whenever one "joins to [nature] something that is his [sic] own, and thereby makes it his own...no man but he can have a right to [it], at least where there is enough, and as good, left in common for others."(1) As explained in his book Capitalism 3.0: A Guide to Reclaiming the Commons, Peter Barnes translates this passage as:

"[A] person can acquire property, but there's a limit to how much he or she can rightfully appropriate. That limit is set by two considerations: first, it should be no more than he can join his labor to, and second, it has to leave 'enough and as good' in common for others." (p. 16)

Barnes next posits that this first stage of Capitalism (version 1.0), an economy of shortage existed and needed to be converted to an economy of sufficiency. At that time, our nation had what were considered unlimited natural resources ("capital"), but not enough goods and services to supply to its population. What was needed was an efficient mechanism to convert natural capital held in common ownership to private capital. Enter the publicly-traded corporation, supplementing the financially-constrained partnerships by including a board of directors, a set of executive officers, and an ever-changing set of shareholders (strangers wishing to invest in corporation) whose fiscal investiture was guarded by the board and executive officers. In the early nineteenth century, these corporations were chartered for specific operations, often in the form of transportation improvements and collection of revenues generated by such improvements. The corporations were granted temporary charters by state legislatures to conduct a restricted set of operations. Alas, by the mid-1800's, corporations were granted the gift of immortality, could engage in any lawful business activity, and were allowed to merge with, or acquire other corporations. The coup de grace came in 1886 when the US Supreme Court declared that corporations were "persons" and entitled under the Fourteenth Amendment to protections afforded to all citizens (2). Henceforth, corporations possess the sovereign powers of immortality, self-government, and limited liability. Thus the corporation became what it is today: an "automaton designed to maximize profit for stockholders. It externalizes as many costs as it possibly can, not because it wants to, but because it has to. It never sleeps or slows down. And it never reaches a level of profitability at which it decides, 'This is enough. Let's stop here.'" (Barnes, pp. 21-22)

As corporations rapidly converted the commons to private wealth, in the process consumer goods and services became abundant and eventually were available in surplus. By the 1950's, John Kenneth Galbraith, in his book The Affluent Society (3), wrote that the scarcity of goods was a thing of the past for a majority of Americans. This signaled a change from shortage capitalism to surplus capitalism. Now the driving force of the economy was shifted from production to sales and marketing: How to get people to buy things they don't really need or cannot realistically afford. This produced the Madison Avenue-based and credit-fueled phase Barnes calls "Capitalism 2.0." Scarcity consisted not of goods and services, but rather for the poor, it was income was in short supply, and for the middle classes, the externalities of time, companionship, and community were all becoming more precious and scarce.

The shift from Capitalism 1.0 to 2.0 also saw some aggregate shifts in the availability of land, natural resources, and environmental sinks (places to dump wastes). In the earlier era, these were abundant and their consumption by the engines of Capitalism could be, by and large, ignored. Thus it is no wonder that the legal emphasis was tilted towards legally protecting the rights of capital above the rights of the commons. Now, however, it is apparent, through a whole-Earth perspective and our improved environmental monitoring networks, that limits are being reached in availability of arable and habitable land, non-renewable natural resources, and waste-handling capacity of the biosphere. The playing field has changed, but the rules of play have remained the same. Surely, something needs to change.

Whither the Commons?

In Capitalism 3.0, Barnes argues that neither the State (i.e., government) nor the Market can effectively manage the Commons since the Commons has no voice or value under the present rules. The Commons exists, under the current operating system, as both the Garden of Eden that nourishes us all and the sewer system into which we can throw all our wastes. The Commons supplies the Market with a seemingly inexhaustible source of raw material which is just waiting to be used for adding value to land. Likewise, the Commons is thought to be able to transmute our wastes into benign and even beneficial byproducts. [While this is true for managed closed-loop systems, indeed it is the very cornerstone of Permaculture, such endeavors realize and account for the finite nature of the source and sink provided by the local biome.] Much of the rest of Barnes' book is dedicated to providing a framework by which our Capitalism-based economic operating system can be "upgraded" to a more relevant and realistic set of algorithms and rules that honor future generations, non-human species, and strive for a more socially-just engine of economic development. By introducing the notion of a Commons Trust, Barnes does a fine job of illustrating how such a revised operating system could address myriad problems confronting us today: Global Climate Change, Peak Everything, Resource Wars, perpetuation of poverty, loss of culture and community, decreasing levels of "happiness," and the disproportionate distribution of wealth.

I would like to focus here on the loss of community. As one of the three forks of the Commons River in Barnes' model, the Community includes the shared gifts of the commons we inherit rather than earn. In Saratoga Springs that tributary includes the gifts of Yaddo, Congress Park, the Racetrack, the Public Library, the Arts Center, a semi-natural greenbelt, and a vibrant walkable downtown. Arguably, none of us alive today worked towards putting these assets into the public domain, although many of us have worked hard towards preserving them from being lost by all.

Barnes postulates that much of the problem with the current operating system of Capitalism occurs when the rights of Capital bump into the rights of the Commons. Currently, the former wins and the latter loses. Marjorie Kelly, in her book The Divine Right of Capital (4), points out this algorithmic glitch in the current operating system. She asserts that stockholders, since they are considered the "owners" of the corporation, have rights that trump those of stakeholders (including the community and the employees), whose very livelihoods may be compromised by the fiduciary obligations of the corporation's governing board to maximize returns to the stockholders. This glitch leads to the devolution of efforts aimed at improving the "common good" and the widening of the distribution of 50% of the wealth to the top 1% of income-earners. This alone is a good argument supporting former Labor Secretary Robert Reich's proposal of the abolition of Corporate Taxes to be replaced by Shareholders Taxes (as put forth in his book $uperCapitalism).

Introducing the Commons Trust

Suppose there were a third sector of the economy, added to the Private sector and the Public sector, called the Commons sector. Imagine all shared, pre-existing gifts of Nature, Community and Culture--which the current operating system is fond of ignoring as "externalities" to their capital-conversion engines--were placed in the hands of trusts whose trustees were bound in perpetuity to preserve such gifts for those with no voice at all in the current system. This would include the indigent, the generations yet unborn, and the millions of other species upon which our very existence may indeed rely. Now corporations and governments would have to answer to another voice that isn't bound by "one dollar, one vote," or "one person, one vote", and has vision that sees further than the next fiscal quarter and the next election cycle. Now, a new negotiating partner has taken a seat at the table; one that cannot be bought off, bribed, cajoled, bamboozled; one that has the "common good" as its moral compass.

Now suppose that a trust is formed to preserve the character of Saratoga Springs as a "City in the Country" and that one of its goals is to preserve the diversity and vibrancy of its downtown core. And another is to encourage the transition of the downtown core from a car-centric, carbon-emitting, 20th-century burg to a pedestrian-centric, carbon-neutral 21st-century model of self-sufficiency and sustainability. Natural, Community, and Cultural resources would be placed into this trust, with the intention that they be preserved at sustainable levels through the traditional market mechanisms of supply and demand. For example, say that a corporation wants to acquire the "right" to pollute part of the greenbelt. If there is enough capacity for such actions, the "right" could be sold to that corporation, with the proceeds of the sale going to those who own it: the Trust. The trust may be set up to redistribute 25% of the proceeds to a fund for environmental remediation, put 25% into an investment fund to acquire more Commons, and to distribute the remainder equally among the city's residents (much like the Alaska Permanent Fund).

Can a Trust Save the "Ghetto Chopper?"

Now let's say that the Trust, seeing a grossly undervalued parcel of developed land (Railroad Place Price Chopper) that is ripe for the picking by an opportunistic land developer, decides that the land is worth keeping as it is currently operating in the interest of the Commons (an affordable, if not profitable, supermarket within walking distance of 80% of the downtown core residents and employees). The Trust decides to purchase the land from the current owners in a form of Conservation Easement: The Trust buys the land for less than the owner would normally get, but the seller is given incentives by the State (e.g., reduced capital gains tax or other tax breaks), to sell to a Commons Trust. The Trust would then set up the terms of the "Conservation Easement," in recognition of the unique value and relative scarcity of the Community asset and the likelihood that, barring the intervention of the Trust, the land would be re-developed for the good of the Private Sector at the expense of the Commons Sector. Terms may stipulate that subsequent sale of the property would predicate the continued existence of an affordable supermarket, mixed-use housing at a given percentage of affordable housing units, and "green" or LEED construction practices. The sale price could be lower than it would be in the absence of the Trust since the Trust is not seeking to make a profit on the sale, although it certainly would not be precluded from doing so. The savings on the sale price to the buyer could be used to recoup the costs of finding a tenant for the new supermarket and/or to offset the oft-cited argument that "green" building practices are not cost-effective (in the eyes of the developer) when applied to anything but upscale, high-end condominiums and boutique shops.

Our economic operating system is grossly outdated. Our communities are suffering while only a handful of individuals are prospering. The eminent loss of the Downtown Price Chopper serves as a bellwether for the trajectory of Capitalism version 2.0. Much of the operating system is, and many of its algorithms are still useful, but economic "hackers" have exposed pernicious security vulnerabilities (in the form of negative externalities which can be "capitalized" on). These security vulnerabilities will continue to be exploited by some for private gain at the expense of all of us, as well as those yet unborn, until we address them with systemic reform rather than a tapestry of patches. In the words of Peter Barnes, it's time to upgrade!

(1)- John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, 1690. Chapter 5, Section 27.

(2)- Supreme Court decision Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad, 118 U.S. 394 (1886)

(3)- John Kenneth Galbraith, The Affluent Society, 1958. Page 2.

(4)- Marjorie Kelly, The Divine Right of Capital, 2001.

Yesterday's (6 Feb 2008) Saratogian reported that the downtown Pricechopper on Railroad Place may soon becom a thing of the past.

While no definitive word on the potential buyer of the property has been released, the "usual suspects" (Sonny Bonacio, Roohan Realty) are mentioned. One can only presume that we will lose a vital piece of the local economy that supports the notion of a walkable city to yet another residential/boutique urban pod that will extend Railroad Canyon further north. While the increased density afforded by additional housing may be in line with New Urbanism, the prospect that downtown residents will now almost have to use mechanized transportation (at least we have bus service to grocery stores now) to make their food purchases.

This rumored land sale and closing of the Pricechopper seems to fly in the face of Pricechopper's signature line on involvement in the community: "We're Not Just in Your Neighborhood, We're Your Neighbor." Soon, neither criterion may hold true.

One local community member has already spoken out on this subject in the Saratogian. Perhaps more of us will feel inclined to follow suit. You can contact Pricechopper here.

Here is the text from my letter to Pricechopper:

I implore you to reconsider the possible sale and closing of the Pricechopper store on Railroad Place in Saratoga Springs. This community store is the only full-service and budget-friendly grocer in downtown Saratoga Springs. This store is within easy walking and biking distance to senior centers, existing low-income housing, hotels, businesses, and newly-constructed condominiums (less than 1/4 mile away). Loss of the store would both impoverish the community and result in loss of service to many residents and visitors who may not have access to mechanized transportation that would be required to shop at the next closest grocery store.

While I realize that as a corporation you must strive to maximize return on investment, I also feel that Pricechopper has, in the past, had a commitment to the very community that it serves. This has been exemplified time and again by the Golub's generosity to charity and community.

Please take into account the fate of the downtown community when considering the sale of the downtown Pricechopper. While it is hard to put a price tag on such matters, it is harder to imagine Saratoga Springs without a grocery store within walking distance of its residential and commercial centers.

From Christian Grieco:

I just finished adding the remainder of the footage I had to a new video
highlighting Harriet and David Borton's home in Troy. I will finish the
Dave Smalley and Sarah Johnston's video next.

Now that I have a fast enough computer to handle digital video I can
continue on with the project of video documenting all renewable energy
homes in the area then post them online.

Both of these homes should be searchable at video.google.com by using
"green buildings open house". I am sure "passive solar" would also
work.

The link to the new Borton House video is below

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5312373664958749521

Christian

One of the list-serves (discuss@hm.swapspace.com) I belong to has an interesting thread on bio-diesel in the wake of the opening of a B-20 station in Troy:

[Jim W]: Well that was easy. We needed only to state our intent to facilitate
the establishment of a bio-diesel station in the Capital District and
like magic one appears. For those who didn't see the Story about the
John Ray and Sons station in Troy in this morning's TU or local
news broadcast on channel 13 here it is.

[George M]: I don't like to eat much soy anyways...

[Steve B]: George raises a good question, and I must also rain on another facet of the good news from Troy.

The biodiesel lobby in this country is made up mostly of soy bean farmers from Missouri and Iowa. They have a trade association. I think the site is . This is industrial monocrop ag at it's largest-scale: energy-intensive, and chemically dependent.

While there are other conventional, commercial oil-laden crops from which biodiesel might be refined (canola for one, peanuts for another), the soy bean farmers are out in front.

You sustainable ag and peak oil folks will realize the myriad problems here.....

(1) Why can't we first use all the "yellow grease" (used commercial fryer oil and animal by products) available before we move to planting/using crops for biodiesel?

A commercial collection system already exists for yellow grease. Some truck literally drives to your local McDonald's to take its used oil (business models differ; some collectors get paid for carting it away, and again when they sell it to end-users). It's mostly turned into animal feed. So it's already a decent case of reuse. But my sense is reusing it for biodiesel would be better.

(2) why is it only B-20 for sale in Troy? Will a higher percentage BD be available soon? There's pure 100% biodiesel available commercially (it's what Will[y] Nelson sells at his station in Texas).

[Jim Z]: Steve B wrote: "(1) Why can't we first use all the "yellow grease" (used commercial fryer oil and animal by products) available before we move to planting/using crops for biodiesel?"

Answer from Corporate America: Not enough profit in it and it would involve recycling (which is not as "sexy" as starting a whole new industry and claiming its a deep shade of green).

I have a friend with two "Greasers" (www.greasecar.com): a diesel Mercedes and a diesel Ford F-350 behemoth. I personally don't support the notion of continued happy motoring on alternative fuels or with increased fuel economy/efficiency. I feel they just perpetuate the notion of lower-density, less-human scale development patterns akin to suburban sprawl, while fostering the neo-classical economists' argument of substitutability with regard to automotive fuels. I favor conservation of precious petrofuels thru proximity planning. Make non-human-powered transportation more the norm thru rezoning, localization of commercial economies, and much better planning principles. The land use patterns and private property and tax laws that are seen as sacrosanct in the US are simply unsustainable irrespective of what energy source we power our systems with (renewable, non-renewable, or any combination thereof).

I think bio-diesel and yellow grease are great fuels for onsite distillation at local farms to power any machinery used in the production, and possibly dissemination of their organic food.

Another problem with the industrial monocropping efforts needed to produce the methadone equivalent for our heroin-like addiction to oil is that so much of it would be needed, it is likely that Genetic Engineering will attempt to come to the rescue and soon we'll have Monsatan and ADM playing God with soybeans and canola (already a GMO of rapeseed) to create more "efficient" strains of crops for fuel production. The probability of windborne or spilled contamination a la Percy Schmeiser could spell the end of guaranteeing GMO-free food for us.

Localization is a great way to build local economies, to reduce demand for the importation of precious resources that may exist locally, and to minimize waste in the form of excess consumption and byproducts of the combustion of all fuels. These benefits will not come about thru alternative fuels and/or better fuel economy.

I attended last Friday's (21 April 2006) forum at SUNY-Albany's D'Ambra Auditorium along with about 24 other attendees. The event was sponsored by SUNY-Albany's Department of Biological Sciences, Biodiversity, Conservation, & Policy Program. Most of the attendees appeared to be over 35, with only a small smattering (about 6) of traditional student-aged adults.

There were four distinguished speakers:

• Dr. Charles Hall, Systems Ecologist, SUNY-Environmental Science and Forestry, Syracuse, NY
• Dr. Richard Perez, Atmospheric Science Research Center, SUNY-Albany
• Dr. Gary Kleppel, Department of Biology, SUNY-Albany
• Dr. Steve Breyman, Department of Science and Technology Studies, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Dr. Hall started the forum with a sobering look at the phenomenon of Peak Oil and discussed its gross ramifications. He discussed the lack of substitutable energy sources for fossil fuels to support our current voracious apetite for cheap energy. He indicated that we don't know the extent of the problem due to the lack of information about global supply of oil. He dismissed the notions that technology can "rescue" us from the finite and dwindling supply of oil. His opening presentation set the tone of desperation for those who still cling to perpetuation of the status quo, and opened the door for the next three speakers.

I attended last Friday's (21 April 2006) forum at SUNY-Albany's D'Ambra Auditorium along with about 24 other attendees. The event was sponsored by SUNY-Albany's Department of Biological Sciences, Biodiversity, Conservation, & Policy Program. Most of the attendees appeared to be over 35, with only a small smattering (about 6) of traditional student-aged adults.

There were four distinguished speakers:

• Dr. Charles Hall, Systems Ecologist, SUNY-Environmental Science and Forestry, Syracuse, NY
• Dr. Richard Perez, Atmospheric Science Research Center, SUNY-Albany
• Dr. Gary Kleppel, Department of Biology, SUNY-Albany
• Dr. Steve Breyman, Department of Science and Technology Studies, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Dr. Hall started the forum with a sobering look at the phenomenon of Peak Oil and discussed its gross ramifications. He discussed the lack of substitutable energy sources for fossil fuels to support our current voracious apetite for cheap energy. He indicated that we don't know the extent of the problem due to the lack of information about global supply of oil. He dismissed the notions that technology can "rescue" us from the finite and dwindling supply of oil. His opening presentation set the tone of desperation for those who still cling to perpetuation of the status quo, and opened the door for the next three speakers.

Courtesy of Wendy A.:

Livingstone plans 1,000-home eco-estate

Matt Weaver

Thursday April 13, 2006

The mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, set out plans today to build Britain's biggest eco-development in east London, modelled on a sustainable city being planned in China.

The London scheme will involve at least 1,000 homes, which will be
powered entirely by renewable energy sources such as photovoltaic
panels, wind turbines and the burning of waste.

It is being worked up by Greenpeace, the London Development Agency and

I watched CNN Presents last nite because I just love their "news" reporting. NOT!!!

I watched because they aired an hour piece (of what, I'll let you decide) on a scenario whereby the combination of a Category 5 hurricane and a terrorist attack on the Abqaiq oil processing facility in Saudi Arabia brings the world to its collective knees some 40 months from now.

At the behest of another Peak Oil group in the area (Hudson-Mohawk Socio-Economic Collaborative), I wrote a critique of the show as feedback for CNN. Here it is:

Just back from the NOFA-VT 24th Annual Winter Conference at Vermont Technical College in Vermont. What an event! Over 850 attendees filled the VTC Judd Gymnasium to hear Jim Kunstler's keynote address "Feeding America in the Long Emergency" and closing remarks by Amy Seidl of LivingFuture.

The Conference Theme was "Local Energy, Local Economies." During her closing remarks, Amy mentioned that at last year, almost no one at the conference knew what the term "Peak Oil" meant. Now, she added, almost no one at the conference hasn't at least heard of "Peak Oil." Indeed, most of the concurrent sessions had some bearing on Sustainability with "Peak Oil" serving as the rallying cry and call to action.

The EPA will require car manufacturers to more correctly estimate the fuel economy of their cars starting with the 2008 models. The 2008 cars will see their "window sticker" estimated mpgs go down by up to 25% and probably more for highway driving with hybrids, thus making hybrids look less attractive to potential buyers. But, at the same time the CAFE standards and the methods used to determine the efficiency numbers the auto industry reports to the EPA to avoid fines (for inefficiency) will remain unchanged! Talk about a double standard. Who seems to be in bed with whom here?

As a former resident of 13 years in the heart of the People's Republic of Boulder (Colorado), I know it seems hard to believe that there could be another Boulder Valley out there (in US or Canada). In fact, there's a lovely town in the middle of the Henry Mountains of Utah called "Boulder" and I'm sure they have a valley too. Then there's Boulder City, Nevada; not sure if there's a valley there...

In fact the two "Boulder Valley" entries in the USGS Geographic Names Information System refer to one in Montana and another in Nevada.

I had to dig into one of the blogs to find a reference to KGNU (yea!) to realize this is Boulder Valley, CO.

There is an interesting article on how public buildings are keeping city centers alive and thriving in the Planning Commissioners Journal (2003). The Saratoga Springs Post Office, City Hall, and Public Library are featured prominently on pages 3 and 4 of the PDF document.

The American Planning Association came out with an article in it's January 2006 issue of Planning magazine titled "The Not-So-Secret Code," by New Urban News senior editor, Philip Langdon. On page 28, he devotes eight paragraphs to an explanation of how Saratoga Springs "finally adopted a form-based code in 2003." He cites the efforts of Joel Russell of Northampton, MA, and Environmental Design & Research of Syracuse (no website?) as the consultants. The subtitle of the section is "Everyone's favorite example." The article focusses on how the "SmartCode" used six transect zones to devise a form-based code for structures within the denser 28 square mile section of the village.