The HotSpring Quarterly - Sept. 2012

Page 21

economic activity reliant on resource-

economic requirements: biological,

corrosive practices and depletion of generally available stores (or potential output) of goods and services will reinforce the cycle of depletion as it expands; a fabric of economic

structural, intellectual, political. Individuals and families are best able to participate in the economic, social and political constellation of influences, when there is

activity which generates added basic resources for generalized consumption will reinforce the cycle of constructive collaborative improvement as it expands.

community infrastructure allowing for substantive, character-driven interaction at the human scale.

So, a GOOD-based economic improvement strategy needs to cultivate and propagate reinforcements of the following kinds:

gather, play and compete, safely and without undue ideological pressures or quality-of-life dictation from budget processes, violent crime, resource scarcity or contamination of

This means opportunities for children to

• Biological: First of all are the life-sustaining

the environment. Some of these community assets would be: art and music in school, school sports, community-level recreational activities, extracurricular educational

compounds without which human life is not possible: clean air, clean water and foodborne solid nutrients. • Structural: Next are those structural

opportunities, and clinics, hospitals and other services that guarantee quality affordable on-time medical attention.

comforts of the built environment, without which human beings are less able to achieve long life expectancy and educational and professional excellence: shelter, plumbing

Measuring the quality, affordability (as against individual, household and community income) and accessibility of biological, structural, intellectual, political and community infrastructure reinforcements is

and heat and electricity. • Intellectual: Then come the intellectual commodities: infor mation, education, technology sufficient for erasing the digital

then necessary to understanding what is actually happening at the human scale, and what innovations, incentives and/or collaborative initiatives would build resiliency

divide. • Political: The hope, then, would be that with these come political liberties: freedom of thought, freedom of assembly, freedom of

and mutual thriving into the human experience of a given community.

worship, freedom of the press, freedom from all for ms of discrimination, and an enforceable guarantee of voting rights and the right to petition the government for

The Human Development Index (HDI) is an attempt to look at the status of people, families and communities, in relation to the above-listed reinforcements, focusing on health, education and living standards. The benefit of GOOD-based human development

redress of grievances. • Community: Individuals and families tend to be, as economic actors, expressions of Generative Organic Optimization Demand,

analysis would be to assess and determine to what degree activities related to human development are also generative, thus

specifically over and above the four preceding categories of primordial GOOD

21


Issuu converts static files into: digital portfolios, online yearbooks, online catalogs, digital photo albums and more. Sign up and create your flipbook.