Imagine a world opened almost entirely to competitive capitalist principles. In this future, only the basic laws protecting the universal declaration of human rights are enforced by government and the legal structure. People unable to make substantial yields, in such a system, would sink to the bottom without public assistance, dependent only upon the charity of other individuals or groups of individuals. In this world, art, culture, special interest groups are no longer sacred, but entirely incidental. If art is pleasing enough to be profitable, it is, otherwise it is relegated to the marginal world of hobbyists. Education, health care, transport, the postal system, and other institutions that are currently funded by the government are all privately funded and operated. In this world, wealth breeds wealth, fortune breeds fortune, misfortune breeds misfortune. Streets are in-between areas sandwiched between private structures. Streets become truly interstitial zones, patrolled but not owned by the government.
In this future, the government shrinks and as it shrinks, the power of individual people grows. Also, private institutes such as the Rotary Club and Big Oil grow to fill the gaps. If an association of the fortunate decide that a street needs fixing, it gets fixed, otherwise, it falls through the cracks. In this world of constellated power, few things are arbitrary. There are no arbitrary street grids, there is no arbitrary social assistance, there are no arbitrary borders - everything is defined by two things, a set of ethics lain down and enforced by a lean representative body, and the primal principles of the free market.
12.11.2006
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I need to send you a picture of an intersection in Ottawa that has recently been adopted by the neighbourhood Starbucks.
ReplyDeleteWhen it needs fixing...it will be fixed, by Starbucks money.
Once I find a battery for my camera...I'll send you the picture.