...While the CCC and WPA were examples of JG-like programs, their duration and historical circumstances have not been duplicated since. America Corps is so limited in scope I'm not sure it counts. ...
Americorps is nothing like the CCC and WPA, it's more like a domestic Peace Corps where young college students "intern" with nonprofits.
All my life I have been enamored of the work of the CCC - I really like making things, and they made some beautiful and functional things. But we don't have much of a physical work culture anymore. This country has a really weak basis anymore for getting things done that involve toil and sweat... that's one of the reasons we import foreigners for those jobs.
But beyond that, the subject of cooperation vs competition is something I am struggling with in a big way. For about the last 20 years my "occupation" has been centered on forest restoration and wood products made from low-value biomass. A century of profit-taking has left us with millions of acres of unhealthy, catastrophic fire prone forests. The key to restoring health to those forests is the establishment of a new triple-bottom-line economy (people, planet, profit) that utilizes low-value biomass. The catch is the "low-value" portion - there are many things that can be done that would have incredible people and planet benefits, which over time will also include economic benefits - but in the short term there is "
no money in it".
Many people are working on this problem, with incredible competition for the scarce public money that has been allocated to the task. The money tends to go to higher profile endeavors conducted by powerful entities such as universities and large corporations, for things like making jet fuel out of wood chips. In spite of that, there are innumerable folks like me who have great ideas that fit within the realities of rural capacities and economies and are generally low-tech and conservation based rather than high-tech and consumption based (mine are primarily related to soil and water conservation and carbon sequestration).
The primary differences involve the perception of competence and if there "
is money in it".
The fact is, competition for profits always involves externalizing costs, which is what got us to the millions of acres of unhealthy forests in the first place. And the continued competition for solutions with "
money in them" is causing us to continue to externalize (ignore) excellent triple-bottom-line solutions.
I spend half of my time trying to find money to advance my work, which is focused on TBL solutions, and should be supported by the beneficiaries of the solutions, not by profits. The pressure of having to build profit into the functionality of the solutions also causes deflection from the optimal commercialization path, meaning that the target markets become those who will pay for the products instead of where the application of the products will have the greatest TBL impact.
From my point of view, a CCC-like government program that supports forest restoration, and products made from the byproducts of that restoration applied to soil and water conservation, would create jobs, improve the environment, and restore true wealth (more fertile soils, re-interrment of carbon in the soils, cleaner and more abundant water).
Less mindless consumption, more mindful conservation - better lives, less stress.
