3DN CIE Version 1
- Within any given area or locality all of the residents share an interest in a healthy local economy and a healthy local ecosystem. Within any given locality, there are people who cannot contribute to the local economy because they do not currently have marketable skills. Within any given locality there is the potential to produce additional food, and other goods and services - that are not produced because the cost of production would exceed the market value - or because the people who need those goods and services do not have the money to pay for them.
- From an individual point of view, for those who do not have marketable skills - or cannot afford needed goods and services - the solution is to gain skills that would allow them to get a job. However, the goal of employers is to produce as much as possible with as few people as possible. If we put ourselves in the position of the "economy", we all share an interest in finding a way for people who are not using their skills to produce those goods and services they cannot otherwise afford.
- It occurs to me these proposed groups could best operate on a community basis with an internal medium of exchange, employing economies of integration (see also: Economics of Integrated Production) and converting financial resources into living resources. Such an organization would benefit all members of the community by employing unused and underused assets of the community and facilitating local production of goods and services. In addition to basic goods and services, such an organization would facilitate implementation of environmental enhancement projects on behalf of the community.
- Some of you have seen the materials on the Selfh-help Corporation and have liked the idea. That is a plan for poor people to help themselves. This is an idea to incorporate the concept of the Self-help Corporation into what I am calling a Community Investment Enterprise through which each of us can help ourselves, our communities and the poor in our communities. I also want to explore how that could be expanded to help the poor in developing countries. I will post that in the Poverty group.
- I would be pleased to answer any questions this proposal might raise and would welcome your help in exploring the details of how such an organization would work.
Back to Community Investment Enterprises
Back to 3DN Self-help Corporation
Back to Introduction
Back to Table of Contents
