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What I sent to Dr. Bullock
From: Ryan
Date: 9/5/01
Time: 10:20:22 PM
Remote Name: 10.10.42.217
Comments
Sociology/Anthropology 327: Toward a Fair Society, Assignment I
Fair Society II: Leah Black, Ryan Reikowsky, Teresa Van Alstine, & Thea Gilliam
(Information reported by Ryan Reikowsky, 9.03.01)
We in Fair Society II, (who have yet to name ourselves), have sketched a very rudimentary outline of a possible agricultural and sustenance system that is in line with our original dominant ideology: (That) each member of society has a social responsibility to promote the health, stability, and survival of the group as a whole. We have not ventured any farther than this into our plan for a fair society at this point. One of the things we discussed in our group was omitting the traditional monetary system – at least within the confines of everyday use between members of our society. We will most likely maintain some sort of currency to use in interactions and trade with the outside world, however it will not be of use (especially as a source of profit) on our island. We will be producing crops native to our climate through a system with hired employees who specialize in various fields we will be pursuing. We intend to have “fruit farmers,” who will mainly specialize in things such as bananas, papaya, mango, pineapples, strawberries, etc. We will also have “vegetable farmers” who will be working with crops such as peanuts, spinach, lettuce, carrots, tomatoes, beans, flax, coffee, etc. In addition to the farmers, we will have both fisherman and people who raise and breed small livestock such as chicken, turkeys, and goats. Certain appropriate portions of the island will be designated for livestock areas, and others will be used for cropping on a rotating basis. We intend to distribute our food and goods in three basic forms: exports (which we will gather income from in order to purchase items we cannot produce or sustain), a reserve (where we will maintain a store of food in case of a natural disaster or other emergency which threatens our society), and the “food depot” (the system by which people gather food as source of survival and income for their time spent completing their jobs – food will be awarded through a detailed system taking into account the amount of family members, their ages, and the hours worked by each member of the family, to be logged in time cards). This is the extent to which we have made any sort of progress on our ideas about the “fair society.” In response to Nozick’s ideas, we do not believe that the only aspect of importance or justice in the distribution of goods, (food as it were in this case), is dependent on how each person acquires their portions. We believe that equity is an important notion. Without a monetary currency system in place, how much a person makes per hour is not an issue. We expect that people with larger families will not be able to work extensively more hours than those with small families, and our distribution system will take that into account when divvying out food. We are more interested in promoting the stability of the group as a whole than we are the potential for individual gains – no matter how “justly acquired” they may be.
