Ecological Model in Local Economic Development
The "ecological" model in Local economic development is really another name for the "Orthodox" or Neo-classical school of thought, and is a polite way of referring to the "law of the jungle", of greed and power struggles which take place in the capitalist system (as viewed by the Political Economy school). It modifies the imagery of the jungle by talking about the encroachment of one tree species over another rather than of one meat-eating tiger over another, but the concept is essentially the same.
When it comes to the nasty aspects of man's behavior in relation to others in the sandbox, no particular group seems to be exempt. It seems a bit pedantic to make subtle distinctions between whether one writs of negative behavior by individuals or groups as "the vagaries of an unseen hand", the "activities of the tigers in a free-for-all", "boys will be boys", or "survival of the fittest" on the one hand, or "sacrifices laid on some for the collective good" on the other. It makes little difference whether the negative behaviors are individually conducted or systemically instituted. The effect is about the same.
In Christian parlance, a man is not a sinner because he sins, but sins because he is a sinner (i.e. a rebel from God)...and all men are sinners, i.e. rebels from God until they turn back into a relationship with him, and start growing up into the idea God had in mind for each of us as individuals, and all of us as an interactive "body" with Him as the center.
Neither man as an individual or society as a community are going to get very far down any development road outside of a return to a relationship with God, regardless of how much one group says the individual is dominant and the other says the group is, or some others try to find some mythical balance. The issue at the core is who is at the center of life, and until the paracitical reality of man is addressed, one can expect a steady stream of both individual and collective negative behaviors. The solution is there, and we want a solution, but the problem is that our desire is conditional. We want to "eat our cake and have it too".
There is another "ecological model", that of "the garden", one of our oldest written stories as a humanity. It has some very pertinent things to say about local economic development, or as the text says "wouldn't it be good to become wise". Scripture is, as one person pointed out, the classic text on Local Community Economic Development.
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