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Transcription of a video by O. Ressler,
I was born in Switzerland and I live in Zurich. My main job is
teaching at a secondary school, and I have always been politically
active in my free time. I am an old activist from the 1960s; I was
there at the anti-Vietnam demos and all of those things. Later I was
also there squatting houses and taking part in the anti-atomic
movement. I was a little bit involved in everything there was. And then
somehow the movement ended; there was still a squatting movement in
Zurich, I also know that in Geneva a lot of houses were squatted, but
they were slowly defeated by the police. Then there was nothing there.
Then a rather depressed atmosphere broke out, as it often does after
such cycles of movements. At that moment, I said: I will write down
everything that we should still consider as important. I put together a
wish list, like for Christmas, a long list of things that we can still
consider worthwhile - stock taking. I want to emphasize that there is not one single idea in this book that is new. Everything in it is something that I found. It is possible to arrive at bolo from various directions, at the basic unit, how people can live together somewhat sensibly, without destroying the planet, their nerves, and their offspring. One approach is communication: when people cannot speak rationally with one another, then they are dependent on higher authorities, they have to have supervisors to employ communication. We understand, for example, communication theory, which says that communication can function informally with up to about 150 people, which means that no structures are necessary. It is, then, quite comfortable, and there are a lot more arguments than necessary, because of the fact that communication is so easy. That's why I arrived at a basic unit, a gathering, which must be significantly greater than 150. I said 500 wouldn't be bad, 400, 600, 700 or 800. Then there is another threshold that must lie somewhere around 1,000, after which it becomes necessary to delegate in order to organize. This administration would then require a committee and a certain professional level. Here we arrive at the realm of structurally necessitated bureaucracy. And I don't like that; the effort quickly increases, because you have to control the bureaucracy so that it really does what you want. And these control organs are, once again susceptible to corruption, and they must also be monitored; it becomes quite complicated. For me, the window is somewhere between the sensible social organization of the 150-person comfortable feeling and the 1,000-person incipient uncomfortable one. It must be there somewhere in between: that's the one approach. Another approach could be something more ecologically oriented. The ecological problems on this planet lie in the north where we have to heat and have created an urban layout, which necessitates automobile transport, for example. If you want to turn that back, if you want to reduce the energy consumption to a globally acceptable level, then approximately a fifth of the present use would be allocated here. I am not talking about the south; they already use 100 times less energy than we do. In that sense, they don't have a problem; they have the opposite problem, perhaps. They would have to increase to reach a fifth of the energy consumption. But if you want to use less energy, then it is no longer possible to have cars or single family homes, people would have to move in together. Then it is possible to think about the size house that is the easiest to insulate and the least expensive to heat. Buildings will become increasingly more compact, because then the relationship of the outer surface to volume is the most efficient. That means that in the north, e.g., in the U.S., the people in the little suburban houses would have to move into "people's" palaces, or eco-palaces, where it is easier to heat. I always say that it is possible to make a typology there that is overly concrete, that you naturally have to look at it ironically. We all have to live in buildings that are about eight floors high, about 100 meters long and twenty wide. This concrete monstrosity is actually an ecological necessity. I always begin here with this urban, western bolo. I never prescribe
for other people how they should organize themselves. I simply take
Switzerland as an example, but it works the same for all of western
Europe. How do you organize agriculture in conjunction with these urban
structures? My suggestion, and also that of many people who have
studied ecology and agronomy, would be to say: in western Europe, for
the food supplies of such a bolo, we'd need about 90 hectares of the
type of land that we have here. If we take a mid-size city such as
Zurich, then these 90 hectares can be found in a radius of about 30 km
around the city, they would have room there. That is still available,
if we don't build up and pave over everything in the near future. And
then it would be possible, seen purely schematically, to assign each
bolo a farm of 90 hectares. That is calculated quite generously,
because in Switzerland the farms are an average size of only about 15
hectares, in Austria perhaps a bit larger. Although they are relatively
large units, that doesn't mean that relatively large surfaces have to
be farmed. These would be intrinsically quite diverse structures, where
you could produce everything from potatoes to milk. That would achieve
a rather sound ecological efficiency, because a small truck - or maybe
even a wagon on a train - would only have to travel once a week between
the rural area and the urban area. For the return trip, they could take
compost. Then you could develop a system so that the people who live in
the bolo could also work in the rural section. That would be a lot more
efficient than today's supermarket supply system, because there we are
dealing with a whole series of intermediary transports, in distribution
centers, and then again in supermarkets, and then I still have to go to
the supermarket. Here, every bolo would be a supermarket, with a
diversified land section, large enough to farm economically. You can't
continue today's agriculture because it only functions with a huge
input of oil and chemicals and other things. Mixed biological farming
is necessary, whereby one combines different plants in the same area so
that they fertilize one another. Not these huge, monotone fields; that
wouldn't function anymore. But this mixed agriculture requires a lot
more human labor than today - which is actually quite nice - perhaps
three times as much. But that isn't so much because in Switzerland,
agriculture makes up roughly 3 percent of the work force, so then it
would be about 10 percent. But in the meantime, all banks would have
died out and there would be enough people who could step in. The simplest form of exchange is the gift. It is also the most
dangerous, especially for those on the receiving end. This exchange is
possible when someone is relatively independent. A bolo has a basic
sovereignty; in Switzerland we have this saying - independent enough to
be generous. In Marxist terms, it isn't necessary to scrutinize whether
you have given away too much value. There are a wide variety of gifts.
And because, assuming that bolos exist everywhere, giving signifies a
type of honor for these bolos, which means that in return they also get
something back. That would be an important form of exchange, which is
not specifically tied to any commodity. It is possible to give
anything; time, poems, or whatever you want. If we have now achieved these ecological conditions, for example, 20 percent of the energy consumption, then there could still be a few cars around. In a bolo, perhaps there will still be 20 cars, people can rent them. That would be sufficient if you have to drive once in a while. But it will hardly be necessary to drive because there will be almost no reason to go anywhere. That means that the number of cars has been reduced tenfold, the automobile industry has nearly collapsed and also all of the banks that financed it. At the same time, the oil industry has collapsed and no longer exists. Concurrently, the household appliance industry has shrunk proportionately because, for example, it is possible to wash all clothing in one washing machine in the bolo, which is 8 times as efficient as a normal washing machine. All the entertainment electronics that are still lying around, you can still use them but you don't need so many. Actually, the hi-tech industry will be reduced only in terms of consumption. You need 10 times less of everything. And then there is only the question of where and how to produce the rest most efficiently. And the answer here is entirely clear: sub-continentally. For example, trucks would be produced at one location, let's say south of Warsaw, for all bolos or cities between the Ural and the Atlantic. And they would only produce modules. They would produce a medium, a large, and a small module, a motor, and then in bolos or cities they would be put together into whatever is required. This already occurs today in the "third world." All of these public buses are built there. The chassis is built there and all that is delivered are the motors and gear system. That is already an efficient technology. How would it work? I would simply do that with money, you pay for them. Naturally, you can now ask: how it is possible to acquire money? There is, of course, only one option: either you pay for them, or have a quota. We need a certain amount of trucks and then the workers, who produce trucks, are paid by us indirectly through money - but actually not much is needed. You can acquire money if necessary if you choose to sell part of the commodities, part of the work force or the agricultural products for money. This automatically creates a sub-continental market if you do this. When people live close together, then there is an intrinsic social
control that does not require any organized enforcement. It would just
be a type of: what are you up to again? The surveillance is simply much
greater. That is beautiful in the sense that it prevents a lot of
damaging social behavior, and it is possible to cut down the police
force. I would assume that the police force could be reduced to a tenth
of its current size. The problem would then be the reverse: if I
present myself as "ibu," as a person, how much of this social control
can I stand? That might also be a problem. The question is one of the
proportions in the mixture. When there is no social control, then you
have ghetto conditions; chaos, and anarchy - in the worst sense - and
you need a police officer on every floor. That is not at all good. But
there must likewise be some leeway so that it is possible to defend
yourself against this internal control. One area for leeway is the
size. If there are 500 people, then a fundamental anonymity is assured.
Then it is possible to do things, bolos can have several entrances and
exits, so that no one sees you. For smaller bolos, this control would
probably turn into a nightmare, the larger would be better. The bolos
have a global bolo contract. I can move out at any time after giving
notice, and every other bolo has 10 percent free capacity for people
who simply want to come as a guest, but perhaps will want to stay. I
can move out of everywhere and into everywhere. That would stop people
from being all too strict with the social control, because then they
would have to fear that I will leave.
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