Mutations in nature can be good, they can be neutral, or they can be harmful. Any idea or philosophy or science can also mutate as time and people influence it. Oftentimes, these mutations are truly beneficial for the maturation of that science or philosophy, and other times these mutations can be very detrimental to its credibility and acceptance.
I believe there are two mutations that have occured in Permaculture that have been detrimental to its credibility and acceptance in the world. These mutations have kept Permaculture from becoming more mainstream. It is only because of the integrity and grandeur of the design science we call Permaculture that it has still has gained such international recognition.
So what are these two mutations? The first I will save for my next article. The second is that years ago people bastardized the Third Ethic of Permaculture. I wrote an article outlining all three ethics in this previous article, but I only touched on this topic. I think I was trying to be more non-confrontational at that time, but a recent experience has fired me up a bit more.
The three Permaculture Ethics are:
- Earth Care
- People Care
- Return of Surplus
As I explained in my previous article, the original third ethic was “Set Limits to Population and Consumption”. But that is not what it is anymore. The Third Ethic is now “Return of Surplus”.
People often wonder a few things when they hear this. Who decided to change it? Why did they change it? And did they have the “authority” to change it?
Let’s start with a little history. Bill Mollison and his graduate student, David Holmgren, are named as the co-originators of Permaculture. They published the first book, Permaculture One, in 1978. I truly believe that Holmgren played a very significant role in the origination of Permaculture. However, after the initial creation and huge success of the book, Holmgren sort of disappeared from the international world of Permaculture. He states that he wanted to put these concepts into practice, and he did that for the next decade mainly on his mother’s property and then on his own. From online resources (granted this may not be accurate), David didn’t start formally teaching Permaculture until 1991. During this time, Bill Mollison had travelled the world many times over teaching everyone he could about Permaculture. He became the world leader of the movement. During this time, Bill Mollison founded the Permaculture Research Institute of Australia (PRI). PRI has been the home of Permaculture ever since, and it is truly the hub (or “mothership” as some have called it) for the worldwide teaching of Permaculture.
With all that said, it was PRI who changed the third ethic to Return of Surplus. To be honest, I don’t know when this official change occurred, but these are the three ethics that have been taught for years by PRI. Geoff Lawton now runs PRI, and some may try to say that it is Geoff Lawton who changed it. However, Bill and Geoff taught this information together many times, so it was not that Geoff changed Bill’s original idea.
In my opinion, this ethic was refined or clarified… not really changed.
I believe this ethic was restated as Return of Surplus, because so many people started to use this ethic as a tool to push their own social agendas and political ideals. I also believe that as the science of Permaculture matured, and it is still a relatively new science in the grand scope, a refining of the core ethics may have been needed. This is a common practice in science. A concept or “theory” needs to be refined as more information is discovered and as more applications of that science occurs.
In 2002, David Holmgren published Permaculture: Principles and Pathways beyond Sustainability. In this book, Holmgren restates the third ethic as Fair Share: Set Limits and Redistribute Surplus. This is a very interesting interpretation of the third ethic. The first part, “Fair Share”, has been used by Geoff Lawton to help describe the third ethic (Return of Surplus). I have said before that “Fair Share” is nice because it rhymes with the other two ethics (Earth Care, People Care), but it is rather vague on its own. “Set Limits” sounds a lot like the original text of the third ethic (Set Limits to Population and Consumption). But “Redistribute Surplus” has a lot of connotations, and depending on your personal worldview, it can mean a couple of things.
If you are of the same mindset as Bill and Geoff at PRI, then this can easily mean “Return of Surplus”, i.e. redistribute the surplus energy back into the systems that care for the Earth and care for People. However, if you are a person with a more socialist or communist worldview, then it can easily mean, “if you make more than you need, then you should give it away to other people… including those who have done nothing to earn it”. Whether this is what Holmgren meant or not… I don’t know. I honestly doubt it, but it is still out there as a competing Third Principle of Permaculture.
There is nothing wrong with being altruistic. In fact, I encourage it. I also think the idea of communisim is rather nice, but time and time again history has proven it to be unsustainable. Unfortunately, the ideology behind this mutated iteration of the Third Ethic often gets pushed on new students. They are taught that if they really want to practice Permaculture the “way it was designed”, then they should live in a commune, own nothing, and give away all the things they produce. If you produce apples, then you can eat them or sell some of them at a Farmer’s Market to cover your rent, but the rest should be given away. And if you produce something like a book, then it should be given away for free, this is true of music and teaching as well.
This is the concept that has pervaded Permaculture for too long. This, I believe, is a big reason why Permaculture has not spread more through the world. Who wants to put all the work and effort, energy and resources into a project just to have a bunch of free loaders demand rights to the fruits of your labor? How will a person be able to feed their family and pay the bills if everything they work for is given away for free?
Here is an example I came across and why this article was written:
Geoff Lawton recently released an online Permaculture Design Course which I am currently taking and very excited about. It was not cheap, but it is less expensive than many live courses. It is half the price of the courses Geoff Lawton teaches in-person, and you don’t have to pay airfare to fly to Australia. In an online message board, one person stated with righteous indignation, “If Geoff was truly practicing Permaculture and adhering to Permaculture Ethics, then he would give this course away for free.”
Wow!
Do I blame this person? Yeah, sort of. But I also blame the rest of the Permaculture practitioners who are either flat out promoting this ideology or are passively ignoring it. Permaculture is not about socialism. It is not about living in a commune. It is not about working for free. It is a science. It is about sustainability. These people do not understand that it is not sustainable to give everything away. They do not understand that making a good and decent living is not anti-Permaculture.
Until we can sever the idea of Permaculture being a new expression of socialism or communism, then we will not break into the mainstream. It is time we cull the mutated Third Ethic, and take Permaculture to the masses!
Next time, I will tackle my other reason Permaculture is not more mainstream. Stay tuned!
Photo References:
- http://farm1.staticflickr.com/5/5165181_773ce5bdd8_z.jpg
Brother … I hear you … “If at first, the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it.” – Albert Einstein … well of course I”m not Mr. AE … but I still hear you!
Yeah, nail on head, again! I like what Paul Wheaton of permies.com has to say about this. He says (sometimes in salty language) that if people want to give away stuff that they have created, they should. But no-one should be forced to give away their product (veggies, teaching, consulting, etc.) for free.
I seriously considered taking his online course, but I’m just not in a position to do it at this time. I think what Geoff’s doing is great, and I don’t fault him one bit for charging what he does. Do people think all his experience was earned easily or freely? Come on people! No! He trained at the feet of the father of permaculture for several years. And now he wants to teach even more people. Good on him, I say! Try getting even a decent plumber to fix your sink for free.
I think that as long as there are people teaching to give away everything you make (just not their stuff, of course), and people who want to take from others without earning, this attitude will persist. I don’t know how one would go about stopping it. The real problem is this redistribution mindset. Who wants to work hard when it will just be taken away? That’s why communism fails, every time.
Jack Spirko of “The Survival Podcast” had a great article on the subject of PDCs. Here’s the link: http://www.thesurvivalpodcast.com/what-exactly-is-a-pdc-course
I’m interested in your other reason PC is not more mainstream. Looking forward to it!
The order of the ethics is important as well. What do you get if you reverse the order? Paul Wheaton often comments on people making ‘mother nature their personal bitch’. That would be putting care of people before care for earth.
Thanks for the post(s).
Way to go! Exactly. I am also taking the online PDC with Geoff Lawton and after here the video on the 3 ethics I was also confused. Therefore I researched deeply on the internet and found so many confusing and contradictory definitions of the 3rd ethic as to be extremely vexing. So glad and grateful you distilled this down for me in a way I can make sense of all the chaos.
I have to say that I like the third ethic being share the surplus. I had never heard any other versions before and Share the Surplus to me is a wonderful ethic which, if adopted universally would create incredible outcomes.
The birth of permaculture happened at the same time as a birth in true spirituality and awakening. Love is underneath everything and when we align with that, we see things differently and have a heart felt desire to GIVE as much as possible.
So this ties in with the 3rd ethic. The awakening of love consciousness means more and more people will want to give, to share their surplus, it’s NOT something that need be enforced, and as you say, in today’s world, we all have bills to pay, so we need to earn real money and charge for what we do.
BUT, as we go, we will have more and more to share, more surplus. And as the number of people giving grows, a greater and greater abundance in all areas will happen — true social security that FREES everyone to follow their heart without the burden of having to earn.
IT IS hard to see how this will transition, but I truly believe it will. I work with people all the time who give freely of their time, money and passion for the good of the whole. As more of us do it, in every arena, we will have tremendous wealth that frees us all. And what a liberation that will be because money corrupts.
What is a wonderful passion can become a drudgery and tainted once you start asking for money in return — just look at the example you gave where someone said that Geoff shouldn’t charge. I would bet serious money that Geoff would love not to charge if he could achieve his passionate goals without doing.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful to offer your gifts as TRUE gifts? I experience this every day… I am in the same situation as Geoff. I work on my passion tirelessly and the need to monetize is a burden I would love to not need.
Money is energy .. keep moving it around! No better place to move it to than Geoffs PDC and I trust that he will move it around too …. so its gone to a great place! It wasnt called currency for nothing .. but that was the old days before banks could take it and play with it ….
I also like Paul Wheaton’s attitudes on the permaculture ethics. He even has a forum called something like “Making The Big Bucks With Permaculture”. There’s nothing wrong with making profit!
I can’t stand the “share the surplus, man” attitude that some permaculture people use to justify stealing other people’s work. If they really believed it, then they’d have no problem with sharing their money with Geoff in return for access to his online PDC!
Darren – Fantastic point! Love it!
I agree, completely, with Michael Kinnaird.
I am creating a four acre permaculture/food forest garden. I have a good start on it without spending a penny, or relying on any one else to design. I work with only hand tools/ wheelbarrow, buckets, and a small chainsaw. I give away my time, skills, and plants so that I am sharing what I have.
I see so much waste from the people teaching about permaculture….very sad, too….they fly all over the world using up fossil fuels. Greed does not care for anything other than an inflated ego. ~ I know my yard and would view a so called ‘teacher” as an invasive.
We can learn anything for free, and the most experienced experts on the subject are the ones already living it.
I think that moderation is a good idea here, as in most things. Absolutely, making a living isn’t anti-permaculture. But on the other hand, making everything to do with permaculture (the books, the courses, the workshops) so expensive that they’re not affordable to most people – and a lot of those who could afford them choose not to because it’s a big investment without a proven payback – is anti-permaculture.
I’ve found that everything with “permaculture” attached to the name also has a 10 – 50% (sometimes more) price increase compared to a similar product without permaculture in the name – and not because it’s more expensive to produce (as with organic fruit & veg). So while I don’t think we should have to give away things for free, I do think it would help permaculture in general if more people started looking at their pricing in terms of what is realistic for potential newcomers, and lower the entry barrier that the high prices create.
The problem is that the original ethics of permaculture was a loose agreement among people who knew each other and they wanted to sketch out their general ideas of right and wrong. Fine. And those ideas were vague, and there were various interpretations of them later on. That worked for a while, and then the party grew. Then someone (who?) redefined the third ethic. Who gave that person the authority? Who did they consult? Are the principles of permaculture handed down by the leadership, or are they subject to the consent of permaculturees? No one has really addressed this question.
It is not always clear exactly what permaculture is because so many people want it to be everything.
One hears that permaculture is a science. Ok. But that is incompatible with the ethical components, as science is science, it is about testing biological and physical hypotheses, not investigating questions of right and wrong. Questions of right and wrong fall squarely in the realm of philosophy, and different philosophical bents consistently give rise to different ideas on how to enact policy.
And people quote Bill Mollison and say that permaculture is about ‘permanent culture.’ Ok, what are the implications of that? That permaculture is a cultural phenomenon? Great. But that means that it is as much a matter of sociology as anything else. And which type of sociology are we to use to usher in the great tomorrow?
I like the idea that permaculture is not ‘political’ in the sense that it is not intended to boost this party or that. But the implications are sometimes clearly and unavoidably political – one will not be able to limit the use of pesticide poisons or GMOs that spread their genes by the wind without political action, even if it is something as mild and reasonable as a law that requires labelling so that people can make an informed decision about what they put in their own bodies. Politics is about polity (people) and policy. We can have a movement absolutely free of politics if we get rid of the people and avoid advocating or opposing policies of any type.
The real questions IMO are how big of a tent will permaculture remain, and who will try to impose various orthodoxies from both the left and right? And how people will respond to that? What mechanisms are there to deliberate such important questions? How much ambiguity can we live with, and who will be alienated in the process of eliminating some of the ambiguity?
G’day,
Thanks for the piece…
A couple of matters of Permaculture history that need to be corrected:
1. David Holmgren was not a ‘graduate student’ of Bill Mollison’s in Hobart back in the 1970’s. David was at the time an undergraduate at the Tasmanian Institute of Technology studying a Degree in Environmental Design.
2. Bill Mollison was not the founder of the ‘Permaculture Research Institute’, that was Geoff Lawton. Bill, with some others, founded the ‘Permaculture Institute’ in the 1970’s in Stanley, Tasmania
3. For those interested perhaps the best history piece on Permaculture was penned by Russ Grayson: http://pacific-edge.info/2007/07/a-short-and-incomplete-history-of-permaculture/
For the record I stick with recommending the original 3 Permaculture Ethics as originally outlined by Bill Mollison. To my reckoning there lies no ambiguity in his 3rd ethic whereas more recent reductions are much more open to interpretation.
Thanks and all the best,
Darren Doherty
Director, Regrarians Ltd.
Darren,
Thank you for the clarification on the history of Permaculture. Most of us practicing Permaculture nowdays are a generation (or two) removed from the birth of Permaculture, so its origins are a bit of a mystery. I’ve toyed with the idea of writing a full history of Permaculture, so I really appreciate the link to the article.
John
I write to share the following interview with Mollison printed in 2005, up to the very last line.
Thanks and regards!
http://www.scottlondon.com/interviews/mollison.html
Fantastic! Love it!
Thank you! I’ve been wanting to take a permaculture course for some time, but have been a little concerned that I would find myself surrounded by communists who want to meditate naked in the woods! I am kidding…a little. My only real interest is in learning what I think is the most important set of skills we could have going forward. To me, permaculture is the ultimate prep for a world heading for disaster.
Well said. I’m currently taking Geoff’s online PDC and I’m loving it. I totally subscribe your words about this subject!
[…] doing permaculture, yet poo-poo the ethics and principles. I’m not referring to the on-going confusion over the third ethic, but a sense of entitlement to ignore the whole package altogether. Frankly, this damages the […]
Returning surplus doesn’t mean you have to give it away. Sell it, trade it, compost it or move it along. Don’t let it stagnate.
I have always preferred the third ethic as expressed in Introduction to Permaculture (Mollison and Slay 1991), which is the contribution of surplus time, money, and energy to achieve the aims of earth and people care. When I teach I often express it as ‘give away all excess time, money and energy towards earth care and people care’. To me ‘fair share’ does not express their fully enough. I see the ethic of only taking enough for yourself is implicit in the first two ethics of earth care and people care and does not need repeating. Fair share is ‘passive’ and requires nothing more than consuming less. To give away all your excess time, money and energy towards earth care and people care is ‘active’ and makes people get of their arses and contribute. I don’t see this as being in any way socialist as it is up to each individual to decide what is excess. Even Bill and Melinda Gates follows this philosophy and give away what they decide is excess to their requirements through their Gates Foundation. If I had only ever been aware of the ‘fair share’ version of the third ethic I’m not sure I would have expended time and resources on overseas permaculture aid projects, as I could have practiced ‘fair share’ sitting on my couch at home.
i’ve been reading about permaculture for awhile, and in general i support it(there are a few crazies out there, but you’ve touched on that too) there’s just one big thing that doesn’t sit well with me. “permaculture is a science”. i’m not so sure that’s true. sure you can get a degree in it. sure, it isn’t religion, or magic, or politics. but that doesn’t make it a science. that makes it the application of sciences, and i see that a lot, different applications of agrosciences, horticulture, animal husbandry, ecology, geology… but permaculture is more of a philosophy than a science on it’s own. i don’t think calling it a science lends to it’s credibility. i mean, the advertisements can say “contains a clinically studied ingredient” without telling you what the study results were. permaculture is more than just a science, but it’s not a science on it’s own. and again, i support the movement and practice aspects of it in my gardening and animal keeping.
If I may do a guess, You are leaning toward volluntaryism/voluntarism or at least the non agression princple. Communist aren’t
You wright; Who had the authority? That’s the thing I quess. No authority to be found in permaculture.
Teachers Yes, leaders perhaps, rulers non. Al interaction is on a voluntary basis.
A little video, maybe someone sees something in it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHpkQZErm7g
Jack spirko has an artikel/podcast on it too.
http://www.thesurvivalpodcast.com/permaculture-anarchism