생태공동체 건설의 가능조건에 관한 소론

Abstract

Today, we see the so-called ‘ecological community’ often mentioned by the public and the learned people. This essay clarifies which prerequisites the design of an ecological community must satisfy in order to develop from the mere pastoral longing after country life into the political project pursuing the ecological reform of our current lifestyle. In the first place, I distinguished the ‘ecological community’ from the ‘country house area’ or the government-made ‘eco-village’ and concisely defined the former as ‘a system of the sustainable symbiosis between human and nature which prevents the exhaustion of natural resources and the environmental pollution.’ And then, I suggested the above-mentioned prerequisites subdivided into five. Firstly, ecological community must establish its own social and economic mechanism of self-reproduction by operating the system of social division of labor in which all its members participate. Secondly, it must serve the wide spread of its ecological world view by running the self-educating and work-study programs intended to educate its members and visitors with such a world view. Thirdly, it must secure the links of voluntary and sustainable solidarity between its member by establishing their common cultural self-identity. Fourthly, it must strengthen its competitiveness with which it could rival the current self-destructive energy economy by building the independent energy infrastructure based on the renewable energy sources. Fifthly, it must create the models of cooperative political culture which is distinguished from the current competitive consumer culture by securing the democracy of public communication. Consequently, it could secure its stable sustainability only through all its members’s persistent efforts to satisfy above-mentioned five prerequisites related to labor, education, culture, energy and communication according to the principle of ecological effectiveness.