Sorry Robert, I'm going into the metaphoric again.
Hi Ed and Keith.
Ed, the societies in the North are built around the
concept of water. Clinton was a water President (remember Dick
Morris's "sailing" metaphor in describing Clinton?). He was of
Cherokee descent and much of his ideas and way of acting in the world, were
Indian*.
Stone people on the other hand, are into hierarchy and
consider the fact that stone is "solid" and can be seen in relatively the same
condition for a long time is therefore "better." The Iroquois from
another place consider "stone people" to be strong but clumsy and not very
smart. There are also people of the fire (transformers) and people
of the air (inspired). Stone people consider the four elements
to be old out of date science. Water people consider the four
elements to be the four divisions of movement and divide the strategies of
mankind in their approach to life. Stone people consider
permanent artifacts to be proof of superiority, Fire people
consider transformation and renewal to be superior.
Air people consider creativity and dialogue to be superior.
Water people consider negotiation, patience and clear vision with a stubborn
drive to reach a goal to be superior.
These are ancient metaphors that touch the wisdom of our
ancestors. Today instead of a symmetrical synergy we get competition
for superiority. Instead of "walk in balance" the "goodbye"
of all native peoples in North America, we get "see you tomorrow when we
will fight again for Alpha dominance". Wolves are war
animals. Today we have the aesthetic of perpetual war.
Perhaps a reread of Kazantzakis and his Odysseus should be a requirement for all
who suffer from a theory of dominance rather than balance. Or
perhaps hardwiring is the rule and for most of the old F.......s its just too
late.
REH
*Cherokees consider women to be of equal status and to
be the owners of the property. It is therefore, up to the woman
to decide whether she will kick the husband out or not. If so, then
all she does is put his shoes at the door and he is gone. Men
lose everything if their wife kicks them out. On the other hand
multiple wives or a type of "concubine" is possible to help the wife if she
agrees. Men only carry what is truly possible in the world and
that is the mind. Women own the things. If you
look closely at the way the Clinton's handle property and charity you will see
an ethic that is not European or Patriarchical. It is
also one of the most attractive and controversial elements of Hillery
Clinton. Her freedom and independence. Something that
has gotten her into trouble with the European based "conservatives" from
the beginning. Their history until the last 100 + years is
"women as property." REH
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, December 06, 2003 10:29
AM
Subject: Re: Slightly extended (was Re:
[Futurework] David Ricardo, Cavema n Trade vs. Modern Trade
Hi Keith,
I just consulted my dictionary to see what it says
about "status". It says two things that seem to fit what we are talking
about. One is position or rank [of a person] in the eyes of
others. The second is the position or rank [of a person] in a hierarchy
of prestige. I would agree that the first definition is universal.
Among hunters and gatherers, the most effective hunters or gatherers are
recognized and emulated by others. Among agricultural people, good
farmers are given similar recognition. No hierarchy is required.
Good is good, and that's about it.
The second definition requires a hierarchy and a
ranking system. Whether they have done something well or not, some
people are placed on prestigious pedestals while others march around
them. Perhaps there is a universal tendency toward such behaviour once a
society reaches a certain level of complexity, but there may be an almost
equal tendency to do away with rankings and hierarchies of the pedestal
kind. The discussion about Hobbes seems relevant here. People
merge their interests into societies of their own free will because it is
rational to do so. They appoint or elect people to govern because that
is necessary if society is to function. Yet the people that are
appointed or elected have no special rights under the law and can be removed
if need be. Some people may still want to put them on pedestals, but
that is not the intent of the society as a whole.
In any event, complexity seems to be the important
thing. The people I dealt with in northern Canada followed the first
definition, and did not have rankings and hierarchies until we imposed them by
making them follow our system of governance. What we did was complicate
their lives and their societies to the point that rankings and hierarchies
became a necessity. Once they were in place, status in the sense of
pedestals gradually crept in.
On the matter of a basic income, I don’t think a
government could proceed without giving a lot of thought to why it was doing
it. Would it be a mechanism to facilitate adjustment to economic change, or
would it be a universal anti-poverty measure? It would also have to take a
thorough look at the costs and benefits. On the cost side, a basic income
would put an additional strain on government finances and might require a more
progressive tax system or some reallocation of existing expenditures. The
benefits could include matters such as a healthier population, kids who are
more able to cope with school, and probably a significant reduction of the
social costs associated with crime and the need to incarcerate people. There
would be problems, a major one being that the financial costs would be
perceived as being immediate while the benefits would only accrue in the
longer run. Equity would be another problem - how to design a system that is
basically fair to both those who pay and those who receive payments. And we
all know people cheat, so a policing system would have to be
devised.
Personally, I think a basic income program is feasible
in a rich country and may even be possible to initiate by reallocating
existing expenditures. In Canada we already have a variety of programs, such
as employment insurance, the Canada Pension Plan, the Child Tax Benefit, and
various Provincial welfare/workfare programs, that might be rolled into a
basic income. If the object were the facilitation of adjustment to economic
change rather than universal anti-poverty, a system of premiums scaled to
salary might be utilized. It would take a lot of work and planning, but I
believe it could be done.
Ed
----- Original Message
-----
Sent: Friday,
December 05, 2003 4:09 PM
Subject: Re:
Slightly extended (was Re: [Futurework] David Ricardo, Cavema n Trade vs.
Modern Trade
Ed,
At 14:31 05/12/2003 -0500, you wrote:
Keith:
- A BI sounds wonderful but it is a theoretical
solution that runs absolutely counter to human nature. Human society is
about relative status. Not only human society, but primate society. And
not only primate society but any social mammalian society. We really
need to understand this first before we can suggest quite new social
structures that will satisfy our basic instincts -- and, if possible,
basic incomes also. But not before then. Extending welfarism beyond what
we have now in most developed countries, desirable though it might sound
(and I don't object to it on moral grounds), is already running itself
into the ground.
Keith, sorry, but you say the damndest things with utter
certainty! Human society is about all kinds of things, depending
very much on what people want it to be and agree that it should be.
Status may be very important in American and European society, but I've
dealt with small societies in northern Canada in which a person's
importance depended on what he or she could do for the community.
There were no contests around who could do the most for the community and
therefore had the most status. You are misinterpreting me. I didn't say there always had to
be contests! You've just admitted above that some people have "importance".
If that's not status I don't know what is.
Native land claims negotiators were guys who had a better command
of English than most others in the community. But it wasn't a status
thing. It was because they had a better chance of understanding what
the whiteman was saying with his forked tongue. Regrettably, once a
land claim had been negotiated, those societies became stratified because
people had to fill jobs at various levels and different rates of
pay. That's when status began to move in and longstanding
egalitarian principles began to come apart. Notions of fairness are as deeply in our
genes as notions of status. (Perhaps not quite as deeply but certainly
deeply enough to be very obvious and useful.)
I
mentioned the cooperative movement in an earlier posting. In that
movement, people cooperated because it was in the interests of their
communities and themselves to do so. There were no contest around
who was the best cooperator. Of course, people cooperate. It's one of the chief
characteristics of man. Have I ever written anywhere that they don't?
There are many historic examples of people who gave away everything
to deliberately unstatisfy themselves, people like Francis of Assisi and
Peter Waldo in the 12th and 13th Centuries, who gave away everything, but
for spiritual reasons, not because they were in any kind of race to the
bottom. I don't want
to discuss exceptional examples (sometimes of very idiosyncratic
motives). Economics is about ordinary people.
So
give us a break and allow us our complexity of
motives. The
ordinary person also has complexity of motvies and I have never written
otherwise.
And
besides, I feel that a Basic Income is entirely feasible economically and
would probably pay off. Well, you may do so if you wish. I have have read very few
economists who believe this. I have certainly not read any economists who
can show how it can be achieved in a practical way without a revolt from the
middle class.
Any money received by the poor would likely be spent
immediately, and not be put into long term investments. It's a
question of political will. As long as we have neo-con governments,
it's far less likely to happen than Bush's tax breaks for the
rich.
Ed I
imagine that the closest any country has come to a Basic Income has been the
Soviet Union. Even the poorest could live very cheaply indeed with very low
expenditures on food, transport and houswing. Even the poorest in Stalinist
times had savings (but nothing to spend them on). But the system collapsed
nevertheless because there were no goods available -- except status goods
for the nomenclatura (the chocolatura is what they called them when in
shopping mode, I believe).
Keith
- ----- Original Message -----
- From: Keith
Hudson
- To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
- Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
- Sent: Friday, December 05, 2003 1:35 AM
- Subject: RE: Slightly extended (was Re:
[Futurework] David Ricardo, Cavema n Trade vs. Modern Trade
- Arthur,
- At 16:16 04/12/2003 -0500, you
wrote:
As my colleague who was born
in India says, the first picture of a Canadian child dying with a
distended belly will be the spark that ignites governments to end this
current (farcical) set of activities.
There will be no starvation
in Canada. There will be panhandlers on street corners and
panhandlers using the food banks. Dignity is lost all around:
Those who receive and those who give (although they feel mighty
righteous at the moment.)
We can end poverty.
There can be a basic income. Somehow there is little incentive
to change.
Unfortunately (or not), a Basic
Income would be impossible. All over the western world, taking all the
developed countries into account (that is, they are all welfare states
now to a greater or lesser degree), we have already reached the limits
of taxation. No government could ever be elected on this basis. And no
government could stand for a single day if it proceeded to bring it
about. Not only is there "little incentive", there would be the most
almighty outburst of anger -- not from the rich only, but the
midcdle-class (who do most of the sophisticated work that keeps the
flimsy thing we call civilisation together) and the de-skilled,
badly-educated working class who, in the last few decades, have only
just started to receive an income that satisfies them (while they're in
work). (Even so, this has declined in real terms in the last 20 years in
the most developed country -- America.)
Indeed, with the declining birth rate in
developed countries, and the ageing population, we are already
proceeding towards a sort of BI and, as my piece + articles of yesterday
("The poverty of nation-states") clearly shows, nation-states cannot
afford it -- not for more than a decade or so longer, anyway, before
total collapse ensues (unless the most amazing reforms are made very
soon).
A BI sounds wonderful but it is a theoretical
solution that runs absolutely counter to human nature. Human society is
about relative status. Not only human society, but primate society. And
not only primate society but any social mammalian society. We really
need to understand this first before we can suggest quite new social
structures that will satisfy our basic instincts -- and, if possible,
basic incomes also. But not before then. Extending welfarism beyond what
we have now in most developed countries, desirable though it might sound
(and I don't object to it on moral grounds), is already running itself
into the ground.
Keith
We live in a
democracy. As Amartya Sen said, there is no history of
starvation in democracies.
As I said in my earlier
posting, the current system may be remarkably stable.
arthur
-----Original
Message-----
From: Ed Weick [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Thursday, December 04, 2003 1:12 PM
To: Cordell, Arthur: ECOM;
[EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: Slightly extended (was Re:
[Futurework] David Ricardo, Caveman Trade vs. Modern
Trade
So what if all the righteous
middle class people stopped sending their unused canned goods to the
food banks? Well the hungry people might just vote in a
government that promises radical change. Right now
everyone wins: political parties promise change and don't; middle
class feels good about sending food to the food bank; working poor can
supplement their foodstock by heading to the food bank. The
system may be quite stable. Maybe there really is no wish to
change.
arthur
I'm on the Board of a downtown foodbank
and have spent a little time there. The people who came to pick
up food fell into several groups. There were older men, fifty
plus, who had migrated to Ottawa because there was nothing for them in
the valley communities. Their education and skills were limited,
so there was nothing in Ottawa either. There were young mothers,
some with children, who gave you every impression that they didn't
want to be there; they hurried in and they hurried out. There
were a number of cocky young people, some perhaps students, some
living at the "Y", who acted as though they were indulging the
foodbank with their presence. None of these people acted as
though they wanted to change the system. All they wanted was the
food - except for the older guys who also seemed to want to hang
around and talk a little.
There's an aura of powerlessness about
it. The churches that operate the foodbank know that if they
didn't do it, nobody would. So they keep doing it and their
members keep bringing the cans of tuna and the packages of
pasta. The churches might want to take an advocacy position, but
that might infringe on their charitable status. The politicians
get themselves elected and their promises become mere promises, not
commitments. Most of the people who use the foodbank hate doing
it, but they need to eat. Watching it without having to depend
on it, I wish it would all go away. But it won't. It's
what the world is like and how it will stay. Perhaps Canadians,
as people who live in the developed world, should feel fortunate that
they can afford foodbanks. Ever so many parts of the world
can't, and people starve.
Ed
-----Original
Message-----
From: Ed Weick [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Thursday, December 4, 2003 9:08 AM
To: Thomas Lunde;
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: Slightly extended (was Re:
[Futurework] David Ricardo, Caveman Trade vs. Modern
Trade
Thomas, very good posting.
Ontario has just raised the minimum wage from peanuts to
peanuts. Many of the poor are working full time and even double
time, but are still unable to meet the rent or buy enough food, let
alone get their kids the kinds of in toys ("status goods") that are
going around. They can try eating freedom and justice, but they
don't taste very good when you can't make ends meet.
Ed
----- Original Message -----
From: Thomas
Lunde
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Thursday, December 04, 2003 3:36 AM
Subject: Re: Slightly extended (was Re:
[Futurework] David Ricardo, Caveman Trade vs. Modern Trade
They don't need money, Thomas. They
need justice and the freedom to enjoy it.
Harry
Thomas:
In a way, you are right. Being poor and
working with the poor as customers and neighbours let's me see the
many ways the poor are lacking justice. A recent article in the
paper made the outstanding statement that 37% of workers in Canada are
not covered by the Labour Code and laws. When wages for the poor
are kept artificially low, then the only way to compensate to maintain
a survival standard is to work more. Of course, there are about
4 to 5% who are mentally incapable, or physically disabled or in the
case of single mothers, family challenged. However, the work
more solution has only produced the working poor, who still have to
use food banks and subsidized housing, if thet can get it. Not
only that, as you suggest, they do not even have the freedom to enjoy
what little they have. I would agree, that justice and freedom
would go a long way to compensating for money - or as you might
suggest, make the earning and spending of money a by product of an
effective system of justice and the freedom and thereby create a
surplus to enjoy.
Respectfully,
Thomas
Lunde Keith Hudson, Bath, England, <www.evolutionary-economics.org> Keith
Hudson, Bath, England, <www.evolutionary-economics.org>
|