More on the growing Gap
Thomas Lunde: Caspr Davies, who posted the original article, and has written a thoughtful essay as a follow-up. I find his conclusions in line with my own and taking the liberty of supporting a kindred soul, I am posting them to the Lists that I posted his original article too. Respectfully, Thomas Lunde This article gives a good description of the growing gap between the rich and poor, and of the shrinking middle class. I was taught and firmly believe that the health of a society is indicated most clearly by the size and well being of the middle group. After the second world war, there were almost 30 years of unprecedented prosperity during which the wealth (at least in the "developed" nations) was distributed more equally than at almost any time since tribal times. Since 1972, that trend has reversed. GDP, which measures economic activity regardless of its environmental or social consequences, counting the money spent on cancer treatment, oil spill clean up, divorce courts and prisons in just the same way as it counts the money spent on education or food, has continued to increase, but almost every other measure of well-being has declined, and the social consequences are very palpable. The author asks, "What is the relationship between equity and economic growth?" This is the central question asked by Henry George 120 years ago in Progress and Poverty. His answer was that all livelihood ultimately depended upon access to land (in which he included all natural resources, and ALSO such things as government-created monopolies (i.e. things like salt in Gandhi's India, taxi cab licenses, radio and TV licenses, and all patents). Where those resources, which were provided by nature as commons for the good of all, are held in a few hands, the holders of them can and do claim all the value of both labour AND capital, leaving the labourer or ordinary businessperson no more than they need for elementary subsistence. George's answer was for society to charge those who benefited from the exclusive use of land or any other part of the commons the full economic rent therefore, and to distribute the rent equally to all so that all might benefit. Since George's time, the enclosure of the commons has gone on apace. The electromagnetic spectrum has been given free of charge to the holders of TV and radio licenses; patent laws have been dramatically strengthened, and lately even life forms and genetic material have been privatized for private profit. Government funding, paid by the taxes of all, has been diverted from the needy to profitable corporations,either to help them become "more competitive" or often as outright bribes to induce them to locate facilities within or not to take facilities away from a particular jurisdiction. As Time magazine recently showed, they often take the (public) money and run. Therefore government revenues must be included in the modern definition of "land", as must the ability of the earth, air and waterier to absorb and neutralize pollutants. I have sent for the full report to see what the author's prescription is. I believe that Henry George's solution is still the best that I have seen, but whether I am right or not, it is clear that the Neo-Liberal "trickle down" theory results only in the sucking up and retention of wealth by those at the top. Casper Davis
Macabre Humor lightens the load
Thomas No problem about reposting. That's what its here for. Wayne AMERICAN NEWSPEAK. Hoarded at http://www.scn.org/newspeak Celebrating cutting edge advances in the Doublethink of the 90's On Fri, 1 Jan 1999, Thomas Lunde wrote: Dear Wayne: What a delightful collage of reading for Jan 1, 1999. I would like to repost this to a couple of lists that I belong too, any objections? Keep up the good work, though most people seem to be unable to appreciate the subtle humor of the insanity around us. Respectfully, Thomas Lunde -Original Message- From: Wayne Grytting [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Undisclosed recipients:;@animal.blarg.net Undisclosed recipients:;@animal.blarg.net Date: January 1, 1999 1:00 AM Subject: Top NEWSPEAK Stories of the Month #105 AMERICAN NEWSPEAK. Hoarded at http://www.scn.org/newspeak Celebrating cutting edge advances in the Doublethink of the 90's Written by Wayne Grytting #105 Winner-Winner Solutions Time Magazine surprised many by running an excellent series on "What Corporate Welfare Costs You" by Pulitzer prize-winning reporters Donald Barlett and James Steele. After depicting how typical households work two weeks a year to support $125 billion in subsidies and tax relief for "needy" corporations, editor-in-chief Norman Pearlstine stepped in to assure readers that Time was not "anti-business." In fact, businesses would be derelict in their duties, he argued, "if they did not seek to avoid taxes and gain special subsidies" (try that argument substituting welfare mothers for corporations) "Ending corporate welfare as we know it is essential," intoned Mr. Pearlstine, but "Rather than give corporations uneven and unfair exemptions, it may make more sense to simply do away with both corporate welfare and corporate taxation." This would create a "level playing field." Perfect. We solve the problem of partial corporate welfare by having... total corporate welfare. Hello, is anybody home? (Time, 11/9/98) Old Wine in New Winebags The Environmental Protection Agency has modified a new brochure on pesticides due to be distributed nationwide in grocery stores this January. Thanks to help from food and pesticide industry lobbyists, they have made some notable improvements in their prose style. For example, the old version presented "Tips to Reduce Pesticides on Foods" which the new version amends to "Healthy Sensible Food Practices." The old version suggested consumers consider buying food labeled "certified organic" while the improved version suggests the grocer "may be able to provide you with information about the availability of food grown using fewer or no pesticides." And where the old version lists actual health problems caused by pesticides, like birth defects, cancer and nerve damage, the RSV simplifies it all as "health problems at certain levels of exposure." Much clearer thanks to yet another example of successful cooperation. (NYT 12/29/98) "Free at last, free at last..." Status conscious movie go-ers are now being offered new choices in theater complexes run by Cineplex Odeon, United Artists and General Cinema in the cities of Chicago, Baltimore and Milwaukee. For an additional $8 or so they don't have to mix with the unwashed masses. They can now go directly to private viewing rooms, receive valet parking, be personally escorted by a concierge, order drinks from a waiter and use a private bathroom. The Wall Street Journal describes this trend as "a way to express the affluence." But unlike luxury boxes at sports stadiums where seats can approach the thousand dollar range, the movie theaters have, says the Journal, "discovered affordable snobbery." It allows people of simple means to express their social superiority, if only for a few hours. The Journal, of course, was able to find a telling phrase to describe this trend, referring to it as "the democratization of status." Finally, we get "democracy" liberated from the baggage of "all men are created equal." (WSJ 12/11/98) Upstairs, Downstairs in Public Education Elite public schools across the nation are saying good-bye to auctions and cookie sales as a means to raise funds. Public schools like Brookline High School in Boston are simply raising $10 million permanent endowments from wealthy parents and alumni. This turn to large endowments comes, says the Wall Street Journal, "in reaction to broad trends in school finance that have hit affluent districts like Brookline especially hard over the last decade." But the means chosen by these "hard hit" schools to grow money has raised issues of fairness. Why should some public schools have piles of resources while others starve? "The equity issue, it's always going to come up," says Robert Markey, director of the Boston Latin School (a public school with a $13 million endowment). "That's why," he tells the Journal, "we don't talk about it." And certainly, not in
Re: C4LDEMOC-L: Public Trust Treaty Petition
Thomas: To often when a lengthy and semi official posting like this comes up, I skim for awhile and then move on to more personal and debatable messages. Today, I took the time to carefully read this document and recognize that it is probably the most revolutionary statement I have ever read! I can think of no more important function for the worlds media than to devote considerable space to printing, publishing, showing, and providing access for dialog on this document. I think all of the schools of the World should declare a two day remission from the regular curriculum and that the students should read and discuss this Treaty. Each according to their ability, from kindergarten to University Doctoral students. I think the corporate world should enter into this discussion to defend their point of view and to answer to some of the charges implicit within this document. I think each Government should be required to make a public declaration of support - on what they are willing to support and that each political party should do the same. I believe every ethnic and indigenous group should be invited to give a opinion on this document and a declaration of what they will support. I think it is time for as many of the citizens of the Planet that can be reached - should be engaged in a point by point review of the information within this document. The week before the beginning of the new millennium would be the perfect time for a concentrated educational effort that would be world wide - to discuss the options for the 21st Century. It looks boring, but read it. It's great stuff and it should be discussed, reworked, supported and implemented for the good of the human race and each individual within it. That's my opinion and I'm sticking to it. Respectfully, Thomas Lunde -Original Message- From: CREDO [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: Bob Levitt [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: January 1, 1999 7:34 PM Subject: C4LDEMOC-L: Public Trust Treaty Petition Mailing-List: contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]; run by ezmlm Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Delivered-To: mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] Delivered-To: moderator for [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Fri, 1 Jan 1999 18:11:24 -0400 X-Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Jan Slakov) Subject: Citizens' Public Trust Treaty X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by mailhub1.interlog.com id SAA09554 Date: Fri, 1 Jan 1999 18:16:50 + From: Paul Swann [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Citizens' Public Trust Treaty CITIZENS' PUBLIC TRUST TREATY A TREATY OF ETHICS, EQUITY AND ECOLOGY A PROPOSED United Nations General Assembly Resolution, to be circulated to governments by their citizens. _ THE CALL: We call upon the nations of the world to ensure the rights of present and future generations to genuine peace, social justice and ecological integrity by implementing the principles of this Citizens' Public Trust Treaty. We urge you to support the Treaty by adding your name to the petition, by passing it on, and by sending copies to heads of states and legislators. January 1st, 1999 _ WE, THE CITIZENS OF THE WORLD, DETERMINED * to create a world based on true participatory democracy within a framework of public trust principles; * to accept the inherent limits to the Earth's resources and to promote the peaceful coexistence of all nations, races, and species; * to develop a stable and peaceful international society founded on the rule of law; * to prevent the damaging consequences of unprincipled economic growth; * to ensure that the economy conforms to the limitations of the ecosystem; RECOGNIZING the interdependence of Peace Building, Human Rights, Environmental Protection, and Advocacy for Social Justice; NOTING that through more than 50 years of concerted effort, the member states of the United Nations have created international Public Trust obligations, commitments and expectations: 1. to Promote and fully guarantee respect for human rights including labour rights, the right to adequate food, shelter and health care, and social justice; 2. to Enable socially equitable and environmentally sound development; 3. to Achieve a state of peace, justice and security; 4. to Create a global structure that respects the rule of law; and 5. to Ensure the preservation and protection of the environment, respect the inherent worth of nature beyond human purpose, reduce the ecological footprint and move away from the current model of over-consumptive development; AFFIRMING that the freedom from fear and want can be achieved only if conditions are created whereby everyone is able to enjoy economic, social and cultural rights, as well as civil and political rights (Universal Declaration of Human Rights); AWARE that the rule of law and the
conserving culture Re: More on the growing Gap
Pille Bunnell wrote in her ESSAY "conserving a culture": "we can imagine the consequences at the global, but we can never see the global" Dear Pille, sorry I forgot: You wrote "we can imagine the consequences at the global, but we can never see the global". This is what it is really about and what we should concern ourselves with: Never say never. Humanity has been electrified with pictures form orbit, and a mayor goodwilling "mania" started with "seeing GAIA, the globe as a whole". But it was and is not enough to see the fragility, even when so visisible, aesthetic, and powerful. It was used to justify losts of spendings, but it is not enough to get and maintain a humility "the more we gaze". I know as I was close to ISY - International Space Year...1992 ... These pictures get old, we get used to them, they are not immersive, and the feeling is de-tached, the observer attitude is maintained... as I mentioned in the message "image versus show" (Ivan ILLICH) To make a difference, I do it actually and know, that we can create pictures and models which allow us to immmerse embody in order to discuss, share and feel scales, proportions and consequences. That has been my work staring eben before the KLUWERS ACADEMIC PUBLISHERS preparations and follow up of the SERIES : CREDIBILITY OF ECOLOGY (started in 1986) So in order to get the difference: We have to make real the proportions, scales and consequences, and I have cc:ed for excample to Robert LAMSON, Panetics, Y. Dror CAPACITY OT GOVERN, and John McConnell EARTHDAY - as I feel they might get what I mean when I want to make things and subjects more plastic and solid. Heiner SHARING FUTURES - times, spaces, voices, views, values,.. in SHARED PERSPECTIVE http://newciv.org/cob/members/benking/ http://www.ceptualinstitute.com/genre/benking/homepageHB1.htm [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Heiner BENKING, Box 2060,D - 89010 Ulm SEE: * ON GLOBAL THINKING AND FEELING: http://www.ceptualinstitute.com/genre/benking/ifsr/IFSRnov98pp.htm http://www.ceptualinstitute.com/uiu_plus/isss98/house-of-eyes.htm * ON HUMANITY WAR - http://www.bfranklin.edu/hubs/global/benking.htm * ON ME/FUTURES - http://www.ceptualinstitute.com/genre/benking/borderland.htm ** Wisdom, imagination and virtue is lost when messages double, information halves, knowledge quarters,... **
Re: Visions of Heaven or Hell
-Original Message- From: Bob Olsen [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: January 01, 1999 11:55 PM Subject: Visions of Heaven or Hell From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (John Gile) To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Comments Date: Fri, 01 Jan 1999 17:26:30 -0800 X-Mailer: Forte Agent 1.5/32.451 X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by tao.ca id UAA21930 I was interested by your repost of the article "Money Human Rights Out of Date", thought it outrageous, but very provocative. As I studied it some more, I saw his reference "Personal advisor to Ernst Stavro Blofeld" which turns out to be a James Bond character - which caused me to consider it a spoof. But as I prowled around, I found that Ian Angell is a real person, who is on the speech circuit pushing the envelope on other things also - "Economic Crime: Beyond Good and Evil" a 1996 paper he published in the Journal of Financial Regulation and Compliance. http://www.sgrm.com/art25.htm He is also included in a Strategis paper on Alternative Views on future employment on a commentary on Jeremy Rifkin. http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/SSG/it03932e.html My reaction to the Money and Human Rights article is that the serfs like us will just have to opt out - if we don't buy, they can't sell. [snip] As I said before, I think any satire here is directed at (1) techno-peasants who imagine they can resist, (2) politicians, the knaves and the naive, who promise that things will get better (more employment) as a result of following the big business agenda, and (3) above all, the pathetic would-be Blofelds who want wealth but lack the courage to step into the Nietzschean moral vacuum that lies beyond good and evil. I remain unconvinced that Angell's brave new world can last very long, though it can certainly develop far enough to inflict untold suffering on billions of people and possibly to damage the biosphere beyond redemption. To me the Achilles heel of the brave new world is that the winners base their success on information technology. Surely information has commercial value only insofar as it is used ultimately to produce marketable goods and services in the real world--a particular piece of information may be at several removes from a factory producing commodities (or a sports team selling entertainment) but it must be anchored to a world of consumers to have commercial value. But what consumers are going to be left? They may opt out--boycott--as suggested above. However, Angell's world seems to leave precious few consumers. Global business is to downsize, outsource, roboticize, and where it retains a few workers, tell them to be damn grateful for the pittance they get. The unemployed who survive will do so by participating in a black market economy. Isn't Angell forgetting what Henry Ford understood? If you want to sell millions of your product, you have to pay your own workers well enough that they can buy it--and you have to have large masses of workers. I am not saying that mass consumption is good or even sustainable, but surely capitalism will not work without mass consumption--and I mean mass consumption that goes beyond supplying barely adequate food, shelter and clothing for the masses. I realize that the wealthy can make a lot of paper money just by speculating on currency differentials or other arcane instruments, but surely there has to be a real world economy behind those things too. Any comments from the economists on this list? Victor Milne FIGHT THE BASTARDS! An anti-neoconservative website at http://www3.sympatico.ca/pat-vic/pat-vic/ LONESOME ACRES RIDING STABLE at http://www3.sympatico.ca/pat-vic/
RE: Double postings from yours truly?
Yes. Just in the last few days. We'll check it out. thanx -- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Double postings from yours truly? Date: Thursday, December 31, 1998 3:43PM I'm getting double postings back of stuff I put up onto this list - are they coming up to anyone else as double postings? Let me know, please. Malcolm
URL for better format of article
Sorry about cut/paste format result. I believe the article is freely available till tomorrows edition comes on. (maybe 6pm EST?) http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/financial/currency-stability.html
Re: Visions of Heaven or Hell
Victor Milne: But what consumers are going to be left? They may opt out--boycott--as suggested above. However, Angell's world seems to leave precious few consumers. Global business is to downsize, outsource, roboticize, and where it retains a few workers, tell them to be damn grateful for the pittance they get. The unemployed who survive will do so by participating in a black market economy. In 1995, more than 80% of global GNP accrued to the people who live in high income economies. These people comprised only 16% of the world's population. Their GNP per capita worked out to aprx. US$25,000. In comparison, the per capita GNP of people living in low and middle income economies worked out to aprx. US$1,100. What such numbers suggest is that the production of consumers goods and services is aimed mostly at the rich world and at the rich stratum of the population of poor countries. Inequality between rich and poor is growing. One can picture a world in which, in the course of time, about 90% of global GNP will accrue to people who live in high income economies. Add to this the probability that income differences between rich and poor in those economies, and indeed in poorer ones, will have grown considerably. One can also picture a situation in which, because of downsizing, the world's relatively wealthy population has declined as a proportion of total global population, but in which the total income accruing to that population has proportionately increased. Prof. Angell's "Alphas", ensconced in fully efficient, re-engineered corporations, would then be providing goods and services for a proportionately smaller but richer population. The rest of the population wouldn't matter very much because then, as now, it would mostly be too poor to comprise a worthwhile market. It could be left to the peddlers, hawkers and small shopkeepers. It is unlikely that the rich would be willing to join consumer boycotts. They would have plenty of money and no reason for not buying quality goods and services. Even if he is pulling our collective leg, we have to take Prof. Angell's message seriously. What he is saying is happening all around us. Here is an example: A few days ago, we got together with some friends who had been laid-off by Bell Canada a couple of years ago. While that seemed catastrophic when it happened, they have landed on their feet. What are they doing now? Why, they are working in Brussels as technical consultants to Belgium's telephone company. When they have finished their work about a year from now, that telephone company will be in a position to lay off half its personnel. Ed Weick
L'horreur Economique
Book review from the Guardian Weekly = Viviane Forrester can't walk down a Paris street without being stopped. But she is no ordinary celebrity - her latest book is set to be the biggest economics bestseller since Das Kapital, writes Ian Cotton Labour of love Today, for once, Viviane Forrester isn't getting too much hassle. Maybe it's the turbanesque headdress she is wearing. It is an effective disguise for one of Paris's more unlikely celebrities. Forrester is the author of L'horreur Economique, which has sold more than a million copies throughout the world and is shaping up as the biggest economics bestseller since Das Kapital. Typically Forrester's progress down any Parisian boulevard at any time since 1996, when the book was published, has been interrupted by people who recognise her from the jacket photograph or television - and want to tell her how much L'horreur has meant to them. "A quite extraordinary mix, these people who come up and talk," says Forrester, 72, settling herself as unobtrusively as possible at a pavement cafeacute; on Boulevard St Germain. "Waiters, bankers, housewives, taxi drivers, students, young unemployed . . . stranger still, their opening line is so often the same. 'Subconsciously,' they say, 'I've had exactly the same thoughts you wrote in your book myself, for years. But it wasn't until I read L'horreur that I even realised I'd been thinking them - let alone started taking such ideas seriously'." What is it that resonates so deeply with so many people? It is that Forrester's thesis that employment as we have known it for three centuries throughout the West, has had its day and is becoming less plausible by the year as a way of distributing wealth. However, that is just one strand of her argument; what you might call the futurism. Just as crucial is her attack on what is happening in the present and has been escalating, she thinks, for 30 years: the steepening backlash as Western culture makes ever more desperate attempts to keep the jobs-and-wages system alive. She cites the constant downsizing of ever larger tranches of the working and, now, middle classes; the steady attrition, internationally, of welfare and union rights; the growing destabilisation of those in work, let alone of the unemployed. All this has created an employment and unemployment (and underemployment) culture that is not merely stressful, regrettable and unpleasant but has further, argues Forrester - and it is her tone of outrage which is arguably the book's chief selling point - spawned an economic world that is an obscenity, an affront to human nature; indeed, in the words of the title, a "horror". It is not a thesis likely to appeal to Messrs Clinton and Blair. After all, it doesn't square with the fact that the United States economy is enjoying the longest, strongest economic boom in post-war history. Or that unemployment in Britain is at its lowest for 19 years. Yet there is a curious thing about Forrester's reading of the situation: a vast number of ordinary people believe it, as evidenced by the sales: more than 400,000 in France; 200,000 in Germany; 50,000 in Italy; it is a bestseller in Canada and Japan; it is hugely popular in South America, selling 50,000 in Argentina alone. In France, where unemployment has risen 140-fold since the late 50s and now stands at more than 12%, it is the unemployed young, in particular, who regard Forrester as a heroine. Throughout the country, unemployed people in their 20s have been photocopying pages from L'horreur - notably those decrying the culture of shame attached to unemployment and sticking them up on job centre walls. "It has certainly struck a nerve," says Forrester. "When I was promoting the book in South America I'd go to these town meetings of factory workers, clerks, ordinary people. The cheering would start before I entered the hall." Arguably, the reaction to the book is as significant as its theme. "My book brought me in touch with the powerful as well as the poor, and there is this strong feeling among political elites that you must not tell the people the truth about today's economic realities; that they just can't take it," she says. "In fact, I found the opposite: people aren't, in fact, afraid but they are indignant. They're not stupid, they can see what's going on, and the thing that really angers them is denial. Indeed, it's surprising how many people have told me that reading my book has actually reduced their anxieties. "One long-term unemployed man told me that he started reading my book on the train and he was, as usual, feeling suicidal, and his only reason for not killing himself was to live for his three-year-old son. By the time he got off the train, he said, what he read had turned his mood and he'd decided to live - for himself." It is a story that might sound boastful were it not for the diffident, restrained tones in which Forrester speaks. But then she is as surprised
