The Inaugural Speech Obama Should Deliver...But Won't - by David Korten
Sage Linden
The Inaugural Speech President Obama Should Deliver… But Won't
Excerpt from Agenda for a New Economy by David Korten
David Korten's new book Agenda for a New Economy: From Phantom Wealth
to Real Wealth outlines an agenda to bring into being a new
economy—locally based, community oriented, and devoted to creating a
better life for all, not simply increasing profits.
In this special pre-publication excerpt, Korten summarizes his version
of the economic address to the nation he wishes Barack Obama were able
to deliver.
Barack Obama was elected to the U.S. presidency on a promise of
change. Before his inauguration, indeed before his election, I drafted
the following as my dream for the economic address he might deliver to
the nation during his administration in fulfillment of the economic
aspect of that promise. It is the New Economy agenda presented in the
style of candidate Obama's political rhetoric.
I suffer no illusion that he will deliver it. He has surrounded
himself with advisers aligned with Wall Street interests in an effort
to establish public confidence in his ability to restore order in the
economy.
Because there has been no discussion of any other option, to most
people "restoring order" means restoring the status quo with the
addition of a job-stimulus package, and that is most likely what he
will try to do.
This speech presents the missing option—the program that a U.S.
president must one day be able to announce and implement if there is
to be any hope for our economic, social, and environmental future.
Here is the address.
________________________________
Fellow Citizens:
My administration came to office with a mandate for bold action at a
time when our most powerful economic institutions had clearly failed
us. They crippled our economy; burdened governments with debilitating
debts; corrupted our political institutions; and threatened the
destruction of the natural environment on which our very lives depend.
The failure can be traced directly to an elitist economic ideology
that says if government favors the financial interests of the rich to
the disregard of all else, everyone will benefit and the nation will
prosper. A thirty-year experiment with trickle-down economics that
favored the interests of Wall Street speculators over the hardworking
people and businesses of Main Street has proved it doesn't work.
We have no more time or resources to devote to fixing a system based
on false values and a discredited ideology. We must now come together
to create the institutions of a new economy based on a values-based
pragmatism that recognizes a simple truth: If the world is to work for
any of us, it must work for all of us.
Corrective action begins with recognition that our economic crisis is,
at its core, a moral crisis. Our economic institutions and rules, even
the indicators by which we measure economic performance, consistently
place financial values ahead of life values.
We have been measuring economic performance against GDP, or gross
domestic product, which essentially measures the rate at which money
and resources are flowing through the economy. Let us henceforth
measure economic performance by the indicators of what we really want:
the health and well-being of our children, families, communities, and
the natural environment.
Like a healthy ecosystem, a healthy twenty-first-century economy must
have strong local roots and maximize the beneficial capture, storage,
sharing, and use of local energy, water, and mineral resources. That
is what we must seek to achieve, community by community, all across
this nation, by unleashing the creative energies of our people and our
local governments, businesses, and civic organizations.
Previous administrations favored Wall Street, but the policies of this
administration henceforth will favor the people and businesses of Main
Street—people who are working to rebuild our local communities,
restore the middle class, and bring our natural environment back to
health.
We will strive for local and national food independence by rebuilding
our local food systems based on family farms and environmentally
friendly farming methods that rebuild the soil, maximize yields per
acre, minimize the use of toxic chemicals, and create opportunities
for the many young people who are returning to the land.
We will strive for energy independence by supporting local
entrepreneurs who are creating local businesses to retrofit our
buildings and develop and apply renewable-energy technologies.
It is a basic principle of market theory that trade relations between
nations should be balanced. So-called free trade agreements have
hollowed out our national industrial capacity, mortgaged our future to
foreign creditors, and created global financial instability. We will
take steps to assure that our future trade relations are balanced and
fair as we engage in the difficult but essential work of learning to
live within our own means.
We will rebuild our national infrastructure around a model of
walkable, bicycle-friendly communities with efficient public
transportation to conserve energy, nurture the relationships of
community, and recover our farm and forest lands.
A strong middle-class society is an American ideal. Our past
embodiment of that ideal made us the envy of the world. We will act to
restore that ideal by rebalancing the distribution of wealth.
Necessary and appropriate steps will be taken to assure access by
every person to quality health care, education, and other essential
services, and to restore progressive taxation, as well as progressive
wage and benefit rules, to protect working people.
We will seek to create a true ownership society in which all people
have the opportunity to own their homes and to have an ownership stake
in the enterprise on which their livelihood depends. Our economic
policies will favor responsible local ownership of local enterprises
by people who have a stake in the health of their local communities
and economies. The possibilities include locally owned family
businesses, cooperatives, and the many other forms of community- or
worker-owned enterprises.
We will act to render Wall Street's casino-like operations
unprofitable. We will impose a transactions tax, require responsible
capital ratios, and impose a surcharge on short-term capital gains. We
will make it illegal for people and corporations to sell or insure
assets that they do not own or in which they do not have a direct
material interest.
To meet the financial needs of the new twenty-first-century Main
Street economy, we will reverse the process of mergers and
acquisitions that created the current concentration of banking power.
We will restore the previous system of federally regulated community
banks that are locally owned and managed and that fulfill the classic
textbook banking function of serving as financial intermediaries
between local people looking to secure a modest interest return on
their savings and local people who need a loan to buy a home or
finance a business.
And last, but not least, we will implement an orderly process of
monetary reform. Most people believe that our government creates
money. That is a fiction. Private banks create virtually all the money
in circulation when they issue a loan at interest. The money is
created by making a simple accounting entry with a few computer
keystrokes. That is all money really is, an accounting entry.
My administration will act immediately to begin an orderly transition
from our present system of bank-issued debt money to a system by which
money is issued by the federal government. We will use the
government-issued money to fund economic-stimulus projects that build
the physical and social infrastructure of a twenty-first-century
economy, being careful to remain consistent with our commitment to
contain inflation.
To this end I have instructed the treasury secretary to take immediate
action to assume control of the Federal Reserve and begin a process of
monetizing the federal debt. He will have a mandate to stabilize the
money supply, contain housing and stock market bubbles, discourage
speculation, and assure the availability of credit on fair and
affordable terms to eligible Main Street borrowers.
By recommitting ourselves to the founding ideals of this great nation,
focusing on our possibilities, and liberating ourselves from failed
ideas and institutions, together we can create a stronger, better
nation. We can secure a fulfilling life for every person and honor the
premise of the Declaration of Independence that every individual is
endowed with an unalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness.
No government on its own can resolve the problems facing our nation,
but together we can and will resolve them. I call on every American to
join with me in rebuilding our nation by acting to strengthen our
families, our communities, and our natural environment; to secure the
future of our children; and to restore our leadership position and
reputation in the community of nations.
________________________________
This is an abridged excerpt from David Korten's new book, An Agenda
for a New Economy: From Phantom Wealth to Real Wealth, to be published
by Berrett-Koehler, Feb 2009. This extract forms part of the YES!
series, Path to a New Economy. An earlier version of this chapter
first appeared as part of David's article in Tikkun, Nov/Dec 2008.
David Korten is the author of the international bestseller When
Corporations Rule the World and The Great Turning: From Empire to
Earth Community. He is co-founder and board chair of YES! Magazine,
and a board member of the Business Alliance for Local Living
Economies.
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VIDEO: David talks about the defining moments in his life and the
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--
Happiness is when what you think, what you say and what you do are in
harmony. - Gandhi