institutional capitalism is done, put a fork in it

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Political Waves

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Aug 3, 2013, 2:36:31 PM8/3/13
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No "pure" -ism ever worked indefinitely: communism, socialism, and certainly not capitalism which is based on the impossibile dream of continual growth of both resource and markets. Only those nations that have created a blend of -ism's succeed for long. As the system fails, with or without dramatic pause, we need a new vision for economic sustainability.
 
As Buckminster Fuller says, "To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete." There is a simple truth: that every system does what it is designed to do. If a different outcome is desired, then the system must be changed. This is true with the current economic system, which is rooted in capitalism and which has been expanded globally through neoliberal economic policies.
 
So, from the 'extraction economy' to the 'restoration economy' -- here are weekend reads to lift you, intrigue you, inform you, encourage you.
 
The first piece grabs the imagination and activates the heart, pure pleasure to read. Read it twice.
 
The next gives us some homework for activism in favor of (my two favorite) ethical economic candidates for the Fed. Then a link to look at money differently, and after that, you'll find links to excellent articles, YouTube's and resources for changing our experience of the world.
 
It's time. Happy reading.
 
Jude
 
 
Bhutan's model of Gross National Happiness
a glorious goal for modern society
Sister Joan Chittister, From Where I Stand - NCR
7/25/13
 
The first road sign I saw in Bhutan read: Start early/Drive slowly/Arrive safely. I knew instantly this place and this trip was going to be different.
 
Bhutan is a country so small -- fewer than 1 million people live there -- that, tucked between China to the north and India to the south, it is very easy to miss. But this little country is having more and more impact on the rest of the world every day.
 
There's something about being confronted by the obvious in the midst of the unquestionable, however, that makes a person rethink all of life in the process. I know that's true because it just happened to me. In Bhutan I saw what obviously could be start to eclipse what is now unquestionable in society as we know it.
 
What has become obvious and unquestionable in a world of superpowers and global systems is that small nations have little weight to add to the scales of more modern and powerful nations. And yet what is astounding is the fact that one of the smallest countries on the planet -- the tiny monarchical democracy of Bhutan -- may very well be developing a great deal of international influence.
 
In June, the Global Peace Initiative of Women convened a body of religious leaders and professional scholars to study a recent declaration of the king and government of Bhutan. In Bhutan, the Parliament has declared, the GNP -- the Gross National Product by which the wealth of a nation is measured -- has been abandoned. In its place, the government has defined the achievement of Gross National Happiness as their new standard of success. They have, in other words, chosen a spiritual rather an economic metric of achievement.
 
Our task was to consider the practicality of such an ideal as well as its message to the rest of society.
 
As one social absolute after another -- money, power, social status and productivity -- came under scrutiny, I asked myself what I was seeing. To be truthful, it was a bit of the old story of Shangri-La, from James Hilton's 1933 novel about a hidden kingdom of peace and happiness, mixed with a touch of the 1959 film "The Mouse that Roared," the story of a small kingdom that, by accident, manages to upset the entire geopolitical order.
 
Bhutan's capital city, Thimphu, has a population of barely 100,000. The country is nestled in forests and rice paddies at the bottom of the Himalayas. Scattered villages run up and down the mountainsides of 14 districts and the last village in the country, their newspaper reported the week we came, will finally be electrified by the end of the month.
 
And yet in so many ways, Bhutan, a country once isolated from the outside world by the Himalayan Mountains that encircle it and insulated from the more progressive or "developed" world around it, is far beyond anything that world has to offer.
 
The concept of Gross National Happiness in a people formed in Buddhist values rests on four major principles:
 
sustainable and equitable socioeconomic development;
 
conservation of a fragile ecology;
 
the promotion of culture and the purpose of a human civilization; and
 
good governance that looks beyond greed to human development. A Romantic model, I know, but impossible. Except that here, it isn't.
 
The little kingdoms that are now Bhutan, though loosely associated in the 17th century, were not united into a single country under a hereditary monarchy until 1906. A little more than a century later, they are still emphasizing national unity. So they wear traditional dress for work and all formal occasions, the gho, or short tunic, for men and the kira, or box jacket, for women. They build their houses on a single model and use only traditional triple-arched windows and icons on them as decoration to define their common culture, as well. They take days to celebrate communal festivals and national historic events.
 
This newest declaration, then, of the search for Gross National Happiness under what is only its fifth hereditary king is like watching a country be born under your very eyes. They are deciding together in the midst of a world built on money, military might and unlimited consumption to simply reject all of those things. In Bhutan, the national emphasis is on sustainable development, the preservation of cultural values, the conservation of the natural environment and the establishment of good governance -- governance that puts human well-being and happiness before business, productivity or rugged individualism. And it's not mere sloganeering.
 
In Bhutan, national success is about development that does not destroy, ecological protection that does not drain resources, government that seeks human development before money and a proper balance between the production of goods and the happiness of the people.
 
For instance, in Bhutan, fishing and hunting -- except under the rarest of situations -- is forbidden because care for nature, including the animals, is paramount.
 
At this time, 72 percent of the country is forested, and the constitution requires that that figure never be less than 60 percent. Buying this land to sell off its wood on the open market is, then, illegal.
 
Bhutan makes its money on tourism and by selling hydropower to India, not on mass production or cash crops.
 
The main industry of 60 percent of the population is still farming. One young farmer told us he wants to be a farmer because he "wants to feed his people." How many people, I thought, ever think of farming anymore as more than just one more global corporation like any other? Now that agribusiness has managed to gobble up truck farms and sell genetically modified seeds that cannot reproduce themselves, the whole notion of a country's being able to "feed itself" is, at best, quaint, if not obsolete.
 
Another young leader we met makes shoes to sustain himself and, on the side, operates a "shoe laundry" to clean and give shoes away to those who need them.
 
A third, born with three kidneys when many people, he says, barely have one good one, decided what he needed to do for his fellow citizens was to begin a kidney foundation.
 
A woman whose child became severely handicapped got a degree in London then returned to Bhutan to open a center to train other parents in a similar situation.
 
The theme is constant: Life is for human service, not financial profit. The citizen does what the country needs, not what globalism demands.
 
Do they have problems with all of this? Yes, they do, and they know it. They have refugee problems that arise out of citizenship responsibilities. They have technology problems that create age gaps in the family. They have issues of balance in a society that is balancing one world against another. So they are fashioning an educational system to integrate the principles of GNH into everything they teach. In order to ensure these ideals will shape their future as well as their present, they must all be faced, all be resolved.
 
They know they cannot keep the world out of Bhutan anymore, and they don't want to. They lifted the restrictions on the Internet in 1999, for instance, because they see its value to their development. But they are concerned about its use and its influence. And they do want balance. They do not want an economy based on money, greed and ruthless individualism to take over a culture based on family, nature and human compassion. Or as Bhutan's Education Minister, Thakur S. Powdyel, puts it, "A Bhutan of Gross National Happiness will be a moral giant 'where everyone cares enough and everyone shares enough so that everyone has enough.' "
 
They make a person think.
 
Imagine what our own country would look like if we refused to do anything that would compromise our national resources, the care of the people, the preservation of the environment rather than its exploitation and the protection of our animal species, as well as the purity of the human environment. Just the way we once did.
 
The temptation, of course, is to call such a thing impossible in a modern world. But it's only impossible if we choose short-term profits over human community.
 
Perhaps before we get any spiritually weaker than we are right now, we ought to find some politicians who are not in the pockets of Washington lobbyists and willing to listen to what these young people in this young nation are calling the whole world to consider.
 
From where I stand, the problem does not lie in making something like this the basis of human and national happiness. Obviously, there are those who want it.
 
No, the problem lies in the fact that the United States as it functions now -- in gridlock, under destructive partisanship, as an oligarchy, and, like Pilate, pronouncing things like freedom, natural resources, education and mutual support good then washing our hands of any responsibility for them -- has chosen to be Sparta rather than Athens.
 
We don't even pretend to aspire to values like these anymore. It's more money for the rich that we're about and more power for the powerful that we seek rather than more opportunities for the middle class, more support for the poor and more compassion for the weak.
 
Maybe we could use a few conversations on Gross National Happiness ourselves before the next election, before Gross National Greed strikes the final blow and destroys us all. ++
 
 
Fed Head
John Nichols, The Nation
July 30, 2013
 
The big election race of 2013 is for the position of Federal Reserve chairman.
 
The United States is not an economy democracy, however. So there will be no popular vote on who will make the most critical decisions on jobs, investments, interest rates and a host of other defining issues for working families, communities, states and the nation.
 
But there is a campaign going on. In order to influence the selection of a new chair by President Obama and the Senate confirmation process: contenders are positioning. Camps and caucuses are organizing. Endorsements are being made. Issues are being placed on the table.
 
So let’s invite the American people into the process.
 
Let’s tell them how powerful the Fed is, and what it could do to address poverty, unemployment and the economic challenges faced by cities like Detroit.
 
One member of Congress, Michigan Democrat Dan Kildee, is already inviting us to imagine the possibilities.
 
In response to the threat of bankruptcy that looms for Detroit and other cities, Kildee has argued that the Fed should be actively engaged in developing solutions for cities that are in economic turmoil after decades of deindustrialization and federal and state neglect. “While Detroit’s problems may be extreme, they are certainly not unique,” says Kildee.
 
“Municipalities in Michigan and across the country are increasingly facing insolvency that requires us to rethink the way we support our cities.”
 
When Fed Chair Ben Bernanke appeared before the House Financial Service Committee in mid-July, the congressman said, “I would ask if you would think about how you would advise Congress or how the Fed itself might pursue policy that would have the effect of potentially avoiding—but certainly mitigating—the economic effect of municipal financial failure.”
 
Kildee’s point is well taken, not merely with regard to the debate over Detroit—but with regard to the debate over who will head the Fed.
 
One potential contender for the job, Lawrence Summers, has a record of delivering for Wall Street and the big banks—as an advocate for deregulation, privatization and the elimination of essential regulatory protections such as the Glass-Steagall Act. As economist Dean Baker noted after the economy melted down in 2007 and 2008, “The policies [Summers] promoted as Treasury Secretary and in his subsequent writings led to the economic disaster that we now face.” But Summers is also an over-the-top advocate for the sort of free trade agreements that have left communities across this country with shuttered factories and high unemployment. He’s so disinclined toward the public investments that might renew those communities that Congressman Peter DeFazio, D-Oregon, has said, “Larry Summers hates infrastructure.”
 
So count Summers out.
 
There are better choices, such as Janet Louise Yellen, who in her writings and in her tenure as the vice chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System has evidenced a higher commitment to the Fed’s mandate to promote high employment. She’s clearly a candidate—so much so that on Tuesday she got her first newspaper endorsement: from The New York Times.
 
But Senator Bernie Sanders has suggested a pair of dark-horse contenders who—in a real race for the Fed chairmanship—would offer working Americans a genuine choice.
 
Declaring that “it’s time for new leadership at the Federal Reserve and a new approach to our troubled economy,” Sanders has identified Nobel Prize–winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and former US Labor Secretary Robert Reich as “excellent candidates” to replace Chairman Ben Bernanke when the chairman finishes his term January 31.
 
“We need a new Fed chair who will act with the same sense of urgency to combat the unemployment crisis in America today that has left 22 million Americans without a full time job,” argues Sanders. To that end, Sanders rejects Summers as a contender, writing to President Obama that “it would be a tragic mistake to nominate anyone as chair of the Fed who continued those failed policies. Instead, we need a new chair who will have the courage to hold Wall Street accountable for their fraud, recklessness and illegal behavior, and stand up for the needs of ordinary Americans.”
 
But Sanders also recognizes that in the race for the Fed chairmanship progressives should have a contender. Or, perhaps, two.
 
“As you consider whom to nominate as the next chair of the Federal Reserve, I urge you to consider someone who will put the needs of the disappearing middle class ahead of the interests of Wall Street and the wealthy few,” Sanders wrote to the president. “There are a number of excellent candidates who are capable of doing that. Nobel Prize economist Joseph Stiglitz and former US Secretary of Labor Robert Reich are just two names that come to mind.”
 
The reality is that, while the names of Stiglitz and Reich come quickly to the mind of Sanders and other progressives, they may not be at the top of the White House list. But they should be. On the immediate issue of Detroit, Reich has written brilliantly on the importance of recognizing, “in an era of widening inequality,” that the real question is whether Americans are going to “[write] off the poor” who reside in urban America. On the broader question of the economy, Stiglitz is arguing that “so-called ‘free trade’ talks should be in the public, not corporate interest.”
 
Those are not ideas that are now at the center of the discussion about who should head the Fed.
 
But they should be.
 
And they can be.
 
This is the point of treating the race for the Fed chairmanship as an election, rather than an anointment.
 
By putting Stiglitz and Reich in the running, Sanders invites organized labor and economic justice and urban policy groups to join the debate. By highlighting the progressive economic approaches advanced by Stiglitz and Reich, as an alternative to those advanced by Larry Summers, they expand the understanding of what the Fed can and should do—for Detroit, for cities across the country and for neglected rural communities.
 
The debate is essential.
 
A quarter century ago, my colleague William Greider wrote the groundbreaking book: Secrets of the Temple: How the Federal Reserve Runs the Country (Simon & Schuster). The Fed still operates behind veils of secrecy. Most Americans do not know what it does and, more critically, what it can do.
 
Treating the race for Fed head as a race, as a real campaign, invites citizens into the process.
 
Urging the selection of Stiglitz or Reich might not lead to the actual choice of a progressive-populist as Fed chair. But it could turn the tide against Summers. It might help Yellen. And it would almost certainly create pressure on whoever takes charge of the Fed to recognize and embrace the full potential of the Federal Reserve. ++
 
 
New Monetary Systems for a Sustainable Democracy and "The Great Turning"
Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese, Truthout | News Analysis
Wednesday, 31 July 2013
 
 
My Address to the United Nations Meeting: “Happiness and Wellbeing: Defining A New Economic Paradigm”
Joel Magnuson
March 28, 2012
 
 
Evolution to Cooperation: Life Experiences Lead to Enlightened Economic Views
 
 
A rEvolution of Cooperation: Transitioning to sustainable communities
 
 
 
Democratizing the Electric Grid: Innovative Financing for Local Renewable Energy
 
 
“I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. That is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.”
~ The Reverend Martin Luther King
 
To view this article, go to: http://polwaves.planetwaves.net/
 
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
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