(five stars average, amazon.com)

From the book description:
"David Schweickart moves beyond the familiar arguments against globalizing capitalism to contribute something absolutely necessary and long overdue--a coherent vision of a viable, desirable alternative to capitalism. He names this system Economic Democracy, a successor-system to capitalism which preserves the efficiency strengths of a market economy while extending democracy to the workplace and to the structures of investment finance. Drawing on both theoretical and empirical research, Schweickart shows how and why this model is efficient, dynamic, and superior to capitalism along a range of values."

The interview brought forth some interesting ideas. One of these was the idea that a companies profit was simply the difference between what workers were getting paid and what their work was worth to the company. I have never thought of it this way, but it seems to me a valid point of discussion. While I think there may be some other factors in the overall equation such as intellectual property and maybe the need for some upper-level management or marketing staff, if if one includes the management and intellectual property providers in the picture it sounds viable.

Another idea was that if workers owned their workplaces (and had to sell their shares upon quitting or retiring), the workplaces would be more democratic and ethical, and that workers would do better jobs as they would be recieving the profits much more directly in relation to the work they contributed to the company.

In his larger model there is also a tax component and the involvement of government in being an intern owner when the current owners of a business with to sell, which would take some major policy shifts.

While it may seem unlikely that this would be implemented by North American governments anytime soon, small companies in Argentia and elsewhere have done OK with worker-controlled businesses taken over from their owners due to lack of pay. Insofar as the will of Canadian workers to take full responsibility for their companies exists, I suspect that it could work pretty well here as well.

[ 23 January 2006: Message edited by: Mr. Anonymous ]

[Long URL edited out - Michelle]

[ 23 January 2006: Message edited by: Michelle ]

You may be particulary interested to the
Economic Democracy for the Americas website

On scanning some of the writings it appears that there is little that is really new. I've come up with some similar ideas and it's likely that many others have as well without publishing them.

A post-capitalist society cannot get around the fact and role of capital itself. Worker productivity, and therefore wages, are largely determined by the amount of capital investment per worker. Of course, the workers can own the capital themselves if they want to - buy shares in the company. Most workers choose not to directly. If offered incentives, many liquidate their position quickly to immediately increase their earnings.

Many labour advocates talk about "owning your job" but owning the capital that makes the job possible is someone else's problem.

In short, if given the chance, most workers will sell their capital. The only way it seems to me that such a system could work is if workers were forced to invest in the company of their employ. That gives rise to other problems.

Not all employees with have the same capital investment. This will be so from company to company, within companies and mostly between sectors.

Different companies and industries use different capital/labour mixes. I would presume that senior employees would have more capital which would result in them getting greater income. How do you transfer between companies? Between industries whose structures are different?

There is also the question of the risk/return trade off. In short, the bigger the chance you take in losing your capital, the greater the profit you tend to make. In particular, this applies to entrepreneurs who are neither labour nor management in the classic sense. I'm not sure if there is any practical way to democratize risk.

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Originally posted by BlawBlaw:
Most workers choose not to directly. If offered incentives, many liquidate their position quickly to immediately increase their earnings....

There is also the question of the risk/return trade off. In short, the bigger the chance you take in losing your capital, the greater the profit you tend to make. In particular, this applies to entrepreneurs who are neither labour nor management in the classic sense. I'm not sure if there is any practical way to democratize risk.

Comments?

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There are many examples of workers successfully owning and managaing firms in both the industrial and service sectors that have led to higher incomes and far better working conditions. Although you are correct when saying that many workers prefer to sell their shares (and sometimes back to the same investors who owned them previously).

This is why social (or democratic, public) ownership is so vital to economic democracy and an equitable ownership of capital. But the real issue here is workers' control, where employees manage the daily operations of the enterprise democratically, electing management, sharing tasks, deciding on future savings and capital expenditures, etc.

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Originally posted by BlawBlaw:

A post-capitalist society cannot get around the fact and role of capital itself. Worker productivity, and therefore wages, are largely determined by the amount of capital investment per worker. Of course, the workers can own the capital themselves if they want to - buy shares in the company. Most workers choose not to directly. If offered incentives, many liquidate their position quickly to immediately increase their earnings.

Many labour advocates talk about "owning your job" but owning the capital that makes the job possible is someone else's problem.

In short, if given the chance, most workers will sell their capital. The only way it seems to me that such a system could work is if workers were forced to invest in the company of their employ. That gives rise to other problems.

Not all employees with have the same capital investment. This will be so from company to company, within companies and mostly between sectors.

Different companies and industries use different capital/labour mixes. I would presume that senior employees would have more capital which would result in them getting greater income. How do you transfer between companies? Between industries whose structures are different?

There is also the question of the risk/return trade off. In short, the bigger the chance you take in losing your capital, the greater the profit you tend to make. In particular, this applies to entrepreneurs who are neither labour nor management in the classic sense. I'm not sure if there is any practical way to democratize risk.

Comments?

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There is more to this question than the democratisation of risk. I believe two matters take primary importance here: the theory of the firm and the monetary origins of capital.

The biggest myth of capitalism is that the possession of capital and the subscription thereof entitles investors to act as the residual claimant of the production of a firm. It is nonsense of course: capital can be rented or leased by a firm on terms that make workers the full residual claimant.

Of course labour is progressively displaced as technology improves, and labour costs account for a shrinking percentage of the costs of production. Meaning of course that labour is going to buy a lesser and lesser proportion of production with their wages alone. This fact may help working people to see the wisdom of not only operating a firm but owning the capital they use as well.

The other dimension is credit. We have a creditary system for creating a money supply. The creation of money is the monetazation of the existing wealth that has been accumulated over the ages, including the increase in the value of land. At present this is done in an unjustifiably undemocratic manner. The purpose of a monetary system should be nothing more than to draw upon this common cultural inheritance of wealth in a democratic way to liquidate the costs of production regardless of the level of wages. More than democratising capital, it is far more important to democratise our creditary system.

In anycase, I regard the whole idea of an employment contract to be abhorent. It ought to be illegal, just as chattel slavery is illegal. This means that the only moral employment is self-employment and joint-ownership of firms. No employment contracts stealing ownership of the firm from workers will mean capital will finally find its proper place and capital ownership will increasingly make sense to workers, who will see what it costs them to rent capital from investors.

I made a new blog entry at
Economic Democracy for the Americasearly this morning with a link to some of David Ellerman's papers on the theory of the firm and democratic firms that you might enjoy. He is a unique and insightful thinker, to say the least.

[ 01 February 2006: Message edited by: Alan Avans ]

Perhaps the author underestimates the continuing vitality of the "concessio" in liberal thought.

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This paper retrieves an almost forgotten contractarian tradition, dating from at least the Middle Ages, that based political autocracy and economic slavery on explicit or implicit voluntary contracts. Hence the democratic and antislavery movements had to hammer out arguments not simply in favor of consent and against coercion, but arguments based on the distinction between contracts to alienate (translatio) sovereignty versus contracts to only delegate (concessio) self-governance rights. They argued that the alienation contracts were in a certain sense inherently invalid so that those basic rights were inalienable even with consent. These inalienable rights arguments from the democratic and antislavery movements are also retrieved, arguments that liberal thought neglects when the basic question is simplistically posed as consent versus coercion.

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In law, the concept of "trustee" articulates the status of someone who is entitled to act on behalf of another, or represent another, with the proviso that certain limits may not be transgressed.

It was that idea which led to the limitation of Parliamentary powers through Bills of Rights. If Parliament is merely a trustee for the public (because rights are "inalienable"), then a court must protect the public whenever the trustee exceeds the terms of the trust.

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Originally posted by Alan Avans:

The biggest myth of capitalism is that the possession of capital and the subscription thereof entitles investors to act as the residual claimant of the production of a firm. It is nonsense of course: capital can be rented or leased by a firm on terms that make workers the full residual claimant.

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Lease from whom? This just changes the accounting: workers wouldn't get paid any more under this scheme, and those who provide the savings wouldn't get less. Instead of getting dividend payments, they'd get payments from the lease. Nothing changes.

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Of course labour is progressively displaced as technology improves, and labour costs account for a shrinking percentage of the costs of production. Meaning of course that labour is going to buy a lesser and lesser proportion of production with their wages alone.

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This is simply wrong. Wages increase as worker productivity increases. And productivity inceases are generated by capital accumulation and technical progress. Historically, the share of output that goes to workers has been roughly constant.

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The other dimension is credit. We have a creditary system for creating a money supply. The creation of money is the monetazation of the existing wealth that has been accumulated over the ages, including the increase in the value of land. At present this is done in an unjustifiably undemocratic manner. The purpose of a monetary system should be nothing more than to draw upon this common cultural inheritance of wealth in a democratic way to liquidate the costs of production regardless of the level of wages. More than democratising capital, it is far more important to democratise our creditary system.

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I don't understand any of this at all.

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In anycase, I regard the whole idea of an employment contract to be abhorent. It ought to be illegal, just as chattel slavery is illegal. This means that the only moral employment is self-employment and joint-ownership of firms. No employment contracts stealing ownership of the firm from workers will mean capital will finally find its proper place and capital ownership will increasingly make sense to workers, who will see what it costs them to rent capital from investors.

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So how do retired workers fit in here? When you stop working, you stop earning labour income. Should they also be stripped of their capital when they retire? Then what?

[ 01 February 2006: Message edited by: Stephen Gordon ]

Indeed there has never been such a time during human civilization. The activity of buying selling, trading, exchanging, creating and using currency etc. etc. is present in the historical accounts of every human culture.

We are consumers by nature and traders by necessity. If we did not trade raw materials, manufactured goods, skills and abilities, knowledge and information we would never have evolved beyond nomadic tribesmen.

Within the limits of shall we say “prudence” and “reasonableness” how does the historical account of human “business-enterprise” compare beside for instance the paradigms of religion and politics as effector of human “progress”?

Very large and complex question isn’t it?

Slavery of conquered peoples is a common theme throughout all of human history. How could the notion of slavery exist given the doctrines of oh.. gee let’s limit our examination to the five major religions of mankind….

Because slavery is about establishing a hierarchy that permits one group to use and abuse another irrespective of any altruistic mumbo-jumbo like “equality” and “justice” as contained in the essential fabric of all religious ‘beliefs’. At the core of “belief” beats the heart of the trader and the symmetry between the efforts to dehumanize mankind are startlingly similar between religion and “economics”

In fact the notions of slavery and inequity as part of “acceptable” social and cultural institutions is evident in every major religious doctrine.

From the Greeks and Romans to the Chinese and well beyond, the machinery of commerce, the institutions of “property” and “ownership” have in the face of (to be generous) “altruism” been sacrificed and been allowed to be sacrificed (in fact this sacrifice is encouraged) on the alter of trade and commerce. The great trader nation of America didn’t originate conquest or slavery, but it is the engine of consumerism as worshiped by American corporatism that seeks to expunge the very idea of “human-ness” from the earth.

Yes the Portuguese and the Greeks, the Chinese and a majority of conquering nations subjugated, enslaved abused and devalued the lives of indigenous peoples. Africans were herded like cattle to work the fields of America and despite a reluctance to acknowledge the seminal self-destructiveness of an idea like slavery; it is still being practiced today.

The nature of slavery has changed as the human psychological dynamic, the perceptions of “prosperity” and “progress” have allowed sweat-shops and minimum wages strengthen and entrench the companion ideas of “entitlement” and “competition”.

We are conditioned to avoid considering the men women and children living in the ghettos amid the stench of poverty and death when we buy our Reebok’s and our Nike’s and our “Banana Republic” accoutrements of fashionable expression.

Wage levels well below the level acknowledged as being required by democratic national governments as necessary to support and maintain human existence are the standard with none so perverse as those established by two of the wealthiest nations on the planet, Canada and the United States of America.

One in five children in Canada live in poverty.

Homelessness and hunger are now and have been seemingly insurmountable “issues” since the Industrial Revolution. How does one synthesize the images that merely a cursory overview of both Canadian and American cultures inevitably exposes?

Enormous wealth that witnesses multi-millionaire Presidents and Prime Ministers somberly addressing nations regarding the current of poverty inequity injustice and disproportion that plague the fiduciary sensibilities if not the consciences of the wealthiest one percent of all of humanity.
A generation ago, CEOs made 40 times more than workers; today they make 400 times more.
Kevin J. Murphy of USC's Marshall School of Business, from Rise of the Corporate Plutocrats, Los Angeles Times, October 17, 2004.
If wages rose at the same rate as CEO pay since 1990, the average worker would make $75,000 a year, not $27,000; the minimum wage would be $15.76 an hour, not $5.15.
Institute for Policy Studies and United for a Fair Economy report, Executive Excess 2004: Campaign Contributions, Outsourcing, Unexpensed Stock Options and Rising CEO Pay, August 31, 2004.
Over 25% of working families are officially low-income; over 25% of those are officially in poverty.
Annie E. Casey Foundation, Working Hard, Falling Short: America's Working Families and the Pursuit of Economic Security, October 2004.
In 1979, 70% of private-sector jobs provided health benefits; now, only 60% do.
Economic Policy Institute; see also Kaiser Family Foundation & Health Research and Educational Trust, Employer Health Benefits 2004 Annual Survey, http://www.kff.org/insurance/7148/index.cfm.

Electronics, (voice messaging, automated answer/dial-up), useful in organizing and operating all kinds of businesses instead of improving efficiency and lowering service costs, isolate and dehumanize. Service costs haven’t gone down, and unemployment has gone up! Who we are as people may not be defined by the plastic in our purses and wallets, but how many “cards” “accounts” and how great a proportion of everyone’s interactions with each other under the rubric of “business” finds Wilson, Bob Charlie, Shirley Ann and Hazel reduced to a “number”?

No longer “people”, but rather “consumer units” and “account numbers” stripped of emotion and feeling relegated to waiting-lines bordered by little fences at banks and shopping turnstiles, driven like cattle through the “shopping experience”, ‘take-a- number’ for service from Canadian Tire to the Bank of Montreal…..

Commerce per se has for generations upon generations tread the fine line between prejudice disdain and de-humanization as “necessary” to achieve bottom line “success” and outright lawlessness. It can hardly be a surprise to anyone that modern oligarchies manipulated by businesses masquerading as “governments” carry with them that seed of preparedness to break all the rules “when necessary” and support “rewriting” the “contract” when situation demands.

How can governments not be corrupt?

WTO NAFTA, a whole separate lexicon of modern “foreign policy” is the language of commerce and the rules and the structures of rules are fluid concepts open to re-negotiation and revision by the current cabal of mercantilists wearing the robes of men of principle!

The dynamic is the same today as it has always been.

It is the wealthy making war on the poor and the less able while destroying the world for everyone.

Anti-Americanism is a last desperate lunge at the perceived evilness of the substitution that’s taken place. Substitution of “wealth” and “prosperity” for principle and integrity. No nation on the planet epitomizes the effort to dehumanize and segregate, to isolate and alienate, to repress and subjugate the many in the name of wealth and power for the few, than does the United States of America.

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"If we look at the United States in the 19th century, we see a popular culture that was, in a word, anti-capitalist," Doukas said. "And this was reflected very much in the political scene of the time. You had to be in favor of the working man. You had to support and praise the common man. The basic idea is that work is what dignifies a person. It is an anti-aristocratic ideology. It goes way back, really. Aristocrats were characterized as parasites, as people who lived off the work of others. Whereas good, virtuous American people worked hard and were expected to enjoy the fruits of their labor."

So, for example, Abraham Lincoln, in his first annual message to Congress in 1861, makes his statement about capital and labor: "Capital is only the fruit of labor. Labor is the superior of capital and deserves much the higher consideration."

But when the corporations came in and took over, the major message was -- no, it's capital, not labor, that produces the wealth of society -- it's capital that deserves the greater consideration."

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Originally posted by Sean Cain:
you are correct when saying that many workers prefer to sell their shares. . that is is why social (or democratic, public) ownership is so vital to economic democracy and an equitable ownership of capital.

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The fundamental problem is how do you force people to make decisions that are in their own, best, long term interests. If they refuse, are those decisions farmed out on proxy? There isn't the political will in Canada to force people to vote once every 5 years so I doubt that we could get your typical worker to participate in shareholders' meetings annually.

The next question is who should substitute their decision for the apathetic people they allegedly respresent?

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But the real issue here is workers' control, where employees manage the daily operations of the enterprise democratically, electing management, sharing tasks, deciding on future savings and capital expenditures, etc.

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Most don't want that responsibility and many do not have to capacity to do that.

I'm not trying to be insulting to any individual,and many people who would post here are likely quite capable. I have been through a phase of life where it was a god-send for everything to be taken care of for me; I was told what to do, I did it well and then I went to party (I spent a decade in the armed forces reserves, two years of which were full time).

Management is a separate skill from doing. Indeed, in sales and other high-talent sectors (eg. pro-sports) the managers make less than the managed. But it is a separate skill. Most employees cannot manage themselves.

And entrepreneurs throw another monkey wrench into the mix.

I'm ready to shop at co-mart.(with or without the patronage return.)
I've tried to start businesses they just didn't work due to..poor managent?..lack of killer instict? inability to lie? Inability to hire a hard working Mexican as a slave. Generally, a wrong idea about why one does anything in the first place.

It's easy to put an ad in your local community paper for $15 and make the phones ring. But, if it's not in you to follow through then it's not in you, and you end up being employed by someone that can stomach the whole damn thing.

[ 02 February 2006: Message edited by: Ward ]

For the record though, most workers who sell their shares back do so because they have bills to pay. If this scenario about workers shortsightedly trying to maximize present incomes were true there would be no workers owning stocks anywhere.

Regardless, i don't see it as a question of ownership, but of human rights. You ask a human being to work for you, you have to respect all their inalienable rights.

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I'd also like to challenge the stereotypes about workers being incapable of self-management, but I grow so weary ...

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Originally posted by WilsonVB:

Anti-Americanism is a last desperate lunge at the perceived evilness of the substitution that’s taken place. Substitution of “wealth” and “prosperity” for principle and integrity. No nation on the planet epitomizes the effort to dehumanize and segregate, to isolate and alienate, to repress and subjugate the many in the name of wealth and power for the few, than does the United States of America.

To be Anti-American and anti-business is to be pro-life!

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A very painful remark, that last sentence. USAmericans are in the same boat as Canadians and vice versa. I'm not sure shaping your otherwise excellent argument against imperialism in terms of anti-Americanism is the best way to frame your ideas.

Greetings and salutations.

Based on the first “petroleum-war” (both Desert Storm I and Desert Storm II (Invasion of Iraq), and the attendant misinformation and exaggeration used by the American administration in support of its ‘petroleum-war’, American foreign policy is the obvious target. This includes of course the effort by Russia to claim “right” to build a pipeline through Afghanistan and the American response to this threat to American petroleum cartels.

The Taliban, (A dreadful mix of Islamic fundamentalism/extremism emerging from Pakistani embrace of American ‘influence’), armed by the U.S. to fight the Russians under the auspices of ‘protecting’ Afghani independence but resulting in Al Qaeda (a torturous logical route but I believe supportable).

“Al-Qaeda grew out of the Services Office, a clearinghouse for the international Muslim brigade opposed to the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. In the 1980s, the Services Office—run by bin Laden and the Palestinian religious scholar Abdullah Azzam—recruited, trained, and financed thousands of foreign mujahadeen, or holy warriors, from more than fifty countries. Bin Laden wanted these fighters to continue the "holy war" beyond Afghanistan. He formed al-Qaeda around 1988.
http://cfrterrorism.org/groups/alqaeda.html

Not to forget the smiling faces of Donald Rumsfeld and others supplying Saddam Hussein with WMD to wage war on Iran (Britain and America joining forces to ‘protect’ petroleum supply to Britain) then having the U.S. cite Iraqis as evil-doers and ostensibly demanding “urgent response” (basis for Iraqi invasion).

“24 US companies are reported to have supplied Iraq with equipment and know-how for its weapons programmes from 1975 onwards and in some cases support for Baghdad's conventional arms programme had continued until last year.”
http://www.saag.org/papers7/paper641.html

The Bush administration has succeeded in taking ‘politics’ ‘economics’ and ‘foreign policy’ and turning back the clock to those bloody eras of international imperialism as celebrated by France, Britain, Spain, Portugal, Holland and every imperialist power that declared the might of arms as “right”.

So ElizaQ said it well: If it's part of the culture and expected, most people, the vast majority, are capable of self-government.

Regarding making ownership of capital a prerequisite for the right to participation in decision-making, I used to believe that, but then it started to seem really cumbersome (as the involved disputes above plainly show). I've decided that it should just be a matter of human rights. At least with regards to control over one's own work.

Some have said that the centralization of control, the introduction of new technology [against the wishes of skilled workers] and the enforcing of Taylorist work practices are what are responsible for the enormous productivity increases of the 20th century. Others have disputed this. They argue that technology has always been introduced by those trying to break the power of workers, rather than to augment their productivity.

Good day to you!

If “production” can be increased through utilizing robots in manufacturing (automobiles, electronics, appliances etc.) is there a need any longer for a human being to stand on an assembly line and put the same widget on the same sub-assembly for years on end?

When the “do-it-yourself(er)” backyard mechanic types could give the old horseless carriage a ‘tune-up’, was that effort at saving time and money and the sense of accomplishment destructive (ending demand for service station mechanics)? I suppose one might suggest that the dependability of a single ignition coil’s spark distributed through a distributor cap, ‘points’ and condenser, could be proven less reliable than solid state ignition and systems in modern automobiles, but what happens now when the car won’t start or it dies on the side of the road? And how much will it cost to get the damn thing going?

Why is it would you think that a toaster I owned (built at the end of the second world war continued to work for thirty years while I’ve had to replace my “new” toaster three times in the past three years?

Would it be fair to suggest that the quality of manufactured goods has declined over the past twenty or so years or that the toaster (as example) that now costs three times as much as a toaster used to cost is actually better?

When the “experts” all claimed the world would grind to a catastrophic halt when computers “couldn’t” make the leap from 1999 to 2000 were they right?

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Originally posted by Ward:
It boils down to the boss.

Should there be a boss?

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Originally posted by Gir Draxon:
I can see problems with this in operations where there is a large number of low-skill and low-educated workers. Think of a fast-food restaurant where a bunch of high school kids wield more decision-making power than the manager. It wouldn't last very long....

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Gir Draxon

Hello “Gir”!

Why is it do you suppose that high school graduates can’t make change if you’re unfortunate enough to be passing through the Drive-Thru at some assembly line eatery and the power goes off?

I’ll give you a hint…..

“Economic democracy” is a contradiction in terms. Economics isn’t about developing skill sets that offer applicability to anything beyond the task at hand. Hand the tools of rigorous critical thinking and fact-based analytical skills to someone earning a McWage at a McJob…what on earth for?

You talk into the little clowns face and the codes are sent…. One Big Mac One order fries, one cola-drink…

That’s one press of the button on the third row, one press on the button on the fourth row and one press of the button on the seventh row…

For this kind of “work” one requires working knowledge of calculus or an appreciation for Aristotelian logic????

Develop the idea a bit further…. “You can find happiness behind the wheel of Pontiac’s new SUX 6000 and you can end worrying about where you’re going with the included North Star navigation equipped SUX!”

No need to think….

Just listen to the voice…..

Follow these instructions….

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Originally posted by Gir Draxon:
I agree with Wilson... the only way this "economic democracy" will work is if we completely and totally scrap civilization as we know it and build something entirely different. It's not a matter of getting a union to empower the workers- it's about elminating the economy altogether.

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Well, it looks quite probable that Peak Oil will do precisely that over the next few years whether we like it or not, so "economic democracy" may come sooner than you think.

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Originally posted by beluga2:

Either that or extinction of the species.

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Originally posted by Gir Draxon:
I can see problems with this in operations where there is a large number of low-skill and low-educated workers. Think of a fast-food restaurant where a bunch of high school kids wield more decision-making power than the manager. It wouldn't last very long....

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Originally posted by Aristotleded24:

You've never been in a workplace where the people who work there know more about how to do their jobs and what needs to be done than their bosses do?

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Never. Bosses always know more than their employees.

[ 05 February 2006: Message edited by: Sven ]

Newsflash: The kids at McDonald's aren't drooling morons. They're high-school kids. Some of 'em are smarter than the career-oriented manager types.

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Originally posted by Sven:

Never. Bosses always know more than their employees.

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Originally posted by Sven:
Never. Bosses always know more than their employees.

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- create a double share class structure: one class to correspond to liquid assets, and one class to correspond with the value of fixed assets, both valued at startup at $10 per share.

- take the startup cost and capital investment and issue corresponding liquid and fixed asset-based shares

- sell a share to each 'employee' and make them part owners instead

- instead of wage or salary, pay each with one liquid-asset share for each hour worked

- if liquid assets are used to buy fixed assets, then issue additional fixed-asset shares to each in proportion to their unredeemed liquid asset-shares held

- the workplace would be a team all striving to make the business the best it can be on all levels

- each person would work in the field of their best skill and proficiency, but the equal treatment of all persons contributing to the success of the business would give a sense of worth to each individual as contributing to the success of the whole.

When do you suppose the wheel of statehood and commerce was first twisted initiating this “bad turn”?

When did a job at below a subsistence wage (fast food assembly line eateries and mega-merchants (WalMart Best Buy, et al.) become the standard against which every other metric of freedom and well-being is compared?

“They hate our freedoms -- our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other.”
George W. Bush (Address to the nation following WTC terrorism)

Was Dubbya talking about NAFTA?….softwood lumber….energy….

Was he talking about cutting funding to NGOs who teach contraception in missions to African nations….was he talking about a three ring circus (media driven) featuring direct Whitehouse intervention in Theresa Marie "Terri" Schiavo case and efforts to overturn state law?

"This is an impressive crowd - the haves and the have-mores," quipped the GOP standard-bearer. "Some people call you the elites; I call you my base."
George Bush

Have any idea how great the chasm is between the “have-mores” and the rest of Canada actually is?
“Brooks detailed the vast and growing chasm between rich and poor in our society. The average income of the richest 10 per cent of families is now 18 times as great as that of the poorest 10 per cent--$185,070 versus only $10,341. And 850,000 Canadian families struggle to survive on $10,341 a year. "Wealth is distributed in an almost obscene way in our society," noted Brooks.”
Interfaith Social Assistance Reform Coalition
Nov.4/2004

Is the freedom to live a subsistance existence in the midst of gargantuan wealth the “freedom” George W. Bush may have been referring to?

But I digress….

When that toaster I talked about earlier could be made cheaper and end up in a landfill quicker so that circumstance demanded you run out and buy another to replace it….I’d venture.

When the notion that General Electric or Sylvania or whoever could produce a light bulb with a multi-year lifetime with only an infinitesimally small amount of tungsten added to filament girth was rejected because that would end up with people buying fewer light bulbs less frequently….perhaps?

When John Kennedy threw down the gauntlet to science and technology demanding that America put a man into space and on the moon and rewrote the book on what matters to human beings!

The means of ensuring or at least enabling the possibility for the United States to build ballistic missiles to “defend itself” inherent within the charade of “space exploration” required engineers and mathematicians, not artists and thinkers, and that was the beginning of the end.

The United States possesses sufficient nuclear arms to kill every living creature on earth ten times over, is the only nation to have used nuclear weapons and grants itself the “right” to police the world and every other nation it can coerce…..

When the practice of conspicuous consumption replaced the notion of “quality of life” I’d suggest.

When “profit” pursued regardless of the damage to this planet and its people was placed high on the altar of “purpose” and human beings became merely a figurative notion on spreadsheets and profit and loss statements of global conglomerates.

When running shoes became “fashion statements” and children killed each other for the latest model. When “values” in postmodern America (and around the world) were replaced with the notion of consumerism as measure of “freedom” and “prosperity”.

When a thirty-five hundred square foot home with a three car garage and swimming pool became the perceived entitlement of anyone capable of satisfying the “easy credit” hawkers and advertising machinery that undertook to condition people’s thinking.

When technology took its rightful place on the alter of “purpose” and every teenager successfully conditioned to believe that an I-Pod and a cellular were their right….and the art of conversation and meaningful exchange of ideas was lost as we progressed down this yellow brick road as the levers of commerce were pulled behind that curtain.

I see inequality's roots going back to deep history. As soon as people were able to store up wealth as private property, that was the start of inequality.

Originally one could justify a claim to property by pointing to the individual effort that went into a farm, but eventually large-scale claims to vast properties came to rely on traditions that were themselves often based on irrational, incoherent religious or social justifications.

This is where we got "god-emperors" and slaves. One unremarkable human being with the power over mulititudes of other unremarkable human beings.

[I'm not saying propertyless hunter-gatherers had the "right" answer. Evidently there was/is constant small-scale warfare and raiding among these people. Our present professions of respect for universal human rights arose out of different circumstances.]

So, the battle was already lost at the dawn of the industrial revolution. Those who were forced into the "dark satanic mills" were already in a socially oppressed condition, they were often uprooted peasants whose claims to a life in the countryside were expropriated without compensation and they were thrown into a new political culture that gives no human a right to anything but to what can be won in the market place.

As I said, from the very beginning, mechanization was designed to displace and control, not to augment.

When did consumerism become our god? I suppose the real start of that sort of nonsense came out of the rise of consumer society itself in the 1920s, and with the rise of public relations and marketing as disciplines.

Regardless of what "had" to have happened in the past, to get us where we are today, the fact is that where we are today is dissatisfying and it can be improved.

I think we evolve and we change, definitely. There's also a lot of truth to the Marxian notion that economic circumstances affect our social and cultural values.

I don't believe in "progress" anymore, but I do believe in evolution.

If we have certain values that we've arrived at after a long bit of intellectual effort, then we should do what we can to transform our societies so that they reflect those values.