PEOPLES PRESS INTERNATIONAL (PPI) 025-better-world.txt Thoughts about a better world - - - Republication permission granted for non-commercial and small-press use, with all sig & header info incorporated (in some form), please. - - - a public service of CADRE (Citizens for a Democratic Renaissance) http://cyberjournal.org ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Sat, 25 Apr 1998 Sender: jacob <•••@••.•••> Subject: Re: PPI-017-rkm essay> Destroy & Rebuild -- The story of the global economy > The world economy has been razed so that it can be turned into a > shopping mall for the capitalist elite, where they can conveniently go > shopping for bargains among the world's various `markets', each of whom > is expected to `compete' on the basis of its seductiveness to capital. interesting and sound analysis. I believe, though, that there's something more to it: an acute need to formulate an economic system and an ideology that can cope with the fact that the activity of only a small percentage of the world work power and production means is enough to provide all humans with their basic needs; that most of this work power and production means are today engaged in providing superfluous products and services to the developed world while living the others in misery; that most of those products have built-in early obsolescence planned in them; that the world ethnic and local cultures have been subdued by the advertising culture whose sole purpose is to create artificial demand for those superfluous products; that this superfluous evergrowing productivity doesn't feed hungry mouths but depletes human and natural resources to the point of extinction; that rewarding people according to what the advertising culture regards as their contribution to this productivity only fuels this destructive process. Envisaging an ideology and an economic system that takes all this into acount is an intellectual challenge the magnitude of which was not encountered by human race at least in the last 2000 years. who's going to measure up to it? ----------------- Dear Jacob, I believe you seriously overestimate the difficulty of coming up with better economic systems and ideologies. It is really only in the past two hundred years that a capitalist system has grown up and become dominant, and still there are parts of the world that haven't yet totally succumbed. And many parts of the Third-World would immediately revert to more sensible economies and just societies if the US-supported military dictatorships were simply removed. It takes energy and constant enforcement to keep the current regime in power, it is not the result of any natural law, and it isn't based on deeply held social values. The regime is sold constantly by corporate-media propaganda and all serious discussion of alternatives is kept out. Millions of dollars are spent to keep control over the political system and to lobby and otherwise corrupt our democratic institutions. You can see with the FDR-era in the US and the postwar pre-Thatcher era in Britain how rapidly our systems can be changed when the political will exists to do so, not that those particular changes did anything to disturb fundamental elite-corporate hegemony. But the most clear example of how a system can be rapidly converted to one that "takes all this into account" is Cuba. It was not the case that the people of Cuba needed to become "enlightened", nor was it necessary for earth-shaking ideological breakthroughs to occur, it was simply necessary to set up a democratic regime, a regime which was set up structurally so that the will and needs of the people could inform and guide the apparatus of government. The problem is a political one, and the failures of our economic system simply reflect the values of those in power. The solution is also a political one, and when democratic regimes are established, values that make sense to people will have no difficulty expressing themselves in policy. By serendipity, the following piece by Bill Ellis, which at some poetic level is a response to your request for "envisaging an ideology", came into my mailbox adjacent to your posting. Check it out. rkm ------------------------------------------------------------------------ GAIAN VALUES ALL THAT IS -- IS A WEBS OF BEING Bill Ellis <•••@••.•••> TRANET - http://www.nonviolence.org/tranet/ PO BOX 137, Rangeley ME 04970-0137 USA - - - We belong to the Webs-of-being - - to the Cosmos - - to Earth - to Gaia. Belonging is the protovalue from which all other values derive. We belong to the physiophere, to the biosphere, to the ideosphere. We belong to Gaia. As the aborigines said it "we are the ownees of the land, not the owners of the land." As Chief Seattle said it, "We can not own the land, we are part of the land." We belong to and are inseparable from our culture-- from one another-- from Gaia. We are interdependent with all that is. Belonging is scientific fact; and, belonging is more than scientific fact. Belonging is not merely "being a member of", but it is being subject to- being in partnership with - - being responsible for. We belong to -- are responsible for --- the webs -of-being -- the universe -- theEarth -- Gaia. Belonging to-Gaia means recognizing that we are enmeshed in the webs-of-being and that our well-being is dependent on the well-being of Gaia. If we destroy Gaia, we destroy ourselves. Belonging implies "cooperation" -- working with what is --- with Gaia -- the webs of being. Belonging implies "community." In our face-to-face relationships with people we form community -- we belong to community. Belonging implies "responsibility." We are responsible for Gaia. We are responsible for one another. Belonging implies "Love." We can not separate love (agape) from the fact that we belong to Gaia. We love because we must love to preserve Gaia -- to preserve ourselves -- to preserve the webs-of-being Cultures built on values other than belonging are doomed to self-destruct. A culture built on "domination of the earth, and all the animals therein" is doomed to disappear. A culture based on "self-interest" is doomed to disintegrate. A Culture based on "survival-of-the-fittest" will not survive. A culture based on competition will destroy itself. To be stable and sustainable a culture must be based on cooperation, community, responsibility, love, honesty, caregiving, and the other values which are implied by and intertwined with one another and with belonging. We can no more separate ourselves from belonging -- from Gaia-- and remain a viable culture; than an oxygen atom can separate itself from hydrogen atoms and retain the qualities of water. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Seeking an Effective Democratic Response to Globalization and Corporate Power" --- an international workshop for activist leaders June 25 <incl> July 2 - 1998 - Nova Scotia - Canada --- Restore democratic sovereignty Create a sane and livable world Bring corporate globalization under control. CITIZENS FOR A DEMOCRATIC RENAISSANCE mailto:•••@••.••• --- To subscribe to PPI-network, send any message to: •••@••.••• --- To unsubscribe from PPI-network, send any message to: •••@••.••• --- To subscribe to renaissance-network, send any message to: •••@••.••• ,
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