Clarifying a Vision of Economic Freedom

There are positive and negative drives within us. The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola help our courage and hope prevail over our fear and apathy. I invite you to join me as I try to break out of what is and move to what can be and should be. When we dream alone, it remains a dream. When we dream together, even impossible dreams can come true.

It's difficult to understand a new vision if your financial security depends on not understanding it.  We are in the midst of an historic transition.  We need to provide economic security to those dependent now, for example, on growing tobacco if we are to expect them to transition to growing local, organic produce.

Let's look ahead at the year 2034 and try to clarify a vision of what a decent future would look like. Let's look to the future, ignoring obstacles to our dream at least for now, and picture the minimum essentials of a peace with economic justice. If the house of our world needs remodeling, let's fashion a blueprint for a new house which will shelter all of us.

A rising tide lifts all boats only if all boats are on top of the water. If some boats are sinking or already submerged, a rising tide does them no good. "The economy" is an abstraction. The unemployed and the poor do not participate adequately in "the economy." Almost the entire continent of Africa (except for South Africa) has been bypassed by the global economy as have many inner cities and rural areas even in developed countries.

Together and with God we are more powerful than the forces of evil in our world. If we picture the minimum basic structures for a world of peace with justice, then we can search for the means to build that peace. The companion of Dorothy Day, Peter Maurin, always called for clarification of thought. I suggest that we clarify our vision of what a peaceful and just world would be like.

When I traveled to Santa Clara University in October of 2000, the leader of the Society of Jesus, Fr. Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, energized me when he addressed representatives of the twenty-eight Jesuit Colleges and Universities. "Thanks to science and technology, human society is able to solve problems such as feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, or developing more just conditions of life . . . We need a sustained interdisciplinary dialogue of research and reflection, a continuous pooling of expertise. The purpose is to assimilate experiences and insights according to their different disciplines in a 'vision of knowledge which, well aware of its limitations, is not satisfied with fragments but tries to integrate them into a true and wise synthesis.'"

Even to think outside the box is a price as a society we seem unwilling to pay. Fr. Ignacio Ellacuria, S.J., President of the Jesuit university in San Salvador, thought outside the box and paid for his thoughts with his life. "It is necessary to proclaim utopianly that new earth with new human beings shaped with principles of greater altruism and solidarity."¹ To think new thoughts takes the kind of inner spiritual freedom God can give to us. Let me describe just one aspect of my dream, economic democracy.

All of us have a natural right to water, to food that is nutritious, to a healthy environment, to shelter, to health care, to education.

As intelligent loving persons, all of us have the right to be free to make our own decisions. I strive for a responsible freedom that respects and promotes the freedom of others and not just myself. I'm glad I live in a nation that respects the freedom of all, believes in individual rights, yet promotes the common good. Although I have individual basic human rights, I am not free to try to dominate others and ignore the basic rights of others. My dream is to search together for the basic rights of all.

Global Economic Democracy

We understand what political democracy is. As free citizens, we do have some say about what our local, state, and federal governments do. There is another power in present world structures which has enormous influence, ownership and control of the means of production, the factories and farms. Just as important are financial institutions such as banks and insurance companies.

Corporations make decisions which vitally affect all of us, decisions to downsize, to move to the South, the West, and overseas, decisions that often pollute the environment and destroy the rainforests. The average free citizen in the United States has little if anything to say about employment, trade or monetary decisions, or care of the earth, not to mention the kind of food that s/he eats or the kind of doctors s/he wants to serve her/him.

"Academic studies have clearly documented the power of large multi-national corporations to determine legislation, influence regulatory agencies, election patterns and the media. Companies are free to relocate, leaving behind deteriorating houses, schools, roads, and hospitals, and the social disaster of community decay. 'Throwaway cities' is wasteful--and entails the new expense of having to rebuild the same costly facilities elsewhere."²

Although very imperfect, now there is some semblance of political democracy in many parts of the world. The global democratic process needs to be extended in some way to the factories and the farms. We could call more humane economic structures by some other name. We could call it global economic freedom, global economic security, global economic equity. I will call it global economic democracy.

Can we say we have a genuine democracy if each human person does not have the opportunity and capacity to participate? Each person needs education, adequate resources, enough free time to participate in the political and economic process.

Consumers vote by what they buy. We do have social legislation such as anti-trust laws. Corporations have stockholder meetings. In the present order we do vote by what we buy, through the political process, and by means of the stock that we own. All of these approaches need to be pursued. But some say this is not enough.

Anti-trust laws, labor laws, environmental laws are weak and ineffective. If major corporations do not agree with a law, some stall instead of complying. Since the cost of resistance is often quite modest compared to the cost of compliance, companies can benefit in real dollars by stalling.³

Although the death penalty for human persons is cruel and unusual punishment, some suggest that we apply the death penalty to corporations who commit major crimes. As a culture we demand that we get tough on street crime. But the U.S. is reluctant to prosecute adequately much larger and more harmful corporate crimes.⁴

Certainly there are many responsible, moral people caught up in the present structures. But the status quo is not coming close to acknowledging the basic human rights of each human person, made in the image and likeness of God. Nor are we taking adequate care of our earth. I dream of new structures through which all of us can participate in basic policy decisions that affect all of us. My dream is economic democracy.

Internal Participation

Instead of trying to regulate corporations from without, do we need local community ownership of the means of production in order to participate in decisions from within? If we are part of the Board of Directors, we can urge the Board to use environmental friendly methods, pay at least a living wage, insure worker safety.

At present we only try to regulate large corporations from without making them a little less harmful. We have not been examining the nature and structure of corporations. "Corporations were, on the whole, willing to accept many regulatory agencies (a) because they shielded corporations from the public, (b) on condition that decisions of regulatory agencies could be appealed to courts, where corporations were confident that they could usually win, especially in federal courts, and (c) it was cheaper to buy influence from a few regulators than an entire legislature."⁵

Many feel international trade organizations like the World Trade Organization are indeed undermining what few national laws there are. Globalization is one of the main threats to local community democracy and local economic stability.⁶

Corporations are not governed by one member, one vote constituencies but by those who have the most money. Corporations have enormous staff and financial resources. Instead of encouraging stockholder participation, corporations often challenge stockholder resolutions; and the Security and Exchange Commission frequently rules in their favor.

Consumers have limited choices, often inadequate information, and usually no way to communicate with other consumers on a large scale.

If there are huge disparities in income and wealth between those at the top and the rest of the population, the market produces more of the luxury goods and services wanted by those at the top and fewer of the goods and services needed by those in the middle.⁷ Although we live in an age of technological abundance, there is a limit to our economic and physical resources. If we use our resources mostly for luxuries for the wealthy, there will not be enough for necessities. My dream is that the world's resources be shared fairly by all.

Are the few who own and control the factories, farms, and banks making the important decisions which affect all of us? Enormous wealth affects even political democracy. If the wealthy contribute to both political parties, they have easy access to legislators. Since only the wealthy can hire expensive lawyers, wealth also influences justice in the courts. The existence of enormous wealth alongside great poverty is a lack of community, solidarity, and democracy.

Pope Pius XI did not hesitate to call our present system a kind of dictatorship because of its centralization of power. "It is obvious that in our days not only is wealth accumulated, but immense power and despotic economic domination is concentrated in the hands of a few. . banks supply the life-blood to the entire economic body, and grasp in their hands the very soul of production, so that no one dare breathe against their will. . this accumulation of power is the natural result of a limitless free competition that permits the survival of those who are the strongest, which often means those who fight most relentlessly, and who pay least attention to the dictates of conscience. . . free competition and economic domination must be kept within just and definite limits, and brought under the effective control of public authority."⁸

The wealthy have greater influence on elected officials. "You have to be either wealthy or have access to wealth to run for federal office in this country. . . Tim Wirth, our senator from Colorado for many years, says that day in and day out for a six-year term he spent more than 50% of his time asking people for money. In the year he ran it went up to 80%. . . Barney Frank says we like to pretend that our elected officials are the only people in the world who walk up to total stranger, ask them for thousands or now hundreds of thousands of dollars, get it, and are completely unaffected by it, achieving a state of 'perfect ingratitude.' But we know it isn't so . . . we demand elections, not auctions . . .We want the children who breathe the air to count as much as the polluters who fight clean air standards. . . We want the millions who need health care to count as much as the insurance companies that donate millions to thwart reform."⁹

Many today are searching for better ways to insure economic democracy. If we are to respect the dignity and worth of every human person, we need to find a way to insure not just political and civil rights but basic economic rights for all.

Community Inheritance

The famous Jewish philosopher Martin Buber wrote much about a "community of communities." The Lionel R. Bauman Professor of Political Economy at the University of Maryland Gar Alperovitz follows Buber's philosophy in his thoroughly researched and compelling writings. How can we make the local community the base of our economic democracy?

Each local community has provided generations of schooling, highways and waterways, police and fire protection. No one person or group starts from zero or operates in a vacuum. All new inventions build on previous generations, indeed are the result of centuries of knowledge, skills, and wealth. Inventors pick the fruit of a tree that stands on a huge mountain of previous development. Shouldn't substantial wealth be regularly returned to the community that ultimately made the creation of the wealth possible? This can be done through inheritance laws, eminent domain, public trust funds.

Alaska has built up a large permanent fund that yields a thousand dollars to each citizen. An equal amount is allocated to public uses since the community as a whole plays a major role in the creation of wealth and of new technologies.¹⁰ This small example could be expanded to more imaginative and substantial ventures to strengthen and stabilize economic democracy in the local community.

Current web-sites for forms of economic democracy are at  www.garalperovitz.com  www.Community-Wealth.com

Balance of Local and Global

Since we have a global economy today, I dream of the "truly effective international authority" which was the ardent wish of Blessed John XXIII in Peace on Earth. We are one human family. Families cannot live together in harmony unless there is a certain order. The human family cannot live together without a minimum of global law and order. My dream is a world constitution which would establish a new world democratic authority. Accompanying this new democratic world authority would be local community ownership of the means of production.

If done according to the principle of subsidiarity, economies of scale would dictate regional, national, and international entities that produce goods and services. We acknowledge the principle of subsidiarity for the levels of government. My dream is that subsidiarity be followed in forms of economic democracy in similar ways to our approach to political democracy. We should not rely on a larger unit if a smaller one can do the job. Subsidiarity would bring us much more local community ownership of the means of production rather than domination by large, overly centralized conglomerates.

Although all of us own consumer property like our clothing, only a few own the factories that produce the clothes we wear. Catholic social teaching defends the right for everyone to private ownership of even productive property such as factories. If the ownership of this productive property is extended to all, excessive concentration of ownership would end, and ordinary citizens would have more economic and political power.

Catholic teaching has recognized the value of private property to respect the dignity of individual persons, to guarantee freedom, and to provide for basic needs. Widespread community ownership of the means of production is a check and balance on overly-centralized government. But the title to private ownership is only legitimate if the productive property serves the greatest number, is democratically controlled, and is treated with responsible stewardship.¹¹

My dream is that like charity, economic democracy and community stability begin at home. The US now has many structures that further local community stability such as local living wage ordinances, local ownership of banking, insurance, telecommunications, cable TV, composting systems, sewage treatment plants, methane recovery systems, and transportation. My dream is to strengthen and expand local multipliers. Preference should be given to local contractors and local businesses. "Income that is spent and respent locally circulates and recirculates through the community, bringing additional wealth and employment with each transaction."¹²

Local Ownership of Water

Water is a fundamental human right. The human person can survive only a few days without clean, safe drinking water. Rights to food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, cannot be attained or guaranteed without also guaranteeing access to clean water. Without water, life is threatened. Agriculture cannot be sustained without sufficient water. The right to water is an inalienable right. Since we need water to live, everyone should have access to water. Public ownership of water sources is a basic key to economic democracy.

Unfortunately, the world is running out of fresh water. Deforestation; destruction of wetlands; pollution of our rivers, lakes, and underground water supplies; global warming; increased use by industry and households in wealthy industrialized nations; are all endangering our fragile water systems. Unless we change, demand for potable water will soon exceed availability.¹³

The increasing demand for water has been noticed by global corporations who want to sell water for a profit. Water has become "blue gold." The religion of the so-called "free market" urges us to privatize water. The North American Free Trade Agreement, the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs, and the World Trade Organization treat water not as a human right but as a commodity.

Water by its very nature cannot be considered as a mere commodity among other commodities. Catholic social thought has always stressed that the defense and preservation of certain common goods such as the natural and human environments cannot be safeguarded simply by market forces, since there are fundamental human needs which escape market logic.¹⁴

Water is a public good. Being at the service of its citizens, the state is the steward of the people's resources and the common good. The state should see there is an efficient and reliable water service which provides for low-income families.

Most of the water supplies in the US are owned publicly. Now conglomerates want to privatize our water. Although the water issue is global in scope, it is at the local level where decisive action can best be taken. By organizing, Montara, California, a small community of 4,900 people, has reclaimed ownership of its municipal water system from a behemoth German energy group RWE AG.¹⁵ Do we want economic democracy and follow Montara or deliver control of the water of our earth to a few giant multi-national conglomerates?

Water and Vegan Diet

New Yorker, Oct. 23, 2006, p. 64:  "As people migrate to cities, they invariably start to eat more meat, adding to the pressure on water resources.  The amount of water required to feed cattle and to process beef is enormous:  it takes a thousand tons of water to grow a ton of grain and fifteen thousand to grow a ton of cow.  Thirteen hundred gallons of water go into the production of a single hamburger; a steak requires double that amount.  Every day, a hundred thousand people join India's middle class, and many have become affluent enough to eat out every week." 

Living Water

In the Christian Scriptures, Jesus appropriated the term living water to refer to himself as the source of genuine spiritual life. He applied this symbol to himself because he knew that people depend on water for their survival as individuals and as communities; that water slakes thirst and quenches fields and livestock as well as wild creatures. Isaiah saw water as a resource for all. Isaiah 44.3, 55.1: "lf you who are thirsty, come to the water! You who have no money, come, receive grain and eat; come, without paying and without cost, drink wine and milk!"¹⁶

Water for All

At the Third World Water Forum in Kyoto, March 16-23, 2003 the Pontifical Justice and Peace Council stated that inadequate access to safe drinking water is the lot of over one billion persons! "This all too often is the cause of disease, unnecessary suffering, conflicts, poverty and even death."¹⁷

Multinational corporations with the means to control water cannot be allowed to destroy or exhaust this resource which is destined for the use of all. Economic democracy leads us to water management that is participatory, involving users, planners and policy-makers at all levels

We need to respect the integrity of creation and grow in appreciation of the significance of water in God's plan. If all of us make the decisions about such a basic resource as water, we will use funds released through cancellation of the Third World debt to improve water services. Production of some goods may best be privatized. Water is not one of them.

Local Food Production

Economic democracy demands that food also be produced locally. In the US the food that we eat travels an average of 1500 miles! Much food spoils. "A study conducted by the US Department of Agriculture found that in 1995 'about 96 billion pounds of food, or 27 percent of the 356 billion pounds of the food available for human consumption in the US were wasted at the retail, consumer, and food service levels.' The disposal cost of waste food for municipalities exceeded an estimated $1 billion per year by the mid-1990's."¹⁸

The many miles that our food travels today use incredible amounts of non-renewable energy and release climate disrupting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. The single greatest cause of global warming and climate destabilization is industrial agriculture (i.e. non-organic, non-sustainable, non-locally produced.). We need to return to diverse mixed crops produced for local consumption and work toward community and regional food self-reliance. This will reduce chemicals, mechanization, and fossil fuel use, allowing people to farm who know and love the land. It will also reduce pollution of soil, air, rivers and oceans.

                                                                            An Inconvenient Truth

In our present system our livelihood and success can depend on a particular industry that uses fossil fuels extensively. Our job can cloud our vision and affect our judgment. Global warming can be "an inconvenient truth." But global warming can affect the livelihood of all of us in a dramatic way. Examine the science at http://www.climatecrisis.net

"To grow corn that cheap, you need more than just subsidies. [When the farmer gets a fair price which includes care of the environment, there won't be any need for subsidies.] You also need vast quantities of fossil fuel. The food industry consumes about 20 percent of imported petroleum, much of which goes to fertilize cornfields. Corn takes a great amount of nitrogen to grow, and the way we make artificial nitrogen is to turn natural gas into ammonium-nitrate fertilizer. So something else you're eating in that McDonald's meal is fossil fuel. A pound of beef takes a half gallon of oil to grow. A bushel of corn also takes about a half gallon. It takes ten calories of fossil-fuel energy to produce one calorie of food energy that way. So to eat that McDonald's meal, we need to keep the oil flowing. . .transporting food from distant farms requires fossil fuel and technologies to keep food fresh. . . grasslands have plenty of biodiversity and help lessen the greenhouse effect by reducing carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. All plants take in carbon dioxide, sequester the carbon, and release the oxygen back into the air. What's important about grasses is that they sequester most of that carbon in the soil, and very little in their actual 'bodies.'" The Sun, May 2006, pp. 7-8. [Thus our food delivery system is a major cause of global warming and destabilization of the climate.]

We need to close down huge factory farms that create environmental nightmares, pollute the underground water supply, and are hardly kind to animals. Thousands of hogs confined in one factory farm creates as much waste as a city of 30,000 people.

We need to limit corporate farming. Corporate ownership of farmland is already restricted in Nebraska, North Dakota, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Oklahoma, and South Dakota. Other states place limits on the size of farms. The ultimate policy goal must be to reduce the super-farm to a moderate-sized farm able to be handled by family farmers or small cooperatives.

We need to bring anti-trust actions to reverse corporate oligarchy in the food industry in which a few giant firms control seed, feed, farm machinery, and in which a few giant firms buy farm products and manufacture food and fiber. Appropriate technology and economies of scale would make the production of food more ecologically sustainable and lead to greater economic democracy.

We need to revive rural communities so that they can become strong again and diverse enough to support family farmers with services and supplies.¹⁹

There is a myth that large farms are more efficient. Extensive research has shown that "Small farms are 'multi-functional'- more productive, more efficient, and contribute more to economic development than large farms. Small farmers can also make better stewards of natural resources, conserving biodiversity and safe-guarding the future sustainability of agricultural production."²⁰

A Fair Price for Local Farmers

Local food production will not work unless local farmers get a fair price for nutritious food produced in a sustainable way. Now athletes get more for having their picture on a box of cereal than the farmer gets for many hours of hard work growing the wheat or corn. My dream is that together we create a new system, new smaller producers of seed, feed, machinery; new government policy, new and enforceable anti-trust laws.

The costs for local farmers for seed, feed, machinery, fuel, have risen. Their income has not. There is a way to ensure that farm income is adequate and comes from the marketplace and not from taxpayers. A market price floor needs to be reestablished by the Secretary of Agriculture that is related to the true cost of production. Work that does not yield a minimum wage is not a meaningful job. If we have minimum wage laws, we should set minimum prices.

No one today is making any money in agriculture except for the transnational corporate giants who control farm commodity prices, agricultural input prices, seeds, patents, and retail food sales. Corporations are making billions while family farmers in the US and all over the world are going bankrupt. On a global scale this chemical and genetically engineered driven model of agriculture will be literally catastrophic.²¹

We fail in economic democracy if where there were once a hundred farmers using thirty acres each, there is now one corporate farmer using 3000 acres. Nearly a billion pounds of pesticide are applied annually in the US. Half of the US topsoil has been lost in the last four decades of industrial farming. A coalition of sixty organizations, the Turning Point Project, proposes a return to diverse mixed crops produced for local consumption, community and regional food self-reliance.^{22     See also Family Farm Coalition: http://www.nffc.net/resources/newsletters/Spring07.pdf}
 

Global Democratic Economic Law

An important part of my dream is to have enforceable, democratic, global law that applies to individuals as well as nations.  I am a citizen of the state of Ohio as well as a citizen of the United States.  I am a citizen of the world as well as a citizen of the United States.  There is no structure as yet that allows me to exercise my rights and duties as a citizen of a democratic world.

Only an impartial international trade commission can justly handle fair trade between the wealthy and poorer nations. Nations with more economic power are often tempted to force their own way on those with less power. "We must expand our understanding of the moral responsibility of citizens to serve the common good of the entire planet. . . All economic agents must consciously and deliberately attend to the good of the whole human family. We must all work to increase the effectiveness of international agencies in addressing global problems."²³

We are citizens of the United States. We are also citizens of the world. Together we must search for the common good of the whole world. All stakeholders need to be involved in world trade. Safe food, a healthy earth, small farm agriculture, a living wage are concerns of all of us. I dream that ordinary citizens not be simply observers in crucial decisions that affect everyone. Openness and transparency are essential for democracy.

One way to give us a voice in global trade is by a new world constitution that would insure democratic, enforceable global law. The common good cannot be safeguarded simply by market forces. Although the market can be a useful tool, it is not a god. Made up of all of us sinners, the market can often be motivated by greed and selfishness.²⁴

A companion direction for economic democracy would be local community ownership of the means of production. My dream is smaller units of production which provide sufficient checks and balances and better serve local, national and world trade.²⁵

Dr. David Korten proposes that the organizations agreed on in July, 1944 at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, which today are known as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Trade Organization, be brought back under open and democratic control of the United Nations. In the view of Dr. Korten the Bretton Woods institutions need to be decommissioned, and three new UN agencies be created with roles nearly opposite of the present structures.

An International Insolvency Court would hear cases brought by debtor nations to work out a more balanced approach to debt responsibilities. Was the debt incurred by a dictator who used the money for his own enrichment, a loan that the bank never should have made in the first place? The rescheduling of the debt should allow governments to provide essential social services. "Such plans would ideally take into account the implicit debt owed to the debtor country by creditor countries in the North for wealth previously extracted without proper compensation."²⁶

An International Finance Organization to replace the International Monetary Fund would promote productive national investment. This new UN agency would help prevent the use of offshore banks and tax havens for money laundering and tax evasion.

An Organization for Corporate Accountability which would replace the World Trade Organization would assure "public accountability of international corporations and finance . . . break up concentrations of corporate power in banking, media, and agribusiness . . . decharter corporations with a history of regulatory violations; prohibit the patenting of genetic materials, life forms and processes."²⁷

Utopia is a vision of the future. St. Thomas More’s Utopia in 1516 built on Plato’s Republic around 400 B.C. “Restrict this right of rich individuals to buy up everything and this license to exercise a kind of monopoly for themselves.” Thomas More advocates laws that limit the amount of land and income an individual may have. Utopia leaves time for citizens to be human. Time is to be set aside for intellectual and spiritual pursuits.
 

Conclusion

Although it has accomplished much and is an important step toward the goal, the United Nations is only a confederation. My dream is a democratic world authority with a world constitution that recognizes the principle of subsidiarity. This is what Pope John XXIII longed for in Peace on Earth. A world constitution would have sufficient checks and balances at all levels of government and at the same time encourage local and community ownership of farms, factories, banks, insurance companies, transportation, communications media. Local community ownership would be a check and balance in itself of all government.

Although emphasis would begin with local democracy, economies of scale would favor some regional, state, national, even a democratic world ownership. "The great benefits of nature--the air, the seas and beaches, the mountains and forests, the rivers and lakes, in general all the natural resources for production, use, and enjoyment--need not be privately appropriated by any individual person, group, or nation, and in fact they are the grand medium of communication and common living."²⁸

We need to be spiritually free enough to take the best of traditional capitalism and traditional socialism and create a new and fair system. There is a myth that privatization is always more efficient than government. The research doesn't bear that out. Our own experience in health care, for example, confirms that the private insurance companies can be an immense, unwieldy, impersonal, time-consuming, maddening bureaucracy, an enemy to economic democracy.

I don't want fundamental policy decisions made by a few government bureaucrats. Neither do I want them made only by a few corporation board members in secret behind closed doors.

My dream is a world in which each human person has adequate food, water, shelter, health care. Cities, states, nations, a world democratic authority, all must assure all of these for all of its citizens. Government at all levels can do this by external laws. Government can also promote economic democracy by favoring widespread ownership of the means of production, the factories, farms, banks, insurance companies, transportation, communications media. If only a few own the means of production and communication, those few will make the decisions which are the responsibility of all.

For the most part, I ignored the obstacles to my dream of economic democracy. Nor did I sketch how we can start now to work toward a better world in 2034. I think the dream has value in itself. The dream sets us in the right direction and moves us to take the steps now to make the dream come true.

"Then the Lord answered me and said: Write down the vision clearly upon the tablets, so that one can read it readily. For the vision still has its time, presses on to fulfillment, and will not disappoint. If it delays, wait for it, it will surely come, it will not be late. The rash man has no integrity; but the just man, because of his faith, shall live." (Habakkuk 2.2)

Footnotes

1. Fr. Ignacio Ellacuria, S.J. "Utopia and Prophecy in Latin America" Towards a Society that Serves Its People: The Intellectual Contribution of El Salvador's Murdered Jesuits eds. John Hassett & Hugh Lacy Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 1991, 62, 63,192, 205, 207, 175, 206.).
2. Who Is My Neighbor? Economics As If Values Matter, "Building a Living Democracy "Dr. Gar Alperovitz, 110, 112.
3. William Greider, Who Will Tell the People? The Betrayal of American Democracy, 110
4.For the difference between our attitude toward street crime and corporate crime see http://www.corporatecrimereporter.com
5.Citizens Over Corporations, A Brief History of Democracy in Ohio and Challenges to Freedom in the Future, Ohio Committee on Corporations, Law and Democracy, American Friends Service Committee. 35, 36.
6.Public Citizen http://www.tradewatch.org. See also a thoroughly researched primer on how to balance local and global. Making a Place for Community, Local Democracy in a Global Era, 2003 Thad Williamson, David Imbroscio, and Gar Alperovtiz . Routledge.
7.See Chuck Collins, Betsy Leondar-Wright, Holly Sklar, Shifting Fortunes, The Perils of the Growing American Wealth Gap, 1999.
8.Quadragesimo Anno No's 105-111. Pope Paul VI repeats this theme in Octogesima Adveniens no. 44 as does Pope John Paul II in Centesimus Annus No. 35.
9.Gene Nichol, "Money Must Not Trump Democracy" Alliance Reports, August 1999, Volume 3,Number 2, p. 5 Alliance for Democracy works to lessen the excessive influence of corporations over the US political system.
10. Dr. Gar Alperovitz, Who Is My Neighbor? Economics As If Values Matter, "Building a Living Democracy" Washington, D.C., Sojourners, 1994 104-117.
11. Pope John Paul II, On Human Work, III, No. 14, 45
12. Making a Place for Community, Local Democracy in a Global Era, 166.
13. Yes, A Journal of Positive Futures "Whose Water?" Winter 2004
14. Pope John Paul II Centesimus Annus, 40
15. Yes, A Journal of Positive Futures "Whose Water?" Winter 2004
16. From twelve Catholic bishops of the US Pacific Northwest and southeastern British Columbia, Canada, Origins, Vol. 30, p. 613, Mar. 8, 2001.
17, Origins April 24, 2003.
18. Making a Place for Community, Local Democracy in a Global Era 258
19. Turning Point Project www.turnpoint.org 666 Pennsylvania Ave. SE Suite 302 Washington, DC 20003 1-800-249-8712
20. Peter M. Rosset, PhD, The Multiple Functions and Benefits of Small Farm Agriculture in the Context of Global Trade Negotiations, September, 1999 available on the Food First Website at http://www.foodfirst.org/pubs/policybs/pb4.html)
21. BioDemocracy News # 25 http://www.purefood.org BioDemocracy Campaign
22. Turning Point Project
23. US Catholic Bishops, Economic Justice for All No. 322-325.
24. Pope John Paul II, Centesimus Annus No's 35 and 52
25. Pope Paul VI, Populorum Progressio, No. 23, 24
26. Dr. David Korten When Corporations Rule the World Chapter 20, up-dated 2001 edition 281
27. Ibid. 282,283.
28. Towards a Society that Serves Its People The Intellectual Contribution of El Salvador's Murdered Jesuits, 76, 85.

God is Love Pope Benedict XVI

Deus Caritas Est Pope Benedict XVI. 15.  "This principle of love is the starting-point for understanding the great parables of Jesus.  The rich man (Luke 16.19-31) begs from his place of torment that his brothers be informed about what happens to those who simply ignore the poor man in need.  Jesus takes up this cry for help as a warning to help us return to the right path.  The parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10.25-37 offers two particularly important clarifications.  Until that time, the concept of 'neighbor' was understood as referring essentially to one's countrymen and to foreigners who had settled in the land of Israel; in other words, to the closely-knit community of a single country or people.  This limit is now abolished.  Anyone who needs me, and whom I can help, is my neighbor.  The concept of 'neighbor' is universalized, yet it remains concrete.  Despite being extended to all humankind, 'neighbor' is not reduced to a generic, abstract and undemanding expression of love, but calls for my own practical commitment here and now.  The Church has the duty to interpret ever anew this relationship between near and far with regard to the actual daily life of her members.  Lastly, we should especially mention the great parable of the Last Judgment (Matthew 25:31-46), in which love becomes the criterion for the definitive decision about a human life's worth or lack thereof.   Jesus identifies himself with those in need, with the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick and those in prison.  'As you did it to one of the least of these, my sisters and brothers, you did it to me.'  (Mt. 25.40)  Love of God and love of neighbor have become one:  in the least of the brethren we find Jesus himself, and in Jesus we find God."

We are part of the Universe

"A human being is a part of the whole that we call the universe, a part limited in time and space.  And yet we experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest--a kind of optical illusion of our consciousness.  This illusion is a prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for only the few people nearest us.  Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living beings and all of nature."  Albert Einstein

Vision of Hope:  Dr. Nancy Bertaux. Lecture given Oct. 10, 2006

"Successful societies have to unite around a powerful story with a sustaining ideology.  To hold together there has to be a utopian vision that underlies some common goals that members of society can work to achieve…Capitalism postulates only one goal—an individual interest in maximizing personal consumption.  But individual greed simply isn’t a goal that can hold any society together in the long run.”  (Thurow 257)

"We must realize that the democratic form of government is bound to penetrate our industrial life as well.  It cannot  be confined merely to our political institutions.”    --Sidney Hillman, President, Amalgamated Clothing Workers Union, 1924

                                                                             WHAT IS ECONOMIC DEMOCRACY?

"Economic democracy [is] the transfer of economic decision making from the few to the many.  The very same arguments that for two centuries supported the ceding of political choice to the mass of people rather than its retention by a single individual or a small group, also provide the rationale for production and investment decision making by workers and consumers, not by individual capital owners or their managers.  (Carnoy and Shearer 3)

Economic Democracy is a worker-managed market socialism…Economic Democracy presupposes political democracy…I assume a constitutional government that guarantees civil liberties to all; I assume a representative government, with democratically elected bodies at the community, regional, and national levels…Yugoslav socialism was (in theory) democratic at the workplace, but it had a one-party, authoritarian state; contemporary Western capitalism is (in theory) politically democratic, but it is authoritarian at the workplace.  Our model will be democratic in both spheres.  (Schweickart 67)

The U.S. economy can be driven by greed and fear.  Or it can be propelled by commitment and cooperation.  We propose a democratic program for restructuring the U.S. economy [that]…would more effectively promote economic recovery… [a]nd…would consistently foster economic and political democracy. (262)

These [are the] four key principles [in our Economic Bill of Rights]—economic security and equity, democratic and productive work relations, democratic planning, and the right to a better way of life.   (Bowles, Gordon and Weisskopf 381)

Greater influence for all within organizations will increase efficiency and self-actualization

Increases in global equity and equality are necessary for stability and happiness of the world

More economic equity and equality needed within countries, so that political equality is possible, and in order to increase social happiness

 WHY ECONOMIC DEMOCRACY?

 INCOME INEQUALITY TRENDS IN THE U.S.

Year     Lowest 5th   Second    Third     Fourth     Highest

 1975        4.4%      10.5%        17.1%    24.8%   43.2%

 2001        3.5            8.7          14.6       23.0        50.1

 Trend      -20.4%    -17.1%   -14.6%     -7.3%               +16.0%

 WEALTH INEQUALITY IN THE U.S.

2001:  Top 10% of wealth-holders own 80.7% of all wealth

             Top 1% own over half

             Bottom 25% have 0 net worth

 CEO PAY

(CEO pay at major corporation as multiple of average worker at that corporation):

                                     1980:    42

                                    1990:    85

                                    2001:    411

                         (Note: Japan = 20, UK = 35)

MINIMUM WAGE FACTS

The federal minimum wage of $5.15 an hour has less purchasing power than in all but one of the past fifty years. 

 •  Since 1968, its inflation-adjusted value has fallen by more than thirty percent.

 •  A full-time minimum wage worker now brings in only $10,712 a year.

 Democracy and capitalism have very different beliefs about the proper distribution of power.  One believes in a completely equal distribution of political power, ‘one man , one vote,’ while the other believes that it is the duty of the economically fit to drive the unfit out of business…To put it in its starkest form, capitalism is perfectly compatible with slavery.  The American South had such a system for more than two centuries.  Democracy is not compatible with slavery.

In an economy with rapidly increasing inequality, this difference in beliefs about the proper distribution of power is a fault line of enormous proportions waiting to slip.  (Thurow 242)

Talkin’ Bout A Revolution--Tracey Chapman

Don't you know you're talking about a revolution

It sounds like a whisper

While they're standing in the welfare lines

Crying at the doorsteps of those armies of salvation

Wasting time in unemployment lines

Sitting around waiting for a promotion

Don't you know you're talking about a revolution

It sounds like a whisper

Poor people are gonna rise up

And get their share

Poor people are gonna rise up

And take what's theirs

Don't you know you better

run, run, run, run, run, run

Cause finally the tables are starting to turn

The shared top-bracket status of speculators, corporate raiders, $100,000-soft-money political donors, inside traders, chainsaw-wielding corporate CEOs, and Washington megalobbyists never became a talking point [in the 2000 election].  How the top 1 percent garnered over half of late-twentieth-century U.S. income gains went essentially unremarked upon; the expansion of the combined assets of the Forbes 400 from several hundred billion dollars in 1982 to $3 trillion in 2000 remained disembodied, a ghostly aggrandizement almost never tied to the donations, dealings, and purged workforces. (Phillips 408)

How else to describe the new (2001 Bush) administration’s legislative agenda—elimination of the inheritance tax, revision of the bankruptcy laws, the repeal of safely regulations in the workplace, easing of restriction on monopoly, etc.—except as an act of class warfare?  Not the aggression that Karl Marx and maybe Ralph Nader had in mind, not the angry poor sacking the mansions of the rich, but the aggrieved rich burning down the huts of the presumptuous and troublemaking poor.  (Lewis Lapham quoted in Phillips 405)

There is now massive evidence that for decades Americans have been steadily becoming less equal, less free, and less the masters of their own fate.

The top 1 percent now garners for itself more income each year than the bottom 100 million Americans combined.  Even before the war on terrorism…, the United States…criminalized ‘more conduct than most, maybe than any, non-Islamic nations.’…[And] seven out of ten [Americans] felt that ‘people like me have almost no say in the political system.’ (Aperovitz 1)

 The Need for ‘Evolutionary Reconstruction’

If the critical values [of equality, liberty and democracy] lose meaning, politics obviously must also lose moral integrity…Beyond this, if equality, liberty and meaningful democracy can truly no longer be sustained by the political and economic arrangements of the current system, this defines the beginning phases of…a systemic crisis… [I]f the system itself is at fault,…a solution would ultimately require the development of a new system. (Alperovitz 2)

 HOW DO WE IMPLEMENT ECONOMIC DEMOCRACY?

(aka “The devil is in the details”)

1. Each productive enterprise is managed democratically by its workers.

2. The day-to-day economy is a market economy: Raw materials and consumer goods are bought and sold at prices determined by the forces of supply and demand.

3. New investment is socially controlled: The investment fund is generated by taxation and is dispensed according to democratic, market-conforming plan.  (Schweickart 68)

What we are seeking, over the long run, is not greater government ownership, but greater democratization of economic decision making.  Public enterprise is only a means to that end, not an end in itself.  What we would like to see is an economy with…‘a diverse, diffused, pluralist, and heterogeneous pattern of ownership’—…a truly democratic economy.   (Carnoy and Shearer 85)

A public trust to establish community ownership of common wealth—at the national, state, regional, and local levels—could in turn produce a stream of income, part of which could be used to provide needed services; part of which could provide economic stability and security for individuals and communities.  (Alperovitz

 In Newark, New Jersey, a nonprofit neighborhood corporation employs two thousand people to build and manage housing and help run a supermarket and other businesses that funnel profits back into health care, job creation, education and other community services.  In Glasgow, Kentucky, the city runs a quality cable, telephone, and Internet service at costs far lower than commercial rivals.  In Harrisonburg, Virginia, a highly successful company owned by the employees makes and sells cable television testing equipment.  In Alabama the state pension fund owns a major interest in many large and small businesses.  In Alaska every state resident as a matter of right receives dividends from a fund that invests oil revenues on behalf of the public at large. (Alperovitz 5)

 “Do I still believe in [worker] participation?  Yes, for three reasons: politically in can reduce power imbalance, psychologically it satisfies some basic human skills, and for managerial reasons because it contributes to organizational effectiveness.  But making it work is difficult.  It runs against the natural human instinct not to share power.  It is too easy to introduce participation symbolically or superficially.”

“More attention needs to be given to context.  [T]hree of the most successful examples of workers’ self-management…,  the Israeli kibbutzim, Yugoslav self-management, and Mondragon, were in part politically motivated…[W]hen the political situation changed, they became less participative.”( Strauss 801)

Two current web-sites are  www.garalperovitz.com

 www.Community-Wealth.com

AFRICA AND ECONOMIC DEMOCRACY

In a world of regional trading blocs,..[m]ost developing countries will have to negotiate access to the world’s wealthy markets…Who want the marginalized economic losers of the world (say, Africa south of the Sahara) on their team?  (Thurow 120)

Every border in Africa is essentially in the wrong place—the place where the British and French armies just happened to meet.  The existing borders make no sense geographically, ethnically, linguistically, historically, or economically.  (Thurow 62)  

We know that increasing consumption does not, as a general rule, make people happier.  Every religious tradition tells us this, and so does everyday experience.  Poverty is painful and degrading, but once you have reached a certain level of material comfort and security, consuming more does little for your overall sense of well-being.  In fact, it may contribute to the opposite. (Schweickart 142)

 WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR ECONOMIC DEMOCRACY?

Waiting On The World To Change--John Mayer

 me and all my friends we're all misunderstood

they say we stand for nothing

and there's no way we ever could

now we see everything that's going wrong

with the world and those who lead it

we just feel like we don't have the means to rise above and beat it

so we keep waiting waiting on the world to change

 it's hard to beat the system

when we're standing at a distance

so we keep waiting waiting on the world to change

now if we had the power to bring our neighbors home from war

they would have never missed a Christmas no more ribbons on their door

and when you trust your television what you get is what you got

cause when they own the information, oh they can bend it all they want

that's why we're waiting waiting on the world to change

 it's not that we don't care, we just know that the fight ain't fair

so we keep on waiting waiting on the world to change

one day our generation is gonna rule the population

so we keep on waiting waiting on the world to change

 …[O]ver the long haul rebuilding local democracy with a small d, from the bottom up, is a necessary though obviously not sufficient requirement of renewing the basis of meaningful Democracy with a big D in the political-economic system as a whole.  (Alperovitz 123)

 OHIO’S MINIMUM WAGE PROPOSAL

•  Ohio is one of only two states to set its minimum wage below the federal, although the national rate applies to most workers here.  15 states and D.C. now have minimums above the federal.

•  The current proposal to raise Ohio’s minimum wage to

$7.15 is comparable to laws that have passed in other states.

•  The proposed Ohio legislation would directly affect 446,000 covered employees earning less than $7.15 an hour.

•   Of those who would get a raise, the majority (60 percent) are women workers, more than 70 percent are age 20 or older, and more than three-fourths work at least twenty hours weekly.

As intelligent loving persons, I think all of us want to be free to make our own decisions.  I strive for a responsible freedom that respects and promotes the freedom of others and not just myself.  I'm glad I live in a nation that respects the freedom of all, believes in individual rights, yet promotes the common good.  Presuming I have passed a driver's test, I am free to drive an automobile.  I am not free to drive recklessly and endanger others.  I am not free to dominate others and ignore their basic rights.

We understand what political democracy is. As free citizens, we do have some say about what our local, state, and federal governments do. But there is another power in present world structures but which has enormous influence and say, ownership and control of the means of production, the factories and farms. Corporations make decisions which vitally affect all of us, decisions to downsize, to move to the South, the West, and overseas, decisions that often pollute the environment and destroy the rainforests. The average free citizen in the United States has little or anything to say about employment, trade or monetary decisions, or care of the earth, not to mention the kind of food that he eats or the kind of doctors he wants to serve him.

"Pre-20th century American society did in fact rest upon a footing of millions and millions of individual entrepreneurs.  They were mostly farmer-businesspeople--an entrepreneurial breed very different, for instance, from the farmer-peasants of many other societies. . .By the late 20th century, however, only a very small fraction of Americans--no more than 15%--can in any reasonable sense be called individual entrepreneurs.  The US has become a society of employees, most of whom work for large or medium-sized bureaucracies, private or public.  The difference between a system dominated by General Motors and Exxon and one based upon the individual landholding farmer and small businessperson of an earlier day in American history may very well be greater--in the real experience of the average person--than the difference between a system based upon large private bureaucracies in the US and public bureaucracies in socialist nations. . . Repeated academic studies routinely document the power of major private corporations to shape legislation, influence regulatory agencies, dominate important Executive Branch decisions, and influence election patterns and the media. . . tax and other government programs often encourage companies to relocate, leaving behind deteriorating houses, schools, roads, and hospitals, and the social disaster of community decay. The policy of 'throwaway cities" is wasteful--and entails the new expense of having to rebuild the same costly facilities elsewhere." (Who Is My Neighbor? Economics As If Values Matter, "Building a Living Democracy"  Dr. Gar Alperovitz, p.110, 112)

Daelalus, Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Winter 2002, Orlando Patterson, "Beyond Compassion, Selfish Reasons for being Unselfish"  pp. 26 ff:  "America has developed an unusual class system.  It is a highly competitive society in which the majority of players are winners, but in which the winners to an increasing degree take all, or nearly all.  This is the best of all possible worlds for the majority of winners.  But for the losers, especially those at the bottom, it is the worst of all possible worlds. . the conviction that anyone can make it if they only try hard enough, and that failure is a reflection of character--is believed by the majority, which has its own successes to prove it. .
'The United States ranks among the most open and participatory of modern democracies when it comes to politics and among the least egalitarian when it come to economic matters.' (Sidney Verba and Gary Orren)

"Democracy if it is to be more than a facade for special interest-group maneuvering and indirect control by the elites, requires that each and all have substantially equal capacity to participate. When there are vast differences in income, wealth, education, free time, and personal security, citizens with low incomes are fundamentally disadvantaged:  They do not have the money to influence politics; their education does not give them as many skills; they don't have the time: and often, fearful of losing their jobs, they prefer silence to speaking their minds." Gar Alperovitz, "A different future" Christianity and Crisis Vol. 51, No. 1.

Consumers vote by what they buy. We do have social legislation such as anti-trust laws. Corporations have stockholder meetings. In the present order we do vote by what we buy, through the political process, and by means of the stock that we own.  All of these approaches need to be pursued.  But some say this is not enough. 

Anti-trust laws, labor laws, environmental laws are weak and ineffective.  Major corporations have a choice not available to most citizens.  If they regard the law as unworthy, irrational or too demanding, they resist.  Since the cost of resistance is often quite modest compared to the cost of compliance, companies benefit in real dollars by stalling.  "Twenty years ago, we set out to eliminate sulfur dioxide from the air.  Here we are twenty years later and more than hundred million Americans are still breathing air with unhealthful levels of sulfur dioxide.  Why?  Because the companies fight you when you try to pass a law.  They fight you when you try to pass a second law.  They fight you when you try to write the regulations.  They fight you when you try to enforce the regulations.  Nowhere do they ever stop and say: 'Let's obey the law.'" (William Greider, Who Will Tell the People?  The Betrayal of American Democracy, p. 110)

Progressives "followed Populists as those advocating for change.  Their goals were not to define corporate natures, only to regulate corporate behavior.  'Regulatory agencies' began to be created in large numbers--not for purposes of defining corporations as subordinate, but merely to make them a little less harmful.  Corporations were, on the whole, willing to accept many regulatory agencies (a) because they shielded corporations from the public, (b) on condition that decisions of regulatory agencies could be appealed to courts, where corporations were confident that they could usually win, especially in federal courts, and (c) it was cheaper to buy influence from a few regulators than an entire legislature."
pp 35, 36 Citizens Over Corporations, A Brief History of Democracy in Ohio and Challenges to Freedom in the Future, Ohio Committee on Corporations, Law and Democracy, American Friends Service Committee, 513 W. Exchange Street, Akron, Ohio 44302, AFSCole@aol.com

International trade organizations like the World Trade Organization are indeed undermining what few national laws there are.  (See Public Citizen http://www.tradewatch.org/) Also Making a Place for Community, Local Democracy in a Global Era)

A positive campaign to make poverty history is the ONE Campaign:  You are invited to sign the ONE declaration.  More than one million Americans have joined ONE. ONE calls for debt cancellation, trade reform, providing basic needs by allocating an additional one percent of the US budget for health, education, clean water and food for the world's poorest countries.  ONE is a new effort by Americans to rally Americans-ONE BY ONE-to fight the emergency of global AIDS and extreme poverty.  Millenium Goals, an internationally agreed upon effort, are to halve global poverty by 2015.

http://www.one.org/

 Corporations are not governed by one member, one vote constituencies but by those who have the most money.  Corporations have enormous staff and financial resources, often challenge stockholder resolutions, and the SEC frequently rules in their favor. 

Consumers have limited choices, often inadequate information, and usually no way to communicate with other consumers on a large scale.  If the wealthy accumulate more and more, the market produces more of the goods and services wanted by those at the top and fewer of the goods and services wanted by those in the middle.  (See Chuck Collins, Betsy Leondar-Wright, Holly Sklar, Shifting Fortunes, The Perils of the Growing American Wealth Gap, 1999.)

Many today are searching for better ways to insure economic freedom and economic democracy.  If we are to respect the dignity and worth of every human person, we need to find a way to insure basic economic rights for all.

Did God charge us for creating us?  Did our mothers send us a bill for giving birth to us?  Did our parents expect us to pay room and board when we were children? Jesus freely gave His life for us.  We should give freely what we have freely received.  "Thus says the Lord:  All you who are thirsty, come to the water!  You who have no money, come, receive grain and eat; Come, without paying and without cost, drink wine and milk!" Isaiah 55.1-3) Did Jesus check the credit of the multitude before he multiplied the loaves? "Jesus said the blessing, broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, who in turn gave them to the crowds." (Matthew 14.13-21) "Now the company of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things which he possessed was his own, but they had everything in common." (Acts of the Apostles 4.32)

Each local community has provided generations of schooling, highways and waterways, police and fire protection.  All new inventions build on previous generations, indeed centuries of knowledge, skills, and wealth.  Inventors pick the best fruit of a tree that stands on a huge mountain of previous culture. Substantial wealth should be regularly returned to the community that ultimately made the creation of the wealth possible.  This can be done through inheritance laws, eminent domain, public trust funds.

Alaska has built up a large permanent fund that yields a thousand dollars to each citizen.  An equal amount is allocated to publicly determined uses since the community as a whole plays a fundamental role in the creation of wealth and of new technologies.

Today, do the few who own and control the factories, farms, and banks have too much power? Their enormous wealth affects even political democracy. If the wealthy contribute to both political parties, they have easy access to legislators.  Since only the wealthy can hire expensive lawyers, wealth also influences justice in the courts.  Most of the people in our jails and on death row are poor people.  The existence of enormous wealth alongside great poverty is a lack of community and solidarity.  Our present system is a kind of dictatorship because of its centralization of power.  (Read Quadragesimo Anno, Pope Pius XI, No's 105-111.  "It is obvious that in our days not only is wealth accumulated, but immense power and despotic economic domination is concentrated in the hands of a few. . banks supply the life-blood to the entire economic body, and grasp in their hands the very soul of production, so that no one dare breathe against their will. . this accumulation of power is the natural result of a limitless free competition that permits the survival of those who are the strongest,  which often means those who fight most relentlessly, and who pay least attention to the dictates of conscience. . . free competition and economic domination must be kept within just and definite limits, and brought under the effective control of public authority."  (Pope Paul VI repeats this theme in Octogesima Adveniens no. 44 as does Pope John Paul II in Centesimus Annus No. 35)

Global economic democracy could take many forms.  At least it must mean the exercise of basic human rights for each human person. At most it would mean local community ownership of the means of production and community services.  In between it would mean legislative control by the government of business, e.g. the Federal Trade Commission, the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Labor Relations Board.   Since we have a global economy today, it's hard for me to see how there can be control of multi-national corporations and global financial institutions without the "truly effective international authority" so ardently longed for by Pope John XXIII.   I don't think we can say we have genuine democracy in our nation or in our world if there are not sufficient checks and balances on those with enormous wealth and power.  If done according to the principle of subsidiarity, economies of scale would dictate some regional, national, and international entities.  The oceans, natural resources, and the communications media should be owned in common. 

Although very imperfect, now there is some semblance of political democracy in many parts of the world. This democratic process needs to be extended in some way to the factories and the farms.  We could call more humane structures by some other name. We could call it global economic freedom, global economic security, global economic equity.  I will call it global economic democracy. The Redeemer of Humankind, the first encyclical of Pope John Paul II, No. 16 states: "Human persons cannot allow themselves to become slaves of economic systems. The living parable of Lazarus begging at the table of the rich banqueter, calls into question the financial, monetary, production, and commercial mechanisms that support the world's economy. Daring and creative initiatives are needed to restore a moral order in keeping with human dignity. Our solidarity with all that is human must inspire us to redistribute wealth and control over wealth."

St. Thomas Aquinas said that no one can own capital resources, land and natural resources, unless she/he respects the rights of others and of society as a whole.  Catholic teaching has recognized the value of private property to respect the dignity of individual persons, to guarantee freedom, and to provide for basic needs.  Widespread community ownership of the means of production is a check and balance on overly-centralized government. But the title to private ownership is only legitimate if the land serves the greatest number, is democratically controlled, and is treated with responsible stewardship.  (Pope John Paul II, On Human Work, III, No. 14, 45) 
(see the September 2001 Rome Conference http://www.stthomas.edu/cathstudies/cst/mgmt/le)

Failing to respect the integrity of creation is a violation of the Seventh Commandment.  Since the goods of creation are destined for all, the common good takes precedence over an individual's right to private property.  (Catechism of the Catholic Church, No 2415; No.2402,3)

Although all of us own consumer property like our clothing, only a few own the factories that produce the clothes we wear.  The US bishops defend the right to private ownership of even productive property such as factories if the ownership of this productive property is extended to all.  Excessive concentration of ownership of the means of production means excessive economic and political power.  "Private property does not constitute for anyone an absolute or unconditioned right. No one is justified in keeping for his exclusive use what he does not need, when others lack necessities."   (Pope Paul VI, Development of Peoples, 23; US Catholic Bishops, Economic Justice for All, No. 115) Does this mean that the government should send in troops to confiscate the corporations of those not acting responsibly?  I think it would be more prudent to make and enforce genuine anti-trust laws or promote more local community ownership.  "One cannot exclude the socialization, in suitable conditions, of certain means of production." (Pope John Paul II On Human Work,14)

In 1989 I traveled to Mondragon in Spain.  This was partially a spiritual pilgrimage to the land of St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Society of Jesus, and partially a visit to one of the most encouraging stories I have heard in the last fifty years.

In 1941 a Catholic priest was assigned to Mondragon, a small Basque town in Spain of 8,000 people.  Observing that his young parishioners were discriminated against, he started a technical high school of his own.  His graduates were eventually very successful and began working for manufacturing firms.  Discovering that their advancement was blocked, the graduates returned to Father Don Jose Maria Arizmendiarrietta asking for help.  He asked: "Why not start a business of your own based on Catholic Social Doctrine?"   Fr. Don Jose's students wanted to emphasize the dignity and worth of the human person. They came up with the idea of a worker-owned cooperative as a means to achieve "the primacy of labor among factors of production."  Fr. Don Jose Maria begged money from friends, and his graduates purchased the license of a small bankrupt company in Vitoria.  In 1954 they constructed a factory in Mondragon and began producing a small stove with twenty-four workers.  The new company was called ULGOR, an acronym formed from the initial letters of names of the five founders.  ULGOR rapidly diversified and grew to 143 workers by 1958.  Soon they founded several other cooperatives, a machine-tool factory, an iron-smelting company, a consumer cooperative store, a foundry, and a producer of domestic appliance components.

By 1959 they began to have difficulty getting the bank loans they needed.  Father Arizmendiarietta had a solution.  Start a bank of their own.  The students responded: "We told him, yesterday we were craftsmen, foremen, and engineers.  Today we are trying to learn how to be managers and executives.  Tomorrow you want us to become bankers.  That is impossible!"  But Fr. Arizmendiarietta had done the necessary research and he was, in the end, persuasive.  The Caja Laboral Popular began operations in 1959 and by 1989 was one of the largest banks in Spain.

In 1989  Fagor, the cooperative that produces refrigerators and stoves, had effective competition only from a German company and a Swedish company.  Fagor had 30% of the Spanish market, was the biggest manufacturer of electrical appliances, the seventh largest manufacturer in Spain.  By 1989 Mondragon was an association of nearly two hundred enterprises, mostly industrial factories which not only manufactured durable goods, intermediate goods, and capital equipment, but also produced electronic and high-technology products.    Mondragon also included schools, farms, retail stores.  These enterprises had over 20,000 owners who were also the only workers.  They had guaranteed jobs for life, fully adequate take-home incomes, nearly equal participation in their firm's profits and losses, and equal share in the democratic control of their enterprises, a broad health insurance plan for their families, a private unemployment program which pays 80% of take-home pay if they are ever laid off, and a pension program which pays 60% of their salary on the last day of work until death.    Mondragon had its own doctors, its own social security, its own day-care centers. The commercial enterprises sold nearly a billion dollars worth of goods and services annually. 

Because Mondragon stresses education, research, and development the cooperatives are always growing.  But the workers feel education to responsibility and human and religious values is more important than technical knowledge.   It is relatively easy to structure a cooperative.  The real challenge is to have cooperative people.  The members are divided within themselves.  Part of them, the owner part, wants to protect the long-range interests of the company.  Part of them, the worker part, want to work less and get more benefits.  Thus integration is within the worker-owners as well as between the worker-owners.

Fr. Arizmendiarrietta died in 1976.  His teachings were a striking anticipation of Pope John Paul II's encyclical Laborem Exercens in its theme of the priority of labor over capital, its emphasis on the dignity of work, and the need for worker solidarity.   I'm not ready to say that the Mondragon cooperatives are without fault, and they are forced to operate in the present system.  It is unlikely that they will not be infected by the current defects in contemporary structures. 

Today you can examine Mondragon's web-site. http://www.mcc.es/ing/index.asp    They now have workers who are part-owners, but also workers who are not.  The basic structure, however, remains much more democratic than the average corporation.

"MONDRAGÓN CORPORACIÓN COOPERATIVA, MCC, is a business group made up of 150 companies organised in three sectorial groups: Financial, Industrial and Distribution, together with the Research and Training areas.
Mondragón Corporación Cooperativa is the fruit of the sound vision of a young priest, Don José María Arizmendiarrieta, as well as the solidarity and efforts of all our worker-members. Together we have been able to transform a humble factory, which in 1956 manufactured oil stoves and paraffin heaters, into the leading industrial group in the Basque Country and 7th in the ranking in Spain, with sales of 9.232 million euros in its Industrial and Distribution activities, 8.474 million euros of administered assets in its Financial activity and a total workforce of 66.558 at the end of 2002.
MCC’s mission combines the basic objectives of a business organization competing in international markets with the use of democratic methods in its organisation, job creation, promotion of its workers in human and professional terms and commitment to the development of its social environment."
Jesús Catania Chairman of the General Council

In Cincinnati, Ohio The Interfaith Business Builders model themselves after the Modragan cooperative structure. www.interfaithbusinessbuilders.org   Cooperative Janitorial Services is Interfaith Business Builders’ pride and joy. The success of Cooperative Janitorial Services and its dozen+ members (worker/owners) says Interfaith Business Builders are learning the formulas for successful development of cooperative businesses in low income communities in this country. They see a very exciting future ahead.

Because only active and thoughtful citizens will change those in power, the world will not get international law and order until we become proficient in active non-violence.  Nor do I think we will be able to function in a democratic way until more people have ownership and control of the means of production, the factories and farms.

                                                                                            A Brief History of Corporations

I think we get a better understanding of present day corporations if we know a little of the history of how corporations began.  It may not occur to us that there may have been a time when corporations were more accountable than they are today. 

Even though they had done nothing to incur the debt, in sixteenth century England descendants could inherit an  individual’s debts and even be imprisoned if they were not able to pay.  Those who sailed from England to trade for spices in the East Indies faced not only a dangerous sea voyage because of storms or pirates but also the prospect of ruining their own families and their descendants.  Charters were granted by the state to a group of investors to serve a public purpose, namely to encourage trade with the East Indies.

In chartering corporations, the crown limited an investor’s liability for losses to the amount of her or his investment--a right not extended to individual citizens.  A share of the profits would go to the king, and the charter of the corporation was bestowed at the pleasure of the crown and could be withdrawn at any time.  Since corporations were so dependent on the crown, from the very beginning corporations have struggled to expand their rights and limit corporate obligations.

England used corporations such as the East India Company and the Hudson Bay Company to control the colonial economies.  Indeed, many American colonies were themselves chartered as corporations.  English corporations generally had monopoly powers over territories and industries.  Even though colonists had the raw materials, they were forbidden to produce their own clothing.  Raw materials were shipped to England and the finished products returned to the colonies.

Writing The Wealth of Nations in 1776, the same year as The Declaration of Independence,  Adam Smith opposed corporations who could suppress the competition of the market.  Both Adam Smith and American colonists did not want undue power in the hands of the state or of corporations.  In the beginning of the United States family farms and business were the mainstay of the economy along with neighborhood shops, cooperatives, and worker-owned enterprises. Investment decisions were local and democratic. Only the individual states could charter corporations, not the federal government.  State charters were limited to a fixed number of years and were revoked if the provisions of the charters were not observed.  Large and small investors had equal voting rights, and interlocking directorates were forbidden.  Corporations were limited to only those business activities specifically authorized in its charter.  By 1800 only two hundred corporate charters had been granted by the states.

The nineteenth century saw the gradual rise in the power of corporations especially during and after the Civil War.  Profiting greatly from the manufacture of needed munitions, corporations were able to buy legislation that gave them massive grants of money and land to expand the Western railway system.  Before his death President Abraham Lincoln observed: “Corporations have been enthroned. . .An era of corruption in high places will follow and the money power will endeavor to prolong its reign by working on the prejudices of the people. . .until wealth is aggregated in a few hands. . . and the Republic is destroyed.” (Harvey Wasserman, America Born & Reborn, p. 89)   Gradually corporations controlled key state legislatures and rewrote the laws that governed their creation and operation.  New Jersey and Delaware limited the liability of corporate owners and managers and issued charters in perpetuity. 

Conservative courts made decision after decision in favor of corporations. In 1886 the Supreme Court ruled in Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad that a private corporation is a natural person!  Corporations soon claimed the rights of individual citizens without having many of the responsibilities and liabilities of citizenship.  The individual was no match for the vast financial resources of corporations who dominated public thought and discourse.

Child labor, inadequate wages, corporation security forces, violent industrial wars led at the turn of the twentieth century to dramatic rises in labor union membership.  Industrialists merged their empires into even larger corporate directorates, “combining $22.2 billion in assets under the Northern Securities Corporation of New Jersey. . .equivalent in its day to twice the total assessed value of all property in thirteen states in the southern United States.” (David Korten, When Corporations Rule the World, p. 60.)

Under some threat from socialism, big business began to work with large moderate labor unions that without challenging corporate power or the market system negotiated uniform wages and standards and enforced worker discipline according to agreed rules.  Since the courts continued to rule against labor, unions developed a legislative agenda and allied itself with the Democratic Party.

During the roaring twenties corporate monopolies flourished and were loosely regulated. Although many American families had a much better standard of living, one percent of Americans still controlled 59 percent of the wealth. 

In October 1929 the financial system came crashing down, and financial fortunes evaporated almost overnight.   President Franklin Roosevelt felt strong measures needed to be taken.

Moderating influences moved laissez-faire capitalism to a period called social-welfare capitalism in which government had a more active role.  Government helped the poor and the workers through laws to protect human rights and provide basic needs, e.g. minimum wage laws, laws to insure safety in the workplace, the forty-hour work week, child-labor laws, and social security. Since government insured fair and equal competition through anti-trust laws, a few large corporations were not permitted to dominate the market. 

English economist John Maynard Keynes led the theory of social-welfare capitalism in which government intervenes actively in the boom and bust business cycles which often had caused much hardship and instability during laissez-faire capitalism.  Keynes proposed that during periods of depression the government spend more and tax less.  During periods of  prosperity the government spends less and taxes more.  The economy is also controlled by interest rates which are set in the US by the Federal Reserve. 

The courts continued to favor business, and it was only the long term in office of President Franklin Roosevelt that allowed the Supreme Court to become more open to worker’s interests and social legislation.

World War II created a climate in which the government took an even more central role in placing controls on  consumption, industrial output, and allocation of national resources.  A  highly progressive tax system, full employment at good wages, and a strong social safety net brought greater equity to the US.

Driven by anti-communism, the national security state began to gain strength after World War II. United States corporations became transnational and moved South, West, and overseas where wages and taxes were lower.  This translated into fewer safety standards for workers and fewer social services.  United States economist Milton Friedman returned to the philosophy of John Locke as he pushed for a minimal governmental role in the economy.  The excessive military spending after World War II sacrificed some of the social gains begun by social welfare capitalism.

In the ‘60's a new generation challenged consumerism, neglect of the environment, and the military-industrial complex.  The government was aggressively pursuing antitrust cases to keep markets open and competitive.

The ‘70's returned to more conservative courts and fewer controls on financial institutions.

The ‘80's brought corporate control of the legislative agenda.  Progressive taxation was reversed; restraints on corporate mergers and acquisitions were removed.  Environmental and labor standards were weakened.   Corporate workforces were downsized and manufacturing operations were shipped abroad to benefit from cheap labor and lesser  environmental standards. 

The US-dominated World Bank and International Monetary Fund forced the debt-burdened Southern countries to become open to foreign corporations, eliminate protectionist barriers and lift restrictions on foreign investment.

The number of billionaires in the US increased from one in 1978 to 120 in 1994.  Unemployment became chronic, labor unions lost members and political influence.  Wages began to decline, as did the income of the poor.

With the end of the Cold War, the free-market ideology has become a fundamentalist religious faith despite the clear evidence that there are vast numbers of the world population for which this dogma is not working.  Even those in corporations who see the need  to change are driven by the system.  The questions then arises: who will govern?  the people or the artificial persona of the corporation?  To pit an individual against a multinational corporation is equivalent to putting a featherweight in the same ring with a heavyweight. The pendulum of power of corporations has swung back and forth from their inception.  Is it time to examine ways in which we can have an economic system that is more local and democratic, allowing the principle of subsidiarity to apply to business as well as to government?

(The above has been taken in large part from Chapter Four “The Rise of Corporate Power in America” in David Korten’s When Corporations Rule the World, and from Pemberton and Finn, Toward a Christian Economic Ethic)

If you wish to help preserve economic freedom and economic equity, consider contacting the Alliance for Democracy, Changing corporate structures may seem like a gigantic task, but change is usually initiated by a small group of committed citizens. 

A Brief History of Democracy in Ohio and Challenges to Freedom in the Future was researched by the Ohio Committee on Corporations, Law and Democracy of the American Friends Service Committee.  Investing some of their huge profits from the Civil War, corporations lobbied for legal doctrines and laws which preferred private over public interests and property rights over human rights.  Workers now have no free speech or assembly rights on corporate property.  The Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Communications Commission, the National Labor Relations board, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Interstate Commerce Commission, etc. help corporations to do a little less harm but do not touch root causes of injustice and lack of democracy.  Corporations exert tremendous power over legislatures, courts, executive branches, press and information, all of which are essential to democracy. "Unlike people, corporations can live forever, operate even after breaking laws, and write off fines and penalties.  Corporate leaders are immune from liability and are free from public recall." ii

The US Revolution was in part against corporations.  In The Wealth of Nations written in 1776 Adam Smith mentions corporations twelve times, not once favorably.  The US Constitution makes no mention of corporations but entrusts decision-making to state legislators who were at that time closest to the people.  In 1802 the Ohio Constitution states that "all powers, not hereby delegated, remain with the people. . .who at all times have complete power to alter, reform or abolish their government. . . Private property ought and shall ever be held inviolate, but always subservient to the public welfare."  p. 6 The town meeting was where the community made its decisions.

Early acts which created corporations one at a time through petitioning the legislature, or General Assembly, stipulated rigid conditions.  These privileges, not rights, included: limited duration of charter or certificate of incorporation; limitation on amount of land ownership; limitation of amount of capitalization or total investment of owners; limitations of charter for a specific purpose (to amend its charter, a new corporation had to be formed);the state reserving the right to amend the charters or to revoke them.)" p. 7.  From 1839 to 1849 the Ohio legislature repealed several corporate charters, effectively dissolving the corporations. Courts ruled that banks could not charge more interest than what was stipulated by the General Assembly in the bank's charter. p. 17. 

Richard Grossman, Co-Director, Program on Corporations, Law & Democracy. "Backed by the might of the English Empire, corporations waged war, vacuumed up resources, enslaved people, destroyed local cultures, and wrote the arbitrary rules by which millions of people lived, labored, and died.  Then they wrote the history books to keep the facts from future generations." p. 42

Is the Corporation a Person?

by James Aaron Tecumseh Sinclair  go·lem  (glm)  n. In Jewish folklore, an artificially created human supernaturally endowed with life.

Earthen tools are the staple of humankind’s extension of itself- the collection, manipulation, and exploration of its environment beyond the confines of weak, limited flesh.  What started out as clay pots and stone axes has blossomed into the steel wings of airliners and the microscopic silicon strands of the computer processor.  In folklore, the golem was a tool created from clay and words of power by a master Kabbalist.  Hebrew words were inscribed on its forehead during a stringent ritual, usually invoking the name of God or His attributes, such as “God is Truth.” Its inception and function was usually limited- it was a tool for bearing loads, as a sacrifice, or as a powerful defender.  But humans are fallible, and our intentions impure.  Creation of the creature through our words and intent was invariably the cause of our inevitable lack of control over it.  The golem would become more powerful than intended, destructive, and violent. 

In reality, modern man has created such creatures.  Born of legalese and baptized in the sweat of labor, they roam the earth performing the tasks and bidding of their masters.  You’ve seen their sigils, you know their names.  Their footprints clutter our homes, their excrement pollutes our water. 

The modern golem, the Corporation as human animation, was given breath in 1886.  Santa Clara County vs. Southern Pacific Railroad was a case before the U.S. Supreme Court, not to establish some federal definition of limitation to the business construct of the corporation, a business and legal tool that had been used for hundreds of years, but to decide who was to determine taxable value of fence posts along the railroads right-of way.

J.C. Bancroft Davis- interestingly, a former railroad president- wrote in the case’s headnote that “The defendant Corporations are persons within the intent of the clause in section 1 of the Fourteen Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”  Although the headnote had no bearing in law, and the court at the time made no such ruling in the case, corporate attorneys and lazy (or activist) judges have repeated its mantra over the heads of corporate entities, breathing life into inanimate, legal constructs.

Essentially, corporations, which before that time were required in most states to serve the common good and possessed limited lifespans and rights, were transformed into beings that held the rights of actual humans, were immortal, and could wield tremendous power.

Corporate persons, or golems, have since utilized rights granted to humans for their own gain and motives, usually in the name of profit and shareholder value.  They use the First Amendment to justify their right to lie or deceive in advertising.  They use it to pump millions of dollars into our political system.  They invoke Fourth Amendment protections against search and seizure of assets thwarting government oversight and auditing.  The Fourteenth Amendment ensures they are not discriminated against in law and is used when a community does not wish their presence- even when brought to a general vote.  The sum gain is a twisted political system which serves the rights and common good of large golems, depressed cheap-labor communities, and environmental decay.  Essentially, it is the collapse of the ‘town commons’ and democracy itself.

The easy answer is to remove the words of power from their foreheads and de-animate them.  Removing corporate personhood would limit their power and give it back to the living beings for which they were originally intended.  The corporation, like the clay bowl or stone ax, is a useful tool.  At this country’s inception corporations were chartered to, above all, serve the public good.  They were legal constructs with limited lifespans used as the tools of business and commerce.  If the tool was used for destructive purposes, its charter was revoked - the tool essentially broken.  Our founders believed this necessary to the survival of justice and a democratic system of governance.

There are many organizations that are leading the fight for human rights for humans, up to and including a Constitutional Amendment. You can contact POCLAD (Program on Corporations, Law and Democracy) at http://www.poclad.org/ CELDF (The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund) at www.celdf.org, your local Green Party, and various religious organizations (such as Unitarian Universalists – check this web site for information and links to other organizations: www.firstuucolumbus.org/corppers) to help bring democracy and justice back to the people and rid the world of this dark, corrupted magic. 

 Originally published at www.hystericalleft.com' <http://www.hystericalleft.com')

 In Central Ohio, contact Citizens for Democracy and Ending Corporate Control  Web site: www.firstuucolumbus.org/corppers

Local Contact: Michael Greenman (614) 898-5825 or mgreenma@columbus.rr.com

The Social Responsibility Amendment to the US Constitution is a useful way to educate about the need for a new global consciousness as described in the Tikkun Community Core Vision.  Every corporation doing business in the US with an income above $20 million dollars would receive a new corporate charter once every twenty years, which will only be granted to corporations that can prove to a jury of ordinary citizens that they have a powerful record of social responsibility.  The struggle for a Social Responsibility Amendment to the US Constitution may take several decades.  In the meantime, we also support the Social Responsibility Initiative, to be passed by local city councils, county officials, state legislatures, and the US Congress, requiring that any corporation receiving contracts for work in the public sector prove a history of social and ecological responsibility as measured by an Ethical Impact Report.  (See  http://www.tikkun.org/)

The Social Responsibility Amendment to the U.S. Constitution by Rabbi Michael Lerner "Every corporation doing business within the US (whether located here or abroad) with annual income of over $20 million must receive a new corporate charter every twenty years, and these new charters will only be granted to corporations who can prove a history of social responsibility as measured by an Ethical Impact Report which will measure the company's sensitivity to the needs of the environment, the community, and its employees. 

The Ethical Impact Report will be compiled by 3 different constituencies: the corporation itself, the workers (under conditions of confidentiality), and relevant community organizations around the world who wish to present their case about the social responsibility of the corporation. Cases shall be decided by Social Responsibility Grand Juries selected to be representative of the economic, social, ethnic, racial, and religious diversity of the United States. In cases in which these Grand Juries find insufficient social responsibility, they may assign the assets of the corporation to a community organization or other corporation which can show that it  has a better plan  for ensuring high levels of social responsibility while continuing to make the corporation survive. If no such group can be found, the Grand Jury can simply suspend the operations of the corporation, or mandate specific changes in corporate behavior and fine and imprison corporate officials and board members who do not implement the plan.

Most American politicians fear to challenge corporate power not only because they need the financial support during elections, but for a deeper and more reasonable reason as well: they fear that corporations can always threaten to move their base of operations, leaving joblessness and economic devastation in their wake.

The various branches of the progressive movement each seek to obtain some minimal restraints on corporate power. But the history of the environmental movement's reformism demonstrates the problem here: for every single victory won at the expenditure of huge amounts of energy, there emerge three or four new areas in which unrestrained consumption and the extension of the market to every corner of the world threaten the life-support system of the planet while  simultaneously developing finding new labor markets to pay exploitative wages. And as the ethos of  selfishness and materialism generated by the market and glorified by the media as "human nature" increasingly presents itself as "common sense" to the peoples of the world, resistance seems foolish to many who decide that the best they can do is to try to "make it"--even at the expense of so many others around the world who we know will never get their share. While some may take refuge from the selfishness and love corroding aspects of the market by attempting to build ultra-nationalist or  religious fundamentalist communities around a different vision, most will passively acquiesce, convinced by the Thomas Friedman rhetoric that "there is no alternative."    But there is an alternative: to change the progressive agenda from its previous focus on "inclusion," (making sure that those in the US who had been "left out" of the rewards of the capitalist system would get a fairer portion) to a new focus on "changing the bottom line."  In its deepest sense, this strategy, which we call "a  politics of meaning," aims to change the very definition of productivity and efficiency, so that we see institutions as efficient or productive not only to the extent that they maximize money and power, but also to the extent that they maximize people's capacities to be loving and caring, ethically and ecologically sensitive, and able to respond to the world not only in terms of how we can "use it" but also with awe and wonder. 

No, I don't expect that the SRA will pass our state legislatures or Congress very quickly. Just as the ERA never passed, yet had a monumental impact on public discourse and understanding, the campaign for the SRA could similarly shift the parameters of American political discussion. If liberal and progressive forces made this SRA a central item on their agenda, and talked about this as the way to create "a new bottom line," we could provide people with a plausible picture of how it might be possible to live in a world in which loving and caring could have real social power.

To launch the SRA: use the next few years to involve all sectors of American society  in the conversation about what should be included in the  Ethical Impact Report used to judge whether a corporation is entitled to charter-renewal. And popularize the notion of "a new bottom line."  And if we could have the courage to call the SRA a fundamental spiritual challenge to the ethos of selfishness and materialism, we might soon find that our SRA campaign could attract sectors of the population who feel ripped off by the spiritual deadness and moral decline of American society but who have never understood the connection between the spiritual crisis and the dynamics of the market. The SRA--an example of what I call Emancipatory Spirituality in my new book Spirit Matters--could give people confidence that their own highest values might someday have a chance of shaping social reality, so that people might look upon each other as embodiments of the sacred rather than as solely vehicles for narcissistic gratification, and might look upon the world as deserving of awe and wonder and not just as a resource. It's the loss of that kind of hope which leads people to believe "there is no alternative," and the recreation of  that hope which is likely to be the first positive outcome of the SRA campaign." Rabbi Michael Lerner is editor of Tikkun and rabbi of Beyt Tikkun synagogue in San Francisco (www.beyttikkun.org)
 

From Core principles of Tikkun Community:
2. A NEW BOTTOM LINE IN OUR ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS 

Productivity and efficiency must no longer be judged solely by the degree to which any corporation or institution maximizes profits or power, but also by the degree to which a corporation, school, government institution, or social practice tends to support ethical, spiritual, and ecological sensitivity and to promote the sustainability of our environment;  the degree to which a corporation, school, government institution, or social practice tends to support human beings to be loving, caring and capable of sustaining long-term loving relationships; the degree to which a corporation, school, government institution or social practice helps people overcome a narrow utilitarian attitude toward each other or toward the universe and instead encourages them to see other people in a non-utilitarian and to view the physical world not  primarily as something that can be used for human purposes but also through the lens of awe and wonder at the grandeur of creation; Beyond all definitions of efficiency and productivity, we seek to shape a society in which there is time not only to Do and to Make but there is time also to Be and to Love—time for family, community, and spiritual exploration.

We want this New Bottom Line brought into all aspects of our public life, so that we can begin to reshape our schools and hospitals, our government, our professions, our media in ways that encourage people to see each other as fundamentally valuable and deserving of love and caring. We reject the notion that values should be kept out of public life, and instead seek to champion the values articulated in this statement, and to encourage social change that would foster these values throughout the society. So, for example, we want schools to be assessed as successful or as failures not only to the extent that they produce students who can read and write but also to the extent that they tend to foster caring human beings who are ethically and ecologically sensitive, who excel at taking care of others and at developing their own inner resources, and who have developed the capacity to respond to the universe with awe and wonder. We want corporate charters to be dependent on their ability to prove a history of social responsibility as measured by an Ethical Impact Report. We want all of our economic and social institutions to be judged successful to the extent that they foster caring and respect for all peoples and for the planet. 

Global Marshall Plan of the Network of Spiritual Progressives

"George Marshall was Secretary of State when he convinced the U.S. to launch a plan to rebuild Europe after the Second World War, a plan that is widely credited with having stimulated European economies so that they became successful and could eventually stand on their own without direct aid from the U.S. The Marshall Plan thus stands as a reminder that government financed plans can, if run with smarts and sensitivity, be successful in alleviating suffering and stimulating economic well-being.

We are aware that a subtext of the older Marshall Plan was to advance American economic domination and to overcome the potential socialist leanings of many in post WWII Europe. We do not share those goals, so we are not using the term for that reason, and would gladly endorse another name for it that actually conveyed as much of the substance and hooked in to the positive feelings generated by Global Marshall Plan, but we do not know of such a name.

It's the best way to empower the progressive forces all over the world--by adopting a strategy of Generosity to secure homeland security, in place of the current strategy of Domination that has led us and others into endless wars and into the fantasy of a war on terrorism that will keep justifying every future war dreamt up by the fearful and the militarists.

We offer this plan in a spirit of humility. We recognize that there are many areas of legitimate concern which we have not yet addressed, and that some of the specifics proposed below may not generate as much enthusiasm as the larger concept of the Global Marshall Plan. We welcome your input at this stage in helping us address the questions that you think ought to be addressed. We also know that the process of getting a Global Marshall Plan adopted by the U.S. and the advanced industrial countries will be a long one, and that along the way we will be building many coalitions to advance and support these ideas. In that process many of the ideas will evolve in order to ensure genuine participation by the many potential stakeholders in this plan, and in light of the ongoing thinking that emerges in those coalitions.

We are also aware that in proposing something as visionary and sweeping as this plan, we risk being dismissed as "unrealistic." We'll address this in more detail below. Here we want to say that it is precisely our goal to reject current visions of what is realisti