I think it is obvious that humanity will require, in some sense, a global economic system. We humans have gone too far in technological development, overpopulation and planetary destruction to assume otherwise. Further I think such a global economic system must have the welfare of human beings, in their totality, as its fundamental objective. Given these assumptions and values, can capitalism, no matter how modified, measure up?
I suggest that the European Union (EU), having as members a mixture of nations and their national economies can serve as the best example of what capitalism, as a global economic system can be expected to do. But why is Greece, for example, so wanting in productivity to elicit from Nicholas Sarkozy, Angela Merkel and David Cameron the openly expressed regret that Greece was ever admitted to the eurozone? Could it be that Greece does not have the natural resources, e.g. coal, major rivers, a variety of mineral resources, that their northern neighbors do and therefore must do with less in health care, education, etc. than those northern neighbors? It would seem so. Is this not the naturally wealthy nations dictating to those of less endowed nations how they must live if they are to be loaned a portion of that natural wealth as a bailout? Again, this division of nations along the lines of natural resources would, if capitalism is the governing global economic system, condemn billions of the worlds population to, at best, second class global citizenship.
The EU's economic system, commonly called the eurozone, is much like any national bank. Not all member of the EU are members of the eurozone. An EU member nation must have a sufficiently viable national economy to become a eurozone member. Every EU member that has such an economy must join the eurozone. There are no protocols for withdrawal, either voluntary or otherwise, from the eurozone once admitted. The eurozone, as any nation, has its own central bank (ECB) which, among other things, issues its own currency and bonds.
Given this background what has capitalism done as this amalgam of nation states seeks to survive and prosper in the global capitalist market place as it currently exists?
As we know, the eurozone did not protect the citizens of the EU from the greed-driven shenanigans of Wall Street's securitized mortgage fragments. Some EU national economies, i.e. Ireland, Greece, Portugal, Spain, and Italy are all being required to impose severe cutbacks in social services in return for eurozone bailout funds. This is causing riots in Greece and Portugal and, as noted above, a variety of disparaging remarks from the French, Germans and English to the effect that Greece for example, should never have been admitted to the eurozone. Here we see a group of nations struggling to form a more perfect union to avoid the wars that so frequently have plagued their lands and, in consequence struggling to form a common economy, being defeated in that attempt by capitalism's single focus on wealth. Indeed, Spain, in its recent election, has decided to opt out of its social programs and follow the ER/IMF imposed drastic reductions in social services. This, despite the fact that Wall Street was the ultimate cause of their social distress. Extrapolate this to a global scale, with much greater natural economic potential, and billions of human beings will not qualify for membership in a global economic system. Wealth once again trumps human need and human potential.
Well, what can we do? David Korten in his book Agenda for a New Economy, articulates 12 steps to be taken to achieve an equitable and sustainable world economy. Korten presents no utopian construct, but takes the real world seriously in his proposals. While I agree with much of what he proposes as a remedy for what we now have, I believe his call for more local units of economic organizations flies in the face of the level of technological integration and population density that humanity has developed. Humanity, if it is to survive, will require a global economy to assure a sufficient measure of equality in the distribution of the world's economic productivity.
One possibility I find heartening is to view humanity itself as our primary resource. By way of illustration let us consider Japan and South Korea. Both countries are exceptionally short of natural resources, yet both countries have thrived economically. However, initially in Japan and in South Korea the population was viewed as their only significant resource. More specifically, the brains resident in that population, as with all human brains, were known to be very powerful. All they needed was sufficient education to become a major resource for doing all the things those humans do well, such as innovate and organize. This, by the way, is an illustration of what I meant by an economy based on understanding rather than power in an earlier column.
Here, however, because this reliance on human intelligence had to function within a capitalist system, the educational process was highly competitive and resulted in significant numbers of student suicides.
Nonetheless, these countries have demonstrated that it is possible to develop viable economies when the only significant resource is human intelligence. The fact that this resource is widely distributed on our planet provides the basis for mitigating the problems created by maldistributed natural resources. In brief, human intelligence provides one of the essentials for a viable world economy--equitable resources.
The other essential requirement, in my judgment is that we must move the basis for exercising that economy from competition to cooperation. An economy in which people contribute to achieving societal goals and through that personal satisfaction will, for example, devote sufficient resources to insure that everyone can get as good an education as he/she can master instead of competing to the point of suicide to win acceptance to a university. Culturally we must pass from being focused on winning to being focused on creating a better society and the development of human potential. This may sound like it is expecting too much of humanity, but as our options continue to diminish we may be forced to focus on our better selves instead of surrendering to our lesser selves as we have done for so long.
Bob Newhard
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