Subject: The Global Model, III Bill Ellis on list Attac, and other respondants, I thank each of you for your kind words of support in reply to several of my previous posts, but I am always left with the feeling that you have only identified a kindred reformer's spirit, without hearing or understanding anything that kindred reformer said. You are in good company in this regard. I can count on the fingers of only one hand the number of respondants, since I started these letters in 1969, who have written to say they agreed with, a sentence I had written, a bit of data I had mentioned, or a corrective action I had proposed to moderate our growing social chaos. You wrote, with great certainty: "Knowledge is creating the shift from The Dominator Paradigm (as Eisler calls it) to the Gaian Paradigm (as Capra calls it). This deep fundamental cultural transformation is well exemplified by your good works. >>>>>>>>>>> snip <<<<<<<<<<<< Your analysis tells it well. But, there is a crucial missing element of the alternative and transformational movement(s) that you too miss. That is the fact that as long as future citizens are put in authoritarian, patriarchal, hierarchical schools to learn how to compete, and rise above one another, and to dominate nature, we can expect that kind of a society to continue to exist. >>>>>>>>>>> snip <<<<<<<<<<<< We'd welcome any comments on the place and mode of learning in the world you envision." >>>>>>>>>> End Bill Ellis wrote <<<<<< In the world I envision, folks like Riane Eisler, Capra, Linda Grover, yourself, and other serious reformers will find it easy to effect technically valid reforms in their area of specialization and expertise, in marked contrast to their present condition. This improvement (in the promotion of learning, in your case) will be brought about, if I live long enough, because I have addressed the root cause of our social chaos, and will have informed a public opinion capable of eliminating the primary obstacle to the democratic process of correcting technical defects in our public policy by open debate. The thing I see as the primary obstacle to open debate (for all people in every society) is naturally present in two places in every society, once between corporations and their world market (0 to 90 degrees on Figures 4, 5, & 6), and again, between households and the labor market (180 to 270 degrees on Figure 4, 5, & 6 of the global model at URL: <http://www.freespeech.org/darves/bert.html>). The thing (in both places) corrupts the natural operation of free markets, and has several adverse consequences for the society as a whole: 1, it prices many smaller contributers out of either market. 2, it depresses the effective demand of the whole workforce. This deficiency of local purchasing power causes the drive of corporations for foreign markets and the drive of national governments for global hegemony. 3, it makes competition among suppliers (corporations or workers) much too intense, by making production at any level whatever always in excess of current effective demand (real purchasing power). It does this by depressing effective demand, not by more efficient production. 4, It changes the slope of each individual corporation's or worker's "supply curve" from a positive slope (as shown in every economics textbook I have ever read) to a negative slope (as in "increasing returns to scale"). The technical effects of this slope change was discussed by my favorite economist, Henry Carter Adams, in his1887 monograph, RELATION OF THE STATE TO INDUSTRIAL ACTION, by contempory staff members of the Federal Reserve System, and is always of interest to students of servo-mechanism theory. With those four aspects of the thing, as they affect the workforce and their dependants, stacked in favor of the DDotSQ since the 1890s, it is a tribute to our serious reformers that any progressive legislation has emerged in the U.S.A. in the 20th century from our democratic process . The 1942 G.I. Bill is the only example of such progressive legislation that I can call to mind, and even that was promptly turned into loan programs from Congressionally sponsored (and owned?) corporations at prime (+) interest rates as soon as the last WW II veteran graduated from college. But this thing is only half a problem for the capital plant (0 to 90 degrees on Figures 4, 5, & 6 of the global model), because the GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Practices) teach businessmen not to include fixed costs in the variable cost data used to schedule production and set prices. But the continued existance of the thing at the labor market (180 to 270 degrees on Figure 4, 5, & 6 of the global model) adversely affects both rich and poor, corporate CEO and worker, because it depresses the Gross National Product (GNP flow of M1) which is common to both the capital sector and human sector of every society. To see how and why, look at <FIG8.GIF> (a cross-section of the GNP) on the global model and see the defect in our public policy which tries to make one dollar do the work of two or more dollars. Bill Ellis, let me be perfectly clear about my complaint. Those serious reformers who focus on education, on local employment-trading systems (LETS), on Global Resource Banks, or on the benefits of eating algae; and totally exclude this "Teflon Topic" from their deliberations, are addressing only a lessor part of the social problem, that is, they are playing with a "short deck." This thing, this systemic defect of omission in our public policy, is the one thing that reaches every human being and affects their lives for better or worse. More than any contemporary religion or ideology, it is the common cause of mankind. And its proper application, or neglect, may be traced throughout our recorded history, even after that history has been fiddled with by Greeks, Romans, or members of Oxford for 2500 years. Kind regards to all, WesBurt
