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Recommended Reading
Paul Hawken: “Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why" Exposed: The Toxic Chemistry of Everyday Products and What's at Stake for America The Sustainable World SourceBook, 2006 "The Economics of Wholeness" © Tom Bender 6/06/02 for Magical Blend Values and the sacred may seem to be strange bed-fellows with economics. In truth, they are not only compatible, but essential elements of achieving immense economic productivity gains that can create a secure, abundant and caring future for all. The heart of our culture has been economics. Today, a revolutionary "Factor 10 Economics" is producing order-of-magnitude improvements in productivity by daring to restore values, the sacred, systems theory, and ecology to their rightful role as the core of economics. In the process, our conventional economic tools such as "future discounting" and "present value accounting" have been shown to be mere smokescreens to conceal the real costs of public policies that benefit special interests. Short-term thinking rarely produces better results than long-term approaches. But actions based on such thinking usually end up eliminating the more productive options, so we forget their existence. Longer forestry rotations seem somewhat academic once someone has cut all the trees. Economics is not about money. Money is not real wealth it is merely a medium of exchange. Money is finance, accounting, and the rules and games to get resources into or out of our own or other people's pockets. We need to look beyond the money transactions to see the real events that are occurring behind the veil of human rules that distort our perceptions and distract our attention. For it is there that real change is occurring. What economics is about is resources-material and energetic; biological and ecological; human, community, and spiritual. It is about work, ingenuity, and time-and about joy. It is about desires and dreams, and the structure of industry and institutions that we use to attain those dreams. Ultimately, it is about wisdom-and it is definitely time to bring that into our balance sheets. Our economics has been successful at achieving an unprecedented material quality of life for large numbers of people. Yet for most people, even that quality of life has been declining since the mid-1970s. And we have been missing vast potentials for both qualitative and material improvements in our lives. Every economics supports and embodies specific values and goals. Different goals generate very different institutions, products, and economic systems. Each framework of economics materializes different dreams and destroys or embodies different values. We need to choose where we want to go, before we choose the way to go. There are four major changes affecting economics in the last century that dwarf all others. All come from outside of economics, but from real-world, on-the-ground experience. They are only now being fully integrated into our economics. They are: * Examination of economic problems and solutions from a wholistic systems perspective, with more meaningful forms of measurement. Conventional economics says to cut forests when the trees are only 40 years old. Yet rotations four times as long have been shown to produce considerably more wood per year, more net income and less work needed in the forestry operations, 75% fewer clearcuts; restored productivity of fisheries, other forest products, and recreation, yielding total forest benefits of 20 to 30 times that of conventional forestry practices. Every time you cut an acre of forest, you lose benefit of the next 20 years of solar energy falling on that acre of land. * Explicit linkage of life-affirming values and goals with the economic systems needed to attain them. We're taught that work is something to be minimized for both the worker and the employer. Yet meaningful creative work is essential for us to develop and apply our abilities, to have self-worth, to be of value to our communities, and to find rewards in what we do. * Understanding and integrating the ecological and resource underpinnings and interactions of economic systems. The dynamics of income resources, such as solar energy, are very different from those of capital resources, such as petroleum. Each day's solar energy not used is lost. Fossil fuels not used are worth more tomorrow! And for us to have to do what nature does free for us has immense costs. * Acknowledgment of how and how greatly the spiritual dimensions of our existence impacts economics. Most of our intractable social problems are merely symptoms of a single disease of the spirit of lack of self-worth, lack of respect by and for others, and lack of opportunity to be of value to family and society that turns ever-present temptations into epidemic problems. The spiritual vehicle of chi or life-force energy is what gives vitality, connectedness, and meaning to our surroundings and our lives. Our true goals in life have more to do with love and being loved, and with having meaning in our lives than with how much money we make. Together, developments in these areas are bringing order-of-magnitude improvement in the way we operate our businesses and institutions and handle our lives. Factor 10 economics has already become public policy of many European nations, international development organizations and leading businesses. It is achieving ten-fold improvements in resource productivity - the amount of materials needed to produce a car, or energy needed to light our homes. It also is achieving equal magnitudes of improvement in institutional and financial productivity - how much it costs to produce a car or provide health care; in personal and social goals and well-being, and in social and planetary welfare. The principles of the new economics are uncomplicated: Interestingly, it is new perceptions, not new technologies, that are key to achieving most of these gains. Equally important, personal and community life is positively transformed in the process. The aftermath of last fall's terrorist attacks has brought significant questioning of the direction our global culture has taken. Disparities of material wealth and poverty, questionable ethics used to maintain economic supremacy, and absence of spiritual dimensions in our culture appear to be central issues behind both religious fundamentalism and recent terrorism. Factor 10 economics provides an unexpected path out of this quagmire. It shows us we have the resources to make the whole world a success erasing poverty, eliminating starvation, and ending battles over resources. It is time now for compassion and sharing, not greed. Wisely used, they can open a brighter world for us all. TOM BENDER FALSE DAWN: The Delusions ipf Global Capitalism By John Gray, The New Press (212) 629 8002, cloth, $25.00 Mid 19th century England was the subject of a far reaching experiment in social engineering. Its objective was to free economic life from political control by constructing a new institution, the free market. A similar transformation is the objective today of transnational organizations such as the World Trade Organization, and the International Monetary Fund. They aim to incorporate the world's diverse economies into a single global free market, which is a Utopia that can never be realized. Its pursuit has already produced social dislocation and economic instability on a large scale. In the U.S., for example, levels on inequality resemble Latin American countries. In the ultimate human suffering it inflicts, the free market may come to rival communism. Already it has resulted in over 100 million peasants becoming migrant laborers in China, nearanarchy and rule by organized crime in parts of the post communist world, and devastation of the environment. In 19th century England, the free market ran around on enduring human needs for econon fic security. In the 1930s, the free market proved an inherently unstable institution. The history of the global free market in our time is unlikely to be much different. Today's regime of global "laissez faire" will be briefer than even the "belle epoque" of 1870 to 1914, which ended in the trenches of the Great War. This is a striking book to come from an influential British conservative. It concludes the conservative agenda is no longer viable, and predicts massive devastation globally. Written by a professor of European thought at the London School of Economics, the book is elegant as well as provocative. Highly recommended. THE COMING CLASS WAR AND HOW TO AVOID IT By Frederick Strobel and Wallace Peterson M.E. Sharpe (800/541 6563), cloth, $29.95 In the twenty years from 1969 to 1989, middle class families shrank from 71 to 63 percent of the U.S. From 1980 to 1989, income for the top I percent wealthiest went up substantially while income for four fifths of Americans dropped. A new class structure is emerging in America. The very rich have become a class in the old and distasteful sense. It is the class of the European nature. It is the class of we and the rest; the underclass. Most reasons for middle class decline have not been the natural workings of the economy. They are rather the result of a relentless drive by the "controllers of capital." Since labor generally represents about two thirds of the cost of doing business, the capital controllers have sought all means some legal, some illegal to minimize labor costs. They've also sought to transfer tax burdens from business to wage earning individuals, and to chip away at protections granted by Roosevelt's New Deal to wage earners. Take, for example, the decline in unions. This did not occur as an accident of history, but came about by design. When Ronald Reagan fired striking air traffic controllers in 1982 and authorized hiring of replacement workers, union decline slid into a rout. Soon companies began hiring replacement workers scabs during labor disputes. This had not been done in America since 1953, because the Wagner Act prohibited it. Now government looked the other way. While the writing is clumsy at times, the perspective here is unique and valuable. NEW WORLD, NEW RULES: The Changing Role of the American Corporation
In its employee and community relationships, the large American corporation of the 1950s and 1960s was characterized by stability and shared gains. Its chief internal characteristic was the almost unlimited discretion of management. Private firms became multipurpose social institutions, making generous contributions to charity, beautifying their hometowns, and taking a relaxed attitude toward taxes assessed. This save, comfortable works was shaken to its foundations by the economic upheavals of the 1970s and 1980s. Fully one third of 1980's Fortune 500 no longer existed as independent entities a decade later. In 1990, one third of the Fortune 500 were targeted by hostile takeover bids. As a result, companies intensified their focus on the bottom fine thus on efficiency, costcutting, and restructuring. Employment rolls fell dramatically. In the early 1970s, these large firms employed one in five Americans. By the early 1990s, it was one in 10. Attitudes were altered on both sides of the employer employee relationship. Cradle to grave mutual loyalty gave way to contingent employment. Pensions and health benefits were no longer a foregone conclusion. The freedom of top executives to pursue social goals had been circumscribed. As Michale Useem observed, "Managerial capitalism tolerated a host of company objectives besides shareholder value. Investor capitalism does not." This seemingly dry book offers a vital inside look at why corporations became more ruthless in the 1980s, from the former v.p. of public affairs at General Motors. Insightful. THE GLOBAL GAMBLE: Washington's Faustian Bid for World Dominance
Two interlocking transformations are underway, Gowan argues. The first is internal to nations and is called "neo liberalism" shifting power from workers toward financial interests. The second is external to nations and is called "globalization" making other nations dependent on decisions in Washington and New York. Both transformations have been driven in the 1990s by American government and business interests. They've created a regime that makes other nations want what they want while leaving those nations responsible for what befalls their populations. Thus the benefits of the transnational order accrue to the U. S., while the risks are distributed abroad. This is the global gamble. BRAND SPIRIT: How Cause Related Marketing Builds Brands Offering reliable products at a good price is no longer enough, these authors argue. Today consumers want to buy from good corporate citizens so marketers must endow their brands with spirit. Cause related marketing is the route. This book from marketing pros at Saatchi & Saatchi offers countless case studies: from Avon's breast cancer awareness crusade, to Reebok's Human Rights Now! Tour. WHEN GOOD COMPANIES DO BAD THINGS: Responsibility and Risk on an
Age of Globalization The author of "The Long View" and a former scenario planner at Royal Dutch/Shell, Schwartz argues here that companies risk being blind sided by society if they fail to take social responsibilities seriously. Looking at incidents involving companies line Unocal, Shell, Nestle, Nike, and A.H. Robins, he shows how companies delude themselves if they believe they can avoid social issues. THE STATE OF WORKING AMERICA 1998 99 Published every other year, this reference is the best single source for reviewing the latest developments in the distribution of income and wealth. SHIFTING FORTUNES: The Perils of the Growing American Wealth Gap This booklet (less academic than EPI's) shows how 86 percent of stock market gains from 1989 1997 went to the top 10 percent, plus many other useful, current statistics. DOING WELL BY DOING GOOD: The Bottom Line on Workplace Practices
A comprehensive analysis of current research on high performance practices, like union representation on boards, incentive pay, and teams showing they have strong positive or neutral effects on financial performance. TAMING GLOBAL FINANCE: A Better Architecture for Growth and Equality
Blecker offers evidence that capital market deregulation has created a global economy that is "less stable without being more efficient." His suggested reforms include transaction taxes, more democratic governance of the IMF, and managed exchange rates. BUSINESS AND HUMAN RIGHTS: This booklet offers in roundtable dialogue form the results of a discussion among 15 business leaders, human rights activists, and others. (Reprint, Business Ethics Magazine, July/August 1999 edition) |
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