Democracy And Free Markets: Is That All?

Recap and Refocus (June 15 – June 22)

So I propose that we look at a movement in consciousness that would treat business with great dignity, interest and respect, as the necessary material basis for civilization, and as the training ground in part systems, for leadership in the whole system, the larger society, with its more ample and wide ranging needs, allowing for business but setting rules that meet human desires for a full life, environmental goals of the world being either natural or Olmsteadian (the great designer of Central park, Yosemite, Niagara Falls and many others), and helps society deal with the promise of technology without its being a kind of "steal the bacon" ground for individual fortune at the expense of the human.

Business requires integrating capital, tradition, organization, people, innovation, and potential markets in a viable mix. What a great training ground for serious adults!

Markets as Adam Smith was clear "when business men get together they plan monopoly", and governments tend towards integrated efficient system (the whole theory of organization, game theory, modern economics all seeking a rational – i.e. planned socialist equivalent called advanced capitalism and free markets!!. But both by themselves, or in consort, lead over the cliff to disaster. The 17th, 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries!! How much more evidence do we need!

We just must do better. And a culture that says life has seven stages (Erikson likes eight, but it is the idea more than the specific content)

Infancy with need for dependence

Childhood for autonomy

Adolescence for growth and discipline and love

Young adult for integrating biology with society, children marriage and work

Middle age for maturity in chosen field

Older, for leadership at the level of world systems for the good of humanity

Age, for poetic reflection, ritual and meaning.

We need a society that supports humans across the life cycle, and we need the fruits of an orchestrated life cycle that provides the maturity needed for society. This should b a framework for crating and judging public policy, and for personal living.

Let’s take a few simple ideas.

1. "I am busy." This is a pure defense against meaninglessness. To act like you are not busy is to make one feel crazy in this world. It is absolutely not socially acceptable. So we wear this mantra. In most situation we are in, we avoid being "present" because we are so "busy", that we actually are not present. If we just dropped the attitude and did nothing else different, most of us would have plenty of time. (This sounds corny, but about ten years ago I had an epiphany, "there had never been a day in my life that did not end exactly on time. I have been much more relaxed ever since.)

2. At the end of the day look back over each of your actual interactions with another person, just notice the spirit of it – hurried, mean, passive, contemptuous, disappointed, matter of fact... whatever. Just notice. Don’t do anything about, just move to the next. (I think the Jesuits call is exercise "discernment of spirits"). Repeat tomorrow.

3. Make a list of what you think – you think – are the world’s best ten books, and make sure to read in one of them for at least ten minutes each day. Revise the list occasionally.

4. Make a personal list of concepts that need to be rethought, mine might include, rationality, community, love, projection (as in "my views of her were really a projection"), and so on. Have some kind of strategy written down on something about how you will work on at least one making some progress each week.

5. I would personally like it if all of us recognized that when we speak about politics and economics, we are speaking in traditions, and that we take responsibility to know much more about them.

My original question is there more than markets and democracy begins to unfold.

So, the proposal, let’s build a culture which embeds people in business discipline with full understanding, expectation and rewarded hope, of graduating in their fifties into broader leadership roles for the good of society.

The Role of Citizens and Private Enterprise

(Participant) Congress is about to pass legislation on prescription drug benefits. The conservative majority has tied those benefits to shifting some of Medicare into private sector HMOs. I believe that deep confusion exists about what belongs in the private sector. It seems to me that we would be much more passionate about fostering private enterprise if we could be clear about what it serves well, and what it doesn't. Putting insurance companies into the health care management does not serve us well and neither does advancing a market orientation for any profession. Those distinctions are crucial for our development. As I said before, the same applies to the distinction between training and education, and between church and state. I believe that if we could separate those pairs, we could be much more enthusiastic about both entities.

Douglass Carmichael Since the trend is to turn everything into property, including professional knowledge, what would be a tipping point towards Richard's vision?

"I would like to leave the last week to satisfy Don – bringing it all to a summary conclusion we all agree on and that sets the tone for the next century. It is interesting to think about why that is unlikely."

Of course it would be unlikely for at least two reasons: 1) It would be impossible to get this entire group to agree to anything, and 2) there is no one tone for the next century worth discussing.

What I did try to suggest (with obviously little success) was my belief that we should try to end with some suggestions on how to reform those faults that we have defined with some degree of consensus.

For example, I believe that one answer to Doug's understandable cry of frustration (in 3:39) deploring the small number of ILF members who have joined in on these discussions, is that significant change will not be the result of "bright ideas" produced by a small elite -- or even better known elites than ours such as the Council of Foreign Affairs and the like. And if this is valid, where can we look for the engines of such changes, and how can we stimulate them into productive action.

This line of discussion would probably re-visit the role of citizens vs. elites -- or with more profit, a better mix of elite and citizens in this task. Sooner or later we must face the difficult and largely ignored question of how (or with more validity) whether to reorganize democracy for it to survive.

Come to think of it, if my earlier message had actually been as Doug described it, his question "It is interesting to think about why that is unlikely" would indeed be a great lead into a closing discussion.

I don't see this as a plot; I see it as the trends of markets towards monopoly and democracy towards ideologues. It is inherent in the system - unless we struggle for something more.

It could be commercial boycotts, or movements towards secession from the union, or a major shift in values. (See Geertz in the new New York Review of Books on Islam and its merging coherence as a reaction against power, and the place of a new group of mullahs who are even progressive)

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/16419

I have spent time in conversation over the years with Tom Atlee and Jim Rough who was just here at my house for dinner last week. They are advocates of simply mixing citizens together in random combinations for conversation about important events. But what important events? There are so many questions. I do think we need experiments. The merging democratic campaign is a kind of experiment.

But I think we need to recognize deeper currents that are overwhelming the surface of politics as we knew it. Those forces are values, such as the rise of libertarian and conservative politics that break the social contract around common spaces and viable public education. Those who go down that path have an obligation to model out the consequences. That inner city and rural parents are deeply scared about losing those, and that their pain is unnoticed by a press that cares only about murder sex and customers does not help.

But the rise of the right and libertarians is in part a reaction to the expensive bureaucracy of the liberal period. And law combined with technology (look at the current struggle over copyright extension) is narrowing ownership and power. We are I think in the grip of a techno-centralist wave that is very dangerous (Iraq and the lack of accountability around facts). That same wave with a free internet has potential for democratic trends - but statistics of current use show that the vast majority use only a very few sites, and are blind to the broader flows.

And that techno world is part of a materialization and "rationalization" that strips everything human out of it. And that rationalization is a key driver of monopoly, because its logic is integration under universal standards.

So this week I've proposed that we share a model of maturity that is too weak to bring the best out us. Our personal models of human development *for ourselves* are too weak. We believe in education, job, marriage, TV, some interesting trips, insurance and retirement. When Socrates asked "what is the fit life for a human being?" I don't think he would have accepted this answer.

To use the language of last week,

Do we have symptoms?

Do we have a diagnosis?

Do we have an etiology?

Do we have a course of therapy?

Do we have a model of health?

I think it is very interesting that Frist and now Dean are docs.

And Don, I hope you sense I am listening to you, and trying to nudge you towards a slightly different perspective. I feel I have made a number of suggestions.

1. I support experiments in citizen councils

2. I support moves towards local and regional economies and politics, including changes in the regulatory environment that can help that happen (like the impact of the FCC on undermining rather than supporting decentralized media).

And I also propose that we seriously think through what kind of knowledge we need to think adequately about these issues.

Solzhenitsyn has a forty foot able in his Vermont farm to spread out Russian papers so he could "see" continuities for his stories. Micky Hart had a wall of a barn covered with 4000 3x5 cards to work out his history of drumming Drumming at the Edge). We cannot be such impoverish folks at the level of energy and tools if we are to do this work.

Look how a few sentences can get me going!

For example, when Doug says that the trend is for everything to be transformed into property (what others are calling the process of commodification) he is pointing to an almost invisible development of monstrous proportions, and one that may be the most pernicious of all the accelerating, underlying forces at work in our society. It is the basic cause of the failure to distinguish between business and professions. But it cuts deeper than that. If we could understand that process, and make it visible, maybe it could influence the thinking of a critical mass of people?

Or is that expecting way too much? When Kip cites figures that a quarter of our people think Weapons of Mass Destruction were not only found but used in Iraq, one cannot help but wonder if we will ever find the participative designs to bridge that ignorance gap.

(By the way, a critical mass of people may turn out to be very few. Not long ago the World Economic Forum assembled a comprehensive, international list of leaders--all of the truly influential people. The list totaled 33,000. It may be that something like the square root of that number (182) could be considered a critical mass.)

I can summon up lots of possible models for dynamic groups selected from the citizenry serving as leaders for a period of time, rotating members, etc. But then decisions will come down to the information they have. Who would control that?

Polls, for example, serve as some relatively reliable model of how the citizenry might make decisions. (referencing News that Pertains Item 5:96- 1/3 of the American public believes the US has found WMD in Iraq.)

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