[GJM] Working with Banks and Corporations to Achieve a High Degree of Global Justice?

[E. Crockett]

--- Steve Consilvio <steve at behappyandfree.com> wrote:

> Robert,
> 
> You don't seem to understand that everyone and every
> organization is  
> a "business," whose survival depends on "selling"
> something. For  
> money to flow "in" then the organization must give
> something "out."  
> Taxes, profits, and donations are all "money" which
> is gathered "in"  
> by either laws, goods, or promises. In other words,
> the relationship  
> of MONEY and LABOR is the same in all three empires,
> only the good  
> being sold changes slightly. (Let the buyer beware.)
> 
> The first job of every empire is to take care of
> itself, which it  
> does by shifting the burden elsewhere. Marketplace
> Theory essentially  
> posits that if everybody shifts we will collectively
> create an  
> abundance of goods. There is some truth to this. But
> the abundance of  
> "goods" is also an abundance of "bads" too, like
> pollution, waste,  
> power, etc.
> 
> Also, saying "time is not on our side" is to
> introduce an element of  
> fear. And saying "it is good to see a businessman
> contributing" is to  
> introduce your pride. Pride and fear is a toxic
> combination. Nothing  
> can be accomplished with these elements, and, as I
> have already made  
> clear, everyone is a business. Money is the common
> myth, not  
> religion, political power, rights, the environment
> or anything else.  
> Money itself is the grand delusion. Not who has it,
> how it flows, how  
> it can be used, or how to share it. This is why the
> concept of  
> jubilee is so important. It is not just about
> leveling society, it is  
> about recognizing (and overcoming) how money is
> rooted in our  
> imaginations.
> 
> Everybody, yourself included, is forced to plan
> their activities  
> around money. People go to work for money
> (converting labor into  
> money.) The government spends all its time, at both
> the national,  
> international and local levels, talking about money
> (converting laws  
> into money.) Business is  an attempt to "convert
> goods into money."  
> Non-profits, 501c3's and churches are an attempt to
> "convert words  
> into money." To some degree, all are doing elements
> of the same  
> thing. (A bake sale for a school engages in
> profit-taking, like a  
> business, or an organization selling t-shirts for
> profit.) Everyone  
> is trying to convert labor, words and goods into
> money, but the  
> hierarchy of how they do it may differ slightly.
> 
> Think of the world as a giant assembly line. Trade
> is good. We all  
> get to enjoy the bounty of the Earth through trade. 
> Money, however,  
> is not the same as trading goods, and profit and
> interest increases  
> the cost of the good as it moves from station to
> station along the  
> assembly line. This is great when you are buying and
> reselling  
> because you realize a "profit" (tax or donation) but
> at the point  
> where you actually consume a good it contains all
> the profits  
> compounded at each step in the assembly line. How
> can one person  
> afford to pay for all these profits of others? They
> can't, unless  
> they have shifted the burden of their consumption
> onto others  
> elsewhere by playing the same way in the existing
> system. (This is  
> exactly what your idea of offering bribes posits to
> do.) A vertical  
> company which owns the entire process from raw good
> to finished  
> product has an advantage solely because it can
> control all the profit- 
> taking in the assembly line. But, history has shown
> that is a  
> failure, too. Overhead is also a burden when there
> is a ripple in the  
> economy, and a company cannot isolate itself from
> purchasing (and  
> selling) outside of itself. No man is an island, and
> neither is a  
> business, a non-profit or a government.
> 
> My "evolving ideas" is simply that what I am saying
> to you today is  
> not presented as clearly and succinctly on my
> website. It needs a  
> major overhaul. My ideas have actually evolved
> beyond even what I am  
> telling you here (the zero dollar, for example) but
> what I am saying  
> you should be able to grasp. The "Big Idea" as you
> put it is nothing  
> new. Gene Roddenberry's use of "credits" in Star
> Trek is essentially  
> a world without profit, not a world without money.
> People have long  
> understood the problem the existence of money
> creates in a utopia. I  
> am simply offering you the mathematical formula that
> explains the  
> "how and why" money is a problem. (Profit and
> Interest.)  If 2+2=5  
> then 5=2+2. While profit and money are related they
> are distinctly  
> different. One man's profit is another man's debt.
> To get one man out  
> of debt is to reduce the profit of someone else.
> (Kinda hard to do  
> when everybody needs profit to survive.) What is
> needed is a pricing  
> equilibrium. That is the first transitional step.
> However, what  
> everyone is doing today is to increase the cost of
> living for someone  
> else, and the pressure to do so advances as the
> problem grows.  
> Political revolutions can not fix what is an
> economic problem. In  
> fact, revolutions are celebrations of stupidity. It
> is pride and  
> fear, (blame and self-righteousness) not a systemic
> change in  
> relationships on the assembly line of trade. It is
> going from the  
> frying pan into the fire because destruction in ten
> times worse than  
> throwing stuff away.
> 
> Check out The Great Wave by David Hackett Fischer.
> His work validates  
> my theories. He tracks the phenomenon over 800
> years, and it is an  
> amazing narrative he tells. With a pricing
> equilibrium you have a  
> renaissance. With inflation you have unrest
> (revolution, planes  
> flying into banks, etc.) You are still focusing on
> whom is to blame  
> and not the system of money itself. Money, debt,
> poverty and war have  
> nothing to do with technology or political systems,
> or the roles  
> people play; these things are economic problems, and
> everybody is  
> playing the same role financially in contributing to
> the problem. (Of  
> course the losers complain loudest, and the winners
> think it runs  
> fine.) We are all Scrooge because the rules and
> habits were made by  
> Scrooge. To conquer our inner Scrooge is no easy
> thing, and once  
> conquered one is still imprisoned by a world of
> Scrooges. If you want  
> to climb up, then you must take the hand of the
> person above you. If  
> you want to climb down, then you must take the hand
> of the person  
> below you. Either way, you have to trust your
> opposite, and love your  
> enemy.
> 
> Peace,
> Steve
> www.behappyandfree.com
> 
> "A great nation is like a great man: When he makes a
> mistake, he  
> realizes it. Having realized it, he admits it.
> Having admitted it, he  
> corrects it. He considers those who point out his
> faults as his most  
> benevolent teachers. He thinks of his enemy as the
> shadow 
=== message truncated ===>
_______________________________________________
> Discussion mailing list
> Discussion at globaljusticemovement.net
>
http://globaljusticemovement.net/mailman/listinfo/discussion_globaljusticemovement.net
> 


 
____________________________________________________________________________________
Be a PS3 game guru.
Get your game face on with the latest PS3 news and previews at Yahoo! Games.
http://videogames.yahoo.com/platform?platform=120121
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: /pipermail/discussion_globaljusticemovement.net/attachments/20070223/8559c0d7/attachment-0001.html