[GJM] Fw: Lessons we can learn from poor

[mary rose]

>From where I sit, people could do better than to
manufacture cultural designer clothing for sale in order
to get themselves out of poverty.  This is creating
"make work" (creating a non-necessity item) in order
to "make money" in order to purchase food and other
essentials, and leaves individuals at the mercy of the
vagaries of the marketplace.  It is only a temporary
fix and is not sustainable. .

Taking a lesson from the Guarani who lived for so
many years in Paraguay, that I have noted previously,
they derived their capital base (their bank account)
from the land.  And, they did not spend the capital.
from their land.  Once they had ensured themselves
of sufficient food and water, they then manufactured
products which they sold in world markets when
"it was in their best interests to do so."  When it
was not, they held their profits off of the market.
Thus they were never at the vagaries of the markets
or jobs.

And, while Norm Kurland's odem of "own or be owned"
really jars my senses because it inevitably brings to mind
the similar phrase of "kill or be killed," I do believe that
ownership of land is essential to sustainable development
and people must build from there, not in the manufacture
of non-essentials for sale in the market.  However, I do
not believe that individual ownership is 'the way,' nor is
government ownership. What seems to be the most viable
is "cooperative communal ownership" in the best interests
of all concerned.  This type of ownership is many times
referred to as "organic" ownership as it relates to the way
our body is arranged in "organic systems" so that everything
is coordinated and all elements are looking out for one another.
And, this is what Bill Ellis is advocating as he writes about
different types of cooperative endeavors such as "food coops,"
and "co-housing" projects, etc. And, then I have also advocated
the CC&R programs (covenant, conditions and restrictions)
that run with the land and protect it in perpetuity from destruction
such as we have witnessed over the past 70 years or so.

And a model for this type of sustainable community, which
can be built with an "agro-forestry base" such as the Guarani
used is available as the "Gaviotas" project in Columbia, S.A.
Here is a really interesting new read on this project:headed
up by  Paoli Lugari, founder of Gaviotas, and Gunter Pauli.

http://money.cnn.com/2007/09/26/technology/village_saving_planet.biz2/index.htm

For futher information on this, may I also suggest exploring:first a book 
review of:

Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism by Richard Robbins.  It is in 
this
book, given to me as a gift many years ago by Anup Shah, that I discovered 
the
story of the Guarani.
http://www.progressiveliving.org/gpcc_samples.htm

And, do not miss this website:  entitled:  Progressive Living
http://www.progressiveliving.org/index.html

On this website, I found a link to another website entitled:  "The 
Progressive
Living Field Guide to U.S. Politicians" to be labeled as "Censored by 
Google".
However you can reach this site. But what is going on here with this 
censorship
bit? Are we children who cannot decide for ourselves what is relevant and 
what
is not?

The link to the Progressive Living website was provided through the from the
book revue site for Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalisim.

Because the book "Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism is deemed
so important by many, there is also a website which offers courses on the 
book,
updates and other relevant data provided by the State University of New York
at Plattsburg.  This webpage may be accessed at:
http://faculty.plattsburgh.edu/richard.robbins/legacy/global.htm

A comment that I would like to make here is that while many are 
concentrating
on designing a new monetary system, it seems that this is putting the cart
before the horse in that what is needed is to design a social system, 
complete
with all its integrated parts which meets the needs of society today, and 
then
design a monetary system that acts as the driver to create this type of 
system.








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----- Original Message ----- 
From: "robert searle" <dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk>
To: <discussion at globaljusticemovement.net>
Sent: Wednesday, June 11, 2008 5:19 AM
Subject: Re: [GJM] Lessons we can learn from poor


>
>
>
> --- On Wed, 11/6/08, Thompson Ayodele <thompson at ippanigeria.org> wrote:
>
>> From: Thompson Ayodele <thompson at ippanigeria.org>
>> Subject: Lessons we can learn from poor
>> To: dharao4 at yahoo.co.uk
>> Date: Wednesday, 11 June, 2008, 10:31 AM
>> Cal Thomas, a well-known syndicated columnist in the U.S,
>> whose column is
>> published by 400 papers mentions IPPA Nigeria work in his
>> review of
>> "Lessons from the Poor: Triumph of the Entrepreneurial
>> Spirit."
>>
>> ...In Nigeria, a clothing design industry has been created
>> to produce and
>> sell adire attire, traditional in the Yoruba culture. There
>> are thousands
>> of adire workers, most of them women with little or no
>> education, but they
>> have "an entrepreneurial drive to make a living and
>> create wealth where
>> there was previously only misery," writes Thompson
>> Ayodele in his essay.
>> "These entrepreneurs receive no government aid. In
>> fact, through action or
>> omission, the government has placed and continues to place
>> many obstacles
>> in their way. Yet they have been able to combat poverty
>> much more
>> effectively than foreign aid and official poverty-reduction
>> programs."
>>
>>
>> Cal Thomas | Tribune Media Services
>>      June 9, 2008
>>
>>
>> Listening to Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton repeat
>> stories they claim to
>> have been told by the poor and the unemployed, who are
>> unable to pay for
>> food and medicine and feel miserable about it, is enough to
>> make one think
>> we are living in a Third World dictatorship and not the
>> United States of
>> America. But victimhood and a "can't do"
>> spirit is what the Democratic
>> Party has mostly been about since the Great Depression.
>>
>> A more positive narrative comes from a new book,
>> "Lessons from the Poor:
>> Triumph of the Entrepreneurial Spirit," edited by
>> Alvaro Vargas Llosa and
>> published by the Independent Institute. The book is an
>> optimistic triumph
>> and a lesson about the unlimited capacity of the human
>> spirit, properly
>> inspired and unencumbered.
>>
>> In the introduction, Llosa writes, "Entrepreneurial
>> ability and energy are
>> present almost everywhere. But in those countries that
>> still languish in
>> backwardness, the labyrinth intervention of the state and
>> the absence of
>> adequate institutions have kept that ability and energy
>> from translating
>> into full development." He writes of nations that used
>> to be poor but are
>> no longer, detailing how their people climbed out of
>> poverty. He blames
>> political, legal (and I would add in some cases, religious)
>> systems for
>> stifling prosperity.
>>
>> Llosa is about creating wealth and his inspirational
>> stories about real
>> people and how they did it ought to be read in every school
>> and in every
>> home that has accepted inevitable failure.
>>
>> In 1988, the Ananos family of Ayacucho, Peru -- the cradle
>> of the Maoist
>> terrorist organization known as Shining Path -- founded the
>> Kola Real
>> Company. Coca Cola and Pepsi had pulled out due to the
>> unstable political
>> situation. In just 20 years the Ananos family has
>> transformed a mom and pop
>> operation into the biggest transnational manufacturer of
>> nonalcoholic
>> beverages in Latin America. They now have subsidiaries in
>> Mexico,
>> Venezuela, Ecuador, four Central American countries and
>> Thailand. By 2005,
>> they had more than 8 million customers and employed 8,000
>> workers. Their
>> sales totaled US$1 billion.
>>
>> The Ananos family overcame years of socialist and populist
>> experiments that
>> hurt Peru's economy. They demonstrate what can be done
>> when obstacles are
>> overcome by the power of optimism.
>>
>> Aquilino Flores is another Peruvian who started out washing
>> cars 40 years
>> ago. He had no capital. Today, Flores is the most important
>> textile
>> businessman in Peru, heading a company called Topy Top with
>> annual sales of
>> more than US$100 million. As Daniel Cordova writes in his
>> contribution to
>> the book, "...the story of the Flores family and Topy
>> Top is one of
>> tenacity, determination and intuition." Didn't we
>> used to teach such things
>> in American schools before class warfare, envy and
>> penalizing the
>> successful?
>>
>> The story behind Nakumatt, Kenya's largest supermarket
>> chain, could have
>> been written in America. Google Nakumatt for details.
>>
>> In Nigeria, a clothing design industry has been created to
>> produce and sell
>> adire attire, traditional in the Yoruba culture. There are
>> thousands of
>> adire workers, most of them women with little or no
>> education, but they
>> have "an entrepreneurial drive to make a living and
>> create wealth where
>> there was previously only misery," writes Thompson
>> Ayodele in his essay.
>> "These entrepreneurs receive no government aid. In
>> fact, through action or
>> omission, the government has placed and continues to place
>> many obstacles
>> in their way. Yet they have been able to combat poverty
>> much more
>> effectively than foreign aid and official poverty-reduction
>> programs."
>>
>> Please re-read that last sentence. Government aid impedes
>> success and
>> creates dependence, while entrepreneurs create success and
>> independence. In
>> countries with far less capital and opportunity than
>> America, people
>> haven't sung songs about overcoming. They have overcome
>> through tenacity,
>> risk-taking and self-reliance.
>>
>> During the presidential campaign, each time Barack Obama
>> focuses on misery
>> and the need for more government spending, John McCain
>> should trot-out
>> American stories of the formerly poor and let them tell how
>> they made it so
>> that others can too.
>>
>> Llosa says Spain is "particularly interesting and
>> instructive for those who
>> think that certain nations are doomed forever by virtue of
>> their culture.
>> In the past two decades, Spain, whose culture was once
>> inimical to notions
>> such as self-reliance and individual initiative, has
>> experienced an
>> economic and social transformation."
>>
>> If Spain and the poor in Peru and Africa can do it,
>> what's stopping America
>> and poor Americans?
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Thompson Ayodele
>> Director
>> Initiative for Public Policy Analysis
>> P.O.Box 6434
>> Shomolu,Lagos
>> Nigeria
>> Email:thompson at ippanigeria.org
>> Backup: thompsondele at onebox.com
>> Website: www.ippanigeria.org
>> *****Good Public Policy is Sound Politics**********
>>
>> Tel:01-791-0959
>> Cell:080 2302 5079
>
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