A Nurturing Economy

cooperationtocreateacultureandexpectation of accountability, backed by a set of laws and institutions to make it real and enforceable. That culture and those institutions are called freedom, democracy, fair trade, social safety nets, civil rights, civilresponsibilities,equalpay,pluralism, truth in labeling, collective bargaining, andalltheothergoodthingsthatwereindeedachievedtoagreaterorlesserdegree in today’s leading industrial nations. When globalization hit in our time, this process was far from complete. But many reforms had happened. When you read Howard Zinn’s leftwing bible, A People ’s History of the United States, you can easily get the impression that the American ruling classes in 1976 were just as unaccountable as they had been in 1776; but it’s not true. Massive and genuine victories had been achieved. We do not have unfetteredcapitalism.Unfetteredcapitalism is when there are no meat inspectors, no rigorous FDA drug testing, no restrictions on monopoly, no safety nets, no trade unions, no moratorium on nuclear power stations, no high standards. One achievement many people are unaware of is that in the twentieth century , for the first time in history, major cities startedtomaintaintheirownpopulations without needing a constant inflow of migrants from the countryside. Previously they could not because their death rates were sky high from disease and poverty. That’s every city from ancient Rome through Tenochtitlan to Victorian London . Healthy cities are a joint achievement of wealth-creating business, wise government that took citizen welfare seriously enough to tax and spend the new wealth on sewage, public health and schooling, people’s struggles for better wages, conditions, and democracy, and professionals (scientific, engineering, medical, educational, political) and civil servants with consciences. Many were inspired by religion, many by Progress, many by socialism—many by all three simultaneously . With globalization, capitalists have taken advantage of new technologies to leap ahead again and escape much of the accountabilitytowhichwethepeoplehad painstakingly tamed them. Again, there are benefits and losses. But if the people are to decide which are which and to set the standards for healthy community life, thenthoseincessantstruggles,organizing efforts, and innovations are all to be done again on a global scale. It’s enough to make a labor organizer weep. But we did it once. We will do it again. Thereisakeydifferencebetweenthen and now, however. Then we had a dream: socialism. Now we don’t. It’sHardtoReplaytheOld AchievementWithouttheOldDream Whatcanwelearnfromthefailuresas well as the successes of people’s movements , often called the Left (though the people are always far more varied and inclusive than “the Left”)? It seems that for major changes to happenpeopleneedarealsensethattheir suffering is shared with many others, and that there is hope of doing something about it. When pain is privatized so that we are all sold individual remedies, from drugstoshoppingtopurelypersonalspirituality , we sink into political passivity. When the big boys manage the economy so there are no Great Depressions then there may be no corresponding energy to create New Deals, and the Old Deals can be eroded piece by piece. That is, until the big boys erode so many checks and balances that volatility sweeps through the system again. Those who seek to escape accountability are rarely wise and good, whether in the courtsofLouisXIVorGeorgeW.Bush,or the CEO suites of hedge funds and multinationals . So less accountability in the end brings more risk, more crashes. Do we have to wait for more exceptionally badmanagersandwarmongers,likeBush and Cheney, before more people start to voteagain?DoweneedmoreKatrinas,or sometrulyshockingresultsofglobalheating , like tens of millions of refugees from African desertification or Bangladeshi floods invading rich countries, before we get a grip and act? Perhaps that would galvanize,ifthehopeofbetterwasstrong. What will turn us from anxious indi90 T I K K U N W W W. T I K K U N . O R G S E P T E M B E R / O C T O B E R 2 0 0 7 CULTURE [BOOKS] ANurturingEconomy GETTINGAGRIP:CLARITY,CREATIVITYANDCOURAGE INAWORLDGONEMAD, by Francis Moore Lappé (due out in October 2007) THEREALWEALTHOFNATIONS:CREATINGACARING ECONOMICS, by Riane Eisler Reviews by David Belden “Today socialists and leftists do not dream of a future qualitatively different fromthepresent,”wroteRussellJacobyin 1999 in The End of Utopia. “To put it differently , radicalism no longer believes in itself…. Almost everywhere the left contracts , not simply politically but, perhaps more decisively, intellectually.” Already that...