The Future of the Economy: Which Road Should We Travel by?

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Friday December 16, 2011 · 11:45 AM PST

2011/12/16 · 11:45

I in no way mean to imply that there is a coming doom or that a horrible catastrophe will occur; I do mean to say that something has already occurred. But I do not believe it to be a disaster, but the beginning of a new stage in history. Now, it is always absurd to try to predict the future which is why I will not do this. What I will do is talk about what has already happened that may not be obvious and what we can possibly do about it.

The mechanisms that orchestrate and regulate our current form of capitalism have been largely removed. This has resulted in an out of control, greed-centered, pyramid scheme type of capitalism that I like to call Mafia Capitalism. Some organizations have taken advantage of the current Wild West-like situation to purposely crash economies to reap profit. Goldman Sachs, for instance, was instrumental in crashing the American economy - and almost solely responsible for crashing the Greek economy which has led to a depression of the entire European economy. Earlier in the decade Wall Street bankers used derivatives to crash the Japanese land and market bubbles so they could profit. This Mafia Capitalism has now gone so far that it may have permanently damaged the world economy to such a point that it is unlikely it can ever be repaired. According to Wikipedia, “The total world derivatives market has been estimated at about $791 trillion face or nominal value, 11 times the size of the entire world economy.” And this is just the derivatives market. This does not include the inflated value of other stocks and securities.

If one thinks about it for a minute, how can an economy survive when a very small number of people possess wealth that is many times the value of everything on earth? This is the very definition of unstable. To make the situation even more dire, the rules of the game have not changed - and are not slated to change - so this imbalance will continue to grow rapidly; it is only reasonable to assume that at some point it will become no longer viable.

It is up to the people of the world to stop this from happening. At this point, it is a foregone conclusion that in not too long a period of time the current system will cease to function. The question is: what are we going to do about it? We have two obvious choices: one, try to repair the old system by instituting strict regulations and removing the thousands of people who work at the responsible Wall Street firms from the industry permanently. This may also require the elimination of both the derivatives market and the stock market as entities. But even this seemingly radical step may not be enough. What if the amount of capital that is out there is too great? Can balance be restored to this system with even the most radical actions? It is anyone’s guess - maybe, maybe not. Which brings us to obvious solution number two: try to build a different type of system since the old one cannot be repaired.

In the end, currency is simply a unit of measure. It is not wealth itself, but a measurement of wealth. The philosopher Alan Watts gives us a wonderful example of a depression when he describes it in this way: it is as if you went to build a house and the people there tell you it cannot be built because they have run out of inches – there is plenty of wood, nails and supplies, and plenty of people and time. We just have no inches. In the end this is all that money is: a unit of measure, like an inch.

If we decide to measure wealth in another way, then we are free to do so. And it would be fairly simple to do. There is no reason to be married to the idea of currency. The author Corey Doctorow in his book "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom" has an idea for an alternative measurement of wealth called Wuffie. In this book, people are given points by others, online, for acts considered to be worthy of praise.

It would be quite simple to set up a system where everything is paid for by points (that could have any name). The points could be given by friends and strangers on Facebook and other sites for worthy acts. People could create points for people others with a daily limit. There would, of course, be limitations so that two people could not just give each other an enormous number of points. It could work very much like FB and even be done on Facebook in place of the “like” button. Every time you get a “like,” you get five points. Save a child from a burning building, and people across the world would give you “likes.” Commit an act of violence or greed and people can take away your points. There are details to work out but this system could be set up pretty quickly as an alternative to capitalism.

Let me be clear: I am not proposing this alternative to capitalism because I think it would be an improvement but because very soon we may have to come up with an alternative whether we want to or not.

Along with a new economy are naturally going to come new forms of social organization. Our government, for example, is going to need to be structured in a different way than it currently is. It has proven that the current configuration is not to the benefit of most of us. The Occupy movement has come up with a way to organize ourselves for decision-making that may be something we can institute world wide in the near future.

Each Occupy contingent operates a little differently to its own needs but needs but to the best of my knowledge all have a general assembly structure where small groups meet and report to the larger group. All vote and most groups have a 90% consensus rule (which means that 90% of the people have to agree to something before it can pass). This is much better than a simple majority where 49% of the people can be overruled consistently. As this type of decision making process is implemented, it would most likely be possible to up this percentage to 95% or even higher. This type of near consensus is close to the model of direct democracy. In direct democracy, the people vote on decisions themselves with no need for representatives. This could also be done pretty easily online. When you think of it, why don’t we have this already? Why do we have politicians at all when we do not need them anymore? They are a leftover from the past. We can make all the decisions ourselves through online voting. Of course, strict protocols a meticulous oversight with complete transparency would be required but this is fairly simple as well.

The thing that the people of the world have forgotten and are just now starting to remember is that we are in control. This is what the 1% is afraid of right now: that people will think about it and say, “Hey, wait a minute. We don’t need leaders or governments. We can run the world ourselves.” We certainly could not do any worse job of it than they have.

Imagine this: a world where the unit of measure for wealth (points, Wuffie, whatever) is distributed to all according to merit - and none of it is squirreled away by a few people who can never use most of what they have. There would be a lot more to go around. We would ALL have more wealth and a more comfortable life. If we work too much now, we could work less and take a deserved and needed rest. If do not work, we would now have the opportunity to work. Things that are now not valued would be under a better system. Currently, if you work raising children, you receive no wealth because this task is not valued. If you work cleaning the environment or volunteering at a homeless shelter, you are not given any wealth because this is not valued. If you teach children, you are given very little wealth because the people in charge of the wealth do not value education - even though most of the rest of us do. If you help others in a myriad of different ways, you receive no wealth because helping others is not valued. What is most important in life is given little or no value in the current business-centered system. If recent events have shown us anything, it is that we need a more human centered system. The classic “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens contains the following lines:

Scrooge: But it was only that you were a good man of business, Jacob!

Ghost of Jacob Marley: BUSINESS? Mankind was my business! Their common welfare was my business!

The current obsession with business and profit has led us perhaps to the brink, perhaps over it. We may be forced to consider something different. Imagine the implementation of a system where our values are reflected in the distribution of wealth and not just the values of the 1%. I think we would all live much happier and more fulfilling lives. We would certainly be more comfortable - and have better healthcare.

This current and pending crisis could be the greatest opportunity that humans have ever had. We are most likely going to have the chance to set up a system that reflects who we really are and what our values really are. We need to start talking about it and planning it now so that when the time comes we are ready to implement it. We all should at least have some idea of where we are going and what the possibilities are because they are incredible indeed. Let us begin the discussion.

“I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”
-- The Road Not Taken, Robert Frost

References

Stock Market: http://en.wikipedia.org/...

Goldman Sachs: http://www.alternet.org/...

Hedge Funds: http://www.ied.info/...

Strangers Among Us: Agents Provocateurs and the 99%

Gvico

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Wednesday December 14, 2011 · 11:00 AM PST

2011/12/14 · 11:00

After seeing the footage of the vandalism and attack at the Whole Foods Market Oakland on Wednesday November second during the Occupy Oakland march both from the NBC helicopter and from footage taken by protesters on the ground, I do not believe that this group of approximately 30 men in black were anarchists or had anything to do with occupy. I will present my evidence and logic and you can decide for yourself.

If you watch the NBC video, you will see a group of approximately thirty men all dressed in black, with black hoodies and black scarves over their faces, vandalize the Whole Foods in Oakland by throwing paint bombs, and by taking the tables and chairs from the outside patio and throwing them at the building and windows. They also attack and neutralize many of the protesters who desperately try to stop them.

Here are a few facts that do not quite add up about this group of 30 men in black:

•    There are no women (at least with female presentation). The anarchist black bloc always has a few women. Where are they here? This is a big red flag.
•    These males have no normal body size variation as all anarchist groups (or any other group of normal people) do. If you ever see the anarchist black block at a protest, there will be fat people, thin people, big people, and small people. This group is made up of entirely fit average-to-large men.
•    All of their scarves are solid black. At all past events I have always seen anarchist with checkered and different colored scarves.
•    All of the men had new hoodies that look the same. Anarchists are in general without much money. Most have old and faded hoodies. Also, the fact that they all look the same is suspicious.

As an activist, I have worked with the Anarchist Black Bloc at events over the past 12 years. I have been present for negotiations between the Black Bloc and other ad hoc coalition members at more than one protest. The subject was usually regarding whether or not property destruction was a sound protest tactic.

In the past, at every protest meeting I have been to, the Black Bloc has agreed to not participate in property destruction during the peaceful large protest - so that the public does not get a mixed message. Also, I have never seen or heard of an anarchist attacking a fellow protester, as we see happen several times on these videos. They might attack police but not other protesters en mass. Even if this has happened before, it seems highly unlikely that it would happen multiple times within just a few minutes.

It is true that anarchists do participate in property destruction as a tactic. However, they generally agree to not do this at peaceful protests. Also, it is impossible for me to believe that so many anarchists would violently attack other protestors. Maybe one or two, but this many does not seem right. In my experience this would be totally out of character. Also, anarchists that I have known may support property destruction as a useful tactic but are on the whole nonviolent.

Watching the NBC helicopter video of this group of men in black, they look somehow professional. The bottom line is that anarchists are still civilians with normal variation and for the most part no military training. This group of men looks trained. In one video, a man in black takes a protester to the ground without hitting them but with the use of some kind of hold. They all seem too fit, too tough. Also, they are milling around in an unnatural way. Like people who are not sure how to act not as a group. In addition, the men in black seem to have a leader who directs them. On one of the videos, when a couple of protesters - including a young man in a helmet - try to stop the men in black, the leader barks orders at the crowd. Whoever this group of men is they seem to have overlooked the fact that one of the main tenants of anarchism is that there are no leaders! From my personal experience the men in this group do not seem like anarchists or like any other type of protester for that matter.

This group also seems eerily familiar to the groups of thugs that appeared in Tahrir square in Cairo during the Arab spring. They appeared, violently attacked the crowed, and then disappeared.

Add to this that the police often put plain cloths cops into the crowd to commit vandalism and start violence. Sometimes they do this to give the police an excuse to attack the crowd. I have personally seen plainclothes cops start violence on several occasions. We also know that last Tuesday the police were using this same tactic. That said, this is just an observation but this group of men in black do not seem like police.

It seems clear that this group of men are not anarchists or Occupy but some kind of paid professionals or agent provocateurs. Who is it that would pay these men to vandalize businesses and attack protesters? It must be some organization that is threatened by peaceful protest and that would like to see or would benefit from the situation becoming violent. I will leave it to you to speculate on who this might be.

The mainstream media has taken this opportunity to try to make these peaceful protests look as violent as possible - by only showing violent images and rarely showing the more common scene of people that are happy or dancing and singing. I think that it is important that the majority of the public does not perceive the Occupy movement as anything other than the peaceful group of average citizens that it is. The majority of the General Strike in Oakland was completely peaceful. And the few incidents were caused by groups not affiliated with the Occupy movement or the General Strike.

For the record, the morning after these incidents, Occupy movement volunteers cleaned the paint off of all the businesses and paid the business for the damage out of their meager resources (after all, many people participating in Occupy are unemployed).

After publishing a first draft of this article and getting feedback from Occupy members and communicating with many people on and off line it has become clear that many people involved with Occupy understand that people dressed in all black at protests who destroy property are police or agents of some kind. The most common belief seems to be that they are the police. However, there is a smaller group that believes these men in black to be some kind of mercenaries. The most common tactic of government agents is to find a small fringe group then infiltrate it with so many agents that the agents become the majority of the group and then vote for violent actions that can then be used to discredit what the organization stands for.

There is also a strong precedent for our government infiltration peaceful groups to make them appear to be violent. The most public example of this domestically is the environmental organization Earth First! To this day Earth First! has a false reputation for violence that was solely due to FBI infiltration and manipulation. Famously the FBI led by FBI agent provocateur Michael Fain planted a bomb in the car of Judi Bari in an attempt to both assassinate her and discredit the organization as terrorists. This information became public record after a civil suit was filed by Earth First! years later. The FBI also infiltrated Earth First in 1989 and did whatever they could to push a radical agenda which eventually resulted in 4 members being charged and jailed for conspiracy to cut down a power line. Three of the five people in this so-called “terrorist operation” where FBI agents. The CIA has used similar overwhelming infiltration tactics with groups like The Mujahideen and The Taliban. It is possible that this may be what we have here--agents infiltrating a group to such a degree that they outnumber the non-agent members of the group and thus the group now becomes, in effect, part of whichever government organization infiltrated it.

The important point to take away from all this is that people in groups dressed in black that act violently and destroy property at protests are paid by our government to make peaceful protests look violent. This is pretty clearly part of the propaganda mechanism. Occupy as an organization and a movement is not violent and does not destroy property. Occupy is peaceful.

Another important thing to keep in mind is that the Occupy movement is not something that was designed, but is a natural outgrowth of our times. Occupy is not some other. Occupy is you and me. It is all of us. If you want to vote at the General Assembly, just go down to your local occupy and cast your vote. All are welcome. You can also vote online if it is difficult for you to be there in person. We are all free and, in fact, strongly encouraged to participate in this our movement. Occupy is all of us. We are the 99%.

Whole foods: http://www.nbcbayarea.com/...

Whole foods: http://www.youtube.com/...

Real Occupy at docs: http://www.youtube.com/...

Earth First! Judi Bari FBI attempted assassination: http://www.judibari.org/...

Earth First! Foreman: http://greenmuckraker.com/...

US funding of Taliban: http://www.cato.org/...

US Funding of Mujahideen: http://en.wikipedia.org/...

The Road Ahead: Where should the 99% put their energy

Gvico

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Tuesday December 13, 2011 · 1:17 PM PST

2011/12/13 · 13:17

I have read a few articles lately that have posited the viewpoint that if we, the politically active people, spend our time working on social issues like gay marriage and marijuana legalization then we are using time that could be more well spent doing union organizing and other things that would result in real economic gain for all Americans. And that if we focus on economic issues then the social issues will all be taken care of more easily when we are all better off. While there is definitely some truth to this I would like to argue for a more balanced view. I think the situation is actually a little more complex.

What has happened is this: over the past 30 years, the elite 400 people in America - who own so much and for the most part control the nation - have been able to accomplish a significant part of their goal by rolling back all of our rights and by lowering our standard of living so they can keep the excess capital for themselves. They do not need this capital, but they want to have it so that they can have more control. The reason this has occurred is the balance between haves and have nots has been upset. Under capitalism, both sides are supposed to always be fighting for a greater share of the capital which will give the people more rights and a higher standard of living, and give the rich more power and control. Since 1980, the people have, in large part, stopped participating in this fight. This is because one of the greatest strategies of the elite is to use the media to manipulate the people into behavior that will give the rich the upper hand.

Over the last 30 years, the elite have accomplished this by focusing the public’s attention on social issues that do not affect the struggle for capital and resources. So, most of the people’s energy has been focused on social issues such as abortion, gay rights, animal rights, identity politics, drug legalization, and many others. Now, the elite view these social issues as completely unimportant because they do not affect the outcome of the game (or at least very little). The rich purposely use the media to distract people into fighting for these issues that do not matter to them - thus siphoning off energy that could have been used by people in the game. So, since people have not been paying as much attention to the bread and butter economic issues, we have seen the fall of unionism, leading to longer hours, lower pay, fewer benefits, and an overall lower standard of living. This means less capital for the people and more for the elite.

Now, some thinkers among the people have started to realize this in the past few years. They have stood up and said, “Wait, we need to focus on economic issues, not social ones, because without capital the entire game is lost.” They are correct about this. In order for the people to return to the place of having any real power in society and having a decent life in the long run, they have only two choices. They either need to take control of enough capital to have power or they need to render capital worthless by eliminating it. That means we either have to overthrow capitalism completely or we have to take control of large amounts of capital.

The problem comes when the very well-intentioned thinkers go too far in the other direction and tell the people that the social issues do not matter and that only economic ones do - because this is not true. Economic issues are fundamental to any people, since the lack of economic power will eventually render all social issues meaningless. If one is starving, one tends not to worry so much about their gender identity. But to do this is to take the same strategy are rich but from the other side. And it is my supposition that we do not want to do this. The game of the rich is not necessarily our game. We want more out of life than just basic economic security.

As the labor movement of the last century figured out, just economics are not enough. In the Lawrence Massachusetts textile strike of 1912 led by the Industrial workers of the world (IWW), the workers asked for bread but roses too. After years of struggle the IWW figured out that just economics were not enough to make life worth living. In this strike, the roses meant beauty, art and joy - but I see the social issues to be like roses as well. They are not essential to survival or essential to getting the upper hand in the battle with the rich, but they are an important part of life.

In addition, social issues can help to inspire people and transform and radicalize their thinking. Many that end up working on hard economic issues began their activism with social issues that were close to their heart. Social issues can be very important in helping young people to enter into a life of social awareness.

In the end we need a more balanced approach. We do need to strategically focus the majority of our energy on the economic issues because they are so critical - but we also want to keep fighting the social battles as well because they are part of our zeitgeist. Just as the IWW found that we the people also want to focus our energy on art, fun, and joy, we now see that we also want to focus it on marijuana legalization, gay rights, and pro-choice. These social issues all help to define who we are as a people. It is not enough to simply survive. We must then build the type of world that we want to live in. We need bread, but we want roses too.

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