| Number 423 | March 18, 2009 |
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This Week: Freedom, Solidarity, and Economics
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Greetings, Listening to or reading the news, one would never know that there is anything we can do in response to the current economic disaster besides attempting to "regulate" these maniacs, or perhaps taking back their million-dollar bonuses. Well, there's a lot more we can do, as you'll see in this edition of the Notes. First of all, in the third installment of the Freedom Series, I help readers to imagine a different kind of Freedom than the "rugged individualist" version we've been taught in U.S. political culture. It takes quite a bit of imagining, I'll admit. But it's not just pie-in-the-sky, as this week's "Quote" of the Week indicates. In addition to the hopeful "Quote," I offer a second essay in which you will find resources to support or tap into if you want to act on the things you read in the first essay. (Offering such options for action is a Nygaard Notes tradition). This week, the theory/vision/imagining piece is about Solidarity and how it relates to the current economic crisis. The companion piece is thus about activism aimed at building a new economy, one that is based on people instead of profit. I hope people get inspired, learn something, and hopefully support some of these groups. This week's is the final installment of the Freedom Series. I really appreciate the comments many of you made about the first two parts – Thank you! And, as always, a warm welcome to the new readers this week. And thanks to all of you "old" readers for recommending Nygaard Notes to your friends. Nygaard |
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"In the midst of growing inequality and corporate power, government cutbacks, privatization and de-regulation, there is a quiet hum of people getting on with building economic alternatives grounded in principles of social solidarity, cooperation, egalitarianism, sustainability and economic democracy." Those words come from the U.S. Solidarity Economy Network, on the "Background and History" page of their wonderful website. |
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The current economic crisis has got a lot of people talking about two things: The first thing is the irresponsible behavior of the moneyed classes–you know, the money-managers, executives, brokers, bankers, etc—and what they've been doing with the nation's money. The second thing is the consequences that such irresponsibility has had, and is having, on the lives of the rest of us. When you think about it, this talk is all about the idea of Two Forms of Freedom that has been the subject of the past two issues of Nygaard Notes: Freedom from and Freedom to. At a time like this, people can see more clearly the nature of the power that the moneyed classes have, and how much freedom they have to use it. You'll recall that "license" is the word to use when freedom is over-extended to the point of interfering with another's freedom. Nobody in our public discussion is using the word "license," but that's what they're talking about. People understand that unbridled Freedom in the hands of the very powerful and their institutions leads to license. It's in the news every day. In that stream of news we are hearing talk about regulation, which is the imposition of limits on the freedoms of the moneyed classes, and nationalization, which is the taking away of some of the rights of ownership that those classes have been allowed to exercise so freely. What we are not hearing much about is the concept of Solidarity, but it is the value that transcends all the talk about regulation and nationalization and stimulus money and everything else that's been dominating the front pages of the corporate press in recent months. Solidarity is the real antidote to license. Solidarity, Consciousness, and Law Sometimes, when confronted with anti-social behavior, we hear people complain that "There oughta be a law!" At such times it's important to remember that the order in which laws come about makes all the difference. If something is made illegal without a broad cultural consensus behind it, then the law will be flouted and impossible to enforce. However, if the law grows out of—and is an expression of—a widely-shared value, then it will largely enforce itself. Or, at least, it will be much easier to enforce and people will support the enforcement efforts. An example of an unsupported law that cannot be enforced would be Prohibition. And here I include not only the famous Prohibition of alcohol in the U.S. in the 1920s/30s, but also the current prohibition of other mood-altering chemicals which is an equally-spectacular failure. An example of a culturally-supported legal prohibition would be the law against burglary. It's not that burglary doesn't happen, but rather that there is a broad agreement that it is wrong, and this is what prevents most people from engaging in it. After all, it's not the locks on our doors that keep us safe from burglary; it's the widely-shared belief that people have a right to security in their homes. And the law reflects that consciousness of right and wrong, it doesn't make it happen. Again, it's the order that's important: First consciousness, then effective law. "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire!?" What might it look like if our society came to appreciate a more complex and rich idea of Freedom, one that included within it the idea of Solidarity? It was almost eight years ago when I first discussed the relationship between Solidarity and U.S.-style Freedom (Nygaard Notes #114 "Left, Right, Center, Part 4: Philosophy, Ideology, and Policy"). I said at the time that the cooperative value of Solidarity does not argue against Freedom, but that it ranks the two values and says that first we must guarantee the welfare and security of all. "If there is money left over after we do that," I said, "then people can do whatever they want with their money. In other words, the freedom of an individual to acquire and spend money is balanced against the freedom from poverty that is guaranteed to all." Or, as my friend Ricardo says, "Nobody gets seconds until everyone has had firsts." In a society where the understanding of Freedom includes the welfare of the community, the group, the family—in other words, where Solidarity is a part of Freedom, and vice versa—the threat of widespread license would be diminished. With this deeper understanding of Freedom, the internal experience of Freedom would be transformed. That is, it wouldn't feel right to most people to use their Freedom to exploit others, or to gain a competitive advantage in a market or elsewhere. And, over time and in response to this change in consciousness, the laws would change. We live in a society that reveres tangibles like wealth and consumption over intangibles like solidarity, compassion, and empathy. And, as I have been arguing, a very limited idea of Freedom permeates the United States, conceiving of it as a Land of Opportunity, the greatest of which is the opportunity to enrich oneself. "Who wants to be a millionaire!?" Everyone, we are led to believe. When there is a broad cultural agreement that wealth is good and more wealth is better, then any attempts to regulate the economic "winners" in an attempt to keep them from winning too much are doomed to failure. Without a change in consciousness, there is no regulatory structure that cannot be evaded. Tax shelters, credit default swaps, we've all heard of some of the tricks. This is why the current crisis is such a time of opportunity: People are opening up their minds to the possibility that there can be too much Freedom. Or, at least, too much of our one-dimensional, individualized freedom. This crisis context gives us the opportunity to have conversations about the idea that the freedom to, which is the primary concern of some, must be paired and balanced with the freedom from, which is the primary concern of others. Such conversations can form the basis for what Martin Luther King called a "radical revolution of values," in which we would "rapidly begin the shift from a ‘thing-oriented' society to a ‘person-oriented' society." Now, more than 40 years after Reverend King spoke those words, the entire world is reeling from the excesses of Freedom to manipulate the "things" that our "thing-oriented" society has given to the most powerful among us. In response to these excesses we continue to hear calls for more and better financial "regulation," by which is meant the limiting of the freedoms of those who control our money. That's fine in the short term; more regulation probably won't hurt, and it might help. But, in the end, regulation is nothing more than an attempt to stop people from doing what they want to do, and in our current culture what people want to do is to enrich themselves. Who wants to be a millionaire!? Who wants to be a millionaire!? What I am talking about here is a larger and much more profound change than stronger rules to prevent people from doing what they want to do. I am talking about a transformation of what it is that people want to do. Imagine a society where the answer to the question "Who wants to be a millionaire!?" is: Nobody. What if, instead of personal enrichment, the most widely-shared desire was the desire to contribute to the well-being of all. Then there would be little need to "regulate" or to otherwise limit individual Freedom, as the Freedom to and the Freedom from would be intimately and inescapably connected. This is the liberating vision that we see when we remove the class-based limits on our thinking about Freedom that have been passed down through the ages in the United States. |
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Activists know that there are always exciting and creative things going on in the world, as human beings are always striving for social justice. Even when things seem darkest (and I won't name names, but think of certain heads of state who were in office from January of 2001 to January of 2009) there are always people working, working, working to make things a little better for all of us. And that includes people who are always working to create economic alternatives that would serve human needs better than the economic model that is imploding around us even as I type these words. I have been excited in recent years to see that many of the efforts that I have been following are beginning to take steps to join forces and become a movement. By "movement" I mean when a bunch of people not only get organized into groups, but begin to coordinate and support other groups who may be taking a different path, but are understood to be working toward a shared vision. A movement is big, it's diverse, it's powerful, and it gets stuff done. Think of the anti-slavery movement, the Populist movement, the environmental movement—oh, there are dozens I'm leaving out! One movement we have not really seen is an "alternative economics movement." But we may be in the early stages of one being born right now, although you'd never know it if you get your information from corporate-controlled outlets. Nygaard Notes to the rescue! Out of sight of the corporate information-providers there are many and incredibly-varied groups and organizations doing the "dirty work" of envisioning, engineering, theorizing, and exploring a different way of doing things in the economic realm. Some of them talk about "Participatory Economics," some talk of "Economic Democracy," and still others speak of "Post-Autistic Economics." I'm sure there are many more "schools" of creative and life-affirming
economic work, but for now here are some web addresses for brief introductions
to the three I've mentioned: These groups, or movements, or whatever they are, don't always agree on everything, as you'll see if you check them out, but so what? For now I want to let you know about one other school known as Solidarity Economics. I love what Solidarity Economy organizers talk about, as it is all about the change in consciousness to which I refer this week in the Freedom essay. "Another economy is possible," they say. And they are aiming to build a network that will "create and push for a new framework for social and economic development—one that puts people and planet before private profits and power." Specifically, those aiming to build this are the members of the U.S. Solidarity Economy Network, or USSEN. It's not just theory! As the USSEN points out on their website, we already have innumerable examples of a functioning Solidarity Economy, including things like cooperatives, local exchange systems, social investment funds, worker-controlled pension funds, fair trade, land trusts, co-housing, community supported agriculture, the open source movement (e.g. Linux, wikipedia), and on and on. Here are a few more websites to visit and get a rough idea about Solidarity Economics. Maybe you'll want to contribute to their efforts once you check out their vision and the work they're doing. * The launching of the U.S. Solidarity Economy Network occurred at the end of the U.S. Social Forum in July 2007 (the Social Forums are another exciting topic, but not for now). Learn about them by clicking here. * The Workgroup on Solidarity Socio-Economy underlines my point, saying that "Thousands of innovative socio-economic practices are already being put into practice all around the world." They, like me, think that the beginning of the 21st Century is a time of great opportunity. See what else they say about it by clicking here. * Grassroots Economic Organizing, or GEO, is a collective that is seeking to build "a self-conscious movement for economic democracy and a solidarity economy and culture." Go to their website and click on some of the links under "Archives," and you'll find all sorts of actually-functioning examples of economic alternatives around the world. Sorry for leaving out the other 9 trillion wonderful groups! This is just an appetizer. Let me know if you get inspired by any of the things you see here. They've certainly inspired me! |
