The New Storytellers
Life Choices
Engaging the Future
excerpted from the book
The Post-Corporate World
Life After Capitalism
by David Korten
Kumarian Press, 1999, paper
p213
The culture of materialism has been created by the world's
most sophisticated and highly paid propagandists.
*****
The New Storytellers
p225
Hazel Henderson
Women and men everywhere are behaving in an unprecedented way:
audaciously taking responsibility for the whole human family and
the future of life on the planet.
p235
Responsible Wealth
Some of the new storytellers are appearing in unlikely places.
In January 1997, a small group of wealthy Americans who take exception
to the policy agendas of the greedy rich banded together to form
an organization named Responsible Wealth. With a membership limited
to individuals in the top 5 percent of the U.S. population in
household income (those having $125,000 or more in annual income)
or assets ($500,000 or more net worth), Responsible Wealth is
an elite organization with a difference. Its mission is to change
the economic rules that are tilted in favor of people like themselves
at the expense of others less fortunate. The group educates policy
makers and the public about the devastating consequences of growing
inequality and supports measures intended to close the wage gap,
limit the influence of big money in politics, and increase the
share of the total tax burden carried by corporations and the
wealthy. Many of its members have pledged to act on their commitments
by donating their gains from the 1997 capital gains tax cut to
organizations working for equity and against tax breaks for the
wealthy. By June 1998, 125 members had pledged more than $1 million
to such public interest causes.
A similar commitment to placing the public good ahead of private
profits lies behind the formation of Business Leaders for Sensible
Priorities. Led by Ben Cohen of Ben & Jerry's Homemade, Inc.,
ice cream company, the group brings together business leaders
who believe government has a responsibility to serve the needs
of society rather than the bottom lines of corporations. Its primary
focus is on reorienting the U.S. federal budget from military
to social and local economic development priorities. Its members
spearheaded a successful attack against new funding for the B-2
bomber and are publicizing the fact that 54 percent of the U.S.
government's discretionary funding goes to military spending.
The group's members believe this money would be better spent on
such decidedly noncorporate agendas as creating living-wage, community-based
jobs, providing health care for America's five million uninsured
children, paying U.S. arrears to the United Nations, protecting
the environment, ending world hunger, funding the National Endowment
for the Arts, and advancing any number of other positive agendas.
Responsible Wealth and Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities
involve people of wealth and connection acting in their personal-in
contrast to their institutional-capacities. They thus have a freedom
to bring their conscience and moral sensibilities into play in
ways that persons acting in institutional roles often do not.
They are telling, through their actions, yet another piece of
the new story-that equality and business accountability are essential
to the well-being of society and that those who enjoy the benefits
of wealth and privilege have a special obligation to use these
resources to create a better world for all.
*****
Life Choices
p243
... the essential elements of good living. Alisa Gravitz, the
executive director of Co-op America, a membership organization
focused on positive use of economic power, observes that people
most everywhere, when asked about those essential elements, come
up with much the same list:
* A secure means of livelihood that provides for our basic
material needs while earning us a place of respect in our community;
* A strong, nurturing family, friends, and a supportive, peaceful,
and secure community that allows us to explore and develop our
capacity for loving relationships;
* The opportunity to learn and to give expression to our awareness
and understanding of ourselves and the world around us both intellectually
and artistically;
* Good physical health and the opportunity to engage in athletics,
dance, and other forms of physical expression that make our bodies
tingle with life's energy;
* A sense of belonging to place, community, and life, yet
with the freedom to make personal choices-and sometimes to wander
and explore without the obligations of place;
* A clean and healthy environment vibrant with the diversity
of life; and
* An assurance that our children will have an opportunity
for the same.
p256
So long as we rely on indicators of money-world health and performance
as the measures of our well-being rather than on indicators of
living-world health and performance, we will surely continue to
give preference to policies beneficial to money over those beneficial
to life.
*****
Engaging the Future
p261
Our task is no longer one of creating countercultures, engaging
in political protest, and pursuing economic alternatives. To create
a just, sustainable, and compassionate post-corporate world we
must face up to the need to create a new core culture, a new political
center, and a new economic mainstream. Such a bold agenda requires
many kinds of expertise working at many levels of society-personal
and household, community, national, and global. It requires breaking
the bonds of individual isolation that leave us feeling marginalized
when in fact we may already be part of a new majority. There are
thousands of useful tasks to be undertaken.
Starve the Cancer, Nurture Life
Cancer feeds from the energy reserves of what remains of the
healthy body. It expropriates life's energy to sustain its own
deadly growth.
Virtually the same is true for the capitalist cancer. Capitalism,
however, is more insidious than a conventional cancer. By establishing
its control over our jobs, investments, food, medical care, clothing,
transportation, energy sources, and increasingly even our schools
and prisons, it makes us depend on its presence and then blackmails
us to yield to it ever more of our life energies as the price
of our survival. If we had the means simply to remove its institutions
from our midst by some equivalent of radical surgery, radiation,
or chemotherapy, our economy would collapse and we would be left
with no means of sustenance.
Again, we must turn to life for an analogy in our search of
a more viable approach. One of the body's natural defenses against
cancer involves denying the cancerous tumor access to the body's
bloodstream. The cancer is thus starved to death as the body's
available energy stores are devoted to rebuilding its healthy
cells. This analogy holds the key to eliminating the capitalist
cancer from our midst: withhold legitimacy and energy from the
institutions of capitalism as we redirect our life energies to
building and nurturing the institutions of a life-serving, mindful
market economy. A simple phrase says it all: Starve the cancer,
nurture life. Or more specifically: Starve the capitalist economy,
nurture the mindful market
The large goal is to displace the institutions of global capitalism
with a global system of mindful market economies. The process
involves gradually increasing the options the mindful market offers
us as we reduce our dependence on those offered by the institutions
of capitalism. For example, I buy my wine from the local Bainbridge
Island winery, located within walking distance from my home and
run by a wonderful family who add something of their love of the
earth and our island community to every bottle of wine they produce.
(See "From the Earth with Love.") Each time I buy a
bottle of wine from my neighbor rather than one bottled by the
Gallo corporation, or purchase a head of lettuce at our Saturday
morning farmer's market that is grown by another wonderful neighbor
on her organic farm rather than a lettuce from our local Safeway
corporation outlet that is grown thousands of miles away by the
Del Monte corporation on a factory farm, I act to nurture the
mindful market economy while withdrawing legitimacy and resources
from the capitalist economy. And each time I forgo the purchase
of something I don't really need, substitute a product made by
my own hand, or engage in a cooperative exchange with my neighbor,
I weaken my dependence on the money created and controlled by
capitalism's institutions. And, in most instances, I also reduce
my burden on the planet.
Start from Where You Are
Obviously, we are not going to bring down the institutions
of capitalism just by buying a locally grown head of organic lettuce,
though it is a useful start. We must work in many ways at many
levels. The best that can be done here is to offer a general framework
and a few illustrative suggestions that you may find helpful in
defining a personal strategy to help starve the cancer and nurture
life. There are no universal blueprints. Indeed, the one universal
response to the question, "What can I do. is "Start
from where you are." That means making use of the resources
at your command, and most important, doing what allows you to
become more of who you really are.
If you are a member of a church, you might organize discussion
groups and events to examine the issues raised in this book and
explore how individuals can act on them as an expression of their
spiritual values. Or you might initiate a study group that deepens
the group's sense of connection to place by gathering and sharing
information on such things as the history of the locality where
you live, the foods that are produced there, the source of your
water, the distinctive characteristics of your native species,
and how your local ecosystem has changed over time. If you found
this book useful, recommend it to a friend.
If you are a parent, you might campaign to make your local
schools advertising-free zones. If you are a teacher and your
school requires students to watch Channel One, you might use it
as a resource for teaching students to deconstruct advertising
and propaganda messages to help immunize them against media manipulation.
Or you might engage your students in projects that deepen their
understanding and caring about their local ecosystems. If you
teach in a university, especially in a school of business, organize
a course on the moral defense and critique of capitalism to engage
students in a critical examination of the issues relating to the
design of an economic system.
If you are a natural networker, you might work with others
to develop a guide to local organizations and initiatives for
people in your locality who are looking for ways to become positively
engaged. Or you might compile and publicize a directory of local,
stakeholder-owned businesses. Your efforts might even lead to
the formation of new alliances among these groups to strengthen
the newly emergent whole.
If you are the CEO of a large corporation, you could establish
a policy that your corporation will not make political contributions
or otherwise seek to influence elections or legislation. Better
yet, organize the breakup and employee buyout of your corporation
to turn it into a network of independent stakeholder-owned, community-based
businesses. If you are an investment counselor or money manager,
build a specialty in socially responsible investment and the financing
of stakeholder buyouts. If you are a small-business owner, build
your identity as a values-led community-based enterprise and engage
in the formation of networks and alliances of like-minded businesses.
If you are a union member, campaign for applying a social
responsibility screen to the investment of union pension funds,
with special attention to investing only in companies that hire
union workers and have good employee relations. Promote the use
of pension funds to finance a labor buyout of selected corporations
to convert them into stakeholder enterprises.
If you work with small farmers in a low-income country, encourage
them to save and use local seeds and not become dependent on the
seeds and chemicals of transnational corporations. Help them organize
to resist the takeover of their lands by corporations and development
projects such as those funded by the World Bank and other foreign
development agencies. If you are a citizen of a low-income country,
join the citizen resistance against IMF and World Bank structural
adjustment programs. If you work for the World Bank, the IMF,
or the World Trade Organization, help break the veil of secrecy
by getting key internal documents into the hands of citizen groups
working to hold these institutions accountable to the public interest.
If you are a politician, consider building your campaign on
a pledge to take only small contributions and to support serious
campaign reform.
Sponsor policy reforms consistent with the policy agendas
set forth in Chapters 9 and l O. If you are an economist, become
active in the International Society for Ecological Economics and
participate in building and popularizing a market economics for
a living planet. If you are a lawyer, connect with one of the
groups ... working on issues relating to the legal status of corporations
and help develop a legal strategy to overturn the doctrine of
corporate personhood.
If you are a resident of a low-income neighborhood, especially
a minority neighborhood, your community is likely to be a favored
site for polluting industries, waste disposal, and the routing
of new highway construction-and will likely be underserved by
public transportation. If existing groups are working to stop
harmful projects, demand the cleanup of existing facilities, and
promote public transportation suited to your community's needs,
consider getting involved with one of them. If an effective group
does not already exist, create one.
If you have talents as a speaker, develop a presentation on
the relationship of the business system to the health of the environment
and make yourself available to groups interested in delving into
such issues. If you are a journalist, write stories about the
newly emerging culture; values-led, stakeholder-owned businesses;
and the many citizen initiatives moving us toward a post-corporate
world-the stories that corporate PR specialists don't want told.
If the publication from which you earn your bread and butter has
no taste for such stories, do them on a pro bono, freelance basis
for independent publications that still believe journalism has
a role beyond generating advertising dollars.
If you are inclined to political activism, you might get involved
in campaigns to end corporate welfare in all its many forms, strip
corporations of their rights of personhood, and get big money
out of politics.
Whoever you are, you have an important role in changing the
system-for change will only come from the actions of millions
of people and each of us is important.
Intervene at Multiple Levels
Although the most important changes generally begin within
ourselves, they must eventually be translated into changes in
community, national, and global institutions. We must be mindful
of the changes needed at all these levels and contribute to their
realization. The basic themes, however, remain the same. Start
from where you are to starve the cancer and nurture life.
Let's take the levels one at a time and explore some of the
possibilities. Bear in mind this is a list of possibilities focused
on changing the economic system. It is neither prescriptive nor
comprehensive, but only a partial answer to the question, "What
can I do?"
PERSONAL AND FAMILY
At the personal and family level our opportunities to shift
the energy of the economic system center on issues of consumption,
where we live, and how we obtain and use our money. The following
are some specific things you might consider.
SIMPLIFY YOUR LIFE
In a capitalist economy, cutting back on consumption is a
revolutionary act. Cut back on clutter and unnecessary consumption.
Sort out which expenditures are really important to you and which
are not. Figure out your real take-home pay after deducting taxes
and the costs of transportation, clothing, and tools used in your
occupation. Then calculate what you earn per hour and translate
each prospective purchase into the hours of your life energy that
you must devote to your job to pay for it. Each time you make
a purchase, ask whether the item is worth that many hours of life
energy you might be using in other ways. For greater support,
form a voluntary simplicity group to share ideas and experiences.
BUY SMALL AND LOCAL
Making your purchases at small stakeholder-owned firms and
buying locally produced products are also revolutionary acts against
capitalism. Patronize your local farmers' market or organize a
community-supported agriculture program with a local farmer. Participate
in the "Thanksgiving conspiracy," which involves planning
and producing your Thanksgiving dinner based exclusively on foodstuffs
produced within thirty miles of your place of residence, and encourage
others in your community to do the same. In good market fashion,
you are voting with your dollars. It may take some research to
figure out what is produced locally and how you can adjust your
consumption patterns to meet more of your needs through the market-rather
than the capitalist-economy, but that is part of the consciousness-raising
process. Again, consider forming a support group to share experience
and information.
CHOOSE A LIFE-AFFIRMING JOB
Consider taking a lower-paying job doing work that has real
meaning with a values-led, community-based organization or enterprise
that is contributing to the life of the community and the planet.
KEEP INFORMED
Reach out beyond the mainstream media by becoming a regular
reader of journals and books published by reliable alternative
press groups that report on news and issues relating to corporate
agendas.
PUT YOUR CASH IN A COMMUNITY BANK
Do your banking with an independent bank or credit union committed
to serving your community. If the banks in your community are
all branches of one of the large national or international banks,
ask the branch manager for the figures on how the local deposits
to that branch compare with the branch's total lending in your
community for local businesses and home ownership. If local deposits
are substantially greater than local lending, you know that local
money is not supporting the local economy Consider banking by
mail with a community bank located elsewhere. At least you will
know your money is supporting someone's local market economy rather
creating economic instability in the global financial casino.
VOTE WITH YOUR SAVINGS
if you participate in the stock market, choose a mutual fund
that screens investments for social responsibility or make use
of an investment service or adviser who specializes in socially
screened stocks. Use your ownership vote to support positive shareholder
initiatives. Also, avoid consumer debt. Those who maintain debt
balances on their credit cards mortgage their lives to capitalism.
REDUCE YOUR AUTOMOBILE DEPENDENCE
Living without a car is no small challenge in most American
localities, and auto manufacturers, oil companies, and construction
contractors all benefit from keeping it that way. We serve ourselves
and life by reducing that dependence. When deciding where to live
and where to work, try to choose the location that allows you
to waIk, bicycle, or take public transportation to work, shopping,
and recreation. In many households, just eliminating the need
for a second or third car is a positive step.
FUND CHANGE
Support nonprofit organizations that are challenging the capitalist
system and working in favor of equity, environment, and community.
Whatever your level of income, reserve a portion for charitable
giving to these organizations. You can even support groups doing
work in which you believe by such a simple act as signing up with
a long-distance phone service that offers discounted rates and
donates a portion of your payment to groups working for systemic
change.
COMMUNITY
At the community level, action opportunities center on strengthening
the local market economy, creating a healthy livable environment,
and building a sense of community based on mutual trust and caring.
Contributing at this level requires that we reach out and become
a part of our community's public life. The following are a few
ideas you might consider.
JOIN AN INDICATORS PROJECT
If your community has a sustainability or livability indicators
project, get involved. If not, consider organizing some friends
to initiate one. The more people involved in dialoguing on the
nature of the community in which they want to live and in selecting
the indicators by which they will know when they have it, the
more likely the effort will have a meaningful impact.
Create a Sustainable Community Economy The Rocky Mountain
Institute (RMI) offers a variety of technical and organizational
resources for increasing community sustainability. See its Web
site at www.rmi.org for current information, or contact RMI, 1739
Snowmass Creek Road, Snowmass, Colo. 816549199. For those interested
in organizing a program to create a strong community economy based
on the use of local resources to meet local needs, see Michael
J. Kinsley, Economic Renewal Guide: A Collaborative Process for
Sustainable Community Development Available from RMI, it is an
excellent practical guide and also includes an extensive directory
of additional resources.
CREATE A DIRECTORY TO THE MINDFUL MARKET
A barrier to supporting the mindful market economy is figuring
out which products come from values-led local firms. Perhaps you
have created a support group and you are developing a serious
information base. Your next step might be to publish, distribute,
and publicize a community directory to your local mindful market.
SUPPORT OR CREATE A COMMUNITY CURRENCY
Local currencies reduce dependence on money controlled by
capitalist banking institutions, build a sense of community, strengthen
the identity of local businesses and products, and make visible
the distinction between money that stays in the community and
money that doesn't. If your community has a local currency, give
it your support. If not, consider forming a group to establish
one.
ENCOURAGE GROWTH BOUNDARIES, AFFORDABLE HOUSING, AND PUBLIC
TRANSPORTATION
The move to establish urban growth boundaries to limit sprawl,
reverse urban decay, create pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods,
and increase the viability of public transportation is an idea
whose time has come. If your community has a growth management
plan designed to increase its livability, consider getting involved.
If not, then consider organizing support to create one. Be sure
affordable housing is an element of the agenda, so that people
at all income levels will have access to the improved livability
of your area.
WORK FOR COMMUNITY ECONOMIC SELF-RELIANCE
There is a growing divide between localities that approach
economic growth by providing subsidies to attract facilities from
global corporations and those that are strengthening smaller local
businesses. If these issues interest you, find out who is responsible
for economic development policies in your community and get involved,
either by seeking a seat on the relevant local commission or by
organizing a watchdog and lobbying group to mobilize support for
sensible economic policies.
GET POLITICAL
There is no democracy without an active citizenry. The only
way we are going to bring change to our corrupted political system
is through greater involvement by ` citizens who care about their
community. Run for office and bring your values ,,J into the political
mainstream. Build your campaign in part on a pledge to finance
your election with small contributions and avoid obligations to
big-money interests. Much of the impetus for change is coming
from local levels and there are important opportunities to make
a difference as a local officeholder. Furthermore, to reclaim
national politics we must first build a local base. If you're
fed up with the pandering to big money by the major political
parties, consider joining a smaller party, such as the New Party,
which is engaged in building its base on a platform of citizen
democracy in both political and economic life.
NATIONAL
At the national level, the action agenda centers on political
education and changing the rules of the game to favor democracy
and the market economy.
USE YOUR POLITICAL FRANCHISE
Study the issues, check the voting records of your legislators
or parliamentarians, find out who finances their campaigns, and
use your vote to favor the politicians who are trying to serve
the public interest. Let the politicians who represent you know
you are watching their records and that you favor serious campaign
finance reform that gets big money out of politics, strong environmental
regulation, a living wage, strong antitrust enforcement, small
and medium-size local business, stakeholder ownership, strong
unions, and a progressive tax policy. Let them also know that
you oppose international trade and investment agreements that
increase the rights and reduce the accountability of global corporations
and financial institutions; funding for the International Monetary
Fund, the World Bank, and the World Trade Organization; corporate
subsidies; the privatization of social security; capital gains
tax cuts and other tax breaks for the wealthy; bank deregulation;
patents on life; and corporate intellectual property rights monopolies-to
name a few issues that bear directly on the balance of power between
capitalism and democracy and the market economy. If the politicians
who represent you don't represent your interests, others probably
feel unrepresented as well. Consider running for national office
yourself.
GET ACTIVE IN POLITICAL MOVEMENTS AND ADVOCACY GROUPS
Although the major political parties may be hopelessly captive
to big-money interests, there are many political movements and
advocacy groups that are not. These groups are vehicles for mobilizing
broad grassroots support behind initiatives that advance the public
interest on issues such as those listed in the previous paragraphs.
Pick out one or two with a strong grassroots base that align with
your interests, get involved, and give special attention to campaign
finance reform.
INTERNATIONAL
At the international level, a positive agenda centers on people-to-people
exchange and dialogue that builds a globalizing civil society
as a potent force for positive change.
GLOBAL NETWORKS
There are many global citizen organizations working in solidarity
on issues ranging from voluntary simplicity to opposing international
trade and investment treaties that are designed to strengthen
corporate rights and weaken their accountability. If the issues
you are working on at community and national levels have an international
dimension, you may want to link your local and national efforts
into a related international network or alliance.
GLOBAL INSTITUTIONS
Global institutions are an especially appropriate concern
of global networks. Citizen groups have come to realize that the
most powerful of our international institutions are generally
those-such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund,
and the World Trade Organization-that have been created to serve
and strengthen global capitalism. Groups of concerned citizens
worldwide have responded with well-organized initiatives aimed
at holding these institutions accountable to the human and environmental
interest. There is much to be done to weaken and ultimately close
these harmful institutions as we work to replace them with institutions
dedicated to protecting the economic rights of people and communities.
If this agenda interests you, find a relevant network and get
involved.
MUNICIPAL FOREIGN POLICY
As national governments have pursued foreign policies largely
alien to the values and interests of many of their citizens, a
number of towns and cities have put forward their own positions
on key foreign policy issues. For example, some have boycotted
corporations that do business with repressive regimes, such as
in Burma or apartheid South Africa. In many instances local governments
around the world are reaching out to work directly with one another
to prod and challenge their national governments on official positions
relating to such issues as global warming, nuclear disarmament,
and human rights. While national governments have been negotiating
the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI), aimed at virtually
eliminating the ability of national and local governments to regulate
international investors and speculators, a number of towns and
cities in the United States, Canada, Britain, Australia, and other
countries have passed official resolutions declaring themselves
MAI-free zones to underscore their protest against this attack
against democracy.
Those who define-values and progress in terms of money define
international cooperation primarily in terms of financial relationships
As we awaken to life as our defining value and measure of progress,
we come to see that the foundation of more meaningful international
cooperation centers on people-to-people communication and the
free exchange of friendship, information, and technology. We are
learning that international relations are too important to be
left to national governments captive to corporate interests. If
your municipal government has an active foreign policy, get involved.
If not, learn what other local governments are doing and campaign
to get yours involved. Give special support to initiatives aimed
at strengthening the rights of peoples to protect their economic
and environmental interests against predatory global capital.
Start from where you are. Do what's right for you. Give yourself
permission to be the one. And together we can and shall create
a positive, life-friendly future for humanity and the planet.
Enchanted by the Sirens' song, we have yielded to the institutions
of capitalism the power to decide our economic, social, and technological
priorities. Intimidated by their power, we have been reluctant
to see the naked truth that they bear the Midas curse, appropriating
the life energies of whatever they touch to the end of making
money. Finding our choices narrowed to the options capitalism
finds it profitable to offer us, we seek meaning where there is
none to be found and become unwitting accomplices in fulfilling
the deadly curse.
Given the seriousness of our situation, it may seem anticlimactic
to suggest that our survival depends on something so obvious and
undramatic as embracing the living universe story as our own and
making mindful choices for democracy, markets, and healthy lifestyles.
Perhaps we have been so busy searching the distant horizon for
exotic answers to our deepening crisis that we have failed to
notice the obvious answers that are right in front of us.
Or perhaps we have been reluctant to face the troubling truth
that it is our voice that sings the Sirens' song. It is we who
divert our eyes from the emperor's nakedness. It is by our hand
that the Midas curse turns life into money. We can sing as well
life's song, find the courage to speak of the emperor's shame,
and put our hands to life's service-discovering along the way
more of who we truly are as we live a life-fulfilling future into
being.
The gift of self-reflective intelligence gives our species
a capability for mindful choice well beyond that of any other.
Yet we have avoided the responsibility that inevitably goes with
freedom by assuming it is not within our means. We have further
diminished ourselves by developing elegant ideological arguments
to rationalize our irresponsibility.
Thus, we have approached democracy as though it were a license
for each individual to do as he or she wishes when in truth it
is about acting on the faith that each individual has the capacity
for full and equal participation in making responsible choices
mindful of the needs of all. We have approached the market as
though it were a license to amass unlimited individual wealth
without individual responsibility, when in truth it is about meeting
basic needs through the mindful participation of everyone in the
equitable and efficient allocation of society's resources. We
have treated the good life as a process of material acquisition
and consumption without limit, when in truth it is about living
fully and well in service to life's continued unfolding.
Whatever the barriers to our taking the step to species maturity,
our era of adolescent irresponsibility is ending for the very
reason that we have reached the limits of the planet's tolerance
for our recklessness. It is now our time to accept responsibility
for our freedom or perish as a species that failed to find its
place of service in the web of life.
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