Money as Debt

Comment by Paul Gibbins on April 1, 2010 at 11:43pm

There is right?

Comment by Ezra Ho on April 2, 2010 at 5:45am

Thats why the wh*** world is in debt to itself even while we find that we have an increasingly amount of technological capabilities. The system is on it's deathbed and we got to seize this opportunity to educate people about the inherent corruption of the monetary system.

Comment by Ezra Ho on April 2, 2010 at 5:53am

@Rahul:

What most people don't realise is that mass production requires mass production in a monetary system. Are you familiar with Adam Curtis's Century of the Self? What he shown was that after WWI, the industrial elites had so much excess production because of the strides made in automation during the war, and because people bought stuff based on utility back then, it threatened the stability of the wh*** economic system. What happened was that they hired Sigmund Freud's nephew, Edward Bernays, to manipulate the supposed unconscious desires and emotions that people had suppressed and use it to manipulate them into buying stuff that they didn't really need. And so advertising and the consumer culture was born.

The point being that the system requires such a self-centered, insecure and materialistic culture to fuel our massive production of goods and services, made possible by increasing automation. If people stopped being such impulsive consumer and irresponsible human beings, then economic "growth" would plunge, and when the numbers fall, all hell would start to break loose.

Comment by Rahul Dewanjee on April 2, 2010 at 1:23pm

Economic growth would come when corporations will gravitate towards "next practices" (like innovation) while gradually shifting away from "best practices".

There is an universal consensus that the present economic model based on consumption driven growth is unsustainable. What we individuals can do through our social interactions is help mobilize this shift in risk reward balance of our efforts and our governments efforts, define the context of luxury, see how we can mobilize a broader shift to create reciprocity through access to resources and enabling equal opportunity initiatives where services and manufacturing can gravitate towards efficiency and not in nationalistic overtures that we are seeing these days across the Atlantic. When we can endorse Adam Smith's efficiency theory, we can reduce waste. Energy sustainability or any form of sustainability should focus on how we can minimize waste of precious resources and our efforts as social innovators should manifest a progressive step in that direction.

On the basis of Generalized Acceptance of Tariffs & Trade (GATT) framework, if we can embrace global trade of products & services, we will perhaps be able to shift the current material and capital imbalances (of both allocative and fungible resources) better than any other way conceivable way possible. Trade based reciprocity is what Africa and all emerging economies need today.

Any attempt to isolate or divert access to African human capital and African goods to the world's developed markets (of Japan, Europe, Canada, Australia & United States) would inevitably trigger a response from various African states to innovate their engagements with Chinese enterprises and those from non-democratic regimes like Saudi Arabia, North Korea or Iran. And it will be too late before we could counter-balance any inroads that Chinese enterprises in particular would make into Africa. We must remember that it will neither help us to seek endorsements on-ground from local authorities in Africa for our social innovation missions (in spite of our goodwill and strong intentions to do good in Africa). The international community must understand this danger of not seeing on-ground change of equation that can happen if we allow the Africans to languish the way we see that today. There is just no way out but to integrate Africa into serious business and make African participation a way to make our influence be endorsed by African people. And once that happens, we can influence to steer Africa towards greater democracy, help establish the rule of law, bring political and social stability and see Africa in a new context of trade, prosperity and sustainability. This is how I see things personally.

What we have been debating earlier (and I believe there is a considerable support for that as well) were all focused at how we could micro manage our situation in the developed world. We are all failing to understand that most American or European enterprises are globally dispersed and their profitability and long term acceptance in the foreign shores will be always counter balanced by how the rest of the world sees the actions of reciprocity. It is thoroughly a give and take situation.

And there has been a significant shift, awareness and understanding that this is indeed the right approach towards finding fortune at the bottom of the pyramid, reach out to the bottom billions, prevent widespread ecological damage in the emerging economies and build a context of understanding and to be understood. Any shift to dislodge this integration would be devastating if not in the short term but surely in the mid to long term for world peace and stability.

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