Inclusive Capitalism

In May, 2014 , Prince Charles said in a speech at the Inclusive Capitalism conference:

"We can choose to act now before it is finally too late, using all of the power and influence that each of you can bring to bear to create an inclusive, sustainable and resilient society”. 
 
The Prince was addressing an audience of 200 business leaders including Christine Lagarde, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, and chief executives of multinational companies such as UBS, GlaxoSmithKline and Unilever. 

Here are more quotes from the article appearing in the UK's Telegraph newspaper.

“I remember when the Iron Curtain came down there was a certain amount of shouting about the triumph of capitalism over communism. Being somewhat contrary, I didn't think it was quite as simple as that. I felt that unless the business world considered the social, community and environmental dimensions, we might end up coming full circle.” 

He called on businesses to focus on the long-term and make “an authentic moral commitment to acting as true custodians of the Earth and architects of the well-being of current and future generations”. 

“It is only by adopting a broader sense of value that our finances will be sustained and we can find new sources of profit,” he said. 

The Prince suggested that companies must do more to put “young people properly at the heart of companies' employment practices and planning strategies, in order to tackle more effectively the world's growing youth unemployment crisis”. 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/prince-charles/10859230/Prince-Charles-reform-capitalism-to-save-the-planet.html 

Ed Miliband, UK's Labour leader, has also called for “responsible capitalism”. 

Neighbourhood Campuses update

We had the first of our pre-launch parties for the Neighbourhood Campuses on October 18. 

It was a special salon with socializing, food, fun, sharing of ideas and news of gestating the trillion-dollar holistic framework I developed for neighbourhoods over the years - starting at Yonge-Wellesley in downtown Toronto.  I presented a comparison of old-style business based on project management, and business that includes flow - Ecstatic Business Practices - or EBP.

Fellow originators of the Yonge-Wellesley campus, Miss Suzette and Ava Goodman gave us a taste of what a more creative and fulfilling neighbourhoods will be like. 
There were very soulful live musical numbers by the incomparable Ethelrida Zabala-Laxa of WISER International.

An enthusiastic, Norman Waite of the local neighbourhood association (Bay Cloverhill Community Association, or BCCA) welcomed everyone and shared some local news of breakthroughs regarding a local park on publicly-held land.  He promised to be our biggest fan and to promote awareness of the Neighbourhood Campus Norman also offered us a table at the neighbourhood's annual general meeting on November 14, 2012.  This event, held at the YMCA, will attract over 100 of our local movers-and-shakers.

A huge thank you to our gracious volunteers, Adam, Alfredo, Diane, Marie, and Paul for video, greeting, registration, dishes, food service, photography, clean-up.  You name it, and they were able to deliver.

Thank you to 6 St. Joseph House for providing the venue and refreshments.  Our other local business partners, Biryani House and Freshslice Pizza, received a rousing applause when we thanked them for the food. 

Outcomes:
We now have proposals for courses for children and adults, in computer assembly kits (Arduino,) and robotics, stop-motion animation for cinema, plus offers for sessions in creative writing, drawing and sculpture.

We announced offers by participants that evening who wanted to supply venues for upcoming courses free of charge.  In this way we can present the salon in new neighbourhoods - Yorkville-St Jamestown, and Lawrence-Dufferin. 

We have been referred to someone at the University of Toronto who may book us into additional venues for upcoming courses. 

And representatives from other neighbourhoods who attended are excited and will be getting back to us with opportunities in their areas.

We don't know how things could have gone any better, but we will try at our upcoming salons in November and December.

Fighting over a Faint Glow on Screens

Media reporting and non-reporting on the broader implications of the US debt crisis generally contributes to mounting confusion.  This posting attempts to bring some clarity about what is going on in the world, behind the headlines.

The last blog posting introduced the phenomena of currency wars.  Earlier we looked at how the job of government is to ensure that everyone has a way to contribute and benefit from society.  Now engaged in an international society should we have governments going after one another with sanctions that suck life out of society?

Currency wars are an example of how removed some of us have become from mutual benefit and bringing goodness to society.  

Storehouses of Gold in Asia

Since well before the American Revolution of 1776, China has supported the US in becoming a Western power.  This was not pure altruism.  This was self-interest.  China wanted to create another Western power strong enough to balance the European empires of England, Holland, Portugal.  Therefore Chinese, and what are now Taiwanese families took gold from their underground storehouses and lent huge amounts of gold bullion to the US.
Source:  David Wilcock’s team of researchers. 
http://divinecosmos.com/start-here/davids-blog/1022-lawsuit-end-tyranny-ii

Recently China balked at the thought of funding attacks against itself and its neighbouring countries.  The families asked for the gold they lent to be returned. The major banking clans that, in effect, own the Federal Reserve, were apparently required to appear in court within the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) in September 2010.  The BIS was set up as the international arm of the Federal Reserve.   

The court case was about gold contracts going back hundreds of years.  

The gold owners won, and the judgment totaled the astronomic amount of 286-trillion dollars in today’s dollars. This was reported by Benjamin Fulford who used to be the chief Asia correspondent for Forbes business magazine.  Because the BIS court was set up to be a secret world court it does not issue records to the public.  However, reports surfaced that the Federal Reserve has delayed making the big payout.  The Federal Reserve bankers are either unable or unwilling to return the trillions they owe and have taken a dismissive attitude.  

In November of 2011 some of the gold owners filed a lawsuit in New York State courts for a much smaller amount.  This time there is a public record of the case that is still awaiting a court hearing.
http://divinecosmos.com/media/Keenan_complaint_11-23-2011_SDNY.pdf 

We get an idea of the sheer magnitude of the smaller amount from this Fox News report.  We see it is up there with the amounts that the US owes it's major national creditors.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ttSmZknU9mI

According to the National Defense Authorization Act passed into law on New Year’s Eve of 2011, the US debt is now the biggest threat to American security.  The act clearly states that the US will reposition more military power into the West Pacific.  We saw American marines repositioned into Australia (and therefore China's backyard,) three months later.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NbbKivB2LM 

The traditional Eastern US protectorates, Asian countries that are beneficiaries of US military might, are dumping or considering dumping the US dollar as an international exchange currency, along with US military protection. See the previous Social Creator blog, and 7-minutes into  http://rt.com/programs/keiser-report/episode-271-max-keiser/

The Old World Economy

The Bretton Woods Agreement came out of the 1944 meeting to establish rules for a post WWII global economy.  

West Germany was the first to unilaterally get out of it, in May 1971.  It was simply unwilling to devalue the Deutsche mark in order to prop up the dollar.  Within three months the West German economy rebounded, and the dollar declined 7.5% against the Deutsche mark.

The US had gone into debt for the first time in the 20th century in 1971, because of the Vietnam War.  The heavy debt combined with a negative U.S. trade balance.  

Other nations followed West Germany and began to demand their gold, based on America's "promise to pay" – that is, to redeem their dollars for gold.  Nixon changed US law in 1971 allowing the Federal Reserve to legally refuse to honour contracts that required the US to pay in gold.  Nixon introduced 'fiat' money, literally backed only by hot air, by declaration.  Fiat money is based on law.
Google the definition of 'fiat currency'.

Looking behind Today's News Headlines

What does today's situation look like, as a currency war scenario? 

We have other countries joining the US military to enforce respect for numbers electronically stored in Federal Reserve and BIS computers.  These computer entries are displayed as lights on screens.  

The entries were meant to create a faint glow.  However they are used to create vast consequences in terms of human misery. 

These ciphers must be taken seriously.  They represent dollar amounts backed by legal contracts.  These Fed and BIS ciphers are abstractions.  They cannot be redeemed for the delivery of gold, food, water, a collaborative labour force, or anything else of value since 1971.  

The earlier blog posting on BRICS countries suggested that a currency backed by a lot of Asian gold could take it's place.  Forces allied within NATO might ensure the dollar cannot be dislodged from the centre of today's international currency exchanges. 

Without NATO military in place to enforce other countries to accept the ciphers, our notions of vast dollar amounts of national debts would probably quickly cease.  We might experience large scale renewal and abundance around the world.  

We would see big changes in the Federal Reserve and Bank of International Settlements abilities to control the world's economy, and control currency exchanges.

For more on currency wars since Roman times until the present, see this article by John Perkins. He has advised the World Bank, United Nations, IMF, U.S. Treasury Department, Fortune 500 corporations, and countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. He worked directly with heads of state and CEOs of major companies. His books on economics and geo-politics have sold more than 1 million copies:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article27967.htm 

BRICS countries changing Traditional Power in World

A massive shift in economic, political and financial power is underway.  You will see the beginnings if you look at the following video report, on the heads of the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) meeting in New Delhi this week.  They talked about UN reform, and an alternative to Western institutions such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. 

The BRICS countries are reputedly experiencing an average of 7% growth each year whereas the economies of the `developed world` (US, Canada, Europe, Australia and New Zealand) are in the toilet.  Today marked the first day in a series of massive changes.  So if you felt a cataclysmic shift in our world, from what you will read in the media, these will appear to be mostly national, economic, political and financial.

Note that the BRICS meetings were completely ignored by PBS in the US and Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, never mind the corporately owned news outlets.  This was also the case with Occupy Wall Street which the mainstream media ignored for almost two weeks.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vg9qvYwQHg

There were signs leading up to this.  Christine Lagarde, head of the IMF went cap-in-hand to talk with Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev asking if he could spare some cash to put in her fund.  She also announced, in effect, that the IMF will no longer engage in money laundering.  

Another sign was the outrage that has grown since 2008.  No one is in jail, or even in court, for bringing about the global economic meltdown.  People in government and Wall Street are too chummy for doing anything about that. So the US was the reckless relative most countries wanted to watch.

This series of BRICS announcements means is that it will be much more difficult for the US and Israel to cook up a war with Iran.  If the BRICS countries disagree with western news outlets that President Assad in Syria is as bad a guy as he`s been made out to be, the UN may change their recent resolution.  

The rise of the BRICS means that the dollar will no longer be the currency of choice for international deals.  We could see a new currency announced at the BRICS summit in South Africa in 2013.  Perhaps we`ll see the US military miss a few pay check deadlines for it`s employees... as many things seem possible now.  Stay tuned for this developing global story. 

But let`s pull back and discuss what you won`t read about anywhere else... what these newly emerging realities mean for neighbourhoods internationally, and personal internal changes.  

As we see more centralization of decision-making in the world (One world order, or world polarization, East-West, developed and developing nations) decisions and resulting plans will become ever more removed and less relevant to what needs to happen locally in our communities.  Ever increasing centralization initially leads to unsustainable results.  To maintain balance in the world, obviously there will be a spontaneous increase in the importance we give to the ‘hyper-local’, i.e. neighbourhoods. 

Perspectives of `East and West` and ‘good and bad situations’ are creating the necessary tension for society to move to functioning in higher ways.  People will increasingly move to creativity and higher values, such as compassion, initially either out of fear, or out of the desire for inclusion and unification.  (Remember the western developed countries will be the `have-not` countries, and inclusion will come to the fore-front of western people`s minds). 

In the last 25 years we`ve seen increased ecological ways of thinking which require the functioning of both halves of the brain.  But that`s just the beginning.

Believe me, people will start to be more aware of the organizing role of a non-localized, or quantum ‘shared Self’.  This way of thinking requires functioning of the brain`s frontal lobes.  To be exact, the front 2-pounds of an adult brain.  Recognition of a ‘shared Self’ and what we can think of as It`s actions will also probably develop though the functioning of the fore-brain.  We will soon recognize that the world is indeed one organism.  

Scientists and linguists at the university in St. Petersburg during the early 1990`s already found that some of what Western scientists refer to as ‘junk DNA’ actually is the means by which individuals link individual actions into the overall actions within the ‘shared Self’.

So big changes are here -

• Attention to individual needs rather than government policies and one-size-fits-all approaches,
• Brain functioning in more complex ways requiring education for the creative economy, 
• Coordination through seeing how a neighbourhood, and a person, fits into the larger whole,
• New coordinated ways to get things done locally and internationally over the Internet.
• Perhaps bake sales to raise funds for the military. (Only kidding).

Pointers to Our Near-term Economic Future

'Developed nations' are rapidly leaving the manufacturing economy behind.  What can we expect from our near-term withdrawal from the old economy?  


The BDI tells you a lot about what to expect.  It is an indicator of international trade of raw materials.  Look at the graph  from the 1980's to the present on the page linked below and decide whether what has happened in the last year is 'significant':


http://www.alt-market.com/articles/540-baltic-dry-index-signals-renewed-market-collapse


And what to expect in the Eurozone.  This is dictated by the US-based banks that will continue to make themselves look as good as possible for as long as possible.  


Ellis Martin of www.EllisMartinReport.com talks about the impending undeclared default of five of the major US banks.  Whether the banks have officially run out of money all depends on the very powerful International Swaps and Derivatives Association.  This association is run by some of the same banks.  Listen to this January 30, 2012 audio interview:


http://www.jsmineset.com/2012/01/30/the-impending-undeclared-default-of-5-major-us-banks/

We don't have a say in terms of what goes on in the global economy.  It makes us feel powerless to act.  Maybe the fact that the global economy was designed and is run by un-elected officials in international banks and economic institutions suggests that it was designed to disempower... Who knows?

This is important to understanding and attempting to anticipate our near-term economic future.


The creative economy has become increasingly important.  And its rooted in your neighbourhood, where you have some say in what is goes on.  Adapt accordingly.

When You want Change, what do You Call Yourself?

If you want input on what you are trying to create to bring about a better society, here are some terms that I've tried to define, and some ideas people associate with these terms.

Alliances tend to be formed amongst pre-existent organizations.  It is a term used by the right-wing.  The Alliance Party in Western Canada brought two existing political parties together against the Liberals. 

The left-wing tends to use the term 'coalition'.  You see single issue groups like 'Coalition against Poverty', etc.

I don't know why people use these terms.  It may explain why people hear Alliance in a name and think of it as right-wing.

The term 'movement' suggests person-to-person collaboration and coordination. 

Look in a dictionary to confirm whether what I say about these terms is correct and maybe get back to me if I'm wrong.

Ask whether the word 'movement' captures the essence of what you are doing.  It might serve better than the word 'party'?  People probably have reasons for starting parties, because party sound familiar, political and gets people in the door.  However, when you go global people may find the word 'party' confusing.  It may have slowed down the growth of the Green Party as it expanded out of Germany.

The women's movement was never slowed down by its name.  It grew enormously fast.  It took nine months to go from the kitchen table to a world conference in Japan.

There are two types of movement.  Next decide if you're driven by ideology - in which case you are probably (a single issue movement, like health reform?) a transformational movement big on advocacy.

Now if you say that you want a paradigm shift (towards coordination rather than every individual, group or organization looking out for themselves), you start off as an 'expressive movement'.  This suggests you're bringing people together to take on an array of challenges.  If that's the case I believe you are an 'expressive movement'.

A challenge is a problem that has been defined.  It can be defined by individuals or a network. 

Now a movement probably has no structure to begin with.  It's pretty fluid.  To get things done either you adopt a top-down command-and-control model, in which case you become an organization.  This is how the church, monarchies, military and big corporations got things done.

Fast-forward to 21st century ....

We're looking for creative adaptations to the styles of organizing we've used in the past.

These days we're more into distributed decision-making.  This allows us to be global, national or local in outlook yet be flexible enough to take very local situations, and deal with them immediately, i.e. without waiting over a month for the board to meet and tell us what to do next, or ignore suffering because of higher priorities.  When you have hyper-local decision-making an international movement will have taken on the form of a geographical network of hubs or centres.  When that happens, you call yourself a network.

So when you are interested in creativity and participative operational styles, why not start off with the idea of a network reflected in the name?

Funding a network that has no tax base requires an agency that brings money to individuals creating a better world starting in their neighbourhoods.  Otherwise you go to the same bankers that everyone else ends up getting in with.

With an agency in place to generate income for a network, you can go from global thinking, to hyper-local action with compassion, and without compromise.

A network that is working with an agency to handle client needs is the only way I know that we can create a compassionate society where no-one is left behind socially and economically.

Embrace a Social Ecology. Go beyond Dogma

The industrial activity of North America and Europe relocated overseas .  And national governments allowed this to happen mostly during in the late-1990`s.  This is how capitalism was able to take advantage of lower wages and lower environmental standards in other countries.  


Business has mostly served the financial, production, promotional and distribution needs of industry.  Following that relocation of factories overseas we saw the contraction of businesses at home.  


It’s time we accepted this, learned to proceed accordingly, and adapt.  


But how do we adapt?  It's certainly not by using the same level, or the same complexity of thought that produced factories, businesses as we've known them to date.

Within government and business we relied heavily on a level of thinking that could solve isolated problems.  This is the relatively simple level of linear thinking that has allowed the ‘dogma’ of project management to continue unquestioned.  If there were a powerful priesthood that upheld this dogma of project management, which I don't think there is, it would never disclose to you the basis of project management which is process philosophy.  People would question the main pillars of process philosophy and thus bring an end to the priesthood's power.  


Process philosophy is the thinking behind project management and therefore the unquestioned basis of how things get done in Western business, government, and much of science.  I have studied process philosophy intensely for several years at the same time as studying Eastern philosophies about the workings of reality.  And process philosophy pales in comparison.


A project management approach requires that we keep life away from everything we do.  (Think of analyzing the workings of 'a small piece of life' in a test-tube.)  A project manager has the ridiculous job of pushing life aside  constantly in order to clear the path so that the preconceived results or goals proceed in an uninterrupted manner to the planned outcome.  


Unless life is maintained outside the project and outside closed doors where all the real planning of outcomes gets done things quickly get too complicated for linear thinking.  (Think of Western society where $1-billion is spent on troops to keep life outside the perimeter fence of a G-20 summit.)  


To adapt we need to move to the next level of thinking in terms of complexity However to enter today’s emerging creative economy we acknowledge that nothing is isolated and that everything exists in mutual relationship and interdependence.  (Think of fluid groups of people being gassed and beaten outside the perimeter fence of a G-20 summit and formal proceedings in a hotel complex inside the fence.  Many outside the fence have sufficient complexity of thought to allow for life, grasp some of the wisdom of our ecology, and usher in some of the social adaptations we need at this time.)

Society is an ecology that meets the need for interdependent levels of products and services within that society.  We are learning how to better meet these needs simultaneously through coordination of projects.  

We can think of projects as arranged in a large array consisting of six-stages.  Levels within the array are a rational approach to face our challenges.  Position each project in a level from 1 to 6 depending on the need it meets:

1. social, 
2. cultural, 
3. educational, 

4. for business, 
5. for communication, or 
6. for overall coordination. 

It's good to notice how each stage builds on the prior stage.  Think about it.  We don't have a culture without a society; we don't have a culture to share through education without a society and a culture; we don't have a business sector to get things done without education, a culture, and society; and so on.  

The progression of these stages show a marked increase in complexity.  A system of coordination requires a more complex way of thinking and doing than communication, or business.

We need a culture that goes beyond project management to allow for life.    We need education that shares process philosophy on which Western society is based, and philosophies on which Eastern societies are based.  We need to examine them, come up with rational alternatives and test their effectiveness as social adaptations.  Without a rational approach for all to examine and discuss we are stuck with something like the unexamined 'truths' a priesthood would hold in place.

It simply was not possible to handle coordination of arrays of interdependent projects before the Internet.  On-line tools provide international society with organizational support for coordination services to emerge as the next, great source of value, and therefore the next, great economy.  

Coordination by Neighbourhood

Pulling away from the details of daily news reports may be a challenge.  But without standing back, we won't recognize the evolution within social and economic development that is occurring as a backdrop to the news stories.  Social and economic evolution is being created by millions of people.

Einstein pulled away from the details of nationalism.  He pointed out how nationalism was a childhood illness of humanity, much like measles.

More of us are having to find ways to prosper, or survive, with less reliance on buying new goods and services.  This is leading to evolutionary change.

As we become more efficient and learn to do more with less we will find that coordination between individuals, families, and neighbourhoods, becomes more important.  Coordination is the next big economic need that we have to find ways to fulfill.

Coordination cannot be imposed internationally, from the top-down, and remain efficient at the same time.  One government structure overseeing the world would be unbelievably out of touch with people's everyday needs.  It would be incredibly inefficient.

International coordination is better achieved amongst individuals in neighbourhoods, rather than in centralized ways.  The alternative to increased centralization is doing things in distributed ways across networks.  

International coordination is beginning to happen over aspects of the Internet that will become like a nerve system for international society.  

Using this blog we will continue to share in this new found social maturity.  We can discuss what we / you, anticipate will be subsequent stages of society, so that we all benefit.  My bet is that this will involve integrating ourselves, and all the resources around us in our neighbourhoods, into a more realistic social perspective.  I think we will find much more realistic perspectives on organizing ourselves as an international society by looking at how nature organizes things.