TOP TEN CANADIAN ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL REFORMS

Like Paul Krugman, I suppose I'm a liberal, for I believe in using government to redistribute wealth, yes, taking from the rich to give to the poor, because in my view, a world in which wealth is distributed more equitably would be a better world for everyone. To offset negative effects of redistribution, I support Jim Stanford's high investment, sustainable economy model, which aims to grow a bigger pie for all of us while respecting environmental constraints.

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The following wishlist of reforms (mostly economic) were inspired by Stanford's Economics for Everyone, James Laxer's Beyond the Bubble, Noam Chomsky's Failed States, and various issues of the CCPA (Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives) Monitor. With due respect to Milton Friedman and The Right Honorable Stephen Harper: "Good sirs, I don't agree with you."
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This document is a starting point, and it is probable--no, inevitable--that I am guided and limited by my presuppositions. I suppose all I can do is try to declare my vantage point, my horizon of understanding, my interpretive historical presupposition, which is that I just happen to be some kind of western liberal in the early years of the 21st century. That being the case, I put this vision forward with humility.
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There are many who do not share the values that lead to this list. That's ok and to be expected. Usually my intention is not to force my values onto others who may not share them. In their private lives, it is the right of people to live by value systems they deem adequate. However in the public behavioral commons, it is a different story. In the sphere of economics and politics for example, I believe the imperative to provide a society in which wealth is distributed more equitably outweighs the imperative to live and let live. We must govern ourselves according to the best and most enlightened vision of universal care and compassion. In that respect, it comes as a surprise to me that I find aspects of Plato's Republic very palatable.

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Conservative critics of liberal visions such as this would point out that there would be those who would abuse the system. They are right. There will always be those who abuse the system. That is why, in addition to developing such programs, we also need to encourage interior development--from egocentric, to ethnocentric, to world centric (Ken Wilber, Integral Psychology; Robert Kegan, In Over Our Heads; Claire Graves). Many liberals might be aghast at such a suggestion, because there is the suspicious reference to a hierarchy, but that little thorn is for another article

1. CORPORATE REFORM

a. Rewrite corporate charters with greater emphasis on public welfare and environmental stewardship; we must remember that "corporations are creatures of government. Without the assent of government, a corporation cannot exist. It cannot do business."

2. TAX POLICY

The following reforms aim to increase public revenue for social programs and stimulate investment spending (which has been low under neoliberalism).

a. Progressive Personal Income Taxes: eg, higher tax rates for those with incomes over $250,000 a year, and lower tax rates on the working poor

b. Reform business taxes to reward real investment spending, with more oversight and care in directing that investment to the most appropriate and beneficial uses

c. Reverse broad-based cuts to Canada's corporate income tax system

d. Restoring GST to 7% with expanded tax credit to protect low-income earners

e. Eliminate favorable tax treatment for financial investments


3. SOCIAL POLICY

Sharply increase social spending in the following areas:

a. education at all levels

b. health care

c. arts

d. poverty eradication

e. low income housing

f. national child care program to allow poor parents to get waged work.


4. LABOR POLICY

a. Expand unionization

b. Re-establish a federal minimum wage (set at $11 and indexed to inflation)


5. MONETARY POLICY

a. Guide the economy to very low unemployment, to maintain pressure on employers to upgrade work and incomes


6. FISCAL POLICY

a. Run moderate annual deficits (including paying for public capital projects)


7. FINANCIAL MARKETS

a. Regulate finance to prevent irresponsible practices


8. ENVIRONMENT

a. Sign and carry forward the Kyoto protocols


9. INNOVATION

Encourage more business R&D spending, especially in health care and alternate sources of energy


10. INTERNATIONAL POLICY

a. Let the UN take the lead in international crises

b. Accept the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court and the World Court

c. Rely on diplomatic and economic measures rather than military ones in confronting terror

d. Keep to traditional interpretation of the UN Charter

e. Sharply reduce military spending

f. Remove the Security Council Veto (all states must abide by UN Security Council resolutions)

INTELLECTUAL SELF DEFENCE

I'm confused.

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How is it that ordinary decent people can have such different opinions on how governments should govern and how economies should function? The battle lines seem clearly drawn, like on the battlefield of Kuru in the Bhagavad Gita. On the one hand, there are those who would work to siphon wealth from the bottom and concentrate it at the top; on the other hand, there are those who would work to reduce that inequality. Currently, the top 1% of American society has more financial wealth than the bottom 95% combined, and reports confirm that inequalities are increasing. I believe there is a battle for people's minds, and this article is about developing an intellectual self defence.
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In rare cases where the topic of politics/economics is even broached, I encounter vastly different political opinions. Is it just a question of having different values? Are those on the right just more selfish? Are those on the left just more compassionate? I find it hard to believe that ordinary people I talk to--friends, relatives, co-workers--can have such differing values, but that seems to be the case. If you side with Milton Friedman and the Chicago School of Economics you're ostensibly supporting those who would concentrate wealth among an elite and by extension those who would not hesitate to use brutal methods to accomplish that goal (See Naomi Klein, Shock Doctrine). If you side with F. D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, you're ostensibly supporting those who care about the less fortunate and would use government to redistribute wealth (See Paul Krugman, Conscience of a Liberal; Adam Cohen, Nothing to Fear: FDR's Inner Circle and The Hundred Days that Created Modern America).
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Perhaps different values can partly be explained by different structures of development (Ken Wilber, A Brief History of Everything). In broad outlines, we all start at egocentric stages, progress to ethnocentric stages, followed by worldcentric stages, with each higher level characterized by greater inclusion and caring. In terms of moral development then, a decentering occurs, and we become less and less selfish, more and more compassionate. If the developmentalists are right, we have less freedom to choose our value systems than we might think. These background structures speak through us. So then levels of development and different values that come with those structures can explain some of those differing political opinions, but perhaps other things are at work as well.
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Is it also a question of access to different information? Maybe in a former time this could be so, but today,with our laptops and iphones, this seems unlikely. Cyborg-like, we're hardwired into the Internet. We have the world at our fingertips: we can all access information from the Fraser Institute (Canadian right wing think tank) AND the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (a vitally important Canadian research institute on the left). So probably access to information is not a key determinant of political awareness and opinion, although it might play a role. People are already tilted one way or another, then most likely seek out literature or information that supports that tilt. In Astra Taylor's Examined Life, Avital Ronell says, "There is something called the hermeneutic circle: you have already understood what you are about to learn."
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Is it then a question of indoctrination or ideological brainwashing? I believe Noam Chomsky once said that the longer one spent studying in certain hallowed academic institutions, the deeper the indoctrination. Perhaps this is so, but it just baffles the mind how this can happen. Or maybe it shouldn't baffle the mind--it has taken me almost two decades to be able to write this article. This is really interesting.
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How does indoctrination happen? Does it work like the rules of toxicity? Toxicologists tell us that at certain concentrations and lengths of exposure, most things are toxic. So if we grow up hearing about the benefits of free markets, deregulation, flat taxes, lower corporate taxes, free trade, and cuts to social programs over and over and over and over again, do we just stop thinking critically? If we grow up hearing about the evils of big government and unions over and over and over and over again, do certain aspects of mind and heart just simply atrophy? We just might begin to believe, like President Herbert Hoover during the worst depression years, that helping the desperate meant doing a moral disservice to them.
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So, why do we have such different political opinions and loyalties? Republicans and Democrats, the Conservatives and NDP, The Right and The Left. A tentative answer then would be this: a combination of structures of consciousness and corresponding differences in values, access to information, and indoctrination.
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The battle lines seem clearly drawn and there is a subtle battle for people's minds. In modern democratic states, you can't beat people into submission, as in George Orwell's 1984, and so ideological warfare is even more crucial. We're not quite at Huxley's Brave New World either, where programming and conditioning reached an apex such that everyone was exploited and happy. I would say however that current reality--where presuppositions are often embedded in the questions that frame debates (Chomsky's What We Say Goes)-- is tilted in favor of Huxley's vision over Orwell's. And what's at stake in this battle for people's minds? There is much on the line: nothing less than a greater or lesser portion of the pie we've all worked so hard to produce.

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So let us develop our own intellectual self defence. Let us rise up and be counted then, living authentically and courageously as Heidegger encouraged. There is hope (See In Bolivia, under Morales, the revolution is indigenous, The CCPA Monitor, Vol. 16, No. 10, April 2010).
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The funny thing was, I read some of William F. Buckley's (1925-2008) letters to Nancy Reagan, and I felt, strangely, a feeling that was warm and unexpected. My ideological enemy became, for a moment, another human being. Perhaps, seen from a grander perspective, a perspective that is currently beyond my limited vision, the battle between conservatives and liberals might be just the way it has to be--for now. After all, Bill Buckley is, like all of us, another evolving being in an evolving universe.

HEIDEGGER AND THE LAW OF ATTRACTION

The Law of Attraction is all around me. I suppose I must have attracted it. I hear it from friends, co workers, coaches, and Oprah; I see it in books and websites and newspaper articles. I raise questions, and people object, sometimes quite vigorously. I suppose most people who believe will continue to believe despite what I say. And those that don't believe don't need to hear what I have to say. Nevertheless, let me write down my thoughts, if only for my own sake. I wonder what Martin Heidegger, one of the great European continental philosophers of the 20th century, would have said about it.
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The Law of Attraction is about always being able to get whatever you want , if you focus your thoughts and energies and actions enough. Like attracts like. You create your own reality. There are apparently no limits. You're fully responsible for your own reality, because you yourself created it.
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I turn to Heidegger (despite his associations with Nazism) and my own life experience to help me reflect. I believe Heidegger would have dismissed The Law of Attraction as an incomplete and even harmful doctrine. In Being and Time, Heidegger coined a new word to describe human beings: Dasein, which translates to Being-in-the-World. We are always situated in the world, and this particular world that he refers to is not the physical world of rocks, trees, and buildings. This world is the unseen, interior network of cultural backgrounds and linguistic systems that shape and limit what we think and how we think. It influences how we act in a nightclub, how we behave at a funeral, how we vote, how we make sense of what someone else is saying, how we simply live.

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If I am a subject, then this world is the intersubject, or intersubjectivity, because it is about the connections between subjects. We're embedded in this world and can't escape it. In Heidegger's words, we are thrown into it. This interior intersubjective world affects the other world: the exterior physical world around us, the world I can see and measure with scientific instruments. It influences everything from how we design and erect our buildings and bridges to how we create art. The reverse is true as well: our ideas and designs for bridges must take into account the laws of physics and how molecules bond. And Heidegger tells us both of these worlds - the interior intersubjective world and the exterior world - impose limits on what and how we can be.
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Let's take a look at my own experience. The worlds I live in present me with a range of careers I can choose from. I can be a musician, but only certain types. I can be a symphonic musician, a jazz musician, a rap musician, a world music musician, a composer, an arranger, an instructor, perhaps some sort of combination of the above, but I can't normally be a wandering minstrel of the Middle Ages. That is just not something that even occurs to me!
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In the early 21st century, being an orchestral musician means competing with dozens for a single position, unlike the situation some thirty to forty years ago. Too much supply and not enough demand. And this means not all of us can win orchestral jobs. Even highly qualified musicians have trouble winning jobs. Now according to the Law of Attraction, all of us could eventually win orchestra jobs if we just learned to used the Law. This is just not borne out by the facts.
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Furthermore, if anyone could use the Law of Attraction to be richer, why are inequalities of wealth and income increasing? The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (http://www.policyalternatives.org/) reported that between 1998 and 2006, the 100 highest paid Canadian CEO's increased their compensation by 201 %. In 2006 those CEO's were paid 259 times higher than the average Canadian worker. Am I to believe that the Law of Attraction only works for the rich?
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I believe Heidegger would have concluded the Law of Attraction to be not only false, but even harmful to society. First, it can blind people to the very real inequalities hard wired into our Anglo Saxon neo-liberal version of capitalism (see Jim Stanford, Economics for Everyone). Reality being harsh, it's easy to see why so many people turn to an ostensibly empowering but misguided fantasy, instead of organizing politically for a better share of the pie. It gives people false hopes. In addition, people might end up blaming the poor for being poor, the sick for being sick, the marginalized for being marginalized. Finally, it could exacerbate the documented growth of narcissism in our society by encouraging people to believe that they create their own reality (see Twenge and Campbell, The Narcissism Epidemic). I believe it was Ken Wilber who said: "You don't create your reality, psychotics do."
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We are constantly testing our personal freedom against the world's limits. I'm reminded of the serenity prayer of Reinhold Neibuhr:

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.
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No doubt the Law of Attraction has helped some people improve their lives, mostly in the first world, not the third, and that is no surprise: the techno-economic bases are drastically different. Positive thinking and optimism can definitely help. But make no mistake, there are limits that our world imposes on our thinking and actions--some overt, some subtle, some very difficult to spot. Unfortunately the Law of Attraction doesn't teach us the wisdom to know the difference.
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The positive side is that all of this shows a real spiritual hunger in N. American society. We have normally been given the choice between conventional religion and secular humanism/atheism. What a terrible choice to have to make! The result is that many people turn to dozens of New Age/ New Thought spiritual approaches, one of which is the Law of Attraction. Unfortunately many of these approaches are incomplete: they lack any real understanding of intersubjectivity that continental philosophy has brought to the world in the mid to late 20th century. I believe that supplementing these New Thought approaches with post-modern studies of intersubjectivity (e.g. Heidegger, Foucault, Habermas, Gadamer) could lead to more intellectual rigour. Then we would begin to have a more rounded spirituality, on the way towards an integral spirituality (Ken Wilber: Sex, Ecology, and Spirituality; Integral Spirituality).

NIETZSCHE THE SUPER-TWEETER

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), if he were alive today, would be the ultimate tweeter. Tweets, text based posts of up to 140 characters, would be the perfect vehicle for the philosopher, whose book, The Gay Science, is filled with short, snappy, witty, biting, elegantly written observations. Some selections follow.

189 The Thinker - He is a thinker; that means he knows how to make things simpler than they are.

207 The Envious - He is envious, let us hope he will not have children, for he would envy them because he cannot be a child anymore.

232 Dreams - Either we have no dreams or our dreams are interesting. We should learn to arrange our waking life the same way: nothing or interesting.

240 At the Sea - I would not build a house for myself, and I count it part of my good fortune that I do not own a house. But if I had to, then I should build it as some of the Romans did--right into the sea. I should not mind sharing a few secrets with this beautiful monster.

241 Work and Artist - This artist is ambitious, nothing more. Ultimately, his work is a magnifying glass that he offers everybody who looks this way.

247 Habit - Every habit lends our hand more wit but makes our wit less handy.

248 Books - What good is a book that does not even carry us beyond all books?

268 What makes one heroic? Going out to meet at the same time one's highest suffering and one's highest hope.

274 What do you consider most humane? To spare someone shame.

275 What is the seal of liberation? No longer being ashamed in front of oneself.

WHO IS MY READER?

If I write for readers, I must give some thought to who they are. Do I have an ideal reader? Readers come in all types. Do I write for family? Do I write for friends? Do I write for strangers? Family, friends, and strangers--that's potentially a lot of different sorts of people.

Let's focus a little. Readers would probably belong a certain social class, because generally you have to be rich enough to have access to a computer, with excess time on your hands (If you're Canadian, you probably owe $1.45 on every $1.00 of disposable income--stats from a CCPA article.). Probably a certain educational level (incredibly the UNICEF says one out of five adults are illiterate, two thirds of them women). Probably speakers of English, the de facto global language, whether we like it or not (Mark Kingwell says that language determines, in a larger part than we would care to accept, what we can think and the ideas we can have) . Probably a certain generational category--probably not my grandmother's generation.

Now, the real tricky delicate part: what about structure/level of consciousness? Probably the rational to pluralistic structure--orange to green levels of consciousness--our N. American culture's centre of gravity (from various developmental studies, see integralinstitute.org). But perhaps readers could be coming from a mythical or magical level (which is just fine and appropriate), especially when it comes to faith and religion.

If I write about religion (it was just Easter Sunday), how then do I approach it? Matters of faith, big picture questions, questions of ultimate purpose, God, Allah, Jehovah, Brahman, Great Spirit, and so on. Sprituality and religion are difficult to write about, because various levels are open to hearing different things! If I write about Jesus, do I talk about the magical Jesus (beloved of pre-conventional or egocentric stages), or mythic Jesus (of absolutic conventional religion), the mental-rational or historical Jesus (of Vatican II or Jesus Seminar), or perhaps some kind of post-rational Jesus (described by Ken Wilber, in Integral Spirituality)?

I BLOG THEREFORE I AM

Why write? Why blog?

My Grade 10 English teacher encouraged us to keep a journal as a tool for increasing self awareness. "Journal to clarify your thinking. After you've completed journal entries, you have a mirror you can hold up to yourself." I had a crush on that teacher, which probably explains why I still remember those words.

Some twenty odd years later, having kept an irregular journal, I read a passage in Mark Kingwell's book Opening Gambits that recalled my teacher's words:

I know students are lying or confused when they say, as they so often do: I know what I think, I just can't express it. But I say to them: no. Until you can express it, you haven't really had the idea. You may have had an inkling, or an intimation, or a glimmer, or a sense of possibility; but not a thought. To really have an idea, you must give it expression in language, whether you write it down or not; and only by writing it down will you know the precise contours of the idea, as opposed to its vague outline. As Wittgenstein put it in the Tractatus Logico Philosophicus: " Everything that can be thought at all can be thought clearly. Everything that can be put into words can be put clearly."

After I read that, I resolved to write when I got home. But not in my journal--in the blog instead. Yes I could write in the journal, and I still do (the real private stuff). However, the blog dangles another carrot: potential readers. Because there could be readers, I force myself to think clearer, up the ante, clean up my act, organize better the old canoodle, craft better. And didn't Alberto Manguel write something about readers being the ones who bring a book to life in the creative act of reading? It makes the solitary act of writing somehow communal, because I'm already thinking of the reader. So, it's more...fun!

Therefore: I blog to clarify my thoughts and have more fun because of you my reader, who through the act of reading, has resurrected this blog, if just for this moment.

Thank you.

The Laboratory

DO IT!
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Ask a question using 4 words or less, but not more.

breathe in

breathe out

breathe in

breathe out

breathe in

breathe out

breathe in

breathe out

breathe in

breathe out

breathe in

breathe out

breathe in

breathe out

breathe in

breathe out

breathe in

breathe out

breathe in

breathe out

breathe in

breathe out

breathe in

breathe out

Go back to the Question,

Or

Turn the Page.

(By Amy E. Cohen and Francisco Varela, 1995)

Taken from the Video: "Monte Grande", about the life of Francisco Varela

DVD 501 MON

The Terrifying and the Sublime--Life as an Orchestral Percussionist

Saturday night. Carmina Burana. Jack Singer.

I review my set up: snare drum, triangle, suspended cymbal, glockenspiel, tam tam, mallets. All is well. I smile at one of the pianists. I take a few deep breaths. I say my process cues: "Energy. Connect. Go for it." The conductor begins the piece; the timpanist and pianists unleash the electrifying opening. Breath is normal. My tam tam notes are fine.

Pick up the snare drum sticks. CRAP: already the fight or flight response kicks in. My heart rate increases, trembling increases. I get through the snare drum movement. Sub optimal performance--my first entrance dragged. I pick up the triangle. I'm still trembling. There's a ball of fire in my chest. I try to calm down. "Calm down!" I'm screaming at myself. I picture sandy beaches. My trembling relaxes a little. "Calm down." I command, more calmly. I get through the triangle movement.

Glockenspiel. Hands still trembling. I try to breathe deeply and relax. I get through it. Slightly better.

I sit. My hands are still trembling. My mind is racing. Despair hovers. "This is not fun. What's happened to me in the last month? Two orchestra shows with the shakes. They weren't good performances. Will I be hired again? Maybe I should've gotten those beta-blocker drugs for today. Can I even get through this show? Something's broken inside."

But I just got through those movements of Carmina. More sandy beaches. Waves. The Cayman Islands. "I can do it," I say to myself. I try the litany: "I've prepared, I've practiced, I've done this a thousand times before, I can do this."

I smile at one of the pianists, try to connect to his energy and sense of fun and play. Hands trembling less. More snare drum movements. Despite the jittery start I'm actually calm now. Confidence starts to build.

And somehow, fighting through the terror and despair, I finally find the zone. The elusive zone. I've been there before. Is it the "optimal performance" state people talk about? Perhaps. I'm calm. I'm confident. I look forward to playing the next notes. I can feel a certain energy, as if I'm part of a river. Everything is clear around me. I hear and see and connect. I go for it. I'm excited. There is no fear. My muscles execute and cooperate. Endorphins releasing? Feels so good. So good to perform in this space. I used to play "here" all the time.

The rest of the piece goes extremely well. Carmina Burana ends. The audience gives us a standing ovation. I'm elated. I couldn't believe I got through the terror. Did more. I found the elusive zone. The previous concert I couldn't release the fear.

A choir director congratulates me on my triangle and glock playing.

The terrifying and the sublime.

If only I could experience just the sublime. But then, maybe the terrifying intensifies the sublime?

Is Being Happy Vulgar?

Orhan Pamuk, Turkish writer, Nobel Prize winner, wrote in his collection of essays, "Other Colors", that people capable of happiness are either stupid or evil. My heart skipped a beat when I read that. But he follows with a lighter thought: that, perhaps being happy is not vulgar, that it actually "takes brains".

I began to wonder how many of my friends and acquaintances are happy. And what does that mean, to be happy? Is it just being cheerful? Or is there another layer, something more like joy perhaps? And how do we find that? Most people I know seem to lead lives that settle around a certain emotional centre of gravity. There are some who seem to be struggling with a terrible anger. Others flattened by depression. Some seem emotionally disconnected (I believe most of us probably have disowned shadow aspects). Some seem actually joyous. Happy. The whole gamut.

How do we develop our emotional set point, our emotional centre of gravity? Is it partly in the genes? Somehow connected to the collective genetic pool? In terms of the physicality of their face, why is it that some people can smile :) more easily, while others can frown :( and lower the corners of their mouths more easily? So perhaps partly biology, chemicals, and hormones. And perhaps it is partly environmental factors: emotional zones at work, play, or home; the techno-economic base we live in. Perhaps it is partly personal choices, and brains, and thinking. Good heavens, thinking! And maybe--not thinking! What about various spiritual practices? Or is there something else too? So then, all of it?

Now the big question: can we shift that emotional set point? Is it possible? How?

Complex. Complicated. So many factors to consider.

I believe it is possible--in my case it took probably at least five years of conscious effort, with lots of setbacks. It takes work and hope, and like Orhan, I believe it takes brains.

At least.