On a tilted global playing field, a tidal wave of wealth is leaving U.S. shores and moving to the East. With diminishing wealth, the United States may not remain the leader and stabilizer of the world. The resulting power vacuum will invite chaos that will undermine world order, peace and prosperity--a disturbing and deadly prospect in a nuclear-armed world.
Among the historic, cultural and political factors and economic calculus that powers the eastward migration of wealth, the massive housing subsidies provided by some Asian governments need a closer examination. Low-cost housing and car-free living (facilitated by public transportation) result in low cost of living for the bulk of Asian workers; this in addition to its huge low-wage labor force, which assures that Asia will be able to exercise its low-wage-driven competitive advantage for the foreseeable future.
On the other side of that tilted playing field, the American worker, saddled with a mortgage (or high commercial rent) and car ownership, is locked into a high cost of living, high wage demand arrangement that diminishes his or her job prospects in a competitive globalized labor market. Thus, the continued exodus of wealth and the erosion of quality of life for America's middle class will continue. No simple tool will fix that tilted playing field, and the U.S. has no existing concept or institution that could resolve that challenge. A new idea is needed and offered by the Holigent concept.
The Holigent philosophy, socioeconomic/community model and action plan are a single but multi-dimensional package that holds the potential for the transition necessary to secure our future. The philosophy is grounded by the laws of nature, the model is guided by evolutionary self-organization, and the action plan proposes to rearrange the ways we live, work, commute, consume, educate and govern ourselves--one community at a time.
The Holigent Project would allow people to live close to their workplace in compact, nonprofit urban villages. This arrangement would free employees from home and car ownership and radically reduce the cost of living, laying the foundation for a competitive advantage. In addition, a three-way agreement (Delta Plan) between participating employers, their employees and the nonprofit management organization of the village would introduce a hybrid socioeconomic arrangement underwriting business, job, housing and quality of life security.
The Holigent Solution provides the plan for a step-by-step transition, starting with the Seed Project followed by the development of a number of Holigent communities in proximity to form a regional program in preparation for further expansion.
When politicians on all sides understand that the Holigent Project can become a massive means of job creation as well as a solution to the multidimensional challenges facing the nation, federal funding could be made available, and the regional project could grow to national proportion to reconstruct America. We feel that the required infusion of large dollar amounts would not be inflationary, as long as such funds are not a broad stimulus program but rather a specific investment focused as federal funding of overdue socioeconomic innovation in constructing mixed-use, live/work, pedestrian, compact, self-financed (beyond initial funding) urban communities with the proposed hybrid socioeconomic arrangement.
While some might label public funding of the Holigent Project as a government subsidy, in effect, it would be a government investment in socioeconomic innovation, not unlike federal funding of the space program that put man on the moon and was the incubator of high technology, or federal funding of Arpanet that was the incubator of the Internet.
We must also consider that decades of federal funding of technological innovation created a dangerously asymmetric development between the objective (science and technology) and the subjective (social and political evolution). One can argue that our social and political organizing models are centuries behind science and technology. Such tilted development of society in itself is dangerous and unsustainable.
Expanded to a national scale, the Holigent Project would sharpen America's competitive edge, move the U.S. toward energy independence and balanced budgets, reduce the burden on government, create economic security, and provide quality of life at a more sustainable rate of consumption and minimal carbon footprint. A national Holigent program would bring back outsourced jobs, create large numbers of construction-related and other employment opportunities, and leave a legacy of low-carbon, self-financed, self-maintained, affordable, secure and sustainable communities across America.
We look forward to discussing the potential of Holigent Reconstruct America to create wealth and strength and will visit your offices in the near future.
