Meet the Minimum Needs of All (MMNA)
Had we acknowledged the human status of all 6200 million people inhabiting the planet in our global political economy and partitioned goods and services meeting the minimum needs of all, would we be experiencing recessions? Probably not; there is global psychological security in such inclusive planning and administration that would avert a recession.
From an experiential viewpoint, as active participants in a secular world, we must note that in order to have success in family relationships and other societal processes, we must manage "evaluated hope through mutual trust."
Any violation of that goal or process, would lead us into individual and collective malaise and economic setbacks; so the theories we construct for its guidance and practice must be organic in origin and content.
Through the centuries, confirmation of error centered economic theories of the Right and the Left have competed to gain control over the means of production and distribution of goods and services, circumscribed by the knowledge base and political realities then current, invariably creating and delivering poverty to many in violation of trust. This outcome may not be dismissed as a short-term setback, but rather as serious flaw in the epistemic conception and practice of policy.
Formulation of a global economic policy to meet the minimum needs of all (MMNA) would represent good-faith management of hope through mutual trust, leading naturally to social evolution with marginal waste. Such inclusive activities engage our whole person. It would deliver satisfaction and joy, free us of societal depression in general and circumvent economic collapse.
The bailout scene we encounter in 2008 attempts to reinstate a deficient financial structure and its programs. Promoting wasteful consumption creating artificial needs to elicit profit for a few accepting ill-being for many, does not constitute management of evaluated hope through mutual trust. In the practice of mutual trust, distinction and merit accrues by contribution to economic social evolution in the global sense, with local culture providing support for each through a social home predicated by the accident of birth or adoption.
A brief review of recent developments that have brought us to where we are would be in order: In the latter half of the 20th century, during the 1980's, unregulated capitalistic financial structures were propagated by the West. Subsequent to the success of the Russian revolution of 1917, the Soviet Union and the West had entered into an argument, that was followed by a political and economic contest, that eventually led to retreat by the Soviet Union in 1991. Given the demise of the Soviet Union, during the 1990's, capitalism demanded "financial structural 'reform' and adjustment" from all nations of the world, readily providing training sessions in the technical "know how" of capitalistic operations.
Despite evidence to the contrary, subsequent administrations (the executives and the legislatures) of the West, rejected regulatory measures to control the "free market", to pursue in-built political and economic advantage for their elite, unmindful of the welfare of the broader Public. These resulted in the integrated global financial meltdown led by the US in Oct. 2008 that has so far required transfusion of 8.3 trillion dollars from the working people of the world to bail-out the "financial structure."
The current bailout is to help sustain a banking system that creates money to offer "private debt" based on the requirement of a safety deposit of a fractional amount, (10%), with the Feds, of money taken by the banks from the Feds. Additional payments, (through questionable theoretical formulations of entitlement, and social conditioning of the population into acceptance of such formulations), after genuine expenses of the banking system are met, are made to the banking system from the interest charged the borrowing public. Substantively, these additional payments are earnings or "social credit" that belong to the borrowers and through them to society as a whole, rather than the bankers who simply provided a utility for which they have already been paid; but through clever manipulations, the bankers have sequestered the same. They continue to exercise their structural power as the cash elite even in the bailout, leaving little reward but much suffering to the people.
This basic unjust financial load on the working population contributes to the collapse of business cycles through exhaustion (1929, 2008), despite corrections and technical fixings enticing the working population to await the economic benefits promisd them. The financial system utilizes non-human corporations designed to promulgate uncontrolled greed with a "come-on" to keep the middle-class engaged, but with little concern for the welfare of those outside, as MMNA has never been realized
The Oct 2008 financial collapse provides current evidence for the global polity to dismiss the hitherto mystical (as in religion) claims, of an "invisible hand" that is said to free markets to benefit all the people under capitalism, by acknowledging the simple fact, that 30,000 persons are structurally assigned daily, to die of poverty in this terrestrial enterprise.
Accountability for these deaths has to be acknowledged and the structure changed nonviolently to eliminate them. This poses a challenge to our spiritual and secular selves, since wherever we turn in human society, we experience violence (as in wars), ultimately, from the beneficiaries of the ill-founded structure of the above financial system.
We also experience violence from global resistance movements that have seen through and oppose this "financial structure that creates global poverty and associated deaths," leading us to conclude that successful structural violence that creates and sustains a "trust- breaking financial system" is terror in itself, and begets additional terror.
Hence an effort must be made to assess the values of the First World population : to what extent does it include meeting the minimum needs of all?
The current apologetic spiritual efforts of the different Faiths to administer succor through the institutions of kindness and charity to remove poverty created by the financial structure, have failed to meet the minimum needs of all.
Immediate Objectives:
A working group could propose strategies towards arriving at MMNA by the target date of 2030.
In order to set objectives for action, the following analogy would be helpful : Between the 17th and 20th centuries, nations gradually subjugated weak other nations, establishing colonies for exploitation under generic imperialism.
The Indian Sepoy Mutiny of 1857, challenged British colonialism, and colonialism by other nations in other parts of the world were subsequently subject to similar challenges. Almost a century later, between 1947 and 1960, global physical colonial rule had to be set aside, though colonial attitudes continue to prevail in global culture.
In the 18th century, the American colonies free of the British, practiced a form of internal imperialism--colonialism within one's own population. It was successfully challenged in 1864, and again a century later in 1964 and 1965, and has seen additional success in the 2008 presidential election through the participation of a substantial majority of the total population.
Controlled by the Right or the Left, poverty has been a global institution and its creation and sustenance must be viewed as global economic colonialism, managed by a global political economy indifferent to its elimination.
Aside from the leisure class that takes the lion's share, its grass roots beneficiaries are members of the First World working Population, (those who make more than $8 per head per day), some 1200 million, residing in all countries, under all Faiths.
To realize their material human rights, (equity is not the issue here), the Poor need elimination of poverty through a global strategy; but they are incapable of achieving the same in any direct violent or non-violent contest with those in power; so, members of the First World working population are called upon to initiate this change.
The socio-psychological path to management of hope through mutual trust :
Material poverty of others is a long neglected concern of the First World working population struggling with the ineffectiveness of the institutions of kindness and charity in this regard. The grass roots First World Population that is sensitive to the issue is in a position to spiritually evaluate the predicament of the global Poor and effectively address the wholesale elimination of poverty in the 21st century.
During the 21st century, the recognition, acknowledgment and self-assumption of global citizenship by the First World working population, would be the non-violent course of action for a successful transition to management of hope through mutual trust.
This can be done by accessing the empathy and compassion available to each of us from the Source. In this context, there is a 2006 Minute from the New York Yearly Meeting of Friends (NYYM) to meet the minimum needs of all, MMNA, a baby step in this direction, as Friends continue to labor nonviolently.
Under the current global political economy, 2500 million of the global population, live on less than $2 per head per day leading to 30,000 daily poverty deaths. "An Attitude Survey on global economic values" of the First World working population of 1200 million living in all countries under each of the different faiths, taken on the question whether they are in favor of poverty deaths in their name, and if not, what it is they are prepared to do about it, would provide data for secular processing. The survey could be conducted by a reputable organization such as the PEW research foundation.
It is likely that the survey would reveal that people do not want to be associated with poverty deaths through policies they set, and are prepared to call upon their governments and through them the global political economy, to humanize the charter of all corporations (non-human entities of our creation, currently with no obligation to contribute to meeting the minimum human needs of all). The corporate charter could be amended to first make provision to MMNA in the basic distribution of goods and services by the global political economy, and to advance the "management of hope through mutual trust" acknowledging societal credit for value additions made with borrowed money that rightfully belongs to society and not the bankers and then and only then pursue self-centered profit. Imagine the synergy and the consequent human-futures!
Given our material and knowledge base, the choice and decision can now genuinely belong to the people as an exercise of their empathy and compassion received from the Source. This choice could withstand challenges from the bankers and other elite (few in number but holding most of the wealth, having sequestered the same through the centuries), through theories not fostering meeting the material human rights of all.
The right to have minimum needs met belong to being human, does not depend on the kindness and charity of any other of the Right or the Left, and is not contractual. That right can be achieved naturally through the management of evaluated hope through mutual trust.
We should plan to receive and utilize the survey results from PEW by May 2010.
In the interim, the approach to MMNA outlined above could be publicized through web sites, memes, bumper stickers, blogs, ads, study groups, media chatter, and other modes of consciousness raising.
We could call on global Faith Groups and Justice Groups to join-in; none need be excluded.
