As a counter-example, Sweden, just about the only country that [initially] adopted a 'mixed economy' model, suffered far less from the Great Depression that affected the whole world; unlike the austerity-dosing countries, Sweden was already back on its feet and booming by 1932.'"
In my July 23, 2011 OpEdNews article " Dumb and Dumbest ," I showed how ignorant of history most conservative economists are about getting out of an economic slump. "Anyone who has ever read ancient history (Tacitus's Annals on the reign of Tiberius to be precise) knows that the only way to pull a nation out of an economic downturn as severe as the one we are now experiencing, is to use government programs to 'prime the pump,' to provide jobs for the out of work millions so they will start spending again." The most important component to end an economic slump is putting money in the hands of the populace as fast as you can by creating good paying jobs. This is the only way to reduce the National Debt quickly, as demonstrated after the Second World War and the Clinton Administration. Clinton's success caused Alan Greenspan to go before Congress voicing his concern over paying off the National Debt.
It is not enough that we personally boycott the retailers and other entities who most viciously exploit their workers with low wages and bad working conditions as Wal-Mart does; sometimes those entities are the only available work in many rural and inner urban areas of the United States. We must oppose them legally, and compel them by rule of law to be responsible members of our economic community, as FDR did eight decades ago. The protections enshrined in the Wagner Act and other measures to aid and protect the workers in our country, must once again be allowed to fully exert their power, not hamstrung by abominations like the Taft-Hartley Act. If corporations are going to claim personhood, then by God, they will act like caring human beings, and not simply soulless machines.
We cannot depend on a corporation's "conscience," or the power of public opinion in the form of "market forces," to force them to act morally, any more than we can expect those methods to work on all flesh-and-blood human beings. There is a reason we have laws against murder, theft, and fraud in our society, as well as a justice system to enforce those laws. We have very few saints among us: some of us require an occasional reminder to remain on a path of moral action, and need nothing more than the law, written or unwritten, to keep us in line. Some, who would ignore such laws if unwritten, will obey those laws if they are written, simply because they can no longer justify their actions with claims of ignorance of. The remaining small percentage of humanity who are truly morally challenged, will do what they know is wrong if they believe they can get away with it, regardless of any strictures that might be imposed by society and its laws.
We also have laws that restrict other "freedoms" and privileges, such as those against public drunkenness. Most of us do not need such laws; they are there for that small percentage that do. Laws against exploitation of employees fall into this same category, and employers who would never consider such shameful behavior towards their employees must be included under such laws, because of those employers for whom it is a standard practice, simply for the sake of both fairness and thoroughness.
There are some employers who will try and tell you that they cannot treat their employees any better, they are required under court decisions beginning with Dodge v. Ford Motor Co . (170 N.W. 668; Mich. 1919) to maximize their shareholders' earnings. This is nothing but a lie, because employee lawsuits and full Federal enforcement of OSHA and EPA regulations for unsafe working conditions would cost far more than bringing the workplace up to code.
Four hundred years ago, Renà © Descartes began his philosophical contemplations by asking himself the question of "What evidence do I have that I exist?" He then realized that in asking that question, he had thought, and that if he had thought there must be a source of that thought. Finding no other--or simpler--explanation of that source, Descartes realized that he must be the source of that thought. If he was the sole simple, explicable source for that thought, then he must exist. Or as it is said in Latin, "Cogito ergo sum," (I think, therefore, I am.)
Three and one-half centuries later, Reverend William Sloan Coffin, antiwar activist, and chaplain at Yale University, offered his own alternative to Descartes' creed: "Amo ergo sum," (I love, therefore, I am). Coffin's reasoning was similar to Descartes, except it was more expansive, far more inclusive. His evidence of his existence was not found in the egoism of his own thought, but in the inclusiveness he felt in his caring and affection for the other human beings and creatures in God's creation, and for the caring and affection that he received in turn. In the act of loving, Coffin received confirmation of not only his own existence, but of the world outside himself; a far more important answer.
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