Re: What are the issues?

["Schulte-baeuminghaus" <schulte.baeuminghaus@xxxxxxxxx>]

Dear John,

What Mason had in mind - and I agree with him - is that we shouldn't get
into hassles on detailed points of technical disagreement on the issues but
rather plot the process to having these issues dealt with comprehensively,
democratically and decisively.
You personally have many worthwhile ideas, with some of which several of us
can agree. With others, we might have some difficulty.
What we are doing is to establish a process by means of which these ideas
will be brought together with an agreed range of issues and debated in
preparatory groups, Commissions and the World Conference.
At this stage, we need to get the process going, mobilise support for it,
mobilise enough finance to get credibility and, of course, ensure that we
have enough participants from all areas and all beliefs, secular and other,
to achieve VOW's purposes.
We're doing that. Mason is drafting a "separate memo" to which I - and I'm
sure you and others - look forward.
I am drafting a further paper too - I've put forward many thouthts already -
in which I'll suggest some points that need to be attended to now or in the
near future in relation to the PROCESS - repeat, PROCESS.
I will NOT promote my own ideas on full employment or productivity or public
and private investment. Not at this stage. Later I hope I will have such an
opportunity. But not now.
I know you have views on how we should proceed, how we should manage our
affairs, how we should finance actvities in the early stages and as we
expand in the months ahead. Your ideas on these issues are valuable and we
look forward to hearing them.
Please don't think we are ignoring or giving too little weight to the
substantive issues on which VOW will ultimately determine its positions.
We are not.
What we're doing is trying to ensure that those issues of substance are
debated and decisions taken in ways most beneficial to the future of the
world economy - and indeed to the kind of peaceful change we want to set in
motion in the world community.


James



----- Original Message -----
From: John Gelles <johng@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: Victory Over Want <VOW@xxxxxxxxxx>; Cyberspace Society
<cyber-soc@xxxxxxxxxx>; Post Keynesian Thought <pkt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, January 29, 2002 1:58 PM
Subject: Re: What are the issues?


>         Raising again the question--what are the issues--
>         I repeat, below this message, yesterday's list of
>         possibilities.
>
>         Mason Clark asked a similar question. James
>         Cumes has implied the issues are those that
>         VOW"s Commissions will address--see the
>         website if you do not recall them all.
>
>         Tonight President Bush will announce the issues.
>         I, for one, expect his list to be a good start.
>         And the World Economic Forum will keep its
>         list of  issues going--see their website and the
>         news if you do not recall them all.
>
>         The WEF list is similar to our list except
>         that we mean it and they are suspect.
>         Representing wealth and power they may be
>         less anxious for change than world security
>         demands--less anxious for change than
>         world equity cries out for.
>
>         One monster sits blocking  the path to progress.
>         He blocks President Bush. He blocks Davos-in-
>         New York. His name is "SHOW ME THE
>         MONEY!"
>
>         We with little money like most of us, or great
>         money like Davos, or still more money like Bush,
>         have "nothing" relative to the need if we do not
>         heed the lesson of World War II.
>
>         Professor James Galbraith explained, and
>         World War II illustrated, where the money is.
>         But the Galbraith prescription is ignored,
>         (except in part, by Bush, for homeland defense
>         and more for the Pentagon--about 100 billion
>         in all--as far as an increase over what we were
>         spending).
>
>         In a ten trillion dollar economy, at risk from
>         terrorist action, where one madman can
>         anthrax a city, and at risk from grossly
>         inadequate income for one-third of earth's
>         population and seriously inadequate income
>         for all but a few of the rest, the need for
>         more money here and now is ten times what
>         the President will ask for.
>
>         We can imagine tomorrow a gold rush that
>         quickly found and marketed a trillion dollars
>         in gold. Would that make a difference?
>
>         What is needed is weapons for the war on
>         terrorists and weapons for defense against
>         possibilities. What is needed, too, is food,
>         water, homes, schools and jobs for the one
>         third in desperate straits. And needed, as
>         well, is economic security for all. None of
>         these things is made of gold--although
>         economic security is made of something
>         like it.
>
>         Now the monster blocking success wants
>         to see the money. And we know where it is.
>         It is a by product of production.
>
>         My friend Mason Clark recently wrote how
>         uninteresting a lecture from me really is. Well
>         that is only partly my fault.  I wish the lecture
>         had come from him. Better lectures come from
>         Galbraith--especially the one on mobilizing
>         nations and worlds to produce the needs
>         that stare us in the face. The abiding principle
>         is, "a nation can afford whatever it can
>         produce". That's what wartime financing
>         proves.
>
>         We who know this, are hung up on in-fighting
>         to see whose fiat money system is the prettiest.
>         They, who speak tonight to all of us, and speak
>         in NYC-Davos till the end of the week, may
>         know that war-money is there but they refuse
>         to let us have it!
>
>         Thus the monster and the issue (show-me-
>         the-money) hangs over all we think and do.
>         We can let it hang there and hope that "protest
>         as usual" can get a second wind and run
>         the race better this time. I suppose we all
>         see Enron as an object lesson in favor of
>         national responsibility to regulate markets.
>         And we may see Afghanistan as an
>         object lesson is defense preparedness.
>
>         I see WEF as an object lesson in reform:
>         It's not just the power to confer that counts--
>         you must have a lever to pry open the
>         money-matched-to-output machine. Only
>         then will our program to end want and
>         poverty have legs.
>
>  === Again from Yesterday: What are the issues?==
>
>         What are issues as seen from a Victory over Want
>         (VOW) perspective?
>
>         1.  Democratic procedures that make it possible for
>              people with little wealth, office or celebrity to
>              raise their issues for public attention and debate.
>
>             [This issue seems the weakest to me. There may
>               be no way or need to hear from people in
>               ways other than what we have. The little time
>               we each have to listen means only a few can
>               ever be heard.]
>
>         2.  Safety net, full employment, less disparity in
>              conspicuous and real consumption, and similar
>              bread and butter issues, all aimed to raise the
>              worldwide minimum standard of living.
>
>         3.  Environmentalism.
>
>         4.  Money-crankism       [Here is where we must
>                   unlock the means to advance a democratic
>                   agenda]
>
>         ...
>        Voters with sympathy for the poor ought to be
>         able to visit our website and know what we have
>         in mind to accomplish our objectives -- how we
>         would use their time and money if they chose to
>         join our effort.
>
>
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