Re: Conclusions

To Richard:
At 11:10 p.m. 07/01/01 +0000, you wrote:

"C'mon Paul, you're going to have to do better than
repeating yourself if you want to convince anybody of
anything. What do you know about the Scandinavian economies?  Do you know
how much of their well-being depends on oil royalties, or on
weapons-related contracts?  

These countries might not have achieved the ultimate ideal of justice,
fairness and equality for everyone, but they have successfully addressed
many of the gravest problems of neoliberal countries, you so eloquently
point out in many of your  postings:
1. They keep differences of wealth within reasonable limits (The Norwegians
even have a special word for the underlying principle).
2. They have safetynets for the unemployed and the poor, second to none.
3. They manage their natural resources with a degree of prudence rarely
found elsewhere: e.g. the Norwegians invest a great part of their present
oil income in an public reserve fund, that shall allow them to maintain
their present level of social services after their wells run dry. And they
also make excellent use of their ingenuity: Finland which has few natural
resources, has achieved a high degree of prosperity through cutting edge
technology in mobile phones and computing.
3. They take very good care of their environment: in Denmark there are
several industrial parks with zero pollution, since every byproduct of any
process, toxic or otherwise, is being used as raw material for another
industry.
4. In spite of the high cost of such initiatives, they have been able to
remain competitive on the world's markets, proving that capitalism can
persist and remain healthy, without striving for more and more
unsustainable growth.

In my opinion they are the best of all WORKING SOCIETIES and their citizens
seem to be quite happy.

On the other hand you defend something untried, without explaining how to
solve the basic problems of how to organize such a Society. I have asked
you repeatedly about such details; so far without success.

Another point:
You claim that the present version of globalization with benefits only for
multinational corporations is still going ahead full steam, in spite of the
many voices from insiders, that indicate different tendencies.
The hard core of the respective institutions, that so far made all the
decisions, might pursue such goals, but since they do not command a
majority, the worldwide resistance movement might have a real chance of
stopping them and achieving a different and much fairer policy.
For this to succeed, the many people who so far concentrated on protesting
and other negative actions, would have to involve themselves effectively in
the choice of the right type of delegates and in supporting them vigorously.
This is a small part of the strategy of taking over existing institutions
quietly; through contacting decision makers by E-mail, choosing and
supporting local representatives and other hard and persistent work.
It would certainly be less attractive as participating a few days in a
glorious revolution, but it might have better chances to succeed and endure.

Regards         Paul