response to question/ how can it be done (fwd)

Sun, 29 Mar 1998 14:08:59 -0500 (EST)
Gernot Kohler (gernot.kohler@sheridanc.on.ca)

Mitchell Gold asked me to forward his message (below). - gk

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 27 Mar 1998 15:40:37 -0500
From: mgold <mgold@island.net>
To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu
Subject: response to question/ how canit be done

> ---------- IN REPLY TO: ----------
> Date: Fri, 27 Mar 1998 13:21:35 -0500 (EST)
> From: Gernot Kohler <gernot.kohler@sheridanc.on.ca>
> To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK <wsn@csf.colorado.edu>
> Subject: inadequate demand in the world system (Singh + Zammit)

>
> Here is a left-Keynesian view of global demand and employment:
>
> REFERENCE
>
> Ajit Singh and Ann Zammit,
> "Employment and Unemployment, North and South", in:
> J. Mitchie and J.Grieve Smith, eds.,
> _Managing the Global Economy_
> (New York, USA: Oxford U P, 1995), p. 93-110
> ISBN 0-19-828968-5
>
> Singh and Zammit analyze unemployment and underemployment in the North
> and South of the world and conclude that inadequate global employment is
> caused by inadequate global demand. They speak of a global "demand
> constraint", which they describe as "deeply institutional in nature" (p.
109)
>
> The authors call for three types of institutional/structural reform,
> namely: (1) "a new institutional and behavioural framework within the
> North";

This must come from a change in the education focus - moving towards global
education, and common core curriculum - While my friend Dr. Morris
Miller, formerly of the World Bank suggest that this institutional change
will come from the political process, I am much more certain that we need
to change the basic education focus. Learning how to learn - THis will
be the stepping stone to new institutional and behavioural framework, and I
would not limit this effect on the NOrth, but this new educational paradigm
will of its very nature affect the second point - policy direction change.
These functions will and must happen at the same time.

>(2) "within the South, a major change in policy direction";

>(3)
> "(o)n the global scale, a rather different system of international
> arrangements between the North and the South."

This again will be a result of a change in the education processes.
Education will definitely be the driving force, but it will not be a top
down delivery system, but rather it will be a bottom up creation of a new
educational paradigm out of the ashes of the old education system that no
longer educates. The International systems arrangements will have a
larger perspective than the one manifested to-day by the IMF and the World
Bank with its limited Nation State perspective.

(p.110) Furthermore, the
> authors note that such reforms "will have to pay full attention to
> ecological concerns"(p.110).

This again will be the result of the education processes.

Not meaning to sound as if all the answers lie in education, because that
is just a word. We need to look at how we educate the human to-day - not
through the eyes of CNN - we must learn to go on media fasts - to make
distinctions between what we see and what others would like us to see.

some ideas in this regard are contained on the website www.homeplanet.org
-
while still under construction, it has many ideas that follow along the
solutions proposed.

What is the relationship between: World Citizenship? Time? Money? and
Sustainability? perhaps when Institutions are educated in the language
around these notions the answer will present itself? I think so. ANd that
is why I write this to you.
Hopefully I am not jaded by my involvement in the process.

In peace
Mitchell Gold
IAEWP
WCC Challenge
IPC 2000

> Singh and Zammit's left-Keynesian views appear to be quite compatible
with
> Amin's global socialist agenda (e.g., Samir Amin, "The Future of Global
> Polarisation", _Review_ (Fernand Braudel Center, USA), XVII, 3, Summer
> 1994, p. 337-47) and the future world system as envisaged in Chase-Dunn,
> _Global Formation_, 1989.
>
> As usual, there is but one small question left: How can it be done?
>
> --gk