Norman Kurland, president of CESJ sent the following letter in response to a comment from a reader that, "The leading governments of the world in their efforts to address the debt-fueled financial crisis are compounding rather than resolving the problem. This is because they have little understanding — or choose to turn a blind eye — to the systemic causes of the developing catastrophe. In brief, they are addressing the wrong issues; putting funding into the wrong hands; and vainly hoping to jump-start the economy by encouraging a spending spree which could shortly be disastrous to the better interests of ordinary people."
I totally agree with your analysis of the current global financial crisis. It's one of the best presentations I seen written to describe the problems of the current financial system, current institutions of finance and defective government policies in the US, the UK and all governments in the world. Some would attribute the problem to a tiny conspiratorial elite intent on dominating global civilization. There may indeed be such an elite.
But, as Bucky Fuller wisely reminded serious people: "We are called to be architects of the future, not its victims." Since I believe you and I see the obvious flaws in the system, its institutions and its laws — and these "social artifacts" were created by humans within paradigms of the past — I interpret Bucky's challenge as one that reminds serious people that anything — including outdated and flawed paradigms perpetuated and taught by followers of "some defunct economic economist" — that has been created by humans can be re-created or restructured by humans.
Of course the quality of any restructuring of the global economic order and its national and global institutions and laws will depend on the soundness of our vision for change, the logic of the paradigm shaping our strategies for change, and the clarity of the principles of social and economic justice we apply for implementing the new blueprint for change.
If we can agree so far, I think we can further agree that we will not find that new vision and paradigm or any sound principles of economic and social justice taught within the "soft sciences" of academia, nor in any leading university or think-tank of which I am aware. Hence, architects for change must be found outside of academia and they need to unify around a new blueprint for change that can overcome the inertia among the academic elite and in policy makers and leaders whose minds have been shaped by academics clinging to paradigms threatening the future of global civilization.
We need a new paradigm, a new blueprint or vision of the future that can be implemented in any country, and a new strategy to unite other architects for change to overcome the inertia of the present system.
Such a new paradigm exists and it can be found in the seminal writings of Louis Kelso and Mortimer Adler (for free downloads click on www.kelsoinstitute.org), the Ashford-Shakespeare book /Binary Economics: The New Paradigm /and in my paper and Ashford's papers published in /The Journal of Socio-Economics/. (My paper "A New Look at Prices and Money" has been republished in the Shakespeare-Challen book as well as in our book /Capital Homesteading for Every Citizen/ and its logic has never been challenged, at least in the 8 years since it was first published.)
A new and comprehensive blueprint for policy and legislative change that can be adopted by any country is contained in the /Capital Homesteading /book, which can be downloaded free at http://www.cesj.org/homestead/summary-cha.htm.
A movement united to advance this new Kelsonian paradigm and new blueprint has already produced some success stories and prototypes that are already being implemented in various countries. (See http://www.cesj.org/about/CESJ-Accomplishments.pdf and various projects described at www.cesj.org, www.globaljusticemovement.org and www.theamericanmuslim.org.) A number of people you sent your paper to are working on new initiatives in East St. Louis, IL, in Bangladesh, in tackling the sub-prime mortgage crisis on Capitol Hill, and in getting a "foot in the door" to top policymakers in the Obama Administration. And several marketing/media professionals have volunteered to spearhead a CESJ Marketing/Media campaign to bring our Capital Homesteading "solutions" to media and public attention.
Thank you for your excellent comment. I hope that my response is useful to you and others who have not yet joined our growing band of "architects for change." Our door remains open to those who share our vision, paradigm, principles of social and economic justice, strategy and blueprint for change.