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Common GoodW hat a time of contrasts. Jobless rates have been rising and many businesses have slowed down. Yet the last few months there has also been an incredible surge of promise and hope for our collective future.
Did you notice VP Dick Cheney at the inauguration in a wheel chair? (Yes, I heard the Dr. Strangelove comparisons.) Cheney has been battling over who gets his files and the judge said the people do—not Cheney. But then the judge said there was no need to seize them because Cheney would never defy the court and try to keep them. As of press time there was no word as to whether the VP hurt his back lifting boxes of files. To me, it honestly looked like he was waving with a file folder as his limo drove off.
Maybe it was his commemorative Inaugural Program Guide. Watching the world's reaction to the inauguration of President Barack Obama, it appears that the support we have from the world now is similar to the support we had immediately after the 9/11 attacks. People around the world were rooting for us/US after 9/11, but we squandered that goodwill while we pushed our agenda on the world. Now we have an opportunity again—we have that goodwill and support available to us again.
What an opportunity for us to find partners around the world and cooperate toward common goals. There seems to be the feeling in many other countries that the world's better off when America is healthy.
Beyond just hoping, there is a perception among those I talk to that we won't waste that support this time. There is a reaching out that gives many confidence that these opportunities will be explored and, perhaps more importantly, valued. We may not get where we want overnight, but we don't have to think in terms of it taking decades either, at least before we can feel good about the steps we are taking and our direction.
It didn't take long for many executive orders to be repealed or singled out for review. Things are moving quickly with a sense of urgency and with an openness and common purpose that a democracy requires.
For too long, I think people have settled into the idea that money rules—he who has the money sets the rules. We're starting to hear about principles again—broader principles beyond the petty politics we've had to endure. It will be interesting to see how long we remain united—before the clean-air coalitions feel ignored or get less money than, say, the clean-water coalition.
That would be typical of what has defined us/ US in recent times. It makes me think of Michael Moore's comment in Sicko that there are four health-care lobbyists for every Congressman. Winning politics is getting the largest piece of the pie. Can we approach it differently?
We know that ideas of great thinkers take a while to become accepted into the culture. Albert Einstein and R. Buckminster Fuller saw the world differently. Yet the old clichés and language we use many decades after them ignores that our world concept is different from the way we commonly describe it.
Fuller, for instance, detailed how there is no scarcity of energy on our planet over 30 years ago, and many of us are just beginning to catch on to that. Einstein explained our relatives a hundred years ago and they still remain a mystery.
The news and Hollywood give us too many stories with views of the world that come from a different age—a competitive, “there's not enough to go around” perspective—that pits us against each other and tribe against tribe whether we are talking high-school sports, businesses or nations.
And I like sports, just not the fanatics.
So, faced with our common misperceptions, how do we define the common good? I looked at the U.S. Constitution to see why we first came together to make us into US. The purposes were clear. First it was acknowledged that their system wasn't perfect, but they were moving ahead anyway —“in order to form a more perfect Union .”
It says that we joined together to “establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.”
Throughout history, the Supreme Court has interpreted what this means, of course. And while it may be a popular definition of what's American, I couldn't find anything about making as much money as you can. That's pursuing happiness for some, but the Founders didn't really talk about economics.
Nothing there says protecting American interests means sending troops to protect the interests of U.S. corporations in the Middle East either. The way the Founding Father's wrote it, we sound like a community. In a community wouldn't you think that the businesses benefiting would want to be good citizens or at least pay their fair share of taxes to support the troops protecting them? Their attitude seems to be that they gave at the office—they paid their lobbyists.
What we know already is that today's tax burden falls mainly on individuals. Large corporations often escape paying taxes or pay proportionally less—even though tax laws are not written that way, that's the reality.
A story in the SD Union-Tribune January 18 said 83 of the nation's largest 100 corporations have offshore tax havens—and some received bailout money. The GAO was the source of that information and while tax havens are not a crime, the Senate is looking at tax havens. We don't need a war between individuals and corporations—but it sure looks like time to redefine the game and add some balance doesn't it? Are they going to join us/US or use us/US?
Beyond the Constitutional common-community approach and adding balance, there's another way to look at the common good.
Another great thinker—with A Beautiful Mind —mathematician John Nash won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1994 for ideas he published in 1950. Are they ideas whose time has come?
Roughly put, he said that the “father of modern economics,” Adam Smith, was incomplete when he said that in competition the best possible results come when each of us works in our own best self-interest—every man for himself.
Nash said what Smith left out was that the best possible result comes when we act in our best interest and in the best interest of the group.
Today when political programs haven't worked, their proponents have told us that was because we didn't let the market decide enough or didn't do it long enough. Meaning we weren't selfish enough? Maybe there's more to it. Nash's ideas are now used in international trade and labor negotiations, so they are gaining acceptance. Environmental issues demonstrate the importance of Nash's ideas very quickly—when we dump toxins upriver and our downriver neighbor drinks from the river, for instance. Smog, bad water, and toxic waste now spread around the world.
I wonder if his ideas work if we simply do not act contrary to the interests of the group? I know I wouldn't want others determining what they feel is in my best interest. It appears participation is required to express that. Nash's ideas fit well with a democracy. It's amazing to me that he can prove them mathematically.
What a time to live.
Could we actually see the ending of power politics and the beginning of a powerful and equitable way of self-governing? How would that be? We'd certainly have to be a community in a way we seldom have been. Thinking of others as well as ourselves would have to involve all of us thinking win-win—not winner take all. Maybe it's time for a uncommon and beautiful approach.
Have a Great Month,
Steve
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