Inequality vs Economic Democracy by Dr. J. W. Smith of the Institute for Economic Democracy
2 November 2008
Early corporations burned all the spice trees which they could not control in order to retain their high charge for spices. Modern corporations control America’s foreign policy the same way. They destroyed the farming industry of poor countries by selling highly-subsidized, low-priced grains to developed and undeveloped nations. Under their self-designed monopolization of the world’s food supply, those corporations doubled, tripled, and even quadrupled their grain prices as food supplies grew scarcer. This monopoly structure is specifically designed to plunder the wealth out of nations, drawing them in so that extrication is almost impossible, and now hundreds of millions now face starvation. These people are helpless against the corporate controlled world structure, and they die. Hundreds of millions dollars of (mis)appropriated wealth becomes hundreds of billions of dollars, while innocent people entitled to a secure food supply die. Both of these crimes of inhumanity against humanity are the result of greed, called ”the Plunder by Trade system” and the “property rights structure” that have been designed into our laws during the last more than 700 years.
This was done under the name of “privatization” which the perception managers of the power brokers have taught us is a good thing. (It’s only good for them. They get away with these outright frauds because advancing technology is so efficient, they can distribute half the gains of technology, and retain the remaining gains in the form of massive capitalized unearned profits. Immense as those unearned profits are, they are only a fraction of the gains in living standards.Technology is monopolized.
How can a nation or region attain security so as to avoid starvation and poverty as faced by hundredds of millions today due to intentional destruction of the viability of local farmers and corporate control of world food supplies?
1) Establish local perma-culture and abandon corporate control of food supplies. Plants providing thread for cloth such as hemp are among the most prolific in the world. Perma-culture can be expanded to produce fiber for clothes and exotic threads made from oil or coal will not threaten the environment.
2) Houses built from rammed earth or rock with ceramic interiors that will last for centuries is also a local industry.
Within those two local industries, perma-culture and housing, are the essentials of a secure society, food, fiber, and shelter. When regional soils are used with attention to protection of nature’s wealth, these necessities of life are not intense consumers of resources.
If nobody get unearned wealth, money in a secure social structure represents real values. Taxes disappear and health care, retirement, governments, and more are all funded from those natural flows of money.
See ied.info to find out more about the Institute for Economic Development.
Perchlorate Levels Deemed Acceptable
The Environmental Protection Agency formally refused yesterday to set a drinking-water safety standard for perchlorate, a chemical in rocket fuel that has been linked to thyroid problems in pregnant women, newborns and young children.
With little fanfare, the agency issued a news release yesterday afternoon saying that it had “conducted extensive review of scientific data related to the health effects of exposure to perchlorate from drinking water and other sources and found that in more than 99 percent of public drinking water systems, perchlorate was not at levels of public health concern. Therefore, based on the Safe Water Drinking Act criteria, the agency determined there is not a ‘meaningful opportunity for health risk reduction’ through a national drinking water regulation.”
Last month, The Washington Post reported that White House officials had extensively edited the EPA’s perchlorate rule-making documentation to remove scientific data highlighting some of the risks associated with the chemical, which has been found in water in 35 states. The Defense Department and Pentagon contractors who face legal liability stemming from rocket fuel contamination have lobbied for six years to avoid a federal drinking-water standard for perchlorate.
In the document released yesterday, the EPA assumes that the maximum safe perchlorate contamination level is 15 times higher than what the agency suggested in 2002.
By that standard, the EPA estimates that more than 16 million Americans are exposed to the chemical at a level that is unsafe.
Congressional Democrats and environmentalists blasted the administration’s decision.
“Once again on a Friday, when nobody is paying attention, the Bush administration announces a policy that will harm the American people,” Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who chairs the Environment and Public Works Committee, said in a statement.
“The Bush EPA’s failure to set a standard for perchlorate, a dangerous contaminant found in drinking water, is outrageous, and I will do everything in my power to reverse it. Perchlorate contamination endangers the health of our families, especially pregnant women and children, and to simply allow it to remain in our drinking water is immoral,” Boxer said.
The EPA statement said that its regulatory determination will be open for public comment for 30 days and that once the rule is final, the agency will issue a health advisory to guide state and local officials.
Only two states — Massachusetts and California — set limits on the allowable amount of perchlorate in drinking water, both at levels far below what the EPA deemed permissible.
“States have the right to establish and enforce drinking water standards, and EPA encourages state-specific situations to be addressed at the local level,” the agency document read.
The environmental law firm Earthjustice said it will file suit in federal court on behalf of several environmental organizations to try to overturn the decision.
“EPA’s decision has industry’s fingerprints all over it,” said Earthjustice attorney George Torgun. “Weapons makers will benefit at the expense of millions of Americans drinking water spiked with rocket fuel.”
Pentagon spokeswoman Cheryl Irwin did not comment on the ruling’s substance but wrote in an e-mail: “This decision is not needed by DoD to undertake a cleanup, as we use EPA’s established health risk assessment to conduct our clean-up decisions. DoD has, in fact, been cleaning up perchlorate from military facilities for ten years now.”
Path Dependence, Technological Momentum, Social Construction
21 September 2008
Technological Frame: Technological inventions are created within society and cannot be viewed distinctly. The definition of an artifact is according to the relevant user group.
Each relevant social group has own technological frame. It builds when relevant social groups interact around an artifact. It provides the goals, ideas and tools needed for problem-solving. The social group constrains the outcome.
Degree of Inclusion: As actors can be members of more than one relevant social group, they can also be influenced by more than one technological frame. Degree of Inclusion in a technological frame depends on extent to which an actor’s interactions are structured by that frame.
Innovation often comes from inclusion in more than one technological frame (Bijker). Innovation is the only things that is going to save us now for this oil-dependency crisis we are in. Those in power better get the message quick.
Power is the transitive capacity to harness the agency of others to comply with one’s ends. It is exercised, not possessed. Previously economists would talk of technology without mentioning social power. Sociologists would not discuss technological power.
Path Dependence & Technological Momentum (Thomas Hughes 1969)
We can’t really go back to change technology. Example is how Google creates a type of dependency and certain inequality.
Technological Determinism: belief that Technical forces determine social and cultural changes.
Social Construction: belief that Social and Cultural forces determine technical change. Maybe we could adapt water problem-solving in Africa to the same method Apple used to involve the whole market using iPod culture which is embedded and which is fitted to the youth culture which drives its technicalities. Younger developing systems tend to be more open to socio-cultural influences while older systems prove to be more independent of outside influence, and therefore more deterministic in nature.” (Thomas Hughes)
Technological Momentum: Progression of technology over time, it is a combination of technological determinism and social constructivism. Social development shapes and is shaped by technology.
Example of Technological Momentum: the use of oil.
The automobile industry actually originated in France, not the U.S., and the gas-powered engine was one factor that created a dependency on oil in much of the developed world. The people least connected to society are the least affected by technology. Different civilizations like The Bronze Age, The Iron Age, the Roman Empire, The Oil Age, contributed to their downfall by their dependence on a certain technology. That is what is happening to the U.S. as the federal government attempts to seize the oil resources of other nations. Iran is soon to be next. The easy solution to the problem, rather than killing many innocent people, is Innovation, the only way out of this mess. Does America still have the ingenuity it believes gave it the edge in the past? Or have Americans gotten hypnotized by their iPods, cell phones and laptops? I believe the ingenuity is out there, but it seems politics has gotten in the way. The power of Big Oil corporations combining with Big Government. Instead of putting our money on development of new technology to take our dependence off oil, our government just keeps putting more money and lives into the military-industrial complex. See my prior blog. New policies and new technology need to address this dependency.
Interpretive Flexibility: an example is the legal issues right now involving DNA and stem cells.
Social Constructivism is a tool not “good” or “evil” in and of itself, but is just a framework for understanding. It can be used to show things hidden inside another tool – used to analyze the relationship(s) between certain technologies and society.
