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Investing in Our Human Infrastructure: The Real Wealth of Our Nation Is Its People
Over half a million people lost their jobs last month. There's no question we need a job-creation plan. The real question is what kind of plan will most quickly stimulate the economy and at the same time provide the best long-term investment for our nation.
Let's urge President Obama and Congress to use the American Recovery and Reinvestment Job-Creation Plan to massively invest in our human infrastructure: that is, in human capacity development. Investment in our material infrastructure (bridges, roads, etc.) and our natural infrastructure (green jobs, etc.) is certainly important. But study after study shows that when our nation invests in its people, starting in childhood, the economic benefits are enormous.
By creating, subsidizing, and providing training for jobs in childcare, early education, healthcare, eldercare, and other "caring industries," as well as supporting caring work in homes, we quickly stimulate the economy, help families, radically reduce poverty and violence, reward women's economic contributions, save billions in crime and prisons - and develop the "high quality human capital" needed for our post-industrial economy.
Our economic crisis is an opportunity to lay foundations for a sustainable and equitable economic system instead of just trying to patch up an economy based on unsustainable consumerism, unsustainable consumer debt, and unsustainable environmental practices. The current economic meltdown is not due simply to the globalization of unregulated capitalism. The problem goes much deeper - and so must the solutions.
The financial return on investment in caring jobs and home activities is huge - and not accounted for in popular economic models circulating in Washington which, as shown by our economic crisis, encourage disastrous short-term market speculation. We need a new economics that really works - both in the short and long term.
- America and the world are in the midst of a sea change as we shift from the industrial to the knowledge/information era. Many of the jobs being lost in manufacturing and other fields will be gone for good as we move toward more automation and robotics. Our most effective investment is in human capital development, starting in childhood and continuing all through life.
- A job-creation program component that focuses on the work of caring and caregiving will stimulate economic recovery and develop high capacity human capital capable of pioneering new frontiers of innovation across the board in every sector of society: culturally, socially, technologically, and environmentally.
- Neuroscience shows that the quality of childcare directly affects the development of human capacities and potentials; caregiving produces what economists call "public goods" and should be economically valued as civic work.
- The hi-tech green jobs and infrastructure construction jobs proposed by the job-creation program as currently formulated are still largely "men's work." Yet the time has passed when male "heads of family" were the sole breadwinners. The majority of families are two wage-earner families or woman-headed families. An effective economic stimulus program also provides jobs, training, and subsidies where the female labor force is concentrated: childcare, education, healthcare, eldercare. Studies show that women buy 80% of household goods: the food, clothing, and other essentials that keep the core economy going.
- Support of "caring work" will radically reduce poverty and violence, and their enormous economic, social, and personal costs. In the U.S., as in most nations, the poor are disproportionately women and children.
- As the Baby Boomers age, demand for eldercare is rapidly exceeding services available. The job-creation program must address this urgent need by supporting good eldercare in both the market and household economies.
- Millions of Americans are going uncared and undercared for. We have a huge caring gap from cradle to grave. A more broadly defined job-creation program will help close this gap at the same time that it stimulates the economy and trains both women and men for the work that is most urgently needed for a healthy economy and society.
- Creating a new cabinet post or advisory council for high capacity human development will facilitate the reordering of social priorities and the implementation of a new economic agenda appropriate for the post-industrial era - and a more equitable and sustainable future.
The economic stimulus plan should be a bridge to the kind of economy and society we want and need: one where caring for humans and the planet is the primary economic driver. Good care and education for children is an essential investment in our nation's future work force, and hence our future quality of life. Investing in human infrastructure will not only rapidly stimulate our economy; it will lay foundations for a new economic era where our most precious resources - people and the natural environment - are nurtured, sustained, and thrive for generations to come.
A proposal for a Full Spectrum Job-Creation plan is posted at www.rianeeisler.com.
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27 Comments so far
Show AllNobody is going to invest in the people--certainly not the folks you put into office to abuse you, spy on your and spit in your face when you are homeless.
You did it to yourselves for believing the Big Lie that the US was a democracy.
Time to pay the piper.
Who exactly is the "you" you so berate in your post?
Liberals come so close to the labor theory of value sometimes. But then they still don't get it.
It's still absurd and mildly nauseating for me to hear a supposed progressive talk about people as a "resource" for generating profit, as a form of "human capital"--regardless of how much care you propose to take of this "resource". People are the ends of the economy, not the means. (Well, no they aren't, but they should be).
I'm not a Marxist--just a generic socialist, with no theory of revolution--but I most certainly do appreciate Marx's labor-centric (read: human-centric) economic theory, and this brief article sums up my feelings on the matter rather well:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1881/05/07.htm
Should working people receive the full value of what they produce, rather than having some skimmed off the top as profit? Why the hell not?
I really do think that progressive people need to think about the phrases they are parroting from on high (usually, right-wing economists and policy think tanks). "The 'high quality human capital' needed for our post-industrial economy"? How about the post-industrial economy needed for human happiness? Which one exists to serve the other? It's not just semantics: in capitalism, humans really do exist to serve the economy and not the other way around. Hence we can speak of a "market" for labor, and the productive activity of creative humans is just another commodity for the famous American entrepreneur to purchase at market prices, and squeeze a profit from.
Phrases like "nation invests in its people" irk me just as much. Such a phrase would have perked up the ears of any fascist. Nations shouldn't take precedence over individuals, any more than profit should. Where do we get these priorities?
Socialism needs to be put back on the agenda, in a big way. It's been 18 years since the break-up of the USSR. Time for the left to pick ourselves up and press forward again with an agenda that is distinguishable from the right and center. Eighteen years is a hell of a long time to be so thoroughly cowed by right-wing talk of the "end of history".
The obvious problem with the "labor theory of value" first proposed by Adam Smith and developed by Karl Marx is that there is a scientific means of measuring labor; it is called thermodynamics. This science is governed by two basic laws first promulgated by Lord Kelvin in 1850.
1. Energy is neither created nor destroyed, but converted from one form to another.
2. All energy transactions occur at a loss.
These laws were not taken seriously by scientists until the work of Max Planck in 1900, but they mean that it is impossible to derive more value from a transaction than was input. To make a determination that produces a "profit" (as opposed to a benefit) is manifestly incorrect. The profit must come from a victim, whether that is the workers as Marx proposed, the customer as Nader proposed, the environment as Thoreau proposed, or colonial people as Lenin proposed. The problem with all these "caring" industries is that ultimately they cannot produce profits, because no one can be charged more than they have to obtain such services, so capital will not want to deal with them. Government by the people is the only means to redress the victims of capital and to provide that which it is not in the interest of capital to provide. The taboo of "socialism" certainly needs to be overcome, but we will be spinning our wheels if it is not based on a real science of economy, the only real foundation for which can be thermodynamics.
I like what Henry C K Liu puts in his articles in AsiaTimesOnline _ who also explains the schools of thought inclusive of adam smith, marx, planck, the french monetarists, austrian monetarists, etc. etc. etc. --
with :
"THE TRUE WEALTH OF NATIONS ARE PEOPLE.....WITHOUT PEOPLE THERE IS NO ECONOMY".
and then explains why and how economies ought and CAN rise to serve people towards "our full destinies as creative beings to whom wealth becomes irrelevant since everyone is ...wealthy"...
through government policies that give impetus towards "FULL EMPLOYMENT AT HIGH AND EVER RISING WAGES"...
"1. Energy is neither created nor destroyed, but converted from one form to another.
2. All energy transactions occur at a loss.
These laws were not taken seriously by scientists until the work of Max Planck in 1900, "
Yes.
"but they mean that it is impossible to derive more value from a transaction than was input"
How so? "Value" is a subjective property placed on something by an individual. During the transactions you refer to, matter changes it's form into things that people value more. The energy in gasoline is of a completly different order than the crude oil it was derived from, as is the crude oil from the dead organic matter it came from. Only the gasoline is of "value" to one who wants toi run an internal combustion engine. Thus there is value created *despite* energy loss.
Value (as opposed to benefit) is the meaning. An individual may feel benefitted by burning gasoline to take a drive through a wildlife preserve, but this has a negative value in thermodynamic terms in that it consumes resources without contributing to the production cycle and it contributes some damage to the environment. Less value is derived from that application, i.e. that application is less efficient than some other that would have made a more material contribution to the production cycle. No application is 100% efficient and none can produce a surplus – yet the whole theory of discussing economy is founded on the supposedly obvious idea of surpluses on every hand.
"An individual may feel benefitted by burning gasoline to take a drive through a wildlife preserve,"
Thank you for your response. It is that individual who values that benefit.
"but this has a negative value in thermodynamic terms in that it consumes resources without contributing to the production cycle "
It depends on what is being produced. What if the individual is a gifted scientist who will gain unique and useful knowledge as a result of that drive?
"No application is 100% efficient and none can produce a surplus"
Right, not in terms of BTUs, that is the value of those actual numbers. But you have to consider economic value. Dried dung and gasoline each have a number value BTUs, but they are each of a completely different order. One is much more concentrated than the other and can be more easily transported and has additional useful applications than the other one. There is economic value in that.
"the supposedly obvious idea of surpluses on every hand."
Thermodynamics does not disallow certain energy or products of a very specific kind and order. In the example of BTUs, they are not all the same. Have a nice weekend.
IOW, you believe in perpetual "growth". Got it.
This is like the ninth time in just a few days that you said I said something that I didn't. Got it.
PERFECTLY PUT JIMMYJAZZ!!!
you will certainly find sychronous ideas with articles , very voluminous and highly exaustive historically -- concerning monetary history, policies, dollar hegemony, how these came to be, the self-destructive tendencies of capitalism, and - just like your thoughts -- the differentiation between HUman beings and their welfare as the END, the purpose, of an economy through serving their labor's FULL value and the ability to arbitrate , dictate THEIR true value against :"money capital" as marx would put it.
i hope you'll find time to go through articles by
Henry C K Liu in Asiatimesonline.
it is incredibly crystal clear reading - and NEVER , like marx, loses sight of the HUMAN aspect where all economies ought to serve humans , rather than the other way around, making humans "capital" .
he understands better than the article above - good as it is - what the TITLE said: and had talked about what few had talked about in the progressive side:
"THE TRUE WEALTH OF NATIONS are PEOPLE". ...in one article of his. where he argues what is entirely doable and practical in fact..and ought to be, according to him , the ONLY real purpose of an economy worthy of being civilized:
that enhance the worth of every human being by means of policies that are eminently doable (he explains exactly how - such as decoupling from dollar hegemony, differences between "sovereign credit" and "debt"...why central banking is a failure, etc...why hedge funds and the USA are the "leading currency manipulators towards the end of diminishing the value of labor") --
and why any government's proper role should be to provide conditions towards "a full employment ,ever rising wages economy".
JimmyJazz -- you will also find in a recent series of articles by this Henry C K Liu -= concerning "dollar hegemony" and how he ties it to "USA as LEADING CURRENCY MANIPULATOR" (as a response to US charges against China "manipulating its currency" -- and then exposes EXACTLY how the USA has been manipulating currency and policies) --
discussion about the history of china's role in the world, including discussion about why , EVEN in its periods of "internally focused empire" - that was always disinterested in "global empire" outside its own national borders - that china for centuries as a culture is REALLY a "socialist" mentality..and why it was entirelyk logical for them to gravitate for a period, even with the brutal changes forced by mao, again as a response to foreign capitalism imperialism - and only as a part of the ongoing , 4,000 year old chinese "success at repeling foreign rule"...
because to them - the "commons" was always inherently superior to the "individual". and that even under the IMperial thrones within china - the emphasis even from the standpoint of the godlike rulers was STILL the welfare of the general population....
and therefore the western "capitalist" ideals are ,while assimilated and transformed into their own way - is basically an irrelevance .
try these for starters to see the depth and breadth of his historical knowledge. it is quite.........incredible and i have NEVER read of any other writer with such a sweeping, yet such exactitude way of explaining events ...right down to what are to most of us obscure "schools of thought" that probably evne chairman greenspan and all the geniuses in wall street and washingtond wouldn't DARE debate with him in public or be shown to be ignoramuses .
About "failed state cancer"
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/others/world-order.html
China's Inflation-free Route from Crisis
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China_Business/JL24Cb01.html
Monetarism Enters Bankruptcy
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/KA06Dj04.html
History of Monetarism and Breaking Free From Dollar hegemony
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China_Business/JG30Cb01.html
Killer Touch For Market Capitalism
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/JJ30Dj04.html
Socialism Versus State Capitalism
http://agonist.org/tjfxh/20081029/henry_c_k_liu_on_socialism_vs_state_capitalism
these are just a very few.
one warning -- they are VERY exhaustive and full of details.
" People are the ends of the economy, not the means."
Why aren't they *both*? If people aren't the means, then what is?
"Should working people receive the full value of what they produce, rather than having some skimmed off the top as profit? Why the hell not?"
Does a factory worker, who operates expensive and sophisticated manufacturing equipment, provide that equipment themselves or does the employer provide it?
"Does a factory worker, who operates expensive and sophisticated manufacturing equipment, provide that equipment themselves or does the employer provide it?"
You haven't read a lot of Karl Marx have you
"You haven't read a lot of Karl Marx have you"
Actually I have, and there are quite a few problems with his philosophy.
In the hopes of getting an answer to the questions:
Why aren't they *both*? If people aren't the means, then what is?
Does a factory worker, who operates expensive and sophisticated manufacturing equipment, provide that equipment themselves or does the employer provide it?
Oh boy. Those pie-in-the-sky "Joe the Plumbers" at it again !
Sioux Rose
Well, I think Ms. Eisler raises a lot of good points about what is of value and where to build value (since societies do function largely as a result of the engine of economics). Her prescriptions are in keeping with the law of balance, taking from Mars to give unto Venus: in the form of investing in CARE giving in its many splendid forms as opposed to "war economics," in the form of break to fix, over and over again ("Disaster Capitalism" style).
Well-put SiouxRose.
there is also the concept attached to this Disaster Capitalism of Milton Friedman (who actually was celebratory about the katrina tragedy by saying"this is a golden opportunity for REFORM" to apply his "disaster capitalism" on, just like his teachings of US policy makers and state department and economic policies to use South America as the "experimental" laboratory for his theories).
that concpet is a variant of his disaster capitalism as shown in Iraq and elsewhere-- through NeoCon teachings:
"Creative Destruction" which supposedly is also a DESIRABLE tenet for capitalism's magical qualities.
what seems to emerge from all these, whether it is the wallstreet tycoons and masters of the universe , or the richfolks behind the scenes as the "big Money, Big Finance, Big Banks" , etc. as well as Pentagon war planners with their several platforms of future conflicts to "prepare for" until they DO get it by their own provocations...and other matters...
what is emerging is a pattern:
these are ALL of them THEORISTS - FANTASISTS - who use the world as their Laboratory to "test" their theories and then if it doesn't BEHAVE the way they wish it to behave to "prove" their theories - whether on capitalism, on labor/capital, on "small governmnent and deregulation and privatization", on "the magic of the invisible hand of the market", on militarism changing and "transforming the middle east and the world"...etc....-- they then PRODUCE disasters or what disasters they DO produce are then their "proof" and evidence for the correctness of their theories and fantasies.
they are LUNATICS - and probably more dangerously so because they come with pronouncements of Liberty, Democracy, Liberation, Security, Freedom, Prosperity, Peace, etc. etc. etc........
while producing nothing of the sort. but.........DISASTERS.
Yet another lovely fantasy that ignores the core truth: Americans simply do not give a shit for one another. If they/we did, charity orgs would be overflowing with volunteers, tens of thousands of "finance industry" fellow citizens wouldn't be robbing us blind at every opportunity, we wouldn't have the largest prison pop in the world, and 'mom and pop' enterprises would be thriving.
If we Americans truly cared about one another, we wouldn't need the government to tell us what we 'should' be doing, cause it'd be done already.
There's been a lot of talk lately about job creation on CD and other sites.
What about job RETENTION. We don't hear that mentioned.
a VERY Sharp observation and a critical one herbalist.
i think it is not even a discussion in american national consciousness because it simply one of the "collateral" damages coming from the fundamental capitalist "dehumanization" of human beings...by turning them , under the corporatist culture, into "percentages" for capitalism's "bottom line" priorities.
it is part of capitalism's "supply and demand" dogma used to justify the SUPPLY SIDE's primacy over labor's right to dictate ITS value to "money capital" and MAKE money capital obey the laws of "supply and demand" FOR highwaged labor....
by instilling in people the concept that "supply and demand" MEANS demand for GOODS and material expressed in money , the VALUE of labor is effectively diminished - which IS the PURPOSE of capitalism...and to make "labor" and therefore every human being below the "power strata" -
"demand for supply" controlled by "supply siders" through the arbitrage of MONEY capital (that is, the artificial insertion of pieces of paper, or notes, or any other "instrument of representation of exchange of values" to DECIDE what human labor is worth-- without actually having ANY VALUE IN ITSELF -- money , i meant).
in other words:
in capitalism...money or its related instruments of representing exchanges between people ...which has NO inherent value in itself -- is used by capitalists to "assign" value upon human labor which is a REAL thing.
imagine that in its irony....
something that has no inherent value has turned , through capitalism , as the arbiter of what a human being is worth and what his labor is worth by subjecting a human being to the structure of Money "value assignment" beginning with materials - and has escaped its original confines to INCLUDE the assignment of value on human labor and therefore the value of a person.
so - rather than being a "utility" for the use of human beings - banking has become the assigner of human values and turned human beings into servants of the "utility" .
this is why I sometimes think that Marx was CAREFUL in repeatedly mentioning it as "MONEY CAPITALISM" to perhaps remind people of how the power and wealth "hoarders" use the capitalist system to INSERT something WITHOUT reality and real value -- money - as an instrument to render human labor as belonging OUTSIDE of the capitalist "market"..and when it is even there - as it must be -- it is then turned through this process of "transactions" based on a non-value - into what economists called "monetIZING".
monetizing human labor....
but at the lowest end of the "supply and demand". and therefore always subject to the dictates of what Money Capital decides is "profitable".
from there, i think, comes what is to capitalism, the IRRELEVANCE "to the economy" of such a thing as "JOB RETENTION" or "job security" or "high wages" or "ever-rising wages in fullemployment economy" (as Henry C K Liu would suggest ought to be the case and can and should be done). ...as a reflection of ANY economy's PROPER respect for human beings and the REASON for why any economy should exist at all :
"THE REAL WEALTH OF NATIONS ARE PEOPLE..WITHOUT PEOPLE there is no economy" (henry C K Liu, Asiatimesonline).
"The real wealth of our nation is in its people"???? Damn, we really are broke.
The trouble is not enough people realize it. Until enough of them do, things will be the same.
Since the real wealth of our nation is us, said wealth belongs to us, individually and collectively. But establishing this ownership demands something we don't have - government of, for and by the people. How to get it? We rise up, that's how.
you know there is something that Italians in Italy have been doing :
particularly in Sicily where the Mafia has for generations reigned with terror - owning land, having a long reach - making people fearful...the government has been breaking their hold gradually through a process of "seizing" holdings and possessions by the Mafia:
":you must attack them where it hurts them most...their property , their wealth, their Territory, their power to instill fear"..and after seizing - placing the possessions, land especially as well as "means of production" in the hands of Cooperatives for the residents of particular regions where particular Cosa Nostra regimes held sway.
one wonders if that should be applied - as one of many things to the "possessions and territory" of "wall street, banking, industries" simply SEIZE them but instead of nationalizing which in USA versions is really "State capitalism" that STILL works for the moneyed classes...turn them over the people as cooperatives.
of course that isn't very "american" ............no no no....
"America and the world are in the midst of a sea change as we shift from the industrial to the knowledge/information era."
This point by the author reveals that the author is not sincere about his/her previous point regarding the need for building a truly sustainable economy. It is impossible to build a truly sustainable economy structured on the familiar "knowledge/information" paradigm.
In THAT paradigm, the most exploitable people on the planet do all the dirty work. This point alone is grounds for dismissing this article wholly. Such continued poisoning of our morality will only bring more of the same bad karmic avalanche. The second flaw is that knowledge/information must be free - to all. To commodize it leads only to... bad karmic avalanche. The people need enlightenment to break out of the elite chains. The third flaw is that the automation mentioned translates into more concentration of power in elite hands. Prescription for catastrophe there. The fourth flaw is that the people need to own the basic food/fuel/materials production, in localized partitions, max ten man-powers. Only then may the people remain grounded, and sensible.
You can pretend another ten decades but you won't improve the lives of the people until you put the production and policy-making back in their hands. We're shifting basic production, political/economic power back to the people. Cottage industries, craftsman guilds, neighborhood markets, garage workshops, yard farms. Land/water/info rights for all. Trees everywhere. The elite chimps have no role. Get to work people!
"the time has passed when male "heads of family" were the sole breadwinners. The majority of families are two wage-earner families or woman-headed families."
This is all material from a dead frame. The elites proposed to "rescue" women from "economic servitude" to men. The correct way is to enforce rules against role stereotyping to help women reach political parity in the home environment. The incorrect way is to push women to enslave themseves to economic independence resulting in a doubling of consumption in all the hyper-expensive areas: shelter, utilities, transport, education. A doubling of the Pentagon revenues. This whole thing was a giant elitist racket to enslave more people to consumption. So this frame can't be used to argue anything. It's a dead frame.
The author's basic vision is sound. But in the blind spots lie the saboteurs - the elites. The elites have to be defanged. Unless the prescription explicitely defangs them, it's an illusion.
i agree.
this talk emphasis on "knowledge based" economy is a VERY dangerous thing..as dangerous in fact as the concept of Corporation.
for this is another opening towards a new form of "class" society being maintained and enhanced.
if anything it comes closer to the classic Dsytopian future in those science fiction books of
:"alphas, betas, etc" kind of society, wherein some are destined to be "worker bees" ruled over by the "knowledge" rulers...
society IS already like that -- but this kind of talk only serves to make this hierarchical CLASS society even more pallatable.
it is like a "benign" face shown for what is essentially a "ruler and slave" society.