Benjamin Barber

[telebob x]

I cannot argue with the sentiments expressed by Benjamin Barber.  He is 
right of course.  What needs to be exported from the USA (and what needs to 
be enhanced within the USA) is a sense of individual (and especially 
corporate) responsibilty toward what is considered the "public good."  
Darwinian business practices have to be ameliorated by a balancing rule of 
law that is equitably distributed.  Few of the undeveloped nations where we 
export our manufacturing for example have strong governments dedicated to 
some/any concept of "public good."  These governments exist mainly to 
enforce and legitimize ruling power structures.  Their idea of government is 
not to increase the common wealth, but to increase personal wealth of those 
in power. No wonder companies are attracted to these areas.  Cheap labor, 
bribable local officials, first class hotels at bargain rates, this is the 
best of all possible worlds.

My argument with Jon was that demonizing the US as an energy and resource 
hog, is a pink herring, since we do use a lot of the energy and resources to 
make products that are then re-exported to the rest of the world. It makes 
the stats more skewed to appear that we are consumers only of the worlds 
resources.  Do we get the lions share?  Certainly it is disproportionate, 
but nothing lies like statistics badly interpreted.

I have always thought that a basic course in ethics should be a part of the 
business school curriculum...just so the young MBA's that are turned out 
have some passing acquaintence with the concept.

But how we export a concept of rule of law equitably distributed is a 
tougher sell, since the people such a thing would benefit are not 
necessarily those in power.  It is easy to export greed and avarice, fair 
play is harder, especially for cultures where 'fairness and justice' is a 
foreign idea.

One of the great cultural clashes that is going on has that rivalry at its 
very base.  The Islamic cultures are ones that are based on the rule of men 
and not of law. (Tribal style councils who settle disputes by 
mandate...rather than juries of peers with clear cut laws).  Beyond the 
psycho-sexual aspects as described in Jaxon's post, is the 'rage' engendered 
by the threat the radical fundamentalists (read patriarchal male dominated 
cultures) feel toward their own traditional power structures.  Vote?  We 
don't need no stinkin' votes! I am the Mullah/chief Poobah around here and 
what I say goes...and that's it! I serve the gruel up at 7:00 and shut up!  
These are father types that remind me of Rodney Daingerfield in "Natural 
Born Killers"....

Oh well...and good morning to you too....

Kisses,

tele



>From: "Jon Ford" <jonmfordster@hotmail.com>
>To: austin-ghetto-list@pairlist.net
>Subject: Benjamin Barber
>Date: Wed, 07 Nov 2001 15:46:35 -0800
>
>Barber is a fine thinker. Note what he says below (from the article Wayne
>sent us), and note that what he is saying is pretty close to what I was
>saying (perhaps not clearly enough) a week or so ago in my exchange with
>Bob-- we need to think about what we export to foreign countries, and add
>some real values to the "value added" of our products!
>
>Jon
>
>
><The underlying theme in all his work is democracy -- how to strengthen
>it, export it, describe the variations found in different countries.
>Neither the extremists of "Jihad" nor the capitalists that make up
>"McWorld" are serving democracy, he argues, because both evade or ignore
>the process.
>
>"I said precisely that the war of Jihad versus McWorld, if it was not
>alleviated by global democracy, an international civic infrastructure,
>was likely to explode. These two sets of forces could not avoid clashing
>and exploding; they were going to create nothing but death and explosion
>unless we did this third thing, and we didn't.
>
>"The question is: Will we now? Will we now acknowledge the
>interdependence that has been demonstrated? Will we make interdependence
>not just a matter of AIDS and global warming and weapons destruction and
>terrorism, but will we make it a matter of global civic and political
>institutions? I think there are inducements that were not there before.
>
>"On September 10, when I talked about global democracy, people thought,
>'What a quaint, charming utopian that guy Barber is.' On September 12,
>they were saying what a political realist that guy is."
>
>Barber talks about a new "declaration of interdependence," which
>acknowledges that "no one nation can experience prosperity and plenty
>unless others do, too." America is a reluctant power, he says, and in
>this reluctance it communicates indifference and arrogance to other
>nations.
>
>"We want to be loved, to be understanding, to be sensitive, whereas what
>the world wants from us is to use our power to construct a global system
>that will let them take care of themselves. They don't need our
>sympathy, they don't want our sensitivity, they want a fair system that
>gives them a fair shake. Our sentimentalism sometimes gets in the way.
>We want to be "liked," you see what I'm saying? We are a very big
>elephant that thinks it's a large pussycat."
>
>Multinational corporations tend to prefer to operate in countries that
>impose few limits on their operations, Barber says. Those tend to be
>countries with anarchic, weak or corrupt governments, which also provide
>a fertile breeding ground for terrorists. Although in this country
>capitalism has thrived within the "container" of regulation and civil
>society, America has failed to export or promote similar restraints
>overseas. "If we export capitalism without democracy, we breed anarchy
>and terrorism," he says.
>
>"It's now a matter of national security. Part of the war on terrorism
>has to be to address the conditions that produce terrorism, and that has
>become a matter of necessity and not some intellectual vision of what a
>good world is. The hidden silver lining in this hideous, desperate
>terrorist act is the sense of what wonderful punishment for the
>terrorists -- if what they actually did was prompt us toward a more
>civic and democratic world. Imagine how upset they'd be!"
>
>
>
>
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