Out Of Poverty - An Experiment That Worked

Introduction
If you have been following along here at all, you realize that I have been focused on things like poverty and developing nations, economics, and culture, etc.  I have been trying to understand just how one can help people get out of the poverty pit.  I was persuaded that it is a long and difficult job, requiring a change the basic culture or world view, so that they are empowered to climb out of poverty.  If you want to know more about that, just scan down the table of contents on this blog. The entry on Jan. 26, 2011, about culture and poverty is a good starting place.
    http://carlscheider.blogspot.com/2011/01/culture-and-developing-nations.html
The basic idea is that a major part of the problem is the "world view" of people, which persuades them that they are not able to get out of poverty.

Jeffrey Sachs has a different view, of course, with his UN Millennium Projects for Sustainable Development.  His concept is that it just takes a certain amount of investment to get a community up to the level where development can be sustained. In his villages, they bring a lot of resources to bear for 10 years, to help people get up over the curve of poverty.  The results of that investment are still questionable.

Net - It Takes a Long Time
In all of this, my conclusion was that it simply will take a long time to really make a difference.

Or NOT!
Well - I have just read a fine little article published in the Economist last May which seems to offer a much better perspective - a bit of hope.  It describes a project in India where a bit of assistance and training gave a poor community such a leap of hope, that they made significant improvements in their well being.  The researchers who describe this are also the authors of a fine little book Poor Economics by Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo.   I wrote a more extensive review of that back in Nov. of 2011.  You can find that here:
    http://carlscheider.blogspot.com/2011/11/poor-economics-book-review-and-few.html

Brief Summary
The experiment described here was the gift of a small productive asset - a cow, some goats, or chickens.  The people also received a small stipend which was intended to keep them from immediately eating or selling the productive resource, with several weeks of training in how to care for the animals. The hope was that there would be a small increase in their income, and people would become more adept at handling their finances.  The result was much more dramatic.  After the assistance stopped, the people were eating 15% more and earning 20% more each month.  The result could not be explained simply the small gift. They were saving more and working more.  They had hope.

The article is here:   An absence of optimism plays a large role in keeping people trapped in poverty.  If you have problems with the link, drop me a comment and I'll send a PDF copy of it along.

What Happened?
The authors theorize that what happened was that people had lost hope, and felt trapped in a well of poverty. A small step - increasing their work, or saving a little money, did not look like it was worth the effort.  With just a bit of a push, and a small resource gift, they now saw themselves with the real possibility of escaping poverty - and they started working at it in earnest.  They were given hope.

Will It Work Elsewhere?
There is only a very brief description of this experiment in the article.  The larger society around this community in India has a significantly different world view than many developing nations.  It is hard to know if a similar approach would work in a different place - such as Nicaragua.  There are experiments which seem to indicate that the same thing can happen.  One agricultural school in particular, the Ebenezer Farm or Rancho Ebenezer, has taken a similar approach in a much more coordinated way.  You can read more about that here:  http://www.ranchoebenezer.org/.

In this approach  people are given a significant amount of training in an entire program of agriculture and animal husbandry.  A Church visited them in mid 2012, and produced a set of photos describing the work there:  Methodist Church Visits Rancho Ebenezer Facebook Album.  There is a video describing all of this on MySpace:  Rancho Ebenezer MySpace Video. The first part of the video explains the type of work - the latter part is more about the "medical mission" of the northern community in Nicaragua.

The Nicaraguan government plan, Zero Hunger, had a similar approach, but with less training and accountability.  There is also considerable criticism of that program because of its total lack of transparency and accounting, and its apparent dependence on ALBA.  It may be that the larger society in India is more supportive of development than the Nicaraguan society.  Without a comparative study - it is hard to know.

Bottom Line
It seems pretty clear that raising the hopes of people, and empowering them with small steps can set them on the path to eliminating hunger and poverty.  We clearly need a lot more study on just what works.  It is pretty clear that major aid programs do not work, so this approach holds out some hope.

On Experimental Development Aid and Economics
Esther Duflo, the author cited above, gave a very interesting TED talk in May of 2010.  You can find it here:
     http://www.ted.com/talks/esther_duflo_social_experiments_to_fight_poverty.html?quote=706

Despite her heavy French accent, this is a great talk for anyone interested in development.  She makes a strong case that we have no idea what has happened to the billions of dollars in aid that has gone to developing countries in the past.  It may have done good - or not.  There is no way to tell.

She espouses a scientific method of evaluating what works.  She describes in detail three experiments to determine the best way to: 1) immunize children, 2) distribute bed nets against malaria, and 3) improve schooling.  The results of the experiments are clear - and were not at all what was expected.  The first two are also described in the book, Poor Economics.  The last one is not - and it has the most amazing result.  If you only had $100 to spend on schooling in a developing country - where would you get the highest return?  The result will surprise you!

Small Incentives and Hope
Small incentives seem to be the key - and hope.  But it is hard to know what will work in a given area without a controlled experiment.  It appears that we are only at the beginning of understanding just how to best solve this problem.  But there is real hope.

If you learn of more experiments along these lines, please let me know.

Nairobi - Kenya Slum - business is booming

I am sitting here listening to Christmas music - reading an article from The Economist - thinking about poverty and development, etc.  This piece on the largest shanty town in Nairobi is fascinating - very well done.  It is worth a read:  Nairobi Shanty Town - Economics!

It is done from the perspective of several of the residents.  This is the face of poverty today - and the face of hope.  These people are working hard, struggling, risky, dangerous, but working hard.  They have HOPE!  The author says it would not be unlike parts of NYC back when things started booming there.

I am sure that a more supportive government and services and banking would make it work a whole lot better - but these people will make it.  Cell phones are how you do banking and payments! And the Masai are feared AND trusted.

There are many similar stories in the book Poor Economics - if you have a mind to learn a bit more about the entrepreneurial spirit of the poor - what's the other choice they have?  And this is East Africa - where the world view is that "no one is in charge" - it's changing.

How To Fix The World! Really!

I have been using this phrase:  "I want to change the world" now for a decade or more.  I think it started on our first trip to Africa, when I began to realize that poverty around the world is not just an accident of geography - but there is an element which we can change - culture and world views.  That trip and subsequent ones to Asia and Nicaragua, and a lot of reading, have set me on this pursuit - how to change the world!  A better phrase might be - "how to fix the world".  If there is any dominant characteristic of the culture of the U.S., it is that we are set on "fixing the world".  The amazing this is that we think we can do it!

Why fix the world?  Well, it is in sorry shape and seems to be getting worse.  We have billions in poverty, who live a life like most of human kind before the industrial revolution.  Back then, most everyone's life was short, dark and brutal.  Nowadays, some of us live here in Disney World, while the vast majority of the world is still struggling along.  That costs us all - we lose their contribution, their ideas, their genius, their art, their support, their discoveries. Our potential is enormous.  If you think the last 50 years have been amazing - since we invented things like computers and electronics - you ain't seen nothing yet. Nanotechnology, genomics, biology have only scratched the surface of what humans can do.  But we need everyone on board with this - everyone.  My buddy Ned once had the second smartest kid in all of Tanzania living in his town.  This kid could not afford to go to the "free" public school.  So Ned helped him.  Now he is a contributing member of his society - and he is smart as a tack.  We will all benefit from that kid, what he learns and what he does.

Up to now, the U.S. has been trying to fix the world with a bit of money and a lot of force.  The investment in the force part - war - amounts to trillions.  The investment in the money part is on the order of billions.  But neither works very well.  It is really IDEAS that matter.  So just how does one do that part?

It feels like a hopeless task.  I have found a few kindred souls here and there who are laboring about this.  But they are all doing a few things - good things - but just a few things. I really appreciate what they are doing - and I try to help.  But I want to CHANGE THE WORLD - not just fiddle around at the edges.  I want a new movement, a new "religion", a new group I can join or support or create, to move all of us down the road here a bit.

I just found a bit of insight.  I have this clever little APP called Zite (http://zite.com/) on my iPad and iPod that gives me articles that I am probably interested in.  You rate things as you read, and it follows up with related or similar materials.  It just fed me a blog from the Harvard Business Review that is focused on "fixing the world", by Umair Haque.  You can check him out here:  Wikipedia Entry.  He writes for Harvard Business Review, so he is not a fringe type.  The entry that got my attention is this one:
http://blogs.hbr.org/haque/2012/11/how_to_fix_your_soul.htmll

He says it is "how to fix your soul", but he is really out to fix the world. Turns out they are related!  Who knew? He is a major capitalist leaning sort of dude - so no "socialism" or "libertarianism" here.  He is very much into behavioral economics and the like.  He is trying to change the world, but he thinks that the change is already under way.  It is NOT a movement, not an 'occupy', not a new fanaticism like our friends at the "tea party".  It is a million small revolutions.  And you take part in it by fixing you own soul!

I don't know about you, but outside of a few more bucks, I have mostly every material thing that I have ever wanted.  I could get bigger, faster gadgets, I guess.  But I don't really NEED anything.  So what do we work toward now?  How about meaning and purpose?  How about hope in human kind - that we can do better at this living business?

He espouses things like broader measures for economic success, much as Michael Porter does.  But he is very hopeful about it.  I guess that is what I like.  The Christian tradition would call it "faith".  I have a great "hope" that we can figure this out and make it work.  IHe thinks it is already under way!  The kingdom is at hand.  What was the other choice anyway?

Read the piece. Let me know what you think.  I'm going to go read the rest of his stuff.  Thanks.

Helping the Poor - the Four Stages

As anyone following along here would realize by now, I have this preoccupation with poverty and economics and culture.  I am persuaded that our human reality is a social one - that we are intertwined with others for our values and happiness and well being.  And I think that inter-dependency extends to the economic realm as well.  Our well being, our full development as persons is tied to the poorest among us. 

And I have been flopping around here reading and writing stuff for a decade or more that leans toward DOING SOMETHING about poverty on the planet.  I have learned a bit - I have tried to share some of it in this Blog.

I just stumbled on a little gem by one of my favorite authors.  The Rev. Albert Nolan, the author of Jesus Before Christianity, has a little monograph on the four stages of Christians helping the poor.  He calls them stages of "spiritual growth".  That terms is a tad vague for me - but you get the point.  If you want to read a bit more about this book, I have posted a bit of a summary here:
 https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://scheiders.com/temp/Jesus%20Before%20Christianity%20Notes.pdf
That is probably more information than you want, so just keep reading here!
This piece by Nolan is here:

  http://www.catholiccincinnati.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/FourStages_SpiritualGrowth_by_Nolan.pdf

I think he describes pretty well the stages that concerned Christians go through when they encounter poverty.  It's helpful to reflect on that as we try to figure out what we are about.

Stage 1 Compassion

We send people off to expose them to poverty.  We build compassion - it IS my problem.

This leads to action - relief work, simplifying our lives, etc.

Nolan doesn't point this out, but this is the charity phase.  It's a good thing to do - but it is palliative at best, and creates dependencies at the worst.

Stage 2 Realization that poverty is a structural problem.

We want to change the system.  We move to preventive actions, political action.

I think he puts a little too much evil in the rich, but that's just me.

The structural problems are clearly there and they are NOT HELPING.  That is true.

Stage 3 - the Poor have to help themselves, and they CAN help themselves.

And they don't need us to do it for them, thank you very much.

He rejects even the idea that we can teach them to help themselves.

The poor know better than we do what needs to be done.

The book, Economics of Poverty, makes an excellent point of that  See my blog entry on that:

http://carlscheider.blogspot.com/2011/11/poor-economics-book-review-and-few.html

This is where we are now - I think a good understanding of the impact of culture helps with this.

See my blog entry on this:  

http://carlscheider.blogspot.com/2011/01/culture-and-developing-nations.html

Turns out we need them!  We are in this together - we are not in charge of this either.

BUT - don't romanticize the poor.

This step takes quite a bit of development and there are not a whole lot of organizations or people up to this level.  Sustainable development is a good step - but it is still helping from the outside.

Stage 4 - we are disillusioned with the poor.

They make mistakes.  They are selfish.  They waste money.

They are human beings too.  The book Poor Economics makes this case well also.

The enlightenment stage is that we join with them to oppose the structural problems, and the injustices that exist.  We work together.  That is real empowerment.

================================

That said - I still don't know what to do to get people more engaged in this.  It feels like an insurmountable problem to move the political will of even a few members of our parish, let alone the state of MN, or the nation, or the planet.

Well - a step forward is better than one backwards!

What do you think?

--

Carl Scheider

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"Remember, I'm pulling for ya. We're all in this together!" 

Red Green

Take the High Road - a call for political civility, please

My friend, Krista Tippet, had a forum not so long ago, calling on political leaders to exercise more civility - please, thank you very much.

In the face of the extreme Conservative attacks on civility and reasonableness - which seem to work, by the way - this author is calling on the Liberals to not descend to that same place of bickering - but to rather take the high road.

http://thebreakthrough.org/journal/issue-3/the-polarization-paradox/

This is an excellent piece - but a bit long.  It calls for centrist moderation from the liberal left - not the liberal extreme reaction that many are pursuing. Some of the length comes from the exceptional research that went into this - it makes perfect sense - do read it.

OH - if you are of the conservative bent - you should read this too - it's all your fault, after all.

Here's one small quote:
  "In the aftermath of a 2012 election that is likely to be among the most brutal campaigns in history, liberals would be well served to turn more attention and resources to rebuilding our civic culture, reconstructing a vital center in American politics, rather than investing ever more heavily in the liberal message machine. Reforming our civic and political institutions in ways that create some possibility for moderation, deliberation, and crosscutting discourse should be a high priority for liberals, who must recognize that without a functioning civic culture, there can be no progressive governance."

How To Fix Citizens United

I know I post quite a few things here that I say are VERY important. Well - this one really is It's a video - it's about how to change our electoral system so that corporations have a lot lessinfluence - Citizens United! Watch it - please. Let me know what you think.

Thanks!

I Hate Elections

I hate elections.  I know they are important, and I am always an election judge - but I hate the things.  I've been thinking about this - why does this process disturb me so much?  Well - it's because of all the idiots out there that do not agree with me.  How can they be that stupid!  If they took a little bit of effort, they would understand the facts and agree with me - but they don't!  And these ads - they are unbelievably stupid.  Who would ever believe the things they are saying.  If they are not outright lies - they are totally misleading. What a waste of time and money.

And the negative ads drive me berzerk.  Tell me what YOU think, what YOU stand for - not what you think the other guy is doing wrong.  That is the easiest type of criticism to make.  Give us a few ideas supportive of the common good - even if it is not going to HURT the other candidate!  We all might actually learn something.

The FAST Brain is the Problem
I have been reading the book, Thinking, Fast and Slow, and it gave me a bit of understanding about how people make decisions.  A few millennia of evolution have tuned our "fast" brain to make instant decisions.  We go with our gut, because it protected us when the enemy appeared, or things just did not seem right.  But our "slow" brain takes a lot of time and energy, and we generally do not use it much without some great effort. Turns out, MOST people are not making "rational" decisions most of the time, including me.  We are making emotional ones - gut calls.  And that is what screws things up with elections.  And the people we elect are the same.  They are not making good, rational decisions - they are doing gut calls virtually all the time.  And economics is the same - people make lousy decisions all the time.  There has to be a way to fix this!

Our Fast Brain Works Well - for some things.
The thing is, our "fast" brain is not bad or broken or evil, or anything.  It is a wonderfully tuned and sophisticated gadget for what it does well.  For example, some of the finest things in our lives come from the fact that we make emotional, gut calls, that use our fast brain very, very well.  When I met my wife, my fast brain told me immediately that I loved her.  When I met my children for the first time - the same thing happened.  And it worked even better for grandchildren.  I love them all - how could you not?  And my fast brain would protect them all - in an instant.  I don't need to think about it - I can't even think about it.  It's not rational - it just is.  Music, art, architecture - it is not a rational process.

For Others - not so well.
And when we make election decisions, the same type of thing goes on.  I immediately LIKE this person, or I don't.  I can work on the rationale for that immediate like or dislike, but most of the time, most of us just work to explain that first gut call.  If I learn things that seem to be counter to that gut instinct, I discount them.  If I hear things that support it, I tend to believe them uncritically.  That is simply how things work - it is not broken - it is just not designed to select political leaders in a complex world.  It is better designed to select leaders who will defend us in the upcoming battle!  We want the big strong guy who can swing a club.  For example, in the book cited above, the authors describe an experiment where people are shown pictures of candidates running for office, and they are asked which one they think won the election.  The pictures appear rapidly - seconds or less.  The people select the actual winner of the election with 70% accuracy - based solely on their picture. What tends to win is a square jaw, and a confident smile.  We want that guy who can beat those other people!  Period.  That is the fast brain talking.

For Elections?
But elections should NOT be beauty contests, or contests to select the strongest face, the most confident person.  They should not be decided by public spectacle like debates or five minute photo ops.  They should not go to the one with the biggest or most signs - Lord help me.  They should be about the issues, about problems and complex things that take a lot of effort to determine.  But that requires our slow brain to kick into gear - and it is too much work most of the time.  We go with what we like, what we are comfortable with, with our peers, our co-workers, the crowd around us.  Making a truly independent decision is a lot of work, and we rarely can get our head around that much work.

Election Example
I was an election judge for the primary.  A woman got her ballot from me.  I explained that she can only vote in one party, and she went to fill out the ballot.  She brings her ballot to the voting machine - and it is rejected.  She brings it back and asks what is wrong.  Well, she voted for ALL of the Republican candidates.  I tell her she has to choose ONE in each race.  OH, she says, and seems confused.  She does not know any of them.  She asks me which ones are the endorsed candidates - I inform her that I cannot tell her that.  I am a non partisan election judge.  I cannot tell her how to vote, or even tell her who the endorsed candidates are.  And, if it were just up to me, I would personally prefer that she not vote, thank you very much.  If she is that uninformed, we would be better off if she sits this one out.  But I can't tell her that.  Many people vote a straight party ticket, with no idea of who the people are that are running, or what the issues are.  They seem confused when we tell them that city and county races do not have any party designation.  They do not know what to do.  I would like to tell them to simply NOT vote for those - but they feel compelled to somehow select a candidate from their ignorance, so that they are doing their civic duty.

Politicians Too
And the politicians are no help.  They are just as irrational.  They are all fighting to be king of the hill - to defeat the other guy.  Nowadays they regularly lie, cheat and steal to get elected - and no one seems to care.  They can put out any untruth they want - and even when it is detected and pointed out - no one cares!  One of our recent presidential candidates has been caught lying numerous times - with absolutely no impact on his popularity.  What's with that?!  No one seems to be worried about the thing we used to call "the common good".  They just want to beat the other one - at all costs. One of our local US Representatives has won the "pants on fire" award numerous times - but she continues to be re-elected - 8 terms now.

Once elected, our representatives are not even polite or civil to one another.  They never talk. They never work together to solve a problem.  They do not even sit near each other!  They seem focused on making the other party look bad.

There Must Be a Better Way.
We are intelligent beings in part of our brain.  Can't we come up with a better system than this one?
What about the following ideas?

Citizenshp test?
Driving a car - owning a gun - those should have a competency test.  Why not voting?  Instead of a photo id, how about a "secret" civics question on the ballot?  The hard part is in the details!  How do we keep it from being discriminatory?  How many years is a term in the US Senate?  In the State Senate - in normal years?  How many justices sit on the U.S. Supreme Court?  Who gets to be President if both the President and Vice President are not able to serve?  Who actually elects the President - the people, or the electoral college, the House or the Senate?  What happens if the electoral college is a tie!  Who selects the president then?  What percentage of the U.S. budget goes to foreign aid?  To defense?

What do you think?  If you don't get the multiple choice answer right, your vote does not count!  Sorry.

Indirect elections?  
When we started out with this democracy stuff, not everyone had a vote!  You had to own land - and be male!  Towns were small - most voters knew the local candidates personally.  We could adopt something similar.  We could have small groups - precincts - who meet a few times early in the year.  They would have some education agenda, and be open to candidates who want to be elected.  After they meet a few times, they choose ONE of their members to go to the next tier.  That group meets a few times, and they choose ONE member, and so on.   Think about it - people voting for people they actually know and meet.  We could elect a city council at one tier up, I think.  Our state reps at 3 tiers max.  And maybe 4 for US House and Senate.  We could let the popular vote go for Governor and President.  How much harm can they do anyway!?

And recall would be as simple as a 2/3rd majority of the group that selected you. It might be the death of political parties - and wouldn't that be nice. It would sure put a dent in advertising.  No one is going to advertise to persuade a group of 30 to 50 people that they could meet with once a month!  They'll just TALK to them - such an idea!  And the group might just treat each other civilly, once they get to know each other.  These are your neighbors - not your enemies.  We're all in this together!

OPT IN is automatic.
Another thing, since we know that people do not make real rational decisions - make it easier on them.  Make the default the right thing to do as decided by some impartial, educated, reasonable panel.  For example, we do not let people choose whether or not to support Social Security or Medicare - they have to take part - otherwise we are all going to be picking them up off the street. Same for motorcycle helmets, air bags, etc.  You cannot save money on your car by buying one with no air bags or seat belts.  It costs the rest of us too much when you show up in the emergency room and we all pick up the cost.

Forced Civility?
What about making it a crime to be caught lying in a political campaign?  With required jail time - no plea deals!

We could make it a requirement that elected members of Congress and state legislatures have to spend a WEEK in the same room getting to know each other and their beliefs and families?  Research has shown that people who really get to know each other have a tough time trying to hurt each other - even if they disagree.  See M. Scott Peck, A Different Drum, for thoughts on that.

Your thoughts?
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Added 2016.07.24

For just a bit more on this topic, it is worth reading this piece:
https://georgelakoff.com/2016/07/23/understanding-trump-2/

This author, George Lakoff, has written a fine little book - Don't Think of an Elephant. It's about how our brain works, and how we can use that to persuade people by focusing on the 98?% of the brain that is not really THINKING. He applies his research to Donald Trump - and even provides a few ideas on how to counter this "mind control". Hopefully a few other people besides The Donald will figure out how to do this. So far advertisers and Trump and Fox News seem to be the only ones that grasp this. Say it, say it again, say it loud,yell it - it doesn't have to be true or real - just a lot and loud.  And NEVER mention the other side - their name, their ideas - NADA. Focus on values, positives, future.

Got that? Let me know how you are applying it, ok?

How Do Other Cultures View North Americans?

I have been searching for a few years for a way to show my colleagues and fellow travelers to Nicaragua the other side of this cultural divide.  When we are preparing people to travel to Nicaragua for our Sister Parish, or Partnership with this community in Teustepe, we discuss a list of items that they might find problematic.  We want them to meet and love our brothers and sisters in Nicaragua, so they need to understand that there are some differences in how we see the world.  We don't want them to be offended when people from that culture do something that they consider normal, and in fact, praiseworthy in their world, and we tend to see it as a problem or irritation.

Normally we talk about indirect communication, implication versus confrontation, a different sense of time, a different view of the hierarchy in the society, etc.  But it always  comes off like a mild criticism of the other culture.  We always seem to be saying - if they would only change all of these stupid things, we would get along better, and things would work better.  We try to persuade our travelers that things there are NOT going to change, because they do NOT see these things as problems.  In their world, this is the RIGHT way to do things, this is polite, this is normal.  We are the ones who are rude and irritating.

I have just found the perfect resource to help with this.  A cultural anthropologist, L. Rogers Kohls, wrote a fine little piece in 1984 about "American" cultural values.  This pamphlet was written to introduce the culture of the U.S. to foreign visitors and students so that they would be understanding, and they would NOT be offended by behavior which they might consider rude at best, and quite bizarre at the margins.  For example, the author alerts them that most U.S. residents will go to great lengths to describe to you how to reach a spot which is two blocks away, but they will NOT accompany you to the spot.  They are not being rude or impolite - you are supposed to get there on your own.

You will find the detailed list of "American" values here:

     http://www.claremontmckenna.edu/pages/faculty/alee/extra/American_values.html

There are many copies of this on the WWW - this one just happened to be at the top of my Google search page today.  Read it  - tell me what you think.

Below is a short list of these values with my comments.  It might be handy to keep them in mind when you are walking about in another culture. 

1. Personal Control Over The Environment - we can change or fix anything - and we will.  Most of the planet believes in fate, or a deity, or nature being in charge - not us.

2. Change is good, progress, leads to better things.  In most of the world, change is to be avoided, and tradition and stability are valued highly.

3. Time and Its Control - more concern for getting things done on time, than with personal relationships.

4. Equality/Egalitarianism - in most of the world, rank and authority are essential to good order. It provides security and certainty.

5. Individualism and Privacy - In most of the world, being alone, being an individual is NOT a positive thing.  Most peoples are focused on the good of the group, not the individual.  There is nothing positive about being separate and independent, with ideas that differ from most other people. 

6. Self-Help Concept. You can only take credit for what you have done by yourself.  You get no credit for being born into a wealthy family.  We also tend to deny that the support of the wider society plays any role. 

7. Competition and Free Enterprise.  Most of the world focuses on cooperation, not competition.  Free enterprise goes with this - on the downside of this there is no protective mechanism against failure. Risk taking has high rewards, but also severe penalties.

8. Future Orientation - we actually devalue the past, in contrast to many parts of the world where heritage and history are very important. In some parts of the world, it is seen as sinful to believe that you can plan your own future.

9. Action/Work Orientation - we are workaholics, we value hard work highly .  In most of the world, the goal is to avoid work, especially difficult, demeaning labor.

10. Informality - titles are generally frowned upon.  Dress is casual, greetings are informal. This is not intended as an insult.

11. Directness, Openness and Honesty.  Many cultures have more subtle ways to deal with differences and difficulties.  Most Americans will not pick up on these - so do not be offended. Recognize that if you are less than direct, they will accuse you of being dishonest or insincere.

12. Practicality and Efficiency - Does it work, is more important than is it pleasing, or beautiful. Decisions are always "rational", not driven by emotion or relationships - unlike most of the planet.

13. Materialism/Acquisitiveness - we collect more things than anyone else on the planet.  We put more energy into that than we do interpersonal relationships.

A Description of US Culture

Culture - US

I have been reading and writing about culture and development for some time.  It occurred to me that I have not seen a summary of the culture of people who live in the U.S.  It is sometimes helpful to understand other cultures if we can express what our own is about.  The following list has just a few examples of how our US culture views things differently from some parts of the world.  Some of these are part of our fundamental view of how things work.  Others are more developed rights and values -- but I have a hard time drawing the line between those.

• Individualism.

We are the most independent folk on the planet. We celebrate individual contribution and diversity, creativity. This underpins many of our scientific social, and artistic achievements.  Other cultures focus on collective efforts and consensus so much that they suppress creativity and differences. They see our approach to things as extremely impolite, self centered and dangerous.

Our heightened sense of competition also seems rooted in this, although that is also partly a 'tribal', ‘hierarchical’, king of the hill automatic response that seems to be common to all humans.

• In-charge.

We believe that we are in charge of the planet. We build it, fix it, operate on it -- sometimes to the detriment of the planet. We dig the well. build the dam, isolate the disease - it is ours. 

Other cultures think of themselves as part of the planet.  They live with life the way it comes, they are the victims of disease, not the masters.  Life is something that happens TO them.  They are not in charge of it.

• Investors. 

We think of ourselves as ‘investors’.  We put stuff in with the hope of future return.  We plant, build, save, plan and organize.  We think we have to put in to take out.  This has a corollary in valuing hard work.  Other cultures have more of a ‘raptor’ approach. They tend take what is there, without any contribution. They think of it as their right.

• We Create Wealth.

This is a close corollary of “Investors”.  We think of wealth as something we create. We create wealth by hard work, by inventiveness, by improving productivity, making things better, etc.  Other parts of the world see wealth as something limited.  They think that if one group has too much, the rest of us are impoverished by that.

• National identity.

We feel that our tribal identity, our social consciousness is at the level of the nation.  Some other cultures have barely gotten above the family level to the tribal, and are struggling to gain a sense of identity as a state or nation. I think that this is a natural maturing process which just takes a certain amount of time and effort.

Hopefully there is an even more advanced stage, where we identify ourselves as inhabitants of the planet, or members of one human family.  And beyond that, as members of this GAIA - “mother earth”, the whole family of living things and environment.  I think that will take us a long time!

• Rule of law.

We are convinced that we should respect the rule of law.  If we don't like a law, we work to change it, not to destroy the structure of our society. We tolerate failure in our leaders, but do not tolerate disrespect for the law.  Other societies regularly discard their government and opt for a new one.  Some seem to condone leaders who depart from the law.  This approach pays dividends in stability, but we lose a lot of flexibility.  They see it as an occasional necessity in order to make rapid changes.  We see it as a dangerous precipice.

• Honesty and Fairness.

We are fundamentally committed to integrity in personal and business affairs. If you follow the rules, and work hard, you should succeed.  Taking unfair advantage is against our rules.  We seem to have figured out that this is a required basis for our political and economic systems.  You cannot have democracy and any semblance of a free market without basic integrity.

It's clear to me that this is one of our weaker traits, but I do think we pay it good lip service, and we are working on it.  It is also clear that we really cannot trust anyone to follow this without some oversight, regulation, checking.

Other cultures seem to value the ability of some to rip off others - it seems to be part of the 'raptor' approach. It's called 'I got mine'. Advancement by trickery and deceit is valued highly. They don't seem to understand that they are all paying the price. They want the chance to 'get theirs', whatever the cost to the society.  Just watch Italians driving in Rome.

• Minority rights.

A minority in any category, race, politics, religion, whatever, has basic rights in our society which the majority cannot restrict.  This comes from our history of religious persecution in Europe, and our ancestors' desire to never be subject to that again.  In some societies, conformance to the rule of the majority is the only option.  There is no freedom to do other than that.  They consider it dangerous to have different groups with different views of how things work - especially fundamental things like religion and government.

• Individual rights.

We think that individuals have some rights which the state cannot limit -- and we must all respect.  In some cultures the state grants individuals whatever rights they have and can remove them.  In our society, the state derives its powers from us.  One of our key insights here is that these “fundamental” or “inalienable” rights continue to develop.  Just imagine our society if we had not finally figured out that women and minorities are full human beings with full rights!  It’s a work in progress.

Caveats

I realize that our multicultural society has such diversity that many people would disagree with some or all of these. And I'm not at all saying I like all of these, or that we need to continue these as such. The point is that we do have some common values, and they seem to support our way of life fairly well.

Like any values, they can change over time, and hopefully we will adopt better ones.  We could also slide the other way - we are making this up - no one is giving it to us or controlling it.

We would be better off if we could grow a few other cultural traits we partially inherited from our Scandinavian immigrants.  Most importantly this one:

• We are all in this together.  Human kind is a community, a single society.  What we do in one part affects people in all of the other parts, more or less directly.  As we get more and more interconnected, this becomes a much more immediate relationship.  If anyone on the planet is poor, is hungry, is needy - that ultimately affects my social climate, my economy, my level of wealth.  Helping them is NOT charity, it is an investment in our own future.

Negotiation and Cultural Differences

I just stumbled on a wonderfully concise explanation of how cultural differences affect negotiation and relationships.  I am posting it here in the hope that anyone that has actually stumbled on this Blog up to this point, will find it useful.

I have written here before about the power of culture, and the problems it causes.  You can read that here, if you want:
     http://carlscheider.blogspot.com/2011/01/culture-and-developing-nations.html
It might help to understand the full import of this article, which nicely summarizes the major cultural differences at work in the few societies I have been privileged to visit, and then relates it to negotiation.

http://law.hamline.edu/files/18-Gold--Negotiating_Cultural_Baggage_FINAL_May09.pdf

If you are dealing with people from different cultures, you should be aware of these fundamentally different ways that people communicate and think about what matters in life.  If you are trying to negotiate some cooperative result with them, then you REALLY need to understand this.

Briefly stated, those of us from an individualistic culture tend to think about things quite a bit differently than people from a more collective or group perspective.  We tend to apply rules more universally, whereas others treat exceptions as normal.  We tend to think rationally about problems, whereas others are more focused on emotions.  We tend to focus on the bottom line, on economic benefit, whereas others are more focused on relationships.  We apportion blame, we confront, while others are more indirect or "polite" in their responses, and more "devious" in other ways.  We tend to provide highly detailed proposals, whereas others engage in an interactive question and answer approach to gain information and agreement.  We tend to see position and authority as not such a big deal, whereas others regard social position as THE primary force in life.

If you found any of that prior paragraph confusing, you really NEED to read this document!

After a wonderful introduction to these major cultural differences, the article goes on to explain how the "Win as much as you can" game can be used to bring those differences out for a group of people,  I have used this game many times - but I never grasped the full implications.  You might find that interesting as well.

If you need more on any of these, please let me know.  AND - - tell me what you think of this reference!

Catholic Relief Services Manual on Partnership Relations

Introduction - a Development Handbook

If you have been reading along here at all, you realize that I have a bit of an interest in just how we are helping "developing nations".  I've been putting forward the idea that we have it somewhat wrong, and that there is a better way, something other than "projects" and "missions".  It has been somewhat difficult to find good examples of exactly what I am talking about.  Even the noted Jeffrey Sachs does not have a lot of examples where I would agree with the approach.

But, amazingly to me, I've just stumbled on a "handbook" on how to do this - and it is not brand new, by any means.  It does not have a date, but it must be after 2006, as that is the latest reference in it.  The first few pages are the "Principles of solidarity based partnerships".  The words are chosen with care.  These are partnerships, and they are focused on solidarity.

From Helping to Solidarity

The next short section is on moving "From Helping to Solidarity".  It explains just what this means, and why it is important.  The principle author of this part is one Mike Haasl, of the local diocesan office here in St. Paul.  He points out some of the traps that we tend to fall into when we think of "helping" others.  He asks us to consider this relationship much more like a marriage - it is equal, we both contribute; it is negotiated carefully, and we are in it for the long haul.

The CRS publication is here:     CRS Manual on Partnerships

Cost of Short Term Missions

Further on in the manual, there is an extensive reference to an article by Jo Ann Van Eng, "The Cost of Short Term Missions".       Cost of Short Term Missions

This problem is a regular debate within the organizations that I am familiar with.  We really want to send people to these other places to help out, to do things, to be of assistance.  But these kinds of trips are rarely economically justifiable from that perspective.  Even medical mission trips are rarely cost effective.  If we spent all of those travel dollars on local resources - that would likely reap larger returns!  In fact, in many, many cases, the "mission" group is not a positive experience for the local community at all.  Everyone loves to do these, and they are life changing experiences, but the impact on the ground is more often negative than not.

This article explains some of those problems in considerable detail.  It offers recommendations on how to do these "missions" more effectively. And, fundamentally, it points out that the real benefit of this kind of investment is in the travelers themselves. It includes excellent suggestions on preparation and conduct to achieve this end, avoiding the negatives of the typical "project" or "mission".

 "I suggest we stop thinking about short-term missions as a service to perform and start thinking of them as a responsibility to learn. Let's raise money to send representatives to find out what our brothers and sisters are facing, what we can do to help, and how we can build long-term relationships with them."

"Short-term missions are expensive. They spend money that third-world Christians could desperately use. But short-term missions can be worth every penny if they mark the beginning of a long-term relationship. Money invested in learning about the causes of poverty in developing nations--and what can be done--is money well spent."

Other Information - How To, Orientation, etc.

Besides these insightful contributions, the CRS manual is full of information on culture, on exercises to alert people to cultural values, and how to prepare people for these adventures.  It is just excellent!

The U.S. Culture 

There is another reference in the document to "American Values" and the work of L. Robert Kohls on this topic.  I have a bit of a problem with anyone that identifies "American" as being identical to residents of these United States of America, but I can overlook that!  He does a nice job of identifying the values that most U.S. citizens carry about in their heads as givens for all of human kind. I've been talking about those a bit as well.  You can find his article here:  L. Robert Kohls on The Values Americans Live By.

That's about it for now.  I am working on some other things - but it takes my brain a while to work these things out.  Stay tuned.  What did you think of these?

We are all in this together – Red Green

This has been my mantra for some time.  It’s a phrase that the great Canadian philosopher Red Green used on his show.  The basic idea is that human kind is a social animal, and we are all living in one social, economic and environmental reality.  Whatever happens to one of us, affects all of us.  The Christians among us made this a kind of dogma – “we are all God’s children”, or the “mystical body of Christ”, and stuff like that.  The ties between us are sometimes remote and tenuous, but they are real.  When a crime is committed in Minneapolis, or Chicago, or New York, it affects my quality of life – just a bit.  When a kid grows up in Tanzania without an opportunity for education, we all lose that person’s potential contribution – and it could have been amazing!  They might have come up with the cure for cancer much sooner.  My buddy Ned once had the brightest kid in Tanzania at his door, because he could not afford to go to school.  Ned helped with his books, and made an huge investment for the rest of us.

That is also a small part of why I am messing around with Nicaragua in various ways.  It is the nearest, poorest place, where we have an opportunity to really change things.  We could all reap large returns from their contributions to our social and economic fabric of life.

Well, now there’s proof!  Really!  Scientific proof that we are all in this together!  It is explained in this recent blog entry by Jared Bernstein.  He points to evidence in psychological and economic and environmental studies that it actually does work that way.  It’s a pretty easy read.  Here’s a quote:

“So, yeah, I think there’s an argument here for economic “altruism” by which I mean we all ultimately do better when we engage in social and political behavior that looks beyond short-term, narrowly concentrated profit maximization based on supply-side tax cuts, offshoring, deregulating markets, hacking away at gov’t spending, public goods, the safety net.”

http://jaredbernsteinblog.com/the-science-behind-were-in-this-together/

All right, it’s no rigorous scientific study that will persuade our politicians and economists.  And it is a long way from a fundamental cultural value that shapes all of our decisions. 

But that type of cultural value seems to be in the heads and hearts of most Scandinavians, as they generally seem to pursue this approach to life more than the rest of us.  My theory is that it comes from centuries of surviving in the climate where they live, learning to depend on each other. And they had the distinct advantage of never being part of the Roman Empire – or the Holy Roman Empire.  They don’t have this hierarchical mindset that sees the leader, the deity, or the king in charge.

I think Minnesota used to be a leader in the nation in this regard, precisely because so many of those Scandinavians migrated here.  Hey, it’s rocky and cold – it looks just like home!  Definitely WITT and not YOYO.  (Look it up!)

CAFTA and Sugar Beets - it's complicated

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away - wait - that's a different story.  This piece is about sugar beets and CAFTA - it's economics and fairly complicated, but it does demonstrate one of my basic life principles - "We are all in this together".  Thank you, Red Green.  It's about how the sugar market works between here and Central America.  Or, who is paying whom for what.
(I am going to the Red Green show here in Minnesota in May, thank you very much, my lovely wife.)

I suspect you use some sugar, one way or another.  It turns out that you and I and all U.S. consumers are paying about $1 billion more for our sugar each year to help out domestic sugar beet farmers.  And by that investment, we are preventing about 140 new jobs in Central America, and potentially many others in other parts of the planet. It's like reverse foreign aid or something. How does that work exactly?

A long time ago, years, literally, I was in Nicaragua, and an economist there was explaining CAFTA, the Central American Free Trade Act.  He  gave us an inside look at how this would affect Nicaragua.  He was agin it!  The conservatives here, the classical Free Trade people, were all in favor of this because it lowers barriers to trade.  Trade is good.  The U.S. sells a bunch of stuff in Central America - appliances, electronics, and food!  If you shop in the market in Managua, the rice and corn from the U.S. is cheaper than the local product.  Technically, that's a good thing.  It lowers the cost of living for anyone that depends on rice and corn to live - which includes most Nicaraguans.  However, in this case, it also affects the Nicaraguan farmer, because it depresses the price of their product.  And since most farmers there are doing it basically by hand, their productivity is not wonderful, and they are stressed to earn a living with all of this international competition. They also represent about 30% of the population, versus less than 1% here.

My economist friend looked at all of Nicaragua's exports, and the only one that would be significantly benefited by the free trade act was sugar.  He figured that Nicaragua could produce and ship more sugar to the United States at a competitive price, and thus create more jobs.  He guessed it would generate about 140 new jobs in all of Central America.  Of course, the U.S. sugar industry, mostly sugar beets, also realized this.  So they lobbied Congress hard to put in place a sugar price support.  Whatever happened to free trade?  OH, I'm sorry, it's NOT a tariff - that would be illegal.  It's a "price support".  Oh, and that is basically FREE, that is it does not cost the government of the U.S. anything - just the consumers of the U.S.

You can read about it here in the Star and Trib for March 11, 2012.  Star and Trib article 

So, to enhance free trade, and benefit all, we don't mind damaging the farmers in Nicaragua, but we will not damage the farmers in the U.S.  The consumers in both countries are paying for this directly, without the overhead of government collecting and paying out taxes.

Does not seem fair to me.  We have a lot of price support programs exactly like this  We, you and I, through our federal taxes, pay some farmers a price floor, which, in effect, drives down world food prices - thus benefiting consumers around the world, and damaging farmers around the world..  See this article on all of that:  Wikipedia on Farm Subsidies.

You and I, my friend, are paying $20 Billion a year to subsidize the most productive farmers in the world.  We started these payments back during the depression, when the U.S. farmers were seriously hurt by falling prices.  That was a LONG time ago, in another galaxy.  And most of that money is not going to the small, family farm, but to the large, industrialized operation.

I must be missing something here.  Why are we doing all this?  Because of the agricultural lobby?  Is agriculture a major defense industry now, that we all are paying billions to protect it from foreign competition?

So you see how this works.  We are all in this together.  You and I are paying both sides of this one.  Our taxes hold up the prices which raise the price of our food.  I don't think it's a win / win, here or in Nicaragua.

If you have any insight into this, I would appreciate being enlightened about it.  Thanks. I've asked our fearless elected leaders about this one.  I'll let you know what they respond.  My cursory searches on Google failed to turn up any one that would actually defend this policy.  There must be someone that can explain this.

Economics Is Way Too Complicated

Simplified Economics

I am sitting here at my desk reading this talk by Paul Klugman, published today in his blog at the New York Times.      http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/05/economics-in-the-crisis/

It is a LONG and complex analysis of the failure of economists to predict and help solve our current financial crisis – which started back in 2008.  I would love to understand this – but the article is way too long, way too complex.  The thought occurred to me, if I find this too complex, how the heck do our policy makers and decision makers ever deal with this stuff at all?  Obviously they do not, thus the mess we are in!  Is there any way to help them?  They typically will lay their hands on one economist that they like and trust, and do whatever that person espouses.  Or, even more likely, they just do what FEELS right.  I don’t need no bleeping economist!  It’s like going to the doctor.  I know what ails me – that highly trained physician is just postulating theories any way.

What FEELS right comes from their gut, their FAST BRAIN, and as I have learned recently from Daniel Kahneman, author of Thinking, Fast and Slow, that is dangerous at best.  Our gut, our instant reaction works pretty well for dodging the spear, or sizing up a potential adversary on the path, but it is lousy at complex things.  And our SLOW brain, the one where we actually think and process stuff, is really slow, and gets tired.

Laying your hands on ONE economist is fraught with problems as well.  What if he is an Austrian, and espouses that the benign good will of human kind, totally unfettered by any controls, will eventually produce all the wealth we can imagine!  Or, worse, if he espouses a highly controlled, centralized approach that does what our intelligent leaders think is best, and totally ignores the ignorant rabble who are actually making decisions on the ground– what do they know?!  Those are the two extremes, by the way, Libertarianism and Communism. Most folks fall down somewhere in the middle – but they rarely all agree.

I understand a lot of Kruggman’s article, but it is a long piece, and damned complicated.  To simplify it GREATLY, it seems that one school of thought on the two coasts (salt water people) split apart from mid-America economists (fresh water people).  The folks in the middle of the country, the “freshwater” school, so derided the coastal folks for so many years, that the fresh water ones actually stopped teaching the “other” approach to economics – Keynesian, etc.  Instead of a review of the various schools, they just taught the right one – theirs.  So, when a crisis appeared that a Keynesian prepared, model in hand person might understand, the middle of the country folk and their heirs – their students – had never even seen that model.  He calls it the IS-LM model.  It has something to do with high deficits not necessarily leading to high interest rates, because of some boundaries of low interest rates, a lack of full employment, and a liquidity trap.  See – that makes a lot of sense, doesn’t it?

I tried to explain this a bit to my lovely wife, and she says, I don’t really have time to listen to all of that, especially since I have very little influence on it.  My guess is that our fearless political leaders are likely to respond in the same way.

I think Kruggman is saying something very important, but the audience who should actually hear it, are never going to read it, and if they do, they won’t get it.

A Better Way?
There has to be a better way!  In some realms, really complex ideas can be explained by a popularist.  Think George Gamow and One, Two Three, Infinity.   If you are unfamiliar with the book, look it up at Amazon.  George had a way with words, and he basically explained Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity so that a high school kid could grasp it.  Thanks, George.

But the problems of Economics are more complex than physics and relativity.  It involves dynamic human beings and institutions that are constantly changing.  Faced with a crisis, we need to understand  something right now in order to make a concrete decision about how to respond to an economic crisis.  We can’t really expect our law makers to drop everything and go sit in a room and read a book to figure out how to get our economy running again.

Well, how about this, an “instant poll” of economists.  We have this wonderful engine at our finger tips – the internet.  What if we had a worldwide forum of noted economists, and our fearless leaders could pose questions to them?.  Like, say, “Does lowering taxes on the wealthy generate more wealth and lower deficits” – answer, yes, no, maybe, or “I dunno”.  Give the experts a day, and send a report to the requester, showing the percentage of economists that choose which answer.  Heck, publish the report so that the world can learn what is being asked and what our best experts are actually thinking!

We need a couple of things to make this work:

1. A respected institution willing to host it.  University of Chicago?
2. A way of vetting the economists who can take part.  All Nobel Prize candidates, noted authors, peer reviewed, etc.  I can see a board chaired by Martin Wolf of the FT!
3. A genius at posing questions properly for multiple choice answers that economists can grasp.  The problem is that every economist has at least 3 hands:  on the one hand you can say x, on the other hand it is y, and then again it could be z.

What say you?  Can you see this applied to other realms?  How about a standing poll of what voters actually think about issues.  What issue is more important:  contraception, gay marriage or unemployment – choose only one, thank you very much.

Klugman's Results
If you are still with me, there are a couple of quotes from the end of the article which are actually quite understandable, and interesting:

“What happened, in fact, was that to a large extent policy makers ended up going for economic doctrines that made them feel comfortable, that corresponded to the prejudices of men not versed in economics.  Thus, it’s normal to think of the economy as a whole as being like a family, which must tighten its belt in hard times; it’s also completely wrong. But lacking any clear message from the economists about how and why this is wrong, it became the common standard of discussion in America, where both Republicans and, alas, President Obama became very fond of the statement that the government should tighten its belt because families were tightening theirs.

It’s also normal to think of economics as a morality play, a tale of sin and redemption, in which countries must suffer for their past excesses. Again, this normal reaction is wrong, or at least mostly wrong – mass unemployment does nothing to help pay off debt. But absent clear guidance from the people who are supposed to explain that economics is not, in fact, a morality play, moralizing became the core of economic policy thinking in Germany, and hence played a huge role in European policy more generally.

Finally, government officials who hang out with businessmen – and almost all of them do – naturally tend to be attracted to views that put business confidence at the heart of the economic problem. Sure enough, belief that one should slash spending even in a depressed economy, and that this would actually promote growth because it would have positive effects on confidence, spread like wildfire in 2010. There were some economic studies used to justify the doctrine of expansionary austerity – studies that quickly collapsed under scrutiny. But really, the studies became popular because they suited the prejudices of politicians, prejudices that would have been totally familiar to Herbert Hoover or Heinrich Brüning.”

I hear Fast and Slow at work again.

The Trouble With America

If you have been reading along here at all, you know that I have been worrying about every country EXCEPT the grand old U S of A.  I just came across a really fine article on the United States that I have to share with someone.  Why not you!?

I have this little e-magazine thing on my iPod called Zite - it monitors what I actually read, and it offers up things that I might be interested in.  It works!  This article popped up to the top today.
America: The Best Country in the World at Being Last -- How Can We Change That?
http://www.alternet.org/story/154367/ 

Generally, I try to read both sides of issues, so it would not bother me if this was conservative or liberal - but it turns out to be NEITHER.  I could not find any bias in it, other than being incredibly optimistic.  The author correctly describes some of the major things wrong with this country where I live.  (Since spending time in Central America, I do NOT refer to our nation as America.  We are one part of North America, thank you very much.)  After a masterful description of these problems, he then presents an amazingly hopeful forecast of how we can overcome this, and continue to be the greatest nation on the planet. Here's a brief quote to whet your interest:

"In the end it all comes down to the American people and the strong possibility that we still have it in us to use our freedom and our democracy in powerful ways to create something fine, a reborn America, for our children and grandchildren. We can realize a new American Dream if enough of us join together in the fight for it. This new dream envisions an America where the pursuit of happiness is sought not in more getting and spending, but in the growth of human solidarity, real democracy, and devotion to the public good; where the average American is empowered to achieve his or her human potential; where the benefits of economic activity are widely and equitably shared; where the environment is sustained for current and future generations; and where the virtues of simple living, community self-reliance, good fellowship, and respect for nature predominate. These American traditions may not prevail today, but they are not dead. They await us, and indeed they are today being awakened across this great land. New ways of living and working, sharing and caring are emerging across America. They beckon us with a new American Dream, one rebuilt from the best of the old, drawing on the best of who we were and are and can be."

I found that stirring and hopeful.  I hope it works out!  And I hope it comes soon enough that I can live to see it!  How can I help?

This is actually the first of two articles.  I await the second one.  It is also a preview of a book -
America the Possible: Roadmap to a New Economy, by James Gustave Speth.  He seems to be a lawyer, but don't hold that against him. Some of my best friends  . . . .

What do you think?