I'm about half way through reading Michael Kinsley's Creative Capitalism.
It is good to see that successful capitalists are consulting about how to improve capitalism, to make it more fair and accessible to all of earth's inhabitants.
I agree with Bill Gate's idea about improving capitalism.
As I am reading the stories, I keep thinking about the founding fathers of the USA writing about the idea that the only way democracy would work, is if the people were religious.
I believe the same thing is true of capitalism.
Our capitalist democracy requires citizens to be responsible free agents.
The only way to get that responsible judgment is through religious education.
I'm a Baha'i, and as such, believe that every religion teaches essentially the same moral and ethical values.
The differences are mostly semantical, social and cultural.
Anyway, the point is that teaching all people about those unalienable human rights, the rule of law, some universal principles, upon which our economy and our civilization are founded, is essential for the successful improvement of our universal common wealth.
In order to improve our economy so that our civilization will be sustainable, we must make spirituality the central motive of every individual citizen.
And in a way, that is liberating, not oppressive.
You know, the whole, do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
This is a universal principle taught in every religion in one form or another.
Work for the benefit of all mankind, not just your own personal benefit.
Of course, work for profit.
Just do so in a way that is harmless, and that serves all stakeholders.
Work for the benefit of stock holders, customers, employees and our universal common wealth.
I realize there is a giant movement to promote secularism and keep religion out of our cultural commons.
Baha'u'llah, the Founder of the Baha'i Faith, says that we should not be teaching the faith in the market place, that we should be doing that in more appropriate and dignified places.
So I make an effort not to write about religion very much, but in the context of the conversation about improving capitalism, I believe that religious education is the most important way we can improve our economy.
Another aspect of the conversation that I am aware of, is the positively harmful effects of the profit maximization business model.
Of course, businesses must be sustainable, which includes being profitable.
There is nothing wrong with profit.
Profit is good and necessary for a sustainable economy.
And big business is a good thing.
Small business would never have been able to create the economic infrastructure that we have available today.
The vast and diverse opportunities that we can plug ourselves into, and add value to.
However, I believe for example, that allowing big business to force our families off of our farmland is a huge mistake and that we are going to pay for...
its kind of like the Irish potato famine.
The American people don't know how to grow food, we buy our food from corporate grocery stores.
We have forcibly removed our people off the land.
Perhaps we deserve that, after the way we obtained the land in the first place.
And now we produce plenty of processed food in factories, that is positively harmful to human nature in many ways.
First, by ripping the families off the farmland.
Then by being nutritionally harmful.
During processing, food companies take most nutrients out of the food and add chemicals to make it taste good.
This is causing a tremendous increase in the use of medical services, which adds to the problem by treating it with drugs, which contributes to the epidemic of unhealthy chemicals in our biosphere.
So, while big business has certain characteristics that benefit society, it should be well regulated, in order to limit the use of the leverage it has to disrupt smaller scale economic activities.
We should not allow big business to interfere in our government of the people, by the people and for the people.
And we should not allow them to wreak havoc in our natural habitat.
We need to improve our regulatory system in order to engineer our economic infrastructure in a way that benefits all the people of the earth, not any particular special interest group.
Which brings up the universal common wealth idea.
The United Nations is our global federation of nations, the next generation of human civilization.
Notwithstanding all the scary propaganda about world government, that is exactly what we need to regulate our global economy.
It seems to me like our businesses are adapting to the new global scale of our civilization faster than our people are.
At least in America, the people seem afraid of and hostile to the idea of a world government.
This prejudice against world government seems to have two sources.
One is the Declaration of Independence.
To which I respond; in 1776 the revolutionary creation of our capitalist democracy was a giant leap forward for human nature and civilization.
The American Revolution was a human rights struggle and America has advanced and defended human rights ever since.
America is not perfect, but it has had a tremendously positive influence in human civilization.
Now, 235 years later, the United Nations is a more perfect union, growing out of the experience of our success.
Today, all the ancient and more recent civilizations on earth are coming together.
They are clashing, because they are coming together.
We are taking the best of each of them and improving the rest.
The other aspect of the prejudice against world government is a quasi-religious prejudice, which in my opinion is a misunderstanding of religion.
It is primarily Christians who object that world government is some how opposed to christianity.
This is an odd idea, because Jesus says He will return and create a universal civilization.
While the Bible does mention a hostile force in the world, it doesn't say that it is a world government.
I figure that secular humanism is the wolf in sheep's clothing that Jesus mentions.
The Religion of God is humanist.
It is for the benefit of human beings.
God doesn't need religion, people do.
The secular isn't necessarily antireligious, but recently it does seem to becoming increasingly antichristian specifically, and antireligious in general.
There is an increasingly popular philosophy that is extremely hostile toward religion.
It seems to be based on resentment about the Law of Marriage.
People want to have sex whenever they want to and the religious principle of regulating sexual behavior is attracting a lot of hostility.
Also, religion advocates replacing our self-centeredness with spirituality.
Religion is the source of that moral and spiritual education that causes the mystical transformation of Homo Sapiens into civilized human beings.
Some people would rather act like animals, pursuing self gratification and animal passion, rather than make the effort to practice spiritual principles, the rule of law that our Creator has made an essential attribute of human nature.
So, many people advocate driving religion out of our cultural commons, into a totally artificial and separate compartment of society.
Some people are so hostile to religion that they do not want to here about it, reasoning that religion is an ancient myth that will fade away and disappear in the face of reason and science.
And these people are not radical outcasts or some obscure minority.
They have managed to take over our educational establishment.
In fact, it seems like the educational establishment is the source of this antichristian philosophy.
The results of this decline in religion in our society is increasing lawlessness.
Just think about what our entertainment industry is selling.
I was working in a high school the other day and noticed a reading list the school recommended.
Every story was a dark story about kids involved in murder or rape.
And yet, it is a crime to teach kids about religion in school? I've worked for several different major companies during the last few years and many of the people working at all these businesses were insanely immoral barbarians.
Their primary objectives are sex, drugs and violence.
This is not OK.
Not only our religion, but our government, schools and businesses as well, should not be intimidated into accepting such dehumanizing cultural decline anywhere on earth.
If our citizens have spiritual motives, they will influence our business organizations in a spiritual way.
And I am not saying that we should not being consulting about ways and means of improving our economy in every way we can.
I'm just saying that God is the Source of religion, religion is the source of the family, the family is the source of the state, and the business organizations.
We can strive to improve all these aspects of human nature on every level, and we will be more successful when we integrate moral and spiritual principles, ie.
the rule of law, into our economic culture, as well as every other aspect human nature and civilization.
Using the principles of neuroplasticity we can influence the evolution of human nature by education and training.
Use this technology responsibly to teach people to do what is profitable for themselves and everyone else.
Everyone wins, there are plenty of resources to supply everyone with a reasonable standard of living.
We are all responsible, and accountable, for the evolution of our common wealth.