Today my blog will be an essay that I have just finished writing today. I hope you find the ideas useful & illuminating & hopeful :-)

Advancing the world

The title advancing the world is chosen on purpose, to enunciate my belief that all the world is undeveloped; it is just that different places and countries suffer from different kinds of underdevelopment. The situation in many developed countries is that money and wealth has often replaced humanity, while we all understand that the poorer nations suffer from all our classic definitions of underdevelopment especially infrastructure, resources and education.

As a teacher, it has become increasingly clear to me in the last couple of years, that the whole world suffers to a large degree from very limited education.

These and many other topics, will be focuses for this essay.

I intend to do some basic explanations of world history, explaining why certain parts of the world are more prosperous than others in a future essay.

While some people may define me as politically correct, I am pretty sure that many others who are labelled such, may not agree. I increasingly speak my own beliefs. I have often stood my own ground even when my opinion was different to others. I have often stood up for the underdog, but I have no interest in fixed positions, or ideas that paint one group as bad and another as good. I believe that such positions are fraught with problems and end up in war like situations with two different groups pushing their different beliefs and strategies. More often than not, the solution will lie in a blending of the two ideas, a willingness by each group to see the other people’s point of view. This is where real solutions lie.

When we look at the advancement of thinking and education around the world, until very recently, not many people were involved. To be seeing a world where a majority of children are now receiving some education is a big advancement for the world. However, there is basic education and education to wake up the world, assist people to understand why the world is as it is, and ideas for a resolution. We are nowhere near that. In many countries education for most people means reading, writing and maths. Great this achievement is; however, it still remains stage I. The number of people in developed countries who still do not understand why we have wealth imbalances with a clear race connected situation, shows how limited education remains. This will be a key focus of exploration in my writing.

Initially I was writing about my experiences and insights about my time here in the Dominican Republic. I spent most of 2014 here and have been back here since October 2015. As I looked at what I had written, something just did not jowl with what I wanted to write about. My initial writing may get used at a later date for my reflections on how things operate in this country, but I think that my real interest as a westerner living here, is looking at the situation from a more global and historical perspective. To see things in this country and other developing countries, not as a criticism, but more as a form of understanding and realisation that the global distribution of wealth and other things is about much more than just the people of this country.

I do not intend to have a group portrayed as the good ones, and equally nor will I be portraying a bad group. But I do plan to see many issues of the world from the history of colonisation, racism, the evolution of capitalism and imperialism. As much as possible, my goal is to talk about these subjects in a way that is interesting and easy to make sense of. It has long been something that I find annoying that many academics and intellectuals write for each other, rather than for the general population, especially if they are writing about topics that could help educate the whole world and resolve many issues. It is also important to state at this point, that I will not be a traditional leftist. Talking about individual responsibility is just as important as collective. We need to fuse the two.

This year, 2016 has been an important one with the possible selection of a democratic socialist for President of the United States. Bernie Sanders did not get selected to lead the Democratic party, however the reason for that appears to largely lie with an elite within the party who had an intention to support Hillary Clinton and her various corporation alliances. Some people like to diminish the importance of the United States because they feel that it is just one of about 200 countries in the world. They do not believe that the US should be treated any different from any other. In most regards, I agree with that viewpoint, however the truth of the matter is that most of the major media that spans the planet is based in the US, along with all the other entertainment companies in Los Angeles. This means that whatever happens in the US tends to get voiced around the world more than any other country. When Obama became president, the fact that he was the first for their country with African roots, was a very significant event not just in the US, but all around the world. Not just for people with African ancestry either, but for all people of colour, and for white people too, starting to see new possibilities for everything. Despite the significant gains for gender equality that Hillary Clinton could bring to the world, if she had been elected the first woman president of the US, the truth is that she had many connections to big corporations. It has been quite amazing to see how intelligent many people in the US are about wealth inequality. For a long time, the US has been the voice of capitalism operating in the name of democracy. Words like socialism and communism were unheard of in most US media except when relating to the danger of Russia. In the 1950s being a communist in the US, could lose you your job. The arrival into the media in 2015 of Bernie Sanders as an openly democratic socialist, was a shock to many. The US had embarked on a new conversation about wealth distribution, a conversation that has not existed there in any significant way for at least 50 years.

The significance of this event, is that once the United States genuinely begins a new path which challenges capitalism in its current form, or begins a transition to a different economic process, the rest of the world can safely follow as well. And equally important, the media conversation will be heard in other countries, giving new ideas to many.

In the name of democracy, the US has been the significant player in suppressing human rights and reasonable economic conditions for most if not all the developing world, for the last 50 years. As the people of the United States begin looking for a better more humane system under which to live for themselves, they provide the permission and freedom and security that people in poorer nations did not have, to organise a similar transition. Many attempts for reform have occurred in many countries, only to be stopped by US intervention, be it CIA intervention and manipulation, or full-scale war. Other countries with histories of colonial power have also been operating similar to the US, and I will examine those as well, in a future essay.

With the recent election of Trump, which will also be examined later, the key point to make at this point, would be how a desperate working class have entrusted themselves to a billionaire who has promised to improve things, but has a record for failed payments, bankruptcy & promising & not delivering. He did however promise, while Clinton was much quieter about the struggles of the working class. Trump’s problem in trying to resolve economic issues for the US, is that as long as the developing world continues to be massively exploited and as a result able to produce products at a much cheaper price than US workers ever can, the US fails to compete. Unless they are also subjected to mass exploitation, but that would require a decline in property and rental values. Or protectionism, but that forces prices up and causes businesses to have declining sales.

The world has moved to a more critical position than in the past. Previously the exploitation of the poor was largely confined to the third world or developing world. The last 100 years had seen the rising conditions of the working class in all developed countries. Developing countries and the people in them were a source of labour for primary resources, but most manufacturing tended to occur in developed countries. The 1980s saw a major shift of companies moving to developing countries where labour was cheaper, unions were often suppressed by non-democratic governments, environmental and other important safeguards did not exist. Along with massive exploitation, and increased profit acquisition for corporations, the people in developing countries did become more part of the world economic system. Exploited, they certainly have been, but also engaged into a system, where they get to have a piece of the pie, or more often the crumbs. Meanwhile in the developed countries, unemployment has increased as many jobs disappeared to the developing world or were replaced by technology.

The future that we see unfolding now is where wages of people in developed and developing countries could become similar. In the developed world, more and more people struggle with low paid jobs to match the cost of living.

Breaking point is approaching for many, with many cases of people struggling around the world. I was fortunate at University to have very good and inspiring lecturers especially in political science who taught Marxist economic theory. A key insight which was taught was that capitalism is a system based on laws. In essence this is what Marx wrote about in the 1850s. Many communists talk of the writing of Marx as though his only interest was revolution. I am not sure that it was. Marx was equally if more so a scientist rather than an activist. He studied capitalism. He was interested in its evolution. He saw how it was changing in his time and he speculated about what would happen to it in its future. He was very interested in the issue of surplus value. I think his key thought was that capitalism would destroy itself. So maybe we have a choice to close down capitalism, or ultimately, it closes itself down.

Capitalism works on profit

Workers need to be paid enough money so that they can consume the items produced while

the capitalist wants to acquire as much profit as possible. If there is competing companies, then people will generally go with the best price, especially if they have limited income.

But if the workers don’t get sufficient pay they cannot buy the products. This is the major flaw of capitalism. Capitalism has crisis and always will.

You cannot take the wealth for the corporation and still have the amount of value required for all workers to buy all products produced.

Capitalism seeks profit. Capitalism makes for individualised arrangements.

The socialist or communist idea in essence is that everyone contributes to the greater good of the group as much as they can, while taking what they need.

Living in balance with nature is not something that fits with a profit driven economic system. Resources become things to make profit. Actions are done in a way to be most cost effective such as paying as lower a wage as possible, spending as little as possible on protecting the environment. Short term gain is a key imperative of profit motive capitalism.

Societies work best with investment and long-term planning.

What is to be Done?

Transforming the world for all, abundance for all, an end to scarcity thinking & organisation. An end to greed.

A new time for generosity and group planning. From each according to their ability: to each according to their needs & desires.

A return to many values that actually could unite progressives & conservatives. Shifting from the greed culture of what is in it for me, to how can I do my part to create a great world for everyone.

The key to advancing our own situations and that of others is being open to different perspectives and seeing many sides to a story.

Stalled economies is a way I describe things in the developing world, but of course to be honest, people in the developing world, except the elites, have never had a functional economy. An economy where they have enough to do a big spend up at the supermarket. That is a vision I wish for all people on our planet. That we all work and contribute to the greater good & that we all get to equally enjoy the results.

A world of wealth & intelligence for all

The future of the world is one where all people are free to speak and express their different points of view. People have lots of free time and all resources are available to them as they need. There is much less struggle. Creativity is a natural quality of successful humans, not simply something that will only occur if there is an opportunity to get an economic reward. People love to create and invent new things, for themselves and also for others.

In a future world where all people are taken care of, resources are allocated as necessary. There is no measurement of value of food or clothing or medicine or healthcare equipment or education. All people realise that these things are valuable and that all people need guaranteed access to them. The world will look back in sympathy and maybe also humour at how ignorant societies had operated in the past. People will study the transition to a just world. They will study the history of colonisation and racism and exploitation and how people harmed other people to make profits. They will see that this was a time when intelligence was limited. They will recognise that people had been fooled and confused into tribal mindsets, seeing themselves belonging to one group or race or country or religion or whatever, and not seeing the totality of all people, or the place of humans in relation to all other life.

We are at a significant turning point for the planet.

The planet has been abused in the pursuit of profit.

Rubbish has been dumped on the ground, in the seas, on the beaches, cars and motorbikes have driven around emitting pollution into the air, people have abandoned each other on the sides of the road just so they would be okay, rather than having a commitment to the group. As I write this, there is a report that the temperature in the Arctic is seriously warmer than in the past for this time of year.

People are waking up that there is a better way to organise the world.

We are witnessing the world economic system fusing all the world and as one, in a way more obvious than before. But this is a great occurrence, because as this fusing occurs, it becomes easier to transition the world economy to giving all people decent lives and ensuring that we have a policy and action throughout the world that takes care of the environment and other species.

Capitalism and its profit motive and its total disregard for compassion or common sense or survival has brought people to a new level of questioning. Many people realise that continuing on as things currently are, will probably not just crash capitalism, but puts into question the survivability of large numbers of species, various ecosystems including our oceans, and ultimately the long-term existence of our species. This is what is bringing things to a head. As the system pushes for greater and greater profit, increasingly sacrificing nature, and pushing more and more people into poverty, more people become questioning. Beautifully, this comes in an era, where education through increased technology, creates a population of more educated people around the world, learning history, learning about current challenges, joining the dots, and looking to a better future for themselves, those that they are closest to, and ultimately the rest of humanity.

Revolution or transition

Establishing a minimum wage throughout the world as a form of transition.

Taxing corporations as a transitional funding option.

Free education for all, medicine, hospital, food basic, water, clothing.

World referendum on future economic system and creation of genuine democratic systems

freedom for all, prosperity for all, a voice for all.

United Nations policies developed & implemented by panels selected and voted for by people’s councils in every nation. Where all people get to vote on decisions and who represents them. Using technology to benefit all and ensure that all people have a voice.

Environmental solutions for planet trapping carbon & reducing heat.

Developing positive visions for self and others

Recognising trauma of past creates trauma of now.

Possible law of attraction for our results. Developing knowledge that our visions of what we seek can help steer a better course.

Cognitive potential to ensure success of transition of wealth distribution and successful happy prosperous creative lives for all of us.

Blending progressive ideologies with religions for enhanced world situation.

In a future essay, I will expand on the following topic:

Limiting mindsets of oppressed: first abused and then self-abusing.

We all have change to go through. Much of the abuse is over.

We have to forgive and realise there are no bad people. We have to give that up, but if someone tells us to, we will resist. We have to feel free to choose it & realise it makes sense and is the only option.