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Dear Barry,
Thanks for the kind remarks.
There are many reasons why labor leaders are not in the forefront of
the "third way" approach to economic democracy, which encompasses such
tools of credit democratization as ESOP/CSOP/CIC/ISOP. (As you, Deb Olson
and other COG participants have correctly suggested, today's labor leaders
generally turn to the ESOP only out of desperation, not as a solution to
the growing wealth and economic power gap in society.) The most important
reason for labor's lack of enthusiasm and commitment to the goals of the
democratization of capital and universal economic empowerment is that labor
leaders are still clinging to the "wage system" paradigm, which is perpetuated
by academic economists from all traditional schools of economics.
It takes a
giant and visionary thinker like a Walter Reuther to become open to
truly revolutionary ideas like the political economy of Louis Kelso.
Most people--politicians, labor leaders, the mass media, Ph.D. candidates,
several people in the COG discussion groups--are unwilling to challenge
the high priests of economics. Binary economists like Kelso reject
the old paradigms for reasons reflected in the many writings on our web
site, click on CESJ Home Page
On the other hand, I've never had trouble getting Kelso's basic ideas across
to ordinary workers, even those I can communicate with only through a good
interpreter like Dan Bell in Russia or Joe Recinos in Latin America.
The magnet concept for communicating the third way is to focus in on
the democratization of capital credit as a radically good social instrument
for achieving economic justice. (For CESJ's definition of this widely misused
term click on Defining Economic Justice
and Social Justice - Center for Economic and Social J )
And no labor leader will ever admit that he is against delivering economic
justice for his members, or that he is more interested in empowering and
enriching himself than he is in empowering and enriching his members.
When organized labor (perhaps after being pushed by their members) finally
recognizes that there is no way for the movement to deliver economic justice
and empowerment for their members until they organize to maximize capital
ownership opportunities for their members (not only through ESOPs and CSOPs
but also through CICs and ISOPs), then and only then will central bankers
and tax systems and investment bankers become transformed to promote the
third way.
For my latest papers to counter traditional economists, highlight and
click on
http://www.cesj.org/library/reforms/moneycredit/price-money.html, and
then our exchanges with Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan by highlighting and
clicking on http://www.cesj.org/resources/exchanges/exchanges.html.
In 1979 I persuaded the leaders of the American Agriculture Movement
to launch their "last tractorcade" by surrounding the Federal Reserve Building
in Washington with 450 tractors. This was the first time the third
way message was delivered to high Fed officials, probably the most powerful
non-accountable group of high priests in the world. No protest movement
in history had previously targeted this sacred temple. When the labor
movements and other leaders of the economically disenfranchised of the
world finally wake up to "the fatal omission" in their demands for economic
justice, millions more around the world will confront their central bankers
to demand the democratization of access to capital credit as a fundamental
human right. I am now working with others in our
growing "third way" network on just such mass demonstrations of non-violent
"people power" for a second "wake-up call" at the Fed.
Besides the good work being advanced by COG participants in beginning
to communicate Kelso's paradigm (although several discussants continue
to see Kelso's paradigm from outdated ideological boxes), the most effective
way to get the attention of organized labor is with money. In other
words, the ownership movement should be able to prove to labor leaders
that more money will flow into the union's treasuries and more members
will be added for expanding their political clout through the principles
and social tools of the third way than through the defective principles
and the "crumb game" they are clinging to today. To illustrate, when
I was hired in 1972 by the National Maritime Union to try to save 5,000
jobs in the East Coast vacation cruise industry (perhaps the first U.S.
industry to bite the dust from the forces of economic globalization), I
suggested that, if successful, the union should change its checkoff system
from membership dues limited exclusively to "wage system benefits" (i.e.,
1% of labor benefits), to a checkoff system linked both to the "ownership
system" or capital benefits that the union generates for its members as
well as traditional labor benefits. In Kelsonian terms, this would
lead to a "binary growth" checkoff system. This direct incentive
will shift the focus of labor
leaders from counterproductive and inflationary wage system demands,
to demands for broader participation in the more synergistic "big pie"
of the ownership system. Then all unions will begin to flex their
combined political muscle on how to remove existing structural barriers
to capital access for their members. Not long thereafter the politicians
will begin running for office based on their support for the reforms called
for in our "Capital Homestead Act. And then unions can begin receiving
the equivalent of investment banking transaction fees for the money they
bring to the private sector on behalf of their members through ESOPs, CSOPs,
CICs and ISOPs, plus checkoffs for dividend distributions, monthly and
annual cash profit sharing distributions and asset accumulations that labor
organizers acquire for their members. Yes, Barry, money talks, for
good labor demands as well as for the counterproductive demands and crumbs
organized labor now demands for their members. When the AFL-CIO makes
the same demands on the Fed as the farmers did in 1979, American labor
will finally begin to lift its members out of the feudalistic wage system.
Anything short of this flies in the face of the ultimate social justice
role that the democratic labor movement was born to achieve.
Barry, every worker, every labor economist and every labor leader should
read "Binary Economics: The New Paradigm" by Robert Ashford and Rodney
Shakespeare, which is reviewed on our web site (click on Book
Review of Binary Economics ) along with many other articles on our
web site, including the ones mentioned above. They need to be re-educated
to remove the cobwebs of both traditional capitalism and traditional socialism.
People in the CESJ network stand ready tackle this job.
To learn more about the difficulties in educating labor leaders, please
look at our experiences in saving 500 jobs at South Bend Lathe with the
support of local labor leaders and with flagrant indifference if not neglect
on the part of regional and national leaders of the United Steel Workers.
Please click on Case
Study-South Bend Lathe.
I hope these comments will be useful to you and others in COG.
Regards,
Norm Kurland
Center for Economic and Social Justice
http://www.cesj.org
E-Mail: thirdway@cesj.org
Barry Randall wrote:
Norman Kurland and all others I have read "A Personal Journey
to a Third Way."
Your lifetime of work on this subject is truly impressive. You
have seen the idea through its gestation phase, the blossoming and now
its growth. You truly have tenacity and
stick-to-it-ness. You also appear to have great patience.
But now you see the results. Or to be more accurate, now you see
the results in the United States of America. In the rest of the world
the idea is growing more slowly. It would have been a good idea for
Russia but that opportunity seems to have been lost.
If I examine why it is growing quickly in the US and not elsewhere I
come to the conclusion that it is because of the lawyers, bankers and others
who are able to make a living putting the deals together. As well,
the tax legislation is such that it is advantageous to the owners to sell
to ESOPs. To be precise, and to paraphrase the Clinton
1992 election slogan, "It's the money, stupid."
How can we convince the unions and coops that they would be better off
financially if they were to adopt ESOPs/CSOPs? Presently, neither
group is looking for anything other than employment. The union leaders
want to keep their jobs and the leaders of the coop movement want to keep
their jobs. Many of them don't seem to be looking beyond that.
Am I correct when I make this statement? And if I am correct, why
is it that the union and coop leaders are not able to see other possibilities?
Or maybe I am more accurate when I say this of the coop movement and less
so of unions. As has been pointed out to me, many unions support
the idea but I don't see a major push by unions to obtain more ownership
for their workers. It is not the union leaders who are at the forefront
of the ESOP/CSOP movement in the US or anywhere else. Is the profit
motive the way to ignite this idea elsewhere or am I on the wrong track?
Must we only be altruistic in working on the ESOP/CSOP concept or should
we change our thinking so that we and everyone else who looks at this looks
at it for personal gain? Would this thinking destroy a good concept
just as short term thinking about personal gain has had negative implications
for other things? Or instead would it ignite the idea
and make it grow more quickly? Barry Randall, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
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