EOpriv: An Economic Agenda to Complement Salame's Political Strategy

["Norman G. Kurland" <thirdway@cesj.org>]

Dear David Ignatius,

I loved your article in today's Washington Post, "Letting Iraq Save Itself."

Salame's plan is the best I've seen in dealing with the political transition in Iraq.  However, good politics follows good economics, and there is a danger that the UN's Ghasan Salame's strategy will follow the half-baked course of "democratic capitalism", where privatization following the Wall Street model of capitalism, has produced rather than solved problems throughout the world.  This false ideology could worsen already dangerous pressure-cooker situations in countries like Russia, Pakistan, Indonesia, India, Argentina, Brazil and South Africa as well as throughout the developing world. 

My definition of "democratic capitalism" differs radically from that of Michael Novak and his associates at the American Enterprise Institute, including Michael Ludeen, which seems to be the main ideological spearhead of the War against Global Terror, a problem that demands new thinking.  All of the AEI gurus treat the problem of concentrated ownership of productive capital, such as the Iraqi oil industry, as politically and morally irrelevant.  I define democratic capitalism as an inherently unstable and contradictory attempt to marry political democracy with economic plutocracy.  This is the same conceptual flaw and moral omission imbedded in the so-called "third way" of Clinton and Blair. If I'm right on this point then supporters for democratic empowerment of the Iraqi people need to become aware of a new paradigm of political economy, one grounded on universal moral values that America's founders understood and a world view that great leaders like Lincoln, the Popes since Leo XIII, and other great political thinkers throughout history have understood, that is, that an effective political democracy must rest on a solid foundation of economic democracy, one based on spreading access to property and its rights to every citizen.  Ignoring the concentrated ownership and control over modern forms of productive capital displays a moral blindness that leads to class and group conflict and shackles the willingness of highly divergent people to work together for their mutual well-being.

This is the same problem I have with the incomplete vision of the Bush Administration for winning the hearts-and-minds battle in Iraq.  Both Blair and Bush are trapped in a conceptual cul-de-sac in dealing with the Iraqi economy.  The same goes for Rumsfeld and Powell and all the well-endowed think tanks in Washington, with the possible exception of Irwin Stelzer at the Hudson Institute. 

There is a better third way than the shallow one pushed by Clinton and Blair and it is well-rooted in the history of America.  (Please click on http://www.globaljusticemovement.org/thirdway.htm)  And there is a way to introduce that "Just Third Way" in Iraq, a way that none of the critics of America could attack -- Bush and Blair could announce a "first step" plan to be approved by the Governing Council as well as the UN Security Council to assist the Iraqi people to set up a joint stock corporation to own all the oil resources and distribute the shares free to every man, woman and child in Iraq, whether Shiite, Sunni, Kurd, Christian, Jewish or whatever, possibly exempting those who do not support a Just Third Way vision for the future of Iraq.  (For more details, click on http://www.globaljusticemovement.org/subpages_ongoing_act/iraq_just.htm)  There is much more in such a new strategy, but this would be a good fresh start for America, the UK and the UN to reconnect with the Iraqi people.  That is a direct and simple way to show that America is truly committed to put the power over property and money in the hands of the people.  That's the kind of moral preemptive strike that should have preceded the preemptive military strike.  And it's still not to late to score a real moral victory in the war against global terrorism.

How do these ideas strike you as a worthy supplement to those of Salame's?

In Peace through Justice,
Norm Kurland
Center for Economic and Social Justice
Web site: http://www.cesj.org
703-243-5155