Globalization as Social Darwinism, Workers' risk aversion, good policy and personal greed

[Deborah Groban Olson <dgo@esoplaw.com>]

Dear Homesteaders:

        I receive a lot books and articles related to our mission and our efforts to develop policy. I want to share with you my questions arising from a law review article given me by Ted St. Antoine, a distinguished labor law professor at the University of Michigan, and from David Korten's book, When Corporations Rule the World. Both of these authors seem to share much of the world view stated in the COG mission. Yet each of them raises issues that  have not been discussed to date in the COG discussions. I am currently reading Korten's book The Post-Corporate World, and would like any thoughts you may have about that as well.

Theoretical Questions:

Based on Duke Law Professor Paul Carrington’s, 3 The Green Bag Law Journal1998 article “The New Social Darwinism” in which he equates globalization with a resurgence of the Social Darwinist views of the pre-progressive era:

·       

Is
it unrealistic to propose that workers undertake the risk of being
capitalists, because human nature amongst the working class is generally
too risk averse?

·       

Is
it wise for society to focus on a risky proposition such a ownership, as
a major social underpinning? Will it create greater social unrest?

·       

Is
the risk of ownership any greater than the current periodic unemployment
risk to the average worker?

·       

Is
risk the  normal state of affairs for workers and humanity, so why
postulate life-long jobs as a serious option (especially when they are
disappearing in Japan)?

·       

David Korten’s book When Corporations Rule the World, lays out an agenda for social change aimed at meeting the basic COG goals of a sustaniable and just civil society which includes:

·       

a
world-wide economic accounting system that counts all the environmental
and social costs of production,

·       

a
tax system which actively encourages stewardship of resources and
communities and removes taxes on productive work and basic
consumption,

·       

a legal system which eliminates corporate political contributions, requires the media to provide free air time for political debates, bans political advertising, replaces the IMF and WTO with a UN agency that will encourage more self-reliance and less debt by current debtor nations, and seriously limits the rights of corporations by removing their status as “legal persons” for some purposes and exercising the right to grant or revoke corporate charters and thereby set standards for corporate behavior in civil society.

I like a lot of what Korten is trying to accomplish. However, much of it runs contrary to the narrow short-term self-interest motivations of many current players who have the power to make these changes.

Is there anything  about what we in the employee ownership community do or are proposing, that is any more likely to accomplish these ends than what Korten proposes?

 Does employee or broadened ownership provide more room for accommodation between greed and accomplishing our mission?

Best regards,
Deb Olson

Deborah Groban Olson

Project Co-ordinator

Capital Ownership Group Project

Ohio Employee Ownership Center

Kent State University

c/o Shared Equity Strategies, Inc.

3163 Penobscot Building

Detroit, MI 48226

(313) 331-7821 or (313) 964-2460

(f) (313) 331-2567

email: dgo@esoplaw.com

web site:
http://cog.kent.edu