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There is a simple answer to the problems encountered in Russia, where ordinary
citizens sold their shares to fat cats -- Make the shares non-transferable
(except for inheritance) and not usable for collateral for at least ten
years. During that transition and educational time, a national ownership
culture can be promoted through the mass media and basic economic laws
and economic infrastructure (the tax system and central banking system
primarily) can be transformed to promote rapid economic growth linked to
universal access to ownership sharing and profit distributions. In
that way as the Iraqi oil fields are restored to full production levels,
the dividends incomes in increasing amounts will flow directly to each
citizen and family and governance rights and accountability will remain
systematically democratized. (See http://www.cesj.org/homestead/strategies/regional-global/abrahamfederation-iraq.html)
Simultaneously, growth of the non-oil part of the economy can be financed
through binary economic technologies through the issuance of new full dividend
payout, full voting shares purchased on no-interest self-liquidating
credit supplied to every citizen by the central bank and repaid with future
pretax dividends. In other words, to democratize the economy, the
system needs a radical overhaul based on a sounder economic paradigm.
(http://www.cesj.org/binaryeconomics/bergenthirdway-RS.htm) The ultimate
issue is power and whether power, especially economic power, should be
connected to each citizen or put in the hands of a small elite. Power
follows access to private property in the means of production, particularly
when we're discussing the world's second largest oil reserves. How
people address these issues reflect their commitment to genuine economic
democracy and to systemic changes that will empower the people. Only
on such an economic foundation can a free and just political system be
erected.
What happened in Russia was the result of the superficial, unprincipled
and unsound ideas from the left and the right that were brought to Russia
by Western academics, consultants, thinktanks, development agencies and
global financiers. A similar array of superficial ideas are now being
peddled in Iraq. from many of the same sources. The Global Justice
Movement is unique in offering a more economically just alternative plan
for Iraq and the Middle East.
Norm Kurland
CESJ web site: www.cesj.org
Global Justice Movement web site: www.globaljusticemovement.org
John FLORENTIN wrote:
The problem with privatising
the Iraqi National Oil Company and then giving the shares out equally to
all Iraqi citizens is that the poorer ones will frequently be hard up and
will find it tempting to sell their shares. The better off will be able
to hang on to their existing shares or even by more shares from those selling
them.In the end, as usual, the rich will end up owning
everything. The only scheme that might work in the long run is for the
oil business to be owned by some, hopefully, independent mutual type body
owned equally by every Iraqi citizen. John Florentin
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