George Soros says the financial system has already disintegrated, and Paul Volcker agrees with him. It has already collapsed, in some ways more comprehensively (and certainly more globally) than in 1929. It’s just running on fumes– or maybe we’re like the cartoon character who ran off a cliff but is just starting to look down and doesn’t yet realize he’s supposed to fall.
Seriously, and don’t dismiss this out of hand: I think it’d be more effective if these bailouts are presented as not just a serious set of economic loans/grants and restructuring, but ALSO a religous ‘jubilee’.
Jubilee– the original concept– asks that we ‘reboot’ the system every 50 years, and forgive all debts and free all ’slaves’. It posits that all people should be returned to their lands and ‘inheritances’, to the unconstrained opportunity for self-sufficiency: liberty and justice for all. And it’s holistic: one lets plants grow and the ecology restore itself. This encompasses many of the ideals the stimulus bills only dream about; and it’s a more comprehensive moral solution to the human condition than any of the half-baked reforms being proposed and discussed by our leaders.
We might as well get all the religious folk involved, get a lot of the nutcases to help society instead of planning for apocalypse. And invest it with real spiritual meaning. The bottom line is, as long as you’re going to blow several TRILLION dollars and mortgage the planetary future, you might as well pull out all the stops!
People talk about end times, ‘2012′. Yes, the world as we know it is ending. But that’s not such a big deal–that’s happened a couple of times already this century! WWI for Europe, WWII for everyone, 1990 again for the soviet bloc. Moving on from such seminal moments takes real courage.
So, there needs to be a real blueprint for the world to come. Something that’s Bretton Woods, the founding of the UN, and the peace of Westphalia (which ended and transcended religious war) all rolled into one, with radical environmental and political reform built in. A set of ideas whose time hasn’t quite come yet– but just might come quite soon. We live in a world where hundreds of millions of migrants are far from home, in debt or in effect indentured servitude to escape hardship; where national boundaries don’t reflect ethnic realities; and where the allegedly respectable and civilized western countries and societies are the deepest in the hole, the most wildly out of whack with the basic math of money and sustainability. Jubilee would inspire not just the policy wonks but the whole world.
But it’s crazy, you say! What if you’re wrong?
Mayor: What do you mean, “biblical”?
Dr Ray Stantz: What he means is Old Testament, Mr. Mayor, real wrath of God type stuff.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Exactly.
Dr Ray Stantz: Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling!
Dr. Egon Spengler: Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes…
Winston Zeddemore: The dead rising from the grave!
Dr. Peter Venkman: Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together… mass hysteria!
…[the Mayor considers the implications of helping the Ghostbusters stop the Apocalyspe... and asks what if they're wrong?]
February 25, 2009 at 6:27 pm |
The idea of a reboot goes along with Austrian School ideas. Bubbles need to collapse to allow values to equalize. In a way we already have a Jubilee reboot for companies and individuals — it’s called bankruptcy — which is the debtor saying, I can’t pay, get what you can, and let me start over. This is what the U.S. should have done instead of trying to extend the bubble and avoid a recession.
Let stuff collapse, it will be painful, but it will sort itself out over time. We already know that the New Deal policies instituted during the Great Depression in America prolonged the crisis. Japan floundered all through the ’90’s with similar policies. Economists, except for Thomas Sowell, have no idea what will work.
February 26, 2009 at 5:58 am |
Matthew, you always give good thoughts.
I’m not sure I agree, nor that I disagree. What would a reset look like? What would go to whom? Would we need to start at some baseline where the whole world’s “assets” are divided equally amongst all citizens? Would it just be debt forgiveness where those who have borrrowed benefit, but those who were prudent don’t? (And then what happens to those assets we bought on credit, which we no longer need to pay back – do the assets get returned to their dealers just as the debt is forgiven – and what if they were consumables?)
I think the system needs a major overhaul. You know I support you there, but I’m not sure (A) what you are proposing, nor (B) if I support it.
That said, the call is one that should be made – for regardless of the details of your plan, nor of my support or opposition, we need to seriously rethink the way we distribute the luxuries and necessities of this world – and thinking in spiritual, halachic, moral terms is certainly a step in the right direction!
February 26, 2009 at 11:18 am |
Yes, mushroom, it might be better right now to let things collapse, but at some point, major creative worldwide public policy / gov’t spending will have to happen, regardless of the current round of bailouts. So maybe the New Deal helped or didn’t; WWII certainly did. But it will not really work unless it’s grounded in an ideology of spiritual renewal and real moral change (which winning WWII was; people forget that ridding the world of fascism was a moral crusade, unafraid to radically occupy and remake countries.)
Tsvi, I don’t think there’s only one answer. The current currency-banking-debt system is broken, and new options should be created instead of the monthly-payment system for almost all bills and debt (isn’t there enough monthly bleeding in the world already??!). People should have more options to join kibbutzim, cooperatives, etc. The arbitrary law and prison/coercion model of justice needs a huge dose of emancipation and common sense (let’s kill all the lawyers!
.
Land reform is necessary to restore basic autonomous sustenance possibilities for the maximum number of people; it doesn’t have to take a violent revolution, I would even cite Venezuela as a partly positive example, in that it’s allowed large landholders to retain a capped but significant holding, and redistributed the rest, and has avoided large-scale bloodshed (and provided free health care to poor people).
Major institutions are genetically programmed to perpetuate and enrich themselves, regardless of human cost: Thus banks, corporations, and even governments and municipalities should be presumed guilty until proven innocent (the opposite as for individuals). Judaism has long recognized the dangers of any and all institutional power, from Shmuel’s warning about appointing a king, to our view of the State or Empire as the monster ‘Leviathan’ when we faced Assyria, Babylonia, Persia, Greece, Rome… True ‘Jubilee’ energy will empower all of us to equally be able to stand up to the biggest governments, corporations, and institutions. The goal is consensus, not majority rule…
February 27, 2009 at 3:14 am |
Interesting. I know some people will get upset with you as sounding socialistic, and especially citing Venezuela as an example. However, G. K. Chesterton and others of the classical liberal bent had a not too different outlook summarized sometimes as desiring every man to have “three acres and a cow”.
April 10, 2009 at 3:13 am |
I’ve been pushing the idea of Jubilee for a while now. A lot of finger waggers tell me it lets the profligate irrresponsible off the hook. Perhaps, but they are the small fries. I think a jubilee should wipe out all mortgages and credit card debt. Those with savings in the bank will be backed up to FDIC limits. The REAL losers in Jubilee will be the Banks, the Credit Card Companies, and countries like CHina. The U.S. is not short of cars, housing, food, or any other material goods but we are “poor”? Why, because we are all in debt? Just wipe it out. The other solutions involve printing (borrowing) money from the very same poor slobs who are in debt and have just had their 401Ks eviscerated by the ‘really smart’ guys on wall street so we can give more money to them? Puhleeeeze. Bring on the Jubilee. I am serious and I think this is a serious idea that should be given serious consideration.