FEB.9 2012

J.KELVYN RICHARDS:
Discourse 5 :SOCIAL ECOLOGY....A New
morality? alternative choices?

COMMENTS
UPDATES.  
Wealth and Poverty [Oct 2011]

COMMENTS:  
Asbestos mining in Canada, Feb 2012
Capital Gains [Dec.21 2011];
World Population [Dec 2011]
Money, Wealth, Debt, Fraud. [Sept 2011]
Tipping Points [Aug 2011]
DEMOCRACY and Plutocracy[APRIL 24] ;  
Corporate Social Responsibility; Wealth and Poverty.

REVISIONS. Corporate Social Responsibility : Tobacco and the Missouri hospitals legal claim; TPSAC investigation
report into menthol cigarettes[April 30] USA Surgeon General health warnings/Tobacco.  Asbestos [May 2]    Oil:
Chevron found guilty[May 5]Legal notice to sue Shell  by the Athabaskan First Nation,Canada [Nov 30 2011]
Marketing and sale of cigarettes to adolescents,[2011.]US National Transportation Board report, [Dec.2011] Ban on
the display of tobacco products/UK[Dec 2011]

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[please scroll down to read the articles]
8. Corporate Social Responsibility, Feb 2012
7. Capital Gains. December 21 2011.
6. World Population............7 billion: November 2011
5. BANKING - Money, Wealth, Debt, Fraud.  Sept.2011
4. Tipping Points, Aug. 2011
3. Democracy is a fantasy. Plutocracy is the reality. Mar. 2011
2. 'Corporate Social Responsibility': CSR: revised Dec. 2011
1. Wealth and Poverty

8. Corporate Social Responsibility:
Asbestos and the Jeffrey Mine,Canada.
February 2012
What is the point of making statements and policies of CSR ? when they mean nothing in practice, and represent the
double standards of governments and corporations.
A classic example of this has been seen in the town of Asbestos in Canada recently. The Ecologist magazine[Feb 2012]
reports that the government of Canada is to support  the province of Quebec to reopen the Jeffrey Mine, a major source of
chrysolite asbestos. The asbestos is to be exported to India, Indonesia, and the Philippines for use in the construction
industry.
We see that Canada actively mines and sells asbestos to any customers.
This is despite the fact that asbestos fibres are the cause of various forms of lung cancer.
This is despite the fact that the Government  knows of these dangers, and actively removes asbestos from buildings, and
forbids its use in building operations in Canada.
These actions are tantamount to hypocrisy driven by the desire 'make money'.
[for a more detailed discussion about the dangers of asbestos, please go to Comment 2]

7. CAPITAL GAINS: December 21 2011.
How do the rich get richer?

Capital gains are the key ingredient of income disparity in the US-- and the force behind the winner takes all mantra of our
economic system. About 315,000 individuals  are making about half of all capital gains on the sale of shares or property
after 1 year; and these capital gains make up 60% of the income made by  the Forbes 400.                                              
The reduction in the tax  from 20% to 15%  continued the step-by-step tradition  of cutting this tax to create more wealth.
1978: it had first been reduced from 35% to 28% at a time of stock market
and economic stagnation.                                                                                                                                                          
 1981: at the start of the Reagan era, it was reduced again to 20%-- raised back to 28% in 1987, on the eve of the October
19 crash in the market.                                                                                                                                                      
1997: Clinton  reduced it back to 20%, which move led to the explosion of hedge funds and private equity firms-- the most
"rapidly rising cohort within the top 1 per cent.".
The facts are clear, according to the Congressional Budget Office,  more than 80%  of the increase in income
inequality was the result of an increase in the share of household income from capital gains. In fact, you can go so far as to
claim that "Capital Gains income is the most unevenly distributed-- and volatile-- source of household  income,"
according to Laura D'Andrea Tyson,  University of California  business professor and former chairwoman of the Council of
Economic Advisers under President Clinton.      The super wealthy plutocrats  obtained the largest share of national
income-- 25% of the nation's wealth- greater than any other  industrial nation in the  period of 1979 to 2005.

………..based on a recent report in Yahoo News, December 2011.


6. World Population 2011 [Dec 8th 2011]

Having read the Human Development Report, and the UNFPA report about ‘World Population’ 2011, in association with
Gunnar Rundgren’s new book ‘Garden Earth’, it seems that the impact of the world population on the global environment is
more complicated than simply numbers.

November 2011, it is estimated by the UN, the World Bank, that the planet Earth has a human population of 7 billion. It is
estimated that 50% live in the urban areas.
NASA reports that satellite images show 3% of the earth’s surface is urbanized.
While there are more people living on earth than at any other time, 50% of the people live on 3% of the land. The other
50% occupy 97% of the land. Does this count as global overcrowding? or simply aspects of urban living? How many more
people can survive on the other 97% of earth?
It is easy to think that there are too many people and that the world is subject to overpopulation,  associated with excessive
demands for food, water, jobs, resource exploitation, and destruction of the environment, green house gases, and climate
change.

But total numbers do not tell the whole story.
If you look at a map of population distribution and density, the most notable feature is that most of the earth’s surface
supports fewer than 5 people per square km and  is still relatively empty.
Large tracts of the earth’s surface are empty, whereas specific urban locations are overwhelmed by the number of people.
Across the world there are, on average, 52 persons per square kilometer [psk].  Today, the largest countries include
Russia with 17 million square kilometers; Canada with 9.9 million square kilometers; the USA, 9.8 million square kilometers;
China, 9.5 million square kilometers; Brazil, 8.5 million square kilometers; Australia with 7.7 million square kilometers.
Countries like Canada and Russia have extensive land areas with few or no inhabitants. Both countries are cold and
freezing for many days of the year. Russia has 8.3 persons for every square kilometer; while Canada has 3.4 persons psk.
Some countries are hot and dry and deserted like parts of Australia, with only 3 persons psk. Other countries, like India, are
hot and dry and wet, with 368 persons psk.  China is a vast land space, with cities like Shanghai, and Beijing each with up
to 20 million people, and a general population density of 140 persons psk.
Even with a population of 7 billion, the world still has vast empty spaces: left empty because they are either too
cold/wet/hot/or dry to live comfortably.  The greatest concentrations of people are to be found [where they have always
been] in the valleys of the main rivers such as the Nile, the Ganges, and the Yangtse; and the coastal zones of New York,
Los Angeles, Rio de Janeiro, Shanghai, Lagos.  
Countries like China [with 1.3 billion people] and India [1.2 billion] have the greatest numbers, and have wide open spaces.
Their peoples can move into these more open spaces, but instead they are moving into the cities. This is the pattern for the
rest of the world. As the total numbers of people increase, they are distributed unevenly. There are many open, empty
spaces, such as the Sahara Desert, the grasslands of Africa, the steppes of Russia, and China, the Amazon forests, the
glaciers of Greenland. But the peoples are moving to the cities, away from the fields to the slums of Tokyo, 32 million;
Mexico, New York, Mumbai,  with 20 million; Jakarta, Sao Paulo, Delhi, 19 million; Osaka, Shanghai, 17 million.
Planners and politicians of the United Nations argue about the merits of the field or the city. The consensus, at this time, is
that it may be better for the peoples to be concentrated where they can receive social benefits and medical care, where
schools and hospitals are easily accessible by bus or bicycle.   
The United Nations Population Agency estimates that 43% of the global population is under the age of 25.  2.2 billion are
children, of which many will die before they get to 5 years old. A significant improvement in child care and medicine will lead
to a lower death rate, and an increase in population over the next ten years. 1.8 billion of the 7 billion  is aged between 10
and 25 and now form the largest cohort of young people ever. Even though there are more children and adolescents, there
is evidence [www.geography.about.com] that the numbers of children have stabilized, even that in some areas we have
‘peak child’[after Gunnar Rundgren.] In particular, many of the countries of the ‘developed’ world have a declining
population. For example, Ukraine: 0.8% natural decrease annually; 28% total population decrease by 2050; Russia: -0.6%;
-22%; Belarus -0.6%; -12%;Bulgaria -0.5%; -34%; Latvia -0.5%; -23%; Lithuania -0.4%; -15%; Hungary -0.3%; -11%;
Romania -0.2%; -29%;Estonia -0.2%; -23%; Moldova -0.2%; -21%; Croatia -0.2%; -14%;Germany -0.2%; -9%; Czech
Republic -0.1%; -8%; Japan 0%; -21%; Poland 0%; -17%;Slovakia 0%; -12%; Austria 0%; 8% increase; Italy 0%; -5%;
Slovenia 0%; -5%; Greece 0%; -4%.

Fewer families comprise 4 or 6 children; more have two children. In China, it is still the case that one child families are the
norm and will result in a slower/smaller natural expansion of population  by child birth. Overall, it seems that birth rates are
down. And the threatened ‘population explosion’, predicted in the 1990’s, is not going to happen. Global Issues.org  reports
that it is also the case that 21,000 children die everyday! that is, 7.6 million a year!

From UNICEF, ‘State of the World’s children’  2010:
22 million infants are not protected from diseases by routine immunization;
7.6 million children  worldwide died before their 5th birthday in 2010;
4 million newborns worldwide are dying in the first month of life;
2 million children under 15 are living with HIV;
500,000 women die each year from causes related to pregnancy and childbirth.

.  The UN Population Agency suggests that the future increases in total population will be the result of higher survival rates
amongst all sectors of the living population rather than significant  increases in birth rates. People will live longer due to
better medical care. Babies and their mothers will survive as a result of secure water, sanitation, vaccination. Wikipedia/CIA
World Fact Book inform us that in 1965 it was normal for 15.5 persons per 1000 to die. They forecast that in 2015
the death rate will be 8.3 per 1000. It is clear that the ‘population explosion’ has not happened. The families in the countries
of the developing world  are not having many children, but are trying to control their lives by adopting family planning.  We
must recognize that higher survival rates will occur only if  aid resources are allocated to improved social benefits and
medical care.
At the same time, we already know that extreme events like floods, drought, higher temperatures, lower rainfall, tornadoes,
earthquakes, tsunami, will disastrously impact upon communities on islands, by the coast, in grasslands, and will result in
higher death rates. Given that large numbers of people are living by the coasts, they may be subject to natural disasters
leading to mass loss of life, as we have seen over the years in the Ganges Delta, Aceh in Indonesia, the Fukushima
tsunami in Japan, where thousands of people were swept away by the sea.

Why is it that economists, politicians, sociologists, social ecologists, planners and such like, are so concerned about the
numbers of people on the earth?
The UNFPA, in their recent report, ask why focus on the over population by the ‘poor many’?  Why pay little attention to the
over-consumption of the ‘rich few’?
It is easy to forget that out of the 7 billion, 10 million people control $50 trillion of global GDP and $19 trillion is spent by the
500,000 who each earn more than $100,000 a year. 0.05% of the global population live in luxury, controlling 80% of
the wealth. 99.95% live in relative poverty.
Nearly all the consumption and production that occurs in communities is managed by the ‘1%’ of the global population.
These figures reveal that over consumption, exploitation of resources, the drive for growth and profit is manipulated by the
1%. It is not the direct impact of increasing population. We have to accept that many of the adults included in the other 6.5
billion [along with 2,2 billion children, or 1.8 billion youth]  may not have more than $2 dollars a day each, and will only be
scratching a living in the fields or searching for scraps in the slums.
Social ecologists like Ted Trainer and Frank Peirce argue that across the world an average person requires 2.7
hectares of land to provide their basic needs for food, water, and fuel. In India each person uses 1 hectare. On the other
hand, the average American consumes the output from 9.5 hectares. If every citizen lived the lifestyle of the average
American, we would need the land space equivalent to 5 Planets Earth. Therefore,  most people cannot aspire to the
standards of living enjoyed by the Americans, or the citizens of the EU, or Japan. There is not enough land. The 6.5 billion
have no prospect of achieving the capitalist dream of the 500,000.  
Once they realize this, they will demand some answers, and demonstrate against their governments. Their future will be
social unrest! Social protest! In some countries, their present is already demonstration and riot, and government change.
At this time, 2011, the majority of global resources and most of the pollution, are the responsibility of the capitalist elite, the
10+ million. The present environmental crises are not the result of excessive consumption by the majority.
It is true that if the 99% did demand more income, more food, more water, more jobs, more services, and facilities, their
demands would destroy the biosphere. Planners, politicians, and managers and governors are concerned about the total
number of people on Earth in anticipation of the consequences of their future demands simply because their demands
cannot be met. Human societies are caught in a trap. Many citizens want jobs, better wages, so as to buy more things. They
want growth and savings so as to secure their futures. They do not want to spend their lives scratching the soil or
scavenging the streets.
But a sustainable future for all is one without growth. A sustainable future is a subsistent, low growth economy. The
poor majority will have to stay on the farm and in the village or in the city and the  slum. The governments will have to
devise projects to make their lives acceptable, tolerable, bearable.
The truth is that even if communities removed the rich elite, and redistributed their wealth, the monies would not improve
the lives of the 7+ billion. For example, the $70 trillion, controlled by the 1%, divided amongst the 7 billion would provide a
gift of $10,000, but no security for the future. The governments of the day would be better advised to tax the rich and
spend the taxes on social benefits, social enterprises, and medical care.
At the moment, there are large empty spaces: at some time, there will have to be migration from the urban areas e.g.
from China to Russia; India to China; from Europe to Russia; from Europe to Canada; from Europe to Australia; Arabia to
Africa. Such changes in policy will cause significant changes in perspectives, such as the abandonment of concepts of
nationalism and country territory.
If  global population is to be more stabilized, overall family size will need to be reduced to one child per family, and family
planning be freely available to all citizens………whatever the local religions advocate!
We are at the stage where any improvements in health care will result in the survival of more people. 7 billion will become
7.5 billion simply by reducing the number of deaths in childbirth, and offering care to the aged so that they live longer.
But as in the past, the future of the human race is rooted in innovation. For example, innovations and inventions could be
planned to render life in cold spaces, in hot  places, in slums, possible and more comfortable. Installations need to be
designed to protect the shoreline. Water security can only be achieved in future by desalinization of ocean waters. Now,
water sources are wasted and  limit human survival. All nations must exploit the most secure renewable energy, solar
power, and export the power across the globe, such as, from the Sahara to the EU.
The benefits of high technology must be directed to better living standards for all citizens. The necessary innovations must
be directed to enable all people to live a ‘good life’. They should not be designed solely for the benefit of the inventor and
innovator,  the capitalist entrepreneur.  The innovations are to be part of a ‘social business’ network whereby communities
are actively involved caring and sharing for each other.
If there are no changes, most people, that is 6+billion, will continue to be relatively poor, living in slums and working in
rubbish or scratching the soil in the fields. The poor majority will remain to be exploited by the capitalist elites. The
10+million capitalists will continue to form the ruling plutocracy and organize the exploitation of the environment for the
benefit of their own families. Their wealth will enable them to live wherever they please.
But for a fair, equitable future for all, they cannot be allowed to continue developing the capitalist system. All families and
communities are to be part of a cooperative, social business system which works in favour of 7+billion people, developing
micro-finance to promote community enterpise., and collective survival.



5. BANKING - MONEY, WEALTH, DEBT, FRAUD.

Money is an electronic demand deposit in a bank
Money is digital
.
Many people think of wealth as cash, in terms of coins and notes and gold, and they believe that the 1221 billionaires that
have $4 trillion; or the 10.1 million people that have $40 trillion, keep it in a vault in their banks or on their premises. Of
course, this cannot be the case because we are talking about sums of ‘money’ that can only be conceived as entries in a
statement of account, as digits, as units, as digital! Today the figures are mind boggling. In 2011 the UN/World Bank
estimated that the total legal tender is $600 trillion. In 2008, the Bank of England calculated that $200 trillion had been lost
in the sub-prime mortgage crisis. World Wealth Reports in 2011 said $60 trillion was produced by economic enterprise
[GDP]; and fund managers deal in thousands of $trillion dollars.
While I know what one pound or euro or dollar looks like, I have no idea about a trillion or a million. They only make sense
as digital entries on a balance sheet. They are digital money, numbers on balance sheets; that bankers tell us are the
equivalent of ‘cash’!  
Remember that ‘cash money’ is only pieces of paper or metal coins or even buttons or shells. In fact, ‘money’ is anything
that we declare as ‘money’, a store of value, including lists of numbers on a balance sheet in a ledger displayed on
computer screens.

Money as debt,
wealth as debt.
Today, the global banking system is Fractional Reserve Banking. This system states that private banks create new money
as loans and that governments do not print new money, unless ordered to do so by the Central Bank. [We often forget that
governments have the right to print money as they require.]
Fractional Reserve Banking allows private banks to lend many times more money than they have as deposits. As a simple
example: if a private bank has a deposit of $1, it can create loans that are x10, up to x70 according to the security offered
to support the loan. So you may get a loan of $70, but the bank has only $1.
A more realistic example is that the bank has cash deposits of $1million and can create up to $70 million in new loan money
as debt. Most of the money created by banks is digital. It is not cash, nor hard currency.  
This leads to a paradox. If 97% of money is digital, created by a bank or finance house or hedge fund or investment fund
as debt, does that mean that  ‘wealth’is,  in fact, debt? digital money  created as a product of loan arrangements.
The ‘rich’, [that is, the 10.1 million millionaires,] have the greatest debts and are deemed to have the greatest wealth
because the banks trust them to pay back.  Their assets are all offered as security against their loans? They therefore
have the greatest liabilities? Someone worth $1million is able to borrow up to $70 million as debt, contracted to the bank to
pay interest [$185 million @5% over 20 yrs.] and principal on the loan?

Banks create new money
According to Fractional Reserve Banking, a bank calculates the total deposits at the end of the day or week and uses the
money to offer loans and as to create new money. The bank may have GBP1 million in cash. This is placed in reserve. The
bank offers loans and creates new money at the stroke of a pen or computer key: say GBP20 million in total. The 1 million
is used to create 20 million!
When I am given a loan by the bank, at a given interest rate for a period of years, I know it is digital, but I still think of it as a
pile of ‘cash’ in my bank vault.  Let us say that I borrow GBP1000 at 8% for 20 years. When a bank makes the loan, it
simply types in to its account that I owe it a sum of money - asset. It also types into my account that I have a bank deposit of
the same amount - liability. There is no cash involved! It is ‘loan money’: it is digital entries. The bank has not given me
actual money, but I sign a contract that commits me to pay the amount and the compound interest as if it was actual money.
I have to pay for the service of making entries in bank statements that represent loan money + interest. In my case, over
the 20 years, I pay the principal, GBP1000, and the interest, GBP4660.  The bank gains an asset of GBP5660. What I did
not realize until now is that the bank, from the start, gave me  an electronic demand deposit. I gave the bank 240 monthly
cash payments, worth in total GBP5660.

Is this theft? Is it fraud? Is it a con-trick? Is it a Ponzi scheme?
It is what banks are allowed to do! It is how they create new money.

Of course, each transaction does have administrative costs that would justify a fee. But each transaction generates
payments for the bank of principal plus interest: a complete fraud; grand larceny! given that the principal is created, and
then deleted as digital entries. At the present time, the income of banks depends upon the creation of ‘loan money’. It is in
the interests of banks to make the biggest loans possible so that they can receive the principal + interest. If there are no
loans, there is no new money, no interest, and no profits.
New Economics Foundation [2011] tells me that in the UK each year banks create money and lend at interest, generating
profits of GBP20 billion. The banks are totally dependent upon making loans so as to make new money. Recently, at the
meetings of the Finance ministers of the EU and the USA, Sept. 2011, we had a classic example of Fractional Reserve
Banking. It had been agreed that E440 billion were allocated to a European Financial Stability Fund. Tim Geithner, the
Secretary of State of the Treasury for the USA [and once leading member of GoldmanSachs] urged the fund to offer the
sum as loans and so create up to E1.5 trillion. The matter was not resolved.

Casino Banking
As banking has become ‘unregulated’, bankers have been devising more devices such as CDOs[collateral debt obligations]
and CDS [credit default swaps] to allow them to cover their ‘risk’ of default. They can now make loans to any one and insure
against loss. Collateral or security is no longer required. Or so they thought.
What happened in 2004 to 2008 is that banks and funds made loans to clients who had little money, little income, and who
would default! At that time, what became important was the ‘loan’, and the chance to create new money with interest.[every
1000 generates 5660] After all, the loan money was ‘created’ and ‘deleted’ by the stroke of computer key. It did not really
exist. It did not matter to whom, and for what, the loan was agreed. The lenders did not care about the creditability of the
borrowers because they had devised an insurance strategy whereby they were insured for ‘default’. In the USA some banks
packaged the loans as AAA derivatives and sold them on as investments packages.
Banks made more profits from the default insurance and derivatives than from the loans.  The banks gained whether the
clients paid their loans or defaulted. There is evidence that banks made bets for default and against payment. They sold
mortgages, and then gambled that the clients would default. When they did, the bankers won their bet, and the clients lost
their houses. What sort of con-trick is that? But then in 2007, millions of clients stopped paying principal + interest and
stopped seeking loans, stopped settling their debts. The banks lost income, had no money to pay their own debts, and
went bankrupt. They demanded that the USA government printed money to bail them out. Yet another fraud. Elsewhere,
the clients took fright and demanded their money back, causing a run on the bank. As we know the banks did not have the
cash, as they had used it to make loans. Very soon the banks and the clients had no money! Yet another fraud! How do
the banks get away with it?

Governments and Banking
The customers of banks and credit companies are actively involved in the creation of new money as debt. I realize now that
the banks had devised a system for actively creating new money as debt, and on a global scale. For example, governments
are the biggest customers of private banks. In the past they could not raise enough revenue to fund their demands for
weapons, war, or social welfare services, or civil service salaries and pensions, health services, etc., so they arranged with
some banks to borrow the money. The banks made sure that it was available at once and managed it to secure the costs of
the governments. The situation today has developed and expanded, and salaries, savings, and production and sales are
part of the loan system.
I think about my salary or my pension as if it was ‘cash in hand’. But it was not! They were payments made by public
corporations in the Education Services. There was no cash. All payments were digital entries into my bank accounts. So I
have to confront the fact that my employers - the education ministry and the government- all borrowed loan money to pay
for their public services. The principal was created, and will be deleted, at the end of the contract. This is tantamount to
saying that the principal sum exists only as the basis for the calculation of the interest fee to be charged and paid.  
Fractional Reserve Banking means that customers and corporations do not need ‘cash’.  They do need a finance house
whose customers feel confident enough to allow it to create ‘loan money’ for them. Corporations and governments borrow
the money from the Central Banks and their affiliated private banks. Today, the economies of the world are managed by
these private banks. Governments are slow to reform the banking system because they are totally embroiled and
dependent upon the creation of new money. The officers of governments have forgotten, or worse, do not know, that a
legal government is fully entitled to create new money by printing it, and does not have to borrow it.

‘Promise to pay’
The validity of debt is the ‘promise to pay’. It is not necessary for the customers to have the money at the time of their
loans. The banks create the money as ledger entries, so nobody has the money as cash. The expanding demands for
products are based on debt. The producers and businesses and consumers borrow the money from the bankers and
investors. The whole system is based on ‘promise to pay’ and no one pays up front.
The most reliable promises to pay are thought to be  those of governments, and these are categorized AAA investments.
Over recent years, this game has been played out. Governments have been enticed by their bankers to borrow more and
more money, and pay increasing rates of interest , and have gone bankrupt!

Rich or Poor
If all this is correct, what does it mean to be ‘wealthy’ or ‘rich’ or ‘poor’?
To be poor is to have no cash and no access to loan money, no debt.  
To be ‘wealthy’ is to be in debt. You will have access to cash which can be used to create loan money. But everything you
have was bought on credit, as a debt with loan money or advances from credit cards; And  is used as collateral to secure
the loan.
To be ‘rich’, a millionaire, is to have sources of cash, and investments, and to be in debt with access to money as credit.
It is important to remember that the majority of the global population is poor: 80% survive on less than $10 a day; 95% on
less than $64 a day. Only an elite minority are actively involved in the Fractional Reserve Banking game. The poor majority
will never be able to access a bank loan.
But everybody is subject to the effects of loans to Corporations and Governments. As we have seen recently, during the so-
called ‘African Spring’ the leaders of  the governments of  Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Jordan, Yemen, Morocco, among
many others, all had secret accounts in ‘big banks’ worth many billions of dollars or pounds or euros. They were involved in
major loan negotiations for the purchase of weapons, aircraft, ships and, of course, personal luxuries! The loans and
derivatives and swaps derived by the ‘big banks’ to benefit these governments, constantly disrupt the lives of the citizens,
the poor majority. The governments create huge debts, and tax their citizens to gather revenue to pay the debts.
Corporations may want to exploit forests, rivers, minerals, farming, roads, railways,  for their own profit, and will negotiate
with governments and banks to raise the finance. The local citizens may get jobs….if they are lucky!

Capitalism and Debt
2011. The current disputes and accusations criticizing governments, such as Greece, Spain, Portugal, Iceland, Ireland, that
have large debts, is a complete farce, fraud, deceit. It ignores the fact that every citizen in developed countries; all
corporations, and all governments across the world are in debt. The debts are being managed and manipulated by the
private banks and their central banks for their profits.
The essence of a system of Fractional Reserve Banking is that 97% of wealth is ‘loan money’, represented as digital entries
on balance sheets. The capitalist system operates as a debt system. The Central Banks of Europe, and the USA, the IMF,
and the World Bank are private corporations protecting the interests of the private banks, who are determined to maintain
their control over governments. They do this by promoting the system of ‘debt money’, and making sure that each
government pays their debts:  principal + interest, impoverishing themselves, and enriching the central banks and their
associated banks.
The current crises in the EU are generated and maintained by the system of debt money. For example, If  any government,
say Greece, wants to borrow $1million for 10 years@8%, they will have to pay back principal + interest, $3,158,925.. If the
same government wants to borrow another $1 million for 10 years, the banks can demand 25% interest, and the repayment
of $10,313,225. The con-trick is that the excessive interest makes sure that the client defaults; the banks are able to make
credit default swaps to bet on the default. The banks win, the client loses everything. In this way loans of $2 million are
converted into repayments of $13,472,150! and drive the government to bankruptcy.[It is worth reminding ourselves that
the banks arrange the loans to create the money out of nothing and generate their profits from the repayments]. If any
country such as Greece, experiences an economic decline, leading to recession, and depression, growth stops. It no longer
generates enough profit to pay off the debts, nor to organize government services. As it is part of the Eurozone, it is not
allowed to print money to solve any deficit. It becomes bankrupt. If Greece defaults, the banks are deprived of their profits.
On the other hand, the financial demands of some countries, like the USA, UK, Japan, are so great that they arrange with
the banks to pay only the interest. For example, the national debt of the USA is $15 trillion. The government pays only the
annual interest of $500 billion. The economy of the USA must grow at an agreed rate so as to generate a surplus to pay
loan interest. If not it will default.
On a smaller scale, if you want to start a business, and  get a bank loan, you sign a contract with a bank to pay
the principal + interest in return for the bank paying your costs. It means that you are working for the bank. If you want to
pay off your debts, then your business must grow, and make more profits. Debts trigger the drive for growth.

Social Reform
As long as we operate Fractional Reserve Banking it will be impossible to develop a steady state economy and to control
growth and production and limit resource exploitation.
Of course, any government could change the rules, abandon Fractional Reserve Banking, cancel all loans, and set up a
new system of finance. Any government could abandon  'an Industrial Growth Economy' and develop a 'steady state
economy'. If the 'developing world' wanted to live in the future at the current rates of consumption of Europe and the USA,
they  would need the biocapacity of 5 Earths. This is impossible. The Earth may be 'developing' but it is not 'growing'. We
cannot 'grow' forever on a finite planet. We are already consuming too many resources, producing more waste than we can
absorb, living beyond our ecological means. A steady state economy is stable, with little growth, no debt, full reserve
banking, greater equality, redistribution of wealth, a steady population, limited consumption, sustainable, with a balanced
ecosystem.

Banking Reform
There are global demands for the reform of the Fractional Reserve Banking system. Even the present Governor of the
Bank of England, Mervyn King,  has admitted that it is unsustainable, undesirable, unstable, unreliable.
Fractional Reserve Banking, as currently practiced, requires governments to raise taxes to pay off their loans. It is no
longer the case that taxes are used to fund government programmes. Private banks are not supposed to manage the
finances and economics of a country but they do. Only Governments are allowed by law to print money, to create money as
currency, but banks create new money from loans as debt. Over recent months in the UK, the printing of new money, or
quantitative easing as it is now called, is reported as a weakness, as undesirable. This is a marker of the extent to which we
have all become deceived by the private bankers and their drive to maximize their  profits. It is common sense to assert that
if governments could print the monies they need, then they would not need banks! nor have to pay interest.
Whereas governments could/should print the money that they require to operate their government services and facil!tate
the payment of wages and project costs, Fractional Reserve Banking drives the capitalist system to depend on debts, to
promote growth at 5/10/15% per year, so as to pay off loans, and make investments. Once growth stalls, the capitalist
system goes into decline, depression, recession. Corporations and governments become bankrupt, unable to pay off loans,
unable to make loans, going out of business.
As we have seen, Banks are allowed to create up to 70 times their cash reserves. GBP1,000,000 is used to create
GBP70,000,000. This reserve-ratio is regarded by many as  too great, leading the banks to create too much unsecured
‘debt money’ at too high interest rates .
But the banks could be subject to much stricter regulation: 1,000,000 creating 10,000,000.Some reformers want to be
stricter and demand that a reserve of GBP1,000,000 can only be used to create a debt of GBP1,000,000: that all loans are
secured by matching reserves. This is called Full Reserve Banking. Strangely, this represents what many people believe is
how banks operate at the moment – a measure of the deception that has been promoted by all banks. The new  rule would
be that if banks  made a loan of GBP1million, a reserve of 1million must be placed in the Bank of England. If this is to be
effective, it would have to operate in all currencies across the world. It would have to be strictly regulated.
Many citizens, including myself, want the convenience of cash deposits being held in their local bank, and bills being paid
as a service. This money is not to be available for investment, nor for casino banking. This money is not to be available for
loan money. It is to be safe for my purposes, not for those of the bank. On the other hand, I recognize that many clients will
want their money to be invested for the highest possible returns, and are willing to take the consequences in the case of
financial crises. This reform would lead to the separation of  investment accounts, and deposit accounts.
The government of a country has the legal right to print money. Any government could/should print money to cover debts
and budgets according to needs. In fact, if a government printed money as needed, there would be no need to borrow
money; nor to pay  principal + interest; nor for taxation. Under this system, the Treasury would manage the country’s
finances, and control deflation and inflation, through the Bank of England.  
Another version of this sort of reform is community currency. According to this, local communities in towns and
neighbourhoods agree to create a system of exchange whereby services are provided and paid for by local citizens using a
local currency e.g. Totnes pound; Brixton pound. This strategy  secures trade within a locality, and eliminates international
exchanges. It has become popular recently in Italy where towns have abandoned the euro so as to create a local currency
and avoid all the current difficulties.
The present difficulties in Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal, are derived from the Fractional Reserve Banking. Their
governments were enticed to negotiate loans with ‘big banks’ and are now saddled with the payment of  principal + interest.
I am no expert, but it seems to me that the situation would be greatly improved if they were required to repay the interest
only, at a lower rate. As we have seen above, the principal is created and deleted as digital entries. Of course, all the
accusations are being made by the ‘big banks’ of France and Germany simply because they want to secure their profits,
and to avoid the precedent of national default. They are not in the least concerned about the future of the EU.
The model for the survival of these countries may be seen in ‘community currencies’. At the moment, they are all part of the
Eurozone and are committed to the euro. But given that the eurozone is subject to the management of the private banking
system of the World Bank, IMF and Central Banks these countries have to grow and make profits. If a country cannot grow
and make profits, then it may be better to create a ‘country currency’. This currency would be valid only in the country. The
government could print the currency as needed. There would be no loans, and no interest to be paid. In the case of
Greece, it could reissue the ‘drachma’ and manage the economy to benefit the citizens, and not the central banks.
Alternatively, the unity of the EU and the eurozone could be secured by appointing an EU Central Bank as an agency for
the EU, and printing euros in response to the needs of the European Union, and member countries.

REFERENCES:
YOUTUBE, video, Money as Debt.
YOUTUBE, video, Money as Debt II
YOUTUBE: video, Zeigeist
YOUTUBE: video, Debtocracy
DVD: Inside Job, Charles Ferguson
DVD: The Ascent of Money, Niall Ferguson
Money and Debt, Josef Hasslberger 1999.
Green New Deal, the Green New Deal Group, 2011.
Good Banking, the New Economics Foundation with Compass, 2011
How poor is Poor, the New Economics Foundation 2011
Enough is Enough, report of the Steady State Economy Conference 2008
The Great Transition, New Economics .org., 2010

4.TIPPING POINTS: for our global, capitalist, high
growth system.[Aug 2011]
This essay is an analysis of the implications of our tendencies to see issues in isolation, and our attempts to resolve them
as single issues. We consistently  ignore the facts that the resolution of one issue can make others worse: tipping us from
one crisis to another. For example, we may welcome the declaration of water as a human right, ignoring the fact that across
the globe, water is not secure. We may want to promote a steady state economy, without planning for no-growth markets.
We may welcome peak demands, but then resent our dependence on other countries.

1. OIL, COAL/NUCLEAR POWER;.IRON/STEEL
2. WATER; SANITATION.
3. ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGES; GREENHOUSE EFFECTS.
4. POPULATION; POLLUTION: CLIMATE CHANGES.
5. INDUSTRIAL REFORMS; GROW OR DIE/LIMITS TO GROWTH.STEADY STATE ECONOMY
6. MONETARY REFORMS; INVESTMENTS. FRACTIONAL/FULL RESERVE BANKING.
7. ALLEVIATION OF POVERTY.

1.  Various scientists, such as Prof. Hubbert, have confirmed that the global economy has reached ‘peak oil’. It happened
in the USA in 1976, meeting Hubbert’s  prediction. Since that time the USA has been consuming more and more  global oil.
And the American politicians have been complaining increasingly about the US dependence on other countries. What this
means is that the world demand for oil exceeds supply. This peak has come at a time when countries like China, India,
Brazil, are greatly increasing their demands. The consequences of the shortage of oil supply over the next 50 years will be
the increasing economic decline of the principal countries of the G8/ G20/ and even G70.   We all have to accept that once
the oil has been drilled out of the ground, there is no more. The global economy is currently totally dependent on fuel oils
for transport, heating, petrochemicals such as fertilizers. The ‘developing world’ will not take kindly to the fact that the
‘developed world’ has already taken the best, the most accessible, and  most of fuel oil!  

At the same time, we have reached the point of ‘peak coal’. Many people have not been bothered by this trend because
they have believed that the large scale use of various coals was over: this is to forget that in 2011 coal is still used to
generate most of the electricity across the world. The development of industries across China and India will become
increasingly dependent upon electricity, as generated from ‘hydro’; or from lignite/bituminous coal  or from ‘nuclear power’.
Any support for nuclear power is constantly undermined by ecological disasters as at Fukushima in Japan 2011; or Three
Mile Island in USA in 1979; Chernobyl in USSR/Ukraine 1986; as well as several other disasters. For some reason or other,
the producers seem incapable of designing trouble-free nuclear power stations. It became clear during the recent
Fukushima disaster that the operators believed that nothing could go wrong with their design. The stupidity of constructing   
nuclear power stations within active seismic zones did not seem to have crossed  their minds.
It has been predicted that the decline and fall of the use of the fossil fuels as key sources of energy will stop most of the
infrastructure of modern life. There is a continuing debate about whether or not iron and steel have reached their peak
productions.

2.  July, 2010.UN General Assembly declared access to clean water and sanitation, a human right. Safe and clean
drinking water and sanitation is a human right essential to the full enjoyment of life and all other human rights. The UN has
voiced deep concern that an estimated 884 million people lack access to safe drinking water and a total of more than 2.6
billion people do not have access to basic sanitation. Studies also indicate that about 1.5 million children under the age of
five die each year and 443 million school days are lost because of water- and sanitation-related diseases.
Water does cover about two-thirds of the Earth's surface, but most of it is too salty for use by humans. Only 2.5% of the
world's water is not salty, but two-thirds of that is locked up in the icecaps and glaciers. Of what is left, about 20% is in
remote areas, and much of the rest arrives at the wrong time and place, as monsoons and floods. Humans have available
less than 0.08% of all the Earth's water. We use about 70% of this water in agriculture. It is worth noting that a continuing  
water crisis places a direct limit on the growth and survival of human societies.  
The Ecologist journal reports in August 2011 that one person in six [ 1.15 billion] across the world has no access to safe
drinking water.  One in two [3.45 billion] lacks safe sanitation. Adequate, safe water is key to good health and a proper diet.
There are still some 2.6 billion people around the world who have to use pit latrines or defecate in the open.  The Gates
Foundation has just announced a $42 million project over several years to develop a toilet that doesn't need water, mains
power or sewerage and that will cost next to nothing. They are asking inventors to imagine a toilet that takes human waste
and converts it into minerals for fertiliser and clean water, while harvesting energy in the process. The toilet will not use
water, doesn’t need the expensive infrastructure of a sewerage system, doesn’t need to be connected to mains electricity
and, unlike composting toilets, doesn’t need lots of space and time. If this new multi-million dollar project, the ‘Reinventing
the toilet challenge’, is a success, such a toilet may soon become a reality.
Until then, inadequate sanitation causes an estimated 1.5 million children to die each year due to diarrhoeal diseases. But
with water scarce - 1.6 billion people currently live on less than one thousand litres of water a year and by 2020, experts
predict that this figure will rise to between 3.2 and 4.6 billion (the average Briton uses 55,000). Toilets that flush the
problem away, using precious water and expensive infrastructure, are clearly not the answer. Although they will be so high-
tech that they will probably need to be controlled by a microprocessor, the toilets must not exceed a cost of 5 cents per
person per day.
'Over time, we’d like to bring this cost down to even less than this,' says Frank Rijsberman, director of the Global
Development Programme of the Gates Foundation. The toilets will be sold, rather than given away, 'for them to be
sustainable,' says Rijsberman. All the concept toilets rely on the separation of urine from faeces with the subsequent drying
and burning of solids and some form of liquid treatment, such as osmosis or evaporation. Some models meet the
requirements for a unit suitable for a single household, others will be community toilets that treat larger volumes of waste,
perhaps off-site. For example, in South Africa, specially designed toilet pedestals that separate urine from faeces are
already fairly common. The project of the University of KwaZulu-Natal in conjunction with eThekwini Water and Sanitation
(Durban) will take this technology further by combusting solid waste to a pathogen-free ash that can be used as a
phosphate and carbon rich fertiliser. Heat generated in the combustion will be used to dry solids and to concentrate the
liquid stream, resulting in a liquid fertiliser after osmosis. In the project, a simple transport system for faeces and urine will
be set up. Liquid waste will be collected using appropriate technology such as a bicycle pump system already in use for
emptying pit latrines. For reasons of hygiene, solid waste will be transported directly in the toilet containers.  
It is important that access to clean water and sanitation is formally declared a human right. The declaration enables the UN
General Assembly to apply political pressure to member countries to provide safe water and sanitation for all their citizens
as well as to  support the initiatives offered by the GATES FOUNDATION.  
The UN Declaration is made, and welcomed, despite a continuing fresh water crisis due to the rise in global population: {at
the moment estimated to be 6.89 billion, and projected to be 9 billion by 2050};  the desire for better living standards, as
countries like Brazil, China, India, Russia increase their GDP;  the inefficiency of the way we use much of the available
water e.g. irrigation wastes water on a prodigal scale, with the water trickling away or simply evaporating before it can do
any good. Pollution makes more of this water unfit for use. Increasingly, governments are seeking subterranean supplies of
groundwater; about 80% of the world's population live in areas where the fresh water supply is not secure.  
Future water shortages are a growing concern for business, according to a global survey published November 2010,
organised by the Carbon Disclosure Project, which does research on behalf of 137 institutional investors representing
US$16 trillion of holdings. Sectors reporting the greatest exposure to water risks include food, drinks; tobacco, metals, and
mining. A report from consultants ERM was requested by institutional investors who want to know how much risk their
investments face from water problems. The research shows that more than half of the 147 firms responding expect
problems with water in the next 1-5 years. Some 60% of firms have already set performance targets on the way they use
water. It shows that 39% of the firms are already suffering from water related issues - including disruption from drought or
flooding, declining water quality, and increases in water prices. The report predicts that the issues will get much worse as
the world demand for water is projected to soar over the next few decades.
The UK's chief scientist, John Beddington, has warned that water scarcity will form part of a perfect storm of environmental
problems. The challenge lies in managing what we have among competing users, whether they are firms, communities or
natural systems. It is clear that water scarcity is more problematic for prosperity and growth than any other factor.

The population of the world continues to increase: 7 billion people on Oct 31 2011.  Water scarcity  limits the .survivability  
of communities.  What should the UN be proposing to match the numbers of people and the availability of resources? and
the patterns of greater pollution?  What should countries be doing to control their increasing populations? Many detailed
studies of human population, as presented in WIKIPEDIA, reveals that up to the 18th.century population doubled every
32,000 years. But after 1900 population has doubled every 31 years. It is now 7 billion; predicted to rise to 9 billion
by 2050. All the evidence indicates that the world resources will not be able to support this number, particularly not with the
economic demands of the richest sectors of society in the USA or the EU or Japan. Key resources are in decline, and
industrial growth is limited, but global population increases [for the moment.]

3.  Ecologists and biologists have made it clear that more than 450 particles per million of water vapour, carbon dioxide,
methane, nitrous oxide, ozone, chloroflourocarbons in the atmosphere initiate greenhouse effects, leading to extensive
problems of pollution and climate change. The biosphere increases in temperature and patterns of precipitation change
with the results that glaciers melt, zones dry up, deserts spread, seas rise in level, and coastal areas and small islands
submerge. These changes have resulted in the mass extinction of species in the biosphere.
4. The current arguments concern whether or not the widespread effects of global industrialization and urbanisation have
led to global air pollution and climate change? Or that climate change is the result of an inter-glacial phase? or is a
response to sunspot activity and increased
solar radiation?                                                                                                                                
If it is the result of ‘natural forces’, then we do not have to change. It can be ‘business as usual’. The capitalist ethic of ‘grow
or die’ is sustainable.  The Stern Report, for the UK Treasury, 2006, and the UN Inter-governmental Panel on Climate
Change, (2007), Working Group III, Fourth Assessment Report, 2007, and 2009, concluded that  the greenhouse problems
can be solved, at negligible cost, without any need to question the commitment to affluent living standards and economic
growth.
If we accept that human intervention is the cause of climate change, then we must recognize that human behaviour has to
change. Ted Trainer, of the University of New South Wales, in his latest analysis, published in The International Journal of
INCLUSIVE DEMOCRACY, Vol.4, No. 4 (October 2008) argues that the cost and difficulty of resolving the greenhouse
problem will be significantly greater than is foreseen by these two previous studies. Once the concentration of carbon
dioxide and other gases has reached 450 parts per million, Trainer presents evidence to show that the greenhouse
problem cannot be solved without large scale reductions in the volumes of economic production and consumption. He
asserts that the greenhouse problem cannot be solved within a society committed to free market capitalism and affluent
living standards, maximum levels of economic output, and economic growth. The ‘limits to growth’ school, as presented by
Ted Trainer, has been arguing for half a century that consumer societies are fundamentally unsustainable. Ted Trainer
argues that the alarming greenhouse/ energy/ equity  problems now threatening us cannot be solved within any
capitalist/consumer society but require a vast and radical transition to very different economic, political and value systems
and structures. A simpler way is the only way forward. We must drastically reduce economic production and consumption.
Is it possible to stop climate change and environmental pollution if we stop the emissions of heat trapping gases, such as
carbon dioxide and methane? A report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, as presented in the
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, January 2009, proposes that it is too late and that it will not be possible
to stop climate change and environmental pollution. Many people who worry about global warming hope that once
emissions of heat-trapping gases decline, the problems they cause will quickly begin to abate. Now researchers are saying
that such hope is ill founded, at least with regard to carbon dioxide. Because of the way carbon dioxide persists in the
atmosphere and in the oceans, and the way the atmosphere and the oceans interact, patterns that are established at peak
levels will produce problems like  inexorable sea level rise and Dust-Bowl-like droughts for at least a thousand years.
According to this view, the damage has already been done!
5. GROWTH?  STEADY STATE?                                                                                      
The object of capitalist enterprise is to gain maximum profits for the entrepreneurs; to ensure growth. For  capitalists, the
preservation and protection of the environment is not a priority. The alleviation of poverty is not on the agenda. Under this
system, citizens can save money and spend; or save, lend , borrow and spend; can borrow against collateral and spend. If
there is no hurry, one can save and spend. But once you realize that the Banks will lend you money at once as long as you
have assets to secure the loan money, then most of us will borrow the money at once. On our promise to pay principal and
interest, the Bank will create the loan money on our balance sheet as if by magic!  That is, they do not make/print the
money as cash. They write the contract on a balance sheet, and present the loan as ‘digital money’. Cash money does
provide the base for digital money…..3% to 97%. A growth economy is based on fractional reserve banking; on debt. When
there is a financial crisis, it is based on fears of no growth and default. As we have seen recently, the crisis is created by
the banks: creating too much debt.                                                                      
It is not the case that governments have no money. It is the case that Governments are the legal issuers of money, printers
of money. Governments specify what is legal tender, or what is known as ‘fiat money’. Money is printed by governments, but
it is given to the bank consortia e.g the Federal Reserve in the USA, the Bank of England in the UK, the European Bank in
the EU, who then decide the bank rate.                                                                                                            
In fact, according to the present regulations, the State has only two ways to obtain money: one, is by taxation of citizens;
the other is borrowing from the private banks. When the Central Bank issues money, this is done in the form of a loan. The
State has to borrow this money, and must promise to repay it, with interest. Taxes are used to pay the interest not the
principal. Over the years these loans form the ‘national debt’. For some countries, the national debt is so great that there is
no chance of repayment. In the USA, today, the national debt is $14.5 trillion, and the interest payments are $500 billion a
year. These numbers are so large, that there has been a major political dispute between the President/ the Congress/and
the Senate in the last 3 weeks[2011] as to whether to pay off or default. In the UK, 2011, the national debt is 2.253 trillion
GBP, with interest payments of 92 billion GBP. Usually, tax payments are used to pay the debt interest, not to pay for public
services. The UK government has been involved in a massive programme of  budget cuts so as to control the national debt.
However, it is important for us to realize that Governments could print the money it needs to pay for social services. But we
have established a banking system according to which governments and corporations and individuals borrow money, repay
money, and pay interest for the privilege, and do not print money.
97% of   money is  digital money.                                                                                                                                
It is not coins  nor notes nor gold.  In fact, at this time, 3% of money in circulation is cash and notes; 97% is digital entries
on electronic records.  So your bank can create money out of nothing, it can cash in the interest, and then it can uncreate
that money,  subsequently  repeating the cycle with another willing customer. Under the rules of fractional reserve banking,
banks are not required to hold in cash the value of the loan. . A bank with GBP 1 million in cash can lend up to GBP 60
million. The bank does not have this money, it creates it: on a promise by the customers to pay principal +interest. This is
highly unreliable and fraudulent. Banks are dealing ‘magic money’.        
6. Fractional Reserve Banking enables banks to issue loans that are many times their total holdings. The banks get away
with it on condition that few clients claim their money back. The recent financial crises occurred because many borrowers
defaulted on their loans, failing to pay back the loans and not paying interest. When the depositors came for their monies,
there was a run on banks. The banks ran out of money. The system collapsed. Can the banking system be made more
reliable and secure? Banking laws should be changed to exclude the autonomous creation of money as debt by banks and
allow the issue of new currency by the governments. Full Reserve Banking demands that loan money is backed by cash in
the Central Bank: that is, GBP 60million in loans is matched by GBP60 million in cash.  1%. The next stage is for
governments to take over their legal currency roles and to issue money according to social need as social credits. The
development of a Steady State Economy is one which does not depend upon growth. It promotes the creation of products
according to social need. It will lead to a very different society: one which is not based on profit
7. A full world? A poor majority?                                                                                                                                               
400 years of capitalism has succeeded in enriching a few, and leaving the majority of the world population in poverty. 10
million people control most of the global wealth, $40 trillion in 2010. And 1221 billionaires have $4 trillion. This leaves up to
6.8 billion people trying to survive and thrive with less than $30 a day; including 5.5 billion with less than $10 a day; and 1.4
billion starving on $1.25 a day.    When one talks about ‘a full world’, as part of the capitalist growth  economy,’ it can only
refer to a minority. Even the richest countries in the world, such as China and India, have millions of poor people. In the
USA, 14% of the population is poor and unemployed. Across the world, 1 in 7 are involved in the manufacturing and
consumption of all products, and producing waste and pollution. Aspirations to a ‘steady state economy’ will be subject to
opposition from the poorest, none of whom have gained any benefits from the operation of a capitalist, free market, system.
It would be better to focus upon the development of a system that alleviates the positions of the poorest majorities…and
aspires to equality among the 7 billion people.

References:
acknowledgement to NEF.

Fisher,I.(1936a),100% Money, New York, Adelphi

Frank,R,(2007)Falling Behind:How rising inequality harms the middle class,
Berkely C.A.: University of California Press

Friedman,M.(1960) A Program for Monetary Stability.New York: Fordham University Press.

King,M,(2010)“Banking:From Bagehot to Basel and Back Again”,
The Second Bagehot Lecture, Buttonwood Gathering, New York City, Monday 25thOctober 2010

Nef (the neweconomicsfoundation),(2000),
Creating NewMoney: A monetary reform for the information age, authors:JamesRobertsonandJamesHuber,London:nef

nef (the new economics foundation),2010,
Where Did Our MoneyGo? Building a banking system fit for purpose, London:nef

Stiglitz,J,and Weiss,A.,(1981),‘Credit Rationing in Markets with Imperfect   Information’,AmericanEconomicReview,vol.71,pp.
393–410

Stiglitz,J.,andWeiss,A.,(1992)‘Asymmetric information in credit markets and its
Implications for macro-­economics’, Oxford Economic Papers, vol.44, no.4, October, pp.694-­‐724

Tobin,James,(1987)EssaysinEconomics,MITPress

Werner,R.A.(1997),Towards a New Monetary  Paradigm: a QuantityTheorem o fDisaggregated
Credit,withEvidence from Japan, Kredit und Kapital,vol.30,no.2,pp.276-­‐309,Berlin: Duncker und Humblot


WernerR.,A(2009) Can Credit Unions Create Credit?An Analytical  Evaluation of a Potential Obstacle to the Growth of
Credit Unions, Discussion Paper Series, No2/09, Centre for Banking, Finance and Sustainable Development, Southampton
University


Wilkinson, R., and Pickett, (2009) The Spirit Level: Why more equal societies almost always do better, Allen Lane:  London

Positive Money/New Economic Foundation/University of Southampton:  2010  Towards a 21st. Century banking and
Monetary System



3. Democracy is a fantasy.                                     
Plutocracy is the reality.
November 1st. 2011, the OCCUPY MOVEMENT has spread across the world. It represents the fact that  99% of the global  
population has realised that most of the wealth of the world is controlled by 1%.  It is a declaration that the 99% should be
directly involved in wealth redistribution by occupying the premises of the banksters, the investors, that form the ruling
plutocracy.
Taking a glance across the current pages of Social Ecology sites, [whether the Institute of Social Ecology, the New
Compass, the Kommunalismi, Inclusive Democracy, Green Fuse, ecologiesociale.ch., Zulenet], it becomes clear that ‘direct
democracy’, ‘libertarian municipalism’ and  communalism are key concepts, and local democracy by all citizens, a necessary
practice.
One has to conclude, first, that social ecology  is local democracy. The writings of Murray Bookchin, as well as Takis
Fotopoulos, Peter Staudenmaier, Janet Biehl, Eirick Eiglad, Brian Tokar, Bob Spivey, Dan Chodorkoff, Karl Hardy, Chaia
Heller, Vincent Gerber and Jussi Haverinen, among others, insist that the local government of local neighbourhoods by all
the local residents in local assemblies will ensure that all localities will be governed for the benefits of the local communities
and their local environments. This form of direct democracy is considered to be essential for the conservation and
preservation of nature, wild life, environment, and the biosphere.
One can conclude, second, that local democracy is  social  ecology.                               
Certainly, there is an assumption that when people are directly involved in the management and government of the
municipality where they live, they will act to protect and conserve this environment. Further, it is assumed that they will not
take actions that will foster growth, and exploitation. Another assumption is  that these citizens have the time and the will to
make decisions in the interests of all, communal, rather than the one, anarchy. In such a direct democracy, [to refer to
Bookchin’s Communalist Project, 2002] the residents are enjoying and protecting ‘the good life’, self-sufficient, sustainable,
with health, wealth and happiness.  
In the future, this may be the case across the globe. But in 2011 this is a  fantasy!   What is more, I wish to propose that, at
this time, democracy, be it direct, local, participatory, or representative, is a fantasy. It is a cover-up for plutocracy, rule by
the wealthy. In 2006, Warren Buffett asserted that ‘there’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s
making war, and we’re winning.’ In this class war, the wealthy elite are in control of the many.  The latest data indicates that
6.88 billion people [between 6.86 and 6.91] including 2.2 billion children, live on earth.  The wealth reports [Forbes,
CapGemini, Merrill Lynch, SundayTimes] that were issued up to February 2011 confirm that wealth is not distributed
equally, and that poverty is the norm for most of the global population. ‘The good life’ is a fantasy.  There are at least 5.5
billion people, each surviving on less than $10 a day, of whom 1.5 billion live in absolute poverty, trying to survive on less
than $1 a day, of whom 1 billion are starving to death. Out of the total global population, perhaps 1.38 billion are living on
between $11 and $274 a day, with 480 million each surviving and thriving on more than $100,000 a year, including 1211
billionaires with $4.5 trillion a year.
The wealth reports confirm that we live in a world in which 10 million individuals [all of whom are known and on record]
accumulated $40 trillion GDP last  year, that is; $4 million a year, or $11000 a day each. The global GDP in 2010 was $59
trillion. This means that 6.879 billion people shared $19 trillion a year. Most of these people, who are found in China, India
and sub-Saharan Africa, have less than $10 a day to feed their families. Fewer than 0.15% of the world’s population control
most of the wealth of the world and live in a capitalist paradise!  able to spend more than $11,000 a day each: that is
$44000 a day for a family of four. Today, this capitalist elite of 10 million does not only live in the USA. They are to be found
in the Asia/Pacific zone, of China, Japan, India, Singapore, Australia, where 3 million have $9.7 trillion; the Europe zone,
including the EU, UK, Russia, where 3 million have $9.5 trillion; and the USA, with Canada and Mexico, where 3.1 million
have $10.1 trillion. These zones include many of the dictators, and their families, across the world. The capitalist elite rule!
The finances, economies, industries, governments of the world are controlled by 10 million ultra-rich capitalists, a global
plutocracy.
You may want to dispute the relevance of wealth to the governance of countries: And I must admit that I am assuming that
wealth means power and influence, or at least provides the means to buy and bribe people in power. I would  remind you
that the capitalist elite do own more than 80% of the capital of the world, and so form the most significant group of investors
and shareholders, and owners of the means of production. They are members of boards of directors of all the major
corporations, and decide the salaries and bonuses of the executive officers. In October 2011, the Financial Times reported
that they had been involved in the approval of pay increases of 49% for CEOs; and pay freezes for many others.
This elite of 10 million capitalists are the drivers of  economic growth and development in any one region. If they are ‘upset’,
they can choose to invest their money elsewhere. Newspaper reports over the last year have shown that the recent
financial crises have left them relatively untouched: those in China, Japan, India, Brazil, the UK, the USA, Germany and the
EU have seen their fortunes expand by up to 33%! And even where there was ‘trouble’, they have been compensated by
the governments, who printed money, or paid tax revenues to them to restore liquidity. Their private debt was bought by the
governments and the Central Banks. Private was made public. And the poor lost their savings and
their property.                                                                                                                   
Recent events in the Middle East and North Africa have revealed that the governments of Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Syria,
Libya, Morocco, Jordan, Bahrain, are the fiefdoms of millionaire dictators and their families and friends.  Their exercise of
absolute power has finally been challenged by the populace, for while many of the citizens of these various states have
been living in absolute poverty, their leaders have been getting richer and richer, and living in absolute luxury. Their
displays of luxury and imposition of repression in their police states finally triggered rebellion.    The rebels have shown that
if you attack the families, you attack the governments; if you get rid of the families, you get rid of the governments.

And is this the story of the rest of the world? First, there is overwhelming evidence that  the gap between the rich and the
poor grows ever larger, and the rich elites control the so called ‘democratic’ governments of the industrial countries of the
West, as well as the East. For example, the cabinets of the USA, during the presidencies of Bush and Obama, as reported
by the New York Times, and the BBC, have been dominated by millionaires, and the corporations such as Haliburton,
Exxon, Chevron, Alcoa, and Boeing. A report in the Wall Street Journal revealed recently that 237 members of Congress
were declared as millionaires.  In the UK, newspapers such as the Daily Mail, and the Telegraph, reported in 2010 that the
coalition government had 23 millionaires amongst the 29 members of the Cabinet! some aristocrats, some entrepreneurs,
some inherited. In Indonesia, the governing Senate of the Philippines has 23 Senators who are multi-millionaires. Recent
reviews of the communist regimes in China and North Korea indicated that the rulers are drawn from the elite members of
the One Party! not from the poor majorities. Since the collapse of the USSR, the government of the Russian Federation has
been dominated by the ‘shenanigans’ of the ‘oligarchs’ such as Abramovitch, Khodorovsky, Medvedev, Putin.  The Indian
government, which has been declared the largest democracy in the world, has been accused recently of failing to curb
corruption and bribery, and allowing the capitalist elite to develop projects without any regard to local interests and
conditions. There is overwhelming evidence to show that ‘local direct democracy’ is at best a fantasy, and at worst a sham.
Across the world, local and national governments are the fiefdoms of the plutocracy, and are subject to bribery and
corruption. 500 years of capitalist enterprise from Queen Elizabeth I to Queen Elizabeth II has enriched less than 1% of the
world’s population. Politicians’ beliefs, and financiers assurances, about the ‘trickle down effect’ of wealth is an outright con-
trick! The very wealthy plutocrats organize, and legislate the decisions and laws in finance, economics, investments, profits,
in the interests of their corporations, banks, funds, and families, under the protection of   national governments across the
world. This is not to deny that billions of people in the USA, the EU, India, Japan, Brazil, Australasia, and so forth, exercise
their rights to vote in open elections….along with special interest groups who lobby and donate to the campaign funds of
candidates and their parties. This is not to deny that billions of people believe in democracy. But they vote for the wealthy
elite on the grounds that they are ‘the fittest’. It simply confirms that the voters are living in a fantasy. The enactment of
democracy secures the power of the plutocracy!                                                           
Are there any ways out of this dilemma? Is there an escape? One can step out of the system and live in an alternative
community. This will leave the field open for the elitists, and it will not prevent future interference from
corporate exploitation. It may be possible to redesign democracy so that societies are more equal, and the financial
systems are more closely regulated and supervised so that wealth is distributed for the benefits of all. A more radical
approach would be to remove the millionaire elite by disqualifying them from political institutions so as to make possible the
development of local community initiatives and local democracy.  
I would like to conclude by suggesting that social ecology is more than local democracy. The work of  social ecologists such
as Prof. Stuart Hill and Ted Trainer in Australia, along with Gunnar Rundgren in Sweden, and Bob Spivey in Vashon, as
well as Brian Tokar, has established the significant connections between human communities and plants, soil, sun, rain,
climate, animals, fish, insects –the complex systems of diverse ecological communities coexisting in the biosphere.
For example, Stuart Hill offers  a provisional definition of social ecology that places greater emphasis on sustainability:  the
study and practice of personal, social and ecological sustainability and change based on the critical application and
integration of ecological, humanistic, relational, community and ‘spiritual’ values. His definition is based on his work in
agricultural settings, pest control, animal husbandry, and sustainability.
I suggest that social ecologists will study human behavior and climate change; the emission of pollutants and gases; the
exploitation and destruction of forests, and grasslands; the exploitation and mining of  oils, ores and minerals; the
destruction of species. They will formulate policies and practices to help conserve the biosphere. They will identify
alternative systems of economy and politics in order to ensure that humans live in mutual coexistence with all living
organisms. ‘Local democracy’ may be part of these studies, but only so far as it allows the development of alternative
practices of subsistence, sustainability, and steady state economics: a world in which we conserve and preserve the
ecological communities in the biosphere.




2. CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY.
If we accept that Social Ecology leads us to a new morality, then we have to accept that capitalism and environmental
protection are not compatible. The guiding light of the capitalist is to maximise profits, and that of the ecologist is to
safeguard nature. The United Nations declares that we should be concerned with ‘development that meets the needs of the
present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’.
The capitalist will claim the loyalties of the investors and the workers in order to maximise profits for the company.
It is 'grow or die!'.  Corporate Social Responsibility is a sham, a con trick perpetrated by companies to protect their
commercial interests. Social Ecologists argue: it is grow and die! Major health problems have become associated with
capitalist enterprise. Medical authorities should take action to minimise the effects of pollution on people.

TOBACCO
Obviously, the Tobacco corporations have a different notion of Corporate Social Responsibility to any other organizations.
Tobacco companies see nothing wrong with selling products that infect and kill their customers. They have been making
cigarettes for many years, knowing that they were increasing the risks of chest infections and disease amongst their
customers. Chris Woolston  [www.ahealthyme.com] reported that in the early 1960s, researchers at Brown & Williamson,
one of the world's largest tobacco companies, made a sickening discovery......... Smoking causes lung cancer. But, in
public, the company claimed cigarettes were perfectly safe. Even that smoking is good for you. Behind closed doors, their
scientists searched for ways to remove cancer-causing compounds from cigarettes. As their own internal documents show,
the search for a safe cigarette was doomed from the start. The researchers found that burning tobacco produces a
stunning collection of dangerous chemicals, no matter how it's grown, treated, or packaged. Simply put, cigarettes are not
safe! are not good for you! In the USA, this finding was confirmed in 1964 by the report of the Surgeon General's Advisory
Committee on Smoking and Health which declared that cigarette smoking is causally related to lung cancer: the more you
smoke, the more likely you are to contract lung cancer.........and chronic bronchitis........... and chronic bronchopulmonary
diseases.
Today, of course, the secret is out. Everyone from the Surgeon General to the kid on the street corner knows smoking
causes lung cancer. In fact, it causes the vast majority of all lung cancer, a disease that killed an estimated 160,000
Americans in 2007. Even the tobacco companies are now willing to admit the obvious.
A statement on the Philip Morris Web site says it all: We agree with the overwhelming medical and scientific consensus that
cigarette smoking causes lung cancer, heart disease, emphysema, and other serious diseases such as throat cancer,
bladder cancer.
Despite this, their drive for sales continues. Their profits expand and grow, and many of their customers die from smoking
their cigarettes! In 1980 their research indicated that secondary smoke from cigarettes was toxic, but this was not made
public for 20 years.
What sort of Corporate Social Responsibility is this ?  November 2010 the tobacco corporations are fighting a battle to stop
health warnings covering their packets. Their defence is that such action prevents them from marketing their products
effectively and thus limiting their profits. A report in the NewYorkTimes, Nov.21 2009, made it clear that the tobacco
companies considered product liability a cost of doing business. Morgan Stanley asserted that the tobacco industry could
afford millions of dollars a year in legal costs! For example, recently, in Fort Lauderdale, a woman was awarded by a jury
'compensatory damages' of $56million, and 'punitive damages' of $244 million, against Altria Group, the parent company of
PhilipMorris........ And there are hundreds of cases waiting to be called to court.  April 2011 a jury found in favour of the
tobacco companies. Six major US tobacco companies defeated a lawsuit by hospitals seeking compensation for treating
patients with smoking-related illnesses. Thirty-seven hospitals in the state of Missouri had claimed cigarette companies
delivered an "unreasonably dangerous" product.  They sought more than $455m (£272m) reimbursement for treating
uninsured smokers who had not paid for care. In the case, the hospitals claimed that tobacco companies manipulated the
nicotine content in cigarettes and misrepresented the health effects of smoking. But a jury in St Louis rejected their claim.
"The jury agreed with Philip Morris USA that ordinary cigarettes are not negligently designed or defective," said Murray
Garnick of Philip Morris. March 2011 TPSAC [Tobacco Products Scientific Advisory Committee] does conclude that the
availability of menthol cigarettes has led to an increase in the number of smokers and that this increase does have adverse
public health impact in the United States. TPSAC found evidence that the availability of menthol cigarettes increases
initiation; leading to greater addiction. Of particular concern was the high rate of menthol cigarette smoking among youth
and the trend over the last decade of increasing menthol cigarette smoking among 12 to 17 year olds, even as smoking of
non‐menthol cigarettes declines. Evidence showed that 'menthol' made smoking less irritating to youth, leading to their
addiction to nicotine. Marketing 'menthol' keeps their sales rising! Spending $12.5 billion a year entices adolescents in Asia
to start smoking.
The Department of Health in the UK, confirmed Dec.21 2011, that Imperial Tobacco, Japan Tobacco, British American
Tobacco and Philip Morris -had withdrawn their legal challenge against new laws to end the display of tobacco products in
England.  Sarah Woolnough, Cancer Research UK's director of policy, said: "We were always confident that the tobacco
industry would lose their case because the evidence shows that selling cigarettes alongside sweets and crisps makes them
seem like a normal, everyday product rather than a deadly and addictive drug. The Government will soon be consulting
on putting cigarettes in plain packaging so that all tobacco products look alike, with no distinctive branding and with large
picture health warnings.” Public Health Minister Anne Milton said: "Removing tobacco displays from shops will help to stop
young people from starting smoking and help smokers that want to quit.”
Are the labels on the packets  important! Who reads them ?  Why don’t health authorities simply ban tobacco
products ? make them illegal, and prosecute the tobacco corporations for selling products that they all know  
damages and/or kills their customers?
www.lung-cancer.com/radon.html

ASBESTOS
But even when a product has been banned, like asbestos, its effects continue. Asbestos fibres can cause various forms of
cancer. The World Health Organisation estimate that 1700,000 people die world wide annually from asbestos poisoning.
People who worked with asbestos 50 years ago are coming forward with mesothelioma today. Others who were present
when buildings exploded, such as the World Trade Centre in 2001, were exposed to asbestos fibres, and many have died
of asbestos cancers. The  MAA Center [www.maacenter.org] is one of the centres  that monitors the many different ways in
which the companies producing asbestos continue to endanger the workers and users of asbestos through the spread of
mesothelioma: go to http://www.mesotheliomaweb.org               
The dangers of asbestos were known 100 years ago. Companies like Bendix, Borg Warner,Chevron, Chrysler, Dow
Chemicals, Kodak, Ford, General Electric manufactured and sold asbestos products.  Its use, and the profits generated,
were more important than the lives of the workers and the consumers. Mining and processing was banned  in the EU, 2005:
but continues in Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Canada, Brazil. China is the major producer, and consumer  of asbestos.
Canada has long banned the use of asbestos, but allows the mining and export of up to 120,000 tons of white asbestos
each year from Quebec. It is worth noting that Asbestos products have not been banned in the USA, and the Surgeon
General did not issue a health warning until April, 2009. So Government agencies adopt contradictory attitudes
to asbestos. www.mesotheliomatreatment.net    
Dr. Richard Lemen, the retired assistant U.S. surgeon general and deputy director of the National Institute for Occupational
Safety and Health, and now an adjunct professor of environmental and occupational health at the Rollins School of Public
Health at Emory University [2011] reports to Environmental Health Perspectives,  that asbestos is a fibrous crystalline
mineral known for its resistance to heat and flame, and its usefulness in building materials and fabrics...but it’s not so great
for human
health.                                                                                                                                                                                      
The International Agency for Research on Cancer, the National Toxicology Program, and the Environmental Protection
Agency all declared asbestos a known human carcinogen decades ago. And yet U.S. imports of crude asbestos fibers rose
by 235% between 2009 and 2010. Worldwide nearly 2 million tons of it were mined for use in things like cements,
automotive parts, protective footwear, and textiles.  All of Europe, many countries in South America, and Saudi Arabia and
others have banned asbestos. However, the United States has not seen fit to ban asbestos.
The health effects of asbestos are wide ranging, from an asbestos-related lung condition called asbestosis, which is not a
cancer but a scarring of the lung caused by the fibers that get into the lung.  Asbestos can cause a variety of cancers. The
principal cancer is lung cancer and accounts for the most number of cancers associated with work with asbestos or
exposure to asbestos. Another very rare tumor but very fatal tumor is mesothelioma, which is a tumor that affects the lining
of the lungs, in the pleura, the lining of the abdomen, and this is a tumor that is unique to asbestos. About 80–90% of all
mesotheliomas that are diagnosed in the United States are associated with some exposure to asbestos, so it’s become
what we call a signal tumor, and when we see mesothelioma occurring we can pretty much trace a history of exposure to
asbestos. The International Agency for Research on Cancer, a part of the World Health Organization, has now designated
asbestos to cause laryngeal cancer, ovarian cancer, and other forms of gastrointestinal cancer. [go to http://www.
pleuralmesothelioma.com/cancer/lung.php]   So it’s one substance that has had a wide variety of use but has been
associated with multiple types of diseases including respiratory disease and cancer.
I think we really don’t need to spend a lot of research dollars on continuing research on something that has been
determined by the World Health Organization and every major scientific agency in the world to cause cancer and
respiratory disease. What we need to do now is spend this money on preventing people from developing asbestos-related
diseases both in the workplace and in the environment.  More than 60 countries have banned this substance. What’s taking
the U.S. so long? As they always say, trace the money, and I think you’ll find why it has not been banned in this country.
D.W.Kamp [2009] observed that even if all new asbestos use stopped today, people would still be at risk of exposure from
preexisting uses. Products, especially building materials, degrade with age, releasing toxic fibers. Demolition, renovations,
and reconstruction after disasters can release still more asbestos. And with a typical latency period of decades between
exposure and cancer, asbestos-related mesothelioma would continue to be diagnosed well into the future.
December 10th 2009 marks the start of the 'trial of the century' in Italy: two executives of the company, Eternit, have been
accused of  causing an environmental disaster leading to the deaths of 2,200 workers, and ill health of hundreds of others,
due to asbestos poisoning in four factories. http://asbestosinthedock.ning.com
Recently, August 2010, it has been announced on the BBC Africa service, that asbestos, serpentine, amphibole, are being
mined in Democratic Republic of Congo........and in any area where controls and regulation are weak. Go to http://www.
mesojournal.com

Oil
Action can be taken to protect local communities from pollution. But as the legal battles between Chevron and the
government of  Ecuador show such actions are never straightforward and can drag on for years.  According to the New
York Times, October 2009, the multibillion-dollar legal case between Amazon peasants and Chevron over oil pollution in
Ecuador’s rain forest keeps unfolding more like a mystery thriller than a battle of briefs.  Since the oil giant released videos
in August 2009 that were secretly taped by two businessmen, Ecuadorean officials and Chevron have accused each other
of gross improprieties, including espionage. Chevron gambled that the disclosure of the videos would enable it to
cast doubt on the integrity of the trial, and the honesty of the Ecuadorean legal system. But the tapes have also raised
questions about its ties to the men who made the recordings, potentially opening the company to a new legal fight. The
tapes were the latest turn in a legal marathon over oil contamination left by Texaco years before it was acquired by
Chevron.  The fight has become one about 'damages' not about environment. On Monday 14th February, 2011, after 17
years of legal battle, the second-largest oil company in the US, Chevron, was found guilty by Ecuadorian courts for massive
environmental contamination of the Amazon. Chevron was ordered to pay a fine of $9 billion in damages. This is the largest
judgement ever made against a US company for environmental contamination and is the first time that indigenous and
farming communities have won judgement in foreign courts against a US company for environmental crimes abroad.
From 1964 to 1990, Chevron made billions of USD in profits through oil extraction in the Ecuadorian Amazon. In the long-
running trial in US and Ecuadorian courts, Chevron admitted to deliberately discharging around 18 billion gallons of toxic
waste-water into the water systems of the Amazon. The company committed a series of serious environmental crimes, such
as spilling 17 million of gallons of pure crude oil from ruptured pipelines and abandoning more than 900 unlined waster pits
which leeched toxins, contaminating the air, soil and water. Chevron ordered workers to destroy records of these crimes
and never carried out any environmental impact studies.
May 2010 witnessed the oil pollution of the Gulf of Mexico, and the shorelines of Louisiana, following the destruction of  the
Macondo platform. The chief executives of BP, in public, were more concerned with minimising the significance of the oil
spill, asserting that the quantities of oil were minor in comparison to previous spills. To say this, is to ignore the horror of
the catastrophe for the local communities, and the destruction of fisheries, and marine life.  The US government has
declared the oil spill the biggest ever ! If such oil companies as BP  took corporate social responsibility seriously, they
would not have drilled for oil in such ocean localities in the first place: the Deep Water Horizon well extracts oil from a depth
of 2 miles! July 2010 - the CEO of BP has paid the consequences of his public indifference by being dismissed. Nov. 2011
the exploitation of the tar sands in Canada has led Shell into conflict with the First Nations of Athabaska for failure to meet
contractual agreements. In Nigeria, Shell are legally obliged to restore Ogoniland from the effects of oil pollution. 'Fracking',
a process whereby oil and gas are forced out of the ground by water, has resulted in earthquakes in Lancashire, UK. What
sort of madness is this?

Mobile phones
And how should we regard Motorola or AT&T? During the first week of December 2009, a story has emerged, in the New
York Times, outlining the facts about the marketing of cell phones/mobile phones by Motorola during the 1960's. Both
corporations have admitted that they knew that 'multi-tasking' by the driver in the car, with a cell phone causes distraction,
and accidents, and death....... So of course they mounted a campaign against the use of these phones by drivers? Not a bit
of it. Motorola mounted a campaign promoting their use by lorry drivers. Motorola was too concerned about its market
share. Since this time, they have developed 'hands-free' mobile phone kits fitted in the car and lorry. This is despite the fact
that they are aware that  'multi-tasking' is dangerous: leading to 2,600 fatal crashes, and 570,000 accidents in the USA, in
2007.  In Dec 2009, the BBC reported that the Transport Research Lab.UK revealed that in London the use of mobile
phones in vehicles was on the increase, despite the fact that it was illegal.
Another example of the incompatibility of CSR and capitalism! January 2010, the lawmakers of States are  drawing up
legislation to control 'distracted driving'. Four bills are pending in Congress that would push the states to regulate various
types of cellphone use by drivers, including banning texting, requiring hands-free devices or prohibiting motorists under the
age of 21 from using any devices. In the USA, generally, states regulate their roadways — which is why, safety advocates
say, the actions of state lawmakers play such a critical role in addressing the issue. (Currently, 19 states and Washington
ban texting while driving, and six states and Washington require use of hands-free devices by motorists talking on phones.)
In December, 2009, the House of Representatives passed an order banning 8,000 House staff members from texting while
driving (following  an order signed in October by President Obama banning 4.5 million federal employees from texting in
state-provided cars or phones or during work hours).
Nov.2011; a court in California ruled that using a hand held phone at a traffic lights is part of the ban, and illegal.
December 14 2011, the US  National Transportation Board issued a report  urging all states of the US to ban all use of
mobile phones in automobiles. Their research into the links between distracted drivers  and accidents over the last 10
years had forced them, in the face of opposition from phonemakers and carmakers, as well as lawmakers, to draw the
conclusion that mobile phones in autos are dangerous!
December 2011, there are 3 billion users of mobile phones across the world. To put it another way: 3 billion people are
directly subject to the effects of micro-wave radiation, and may be subject to  skin rashes, brain tumors, sleeping
disorders. Governments and manufacturers know this, but say nothing....... so as to create doubt about any 'bad effects'.

CSR and pollution
Indeed the current fad for ‘corporate social responsibility’ can be seen as a strategy to persuade  workers and customers  
that their best interests are provided by the corporation. However, we must not forget that the prime objective of a capitalist
corporation is to maximise profits for the shareholders and the directors. INSnet newsletter in January 2008 signalled that
the countries that are acknowledged as the  biggest polluters were gathering in Hawaii to see if they can reduce their
pollution and safeguard  profits. The G8, the G20, the G77, the UN, the IMF, the World Bank, continue to meet and discuss
up to the present time [Nov/Dec 2009]. If  this is best achieved by being more careful about how they look after the workers,
take care of their customers or conserve the environment, then so be it. But once the profits are threatened, the workers
will be sacked, and the resources exploited once more. This has been clearly illustrated by the battles about
the exploitation of the Amazon forests. Recently, increased demands and the prospect for profits has accelerated
exploitation by the very companies that had promised protection and conservation. For example, McDonalds has been
encouraging the growth of soya beans, which has led to the resumption of clearing of forests for farmland. Elsewhere, in
the forests of Indonesia, Wilmar, a palm oil producer, has been caught by Friends of the Earth, violating its own CSR
policies by cutting forests and occupying land without permission.  
Ethics World tells us that
An assessment of the Dubai Ethics Centre's efforts highlights the glaring gap between the rhetoric of corporate social
responsibility and the reality of most business practices.
"Companies are becoming familiar with the term 'corporate responsibility' and they recognize the need to be saying the
right things in this rapidly developing, highly competitive international marketplace [and] yet their actions, if not the words,
prove that they remain unconvinced or unclear of the business case for corporate responsibility and the benefits successful
CR management could bring to them in terms of mitigating risk and identifying opportunities," concluded the DERC-
commissioned report.
There can be a lot of ‘greenwash’ !

I am arguing that ‘capitalism’ and ‘corporate social responsibility’ cannot go together.
Capitalism is a system of exploitation in which products are bought and sold for profit: to ‘care and share’ and ‘conserve
and recycle’ are regarded as means to ends, not ends in themselves. It is easy to see this as the fault of private enterprise.
But we must remind ourselves that the emergence of communist China as a major economic power indicates that capitalism
can be state controlled, 'authoritarian capitalism' , and generate major pollution in every corner of the country in the search
for wealth.
Furthermore, I am suggesting that capitalism and democracy do not go together. Capitalism results in the profits going to
an elite, the owners of capital. The recent UN reports indicate that this elite comprises 0.000015% of the world’s population,
who control +80% of the wealth. What sort of world is this!
If at this time the millionaires forgot about ‘growth’, and actively redistributed their existing wealth, it would make a significant
difference to all the others. But under a capitalist system that elite are forever trying to increase their share at the sacrifice
of everyone else. This is oligarchy and patriarchy. Indeed, if you consider the details more carefully, the battles for
supremacy are often between families….for example, some of the largest companies, and subsidiaries, in the world are
owned and controlled by these families:  Rothschild, Walton,  Halley,  Piech, Porsche, Quandt, Takei,  Tata, Mittal,
Lagardere, Peugot, Pinault,  Murdoch, Ford, Gates, Goldsmith, Goldman,  Sachs,   Weinberg,  Thomson, Rausing, Mars,
Saji, Olayan, Ambani, Kamprad, Al Kharafi, Al Ayoubi, to name a few. How can we take seriously the notion of a share
owning democracy ? How can we believe that such families are interested in anything other than the aggrandisement of
their family! I am sure that they will be more interested in getting named as one of the Forbes 500 or being one of the
Sunday Times Rich List.
Even those who are involved in charitable works make sure that everybody knows where the money comes from…….. The
Gates Foundation; the TATA Trusts, and so on. This is tantamount to saying ‘sorry for the exploitation’ and here are some
pennies to make it better.
Social interdependence and social responsibility are to be sought in tandem as part of a cooperative system, what has
been called a cooperacy,  not part of an exploitative capitalist system.
Why do individuals, families, and corporations continue to seek ‘growth’? Is it 'grow or die?' Why are they obsessed with
greater profit? What is McDonalds doing in the Amazon? Why did Carrefour, and Walmart venture into Japan? What is
Gazprom doing penetrating the ice floes of the Arctic? What are we all going to do when all the natural resources of the
earth have been consumed? Why do the 1%  continue in this way? when most of the people are poor, and the profits of
growth go to the very few who are very rich? How are we able to justify a capitalist system in which the majority of the world’
s population is poor, many on less than a dollar,and many more on less than 10 dollars a day? In the USA, in 2009, poverty
is defined as less than $34 a day. We know that there are 6.87 billion people living on earth at October 2010: most of whom
are poor;  probably 6.6 billion  living on less than $34 a day. In 2008, up to 10 million people across the world are classified
as rich and  live in luxury : of whom 103,000 are multi-millionaires! In 2009, these figures were put at 8.6 million including
78,000 multi-millionaires. Capitalism has enabled a tiny minority of people to control all the wealth of the world. Wealth
Reports of 2010 in the face of global economic recession confirm that 10 million people, out of 6.86 billion, have $39 trillion!
The 'trickle-down effect' promoted by Friedman is another con trick! But it enables hedge fund managers such as David
Tepper, George Soros, James Simon, John Paulson, Steve Cohen, Carl Icahn, Edward Lampert, Kenneth Griffin, John
Arnold, Philip Falcone to justify their annual incomes of more than $1 billion each on the grounds that they are helping
many others to get rich! [New York Times April 2010]
It was a significant development to see that the President of Bolivia, Evo Morales, proposed scrapping capitalism and
developing clean energies as part of radical measures "to save the planet and mankind." "If we really want to save the
planet, we must eliminate the capitalist system," Bolivia's first indigenous president told hundreds of indigenous delegates
from around the world at the UN in April 2008.  Morales argued that the capitalist system was mainly responsible for climate
change and for the "accumulation of waste." He also railed against the development of biofuels which he said only serve to
fuel "poverty and hunger" and instead he expressed strong support for clean energies. "Biofuels are very harmful, in
particular for the poor people of the world," he later told reporters. The leader called for "respect of Mother Earth,"
guaranteeing access to basic services for all and putting an end to consumerism. He noted that indigenous peoples had a
different perspective on life, including a stronger commitment to social justice and a preference for communal ownership of
the land. "Mother Earth is not a commodity. It's not something to buy and sell," he said. And he proposed an international
convention "to protect water resources and prevent their privatization by a few." [as reported in www.insnet.org]. In January
2009, Morales made it clear that the increasing world wide demand for the lithium in Bolivia will lead to increased prices for
the benefits of the total population.
Environmentalists have already realised that if and when the poor majority of the world demand a better way of life, the
exploitation and pollution of the world will accelerate out of control. If we listen to Ted Trainer of the University of New South
Wales, future practises will have to be significantly different:
If all 9 billion people soon to be living on earth were to consume resources at the present per capita rate in rich countries,
world annual resource production rates would have to be about 8 times as great as they are now.  All estimated potentially
recoverable resources of fossil fuels (assuming 2t tonnes of coal) would be exhausted in about 18 years.
If all 9 billion were to have the present US timber use per person, the forest area harvested would have to be 3 to 4 times
all the forest area on the planet.
If 9 billion were to have a North American diet 4.5 billion ha of cropland would be required, but there are only 1.4 billion ha
of cropland in use, and this is likely to decline.
The drive for growth, whether by the rich or the poor, has a limited future.[after Ted Trainer]
You may want to argue that social responsibility and capitalism must go together.
If corporate social responsibility as currently practised is a
sham, what should be done to make it a reality?

Ethics World newsletter tells us that www.policyinnovations.org. reports,  
Much of the past fifty years has been characterized by a corporate attitude of denial or obligation. Only over the past fifteen
to twenty years have companies begun to look at social and environmental challenges as business opportunities,either by
"greening" their current products and processes or by moving "beyond greening" to technologies that leapfrog us into the
future and make incumbent technology obsolete through a process of "creative destruction."
Looking forward, however, the greatest opportunity may lie not in reaching only the wealthy of the world with clean
technology, but the six billion plus at the base of the economic pyramid which have historically been bypassed,
underserved, or ignored by economic globalization. To do so will require not only technological ingenuity, but also
disruptive new business models and a willingness to listen and co-create rather than impose new technologies from the top
down. For example, Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Foundation wants us to run 'social businesses', no loss,no
dividend companies, organised to achieve social objectives, such as health care, sanitation, education, clean water.
What could be done to promote CSR?
What and where is the company?  
Offices, factories, warehouses, fields, forests, mines, water. Is it part of the neighbourhood or alien? Does the company
endeavour to link with the local communities.
If you are from another area, or region, or country, make sure you manage the enterprise in the interests of the locale.
Organise the enterprise in tune with the local cultures. On the assumption that you are a capitalist enterprise, invest an
agreed amount of your profits into the improvement of the local area. Do not simply take the money and run.
A fair days pay for a fair days work. Pay the workers at all levels a fair wage as negotiated by all parties. Do not contrive to
pay below the minimum wage. Ideally, one could pay everybody in the company from shop floor to office the same wage.
Provide the whole work force with benefits that will help them to work e.g. health services, medical care, work protection
such as ear defenders, face masks, showers where necessary, changing rooms, toilets; family leave, crèche facilities.
Bus services to and from work; conference meetings by internet, and audio/video links; no company cars.
Fair wages. Fair treatment. Fair trade : tea, coffee, soft drinks, milk, fruit, vegetables. Fair Prices.
All processes to be operated by renewable energy: solar, wind, water. In many locations where there is flowing water, why
not return to the water mill?
If the company is producing finished products, say furniture; then use recycled wood.
If it is buying farm produce, make sure that you do not cheat the farmers: like paying one penny a kilo, and selling on for
1000 pennies a kilo.
In such a CSR company, the priority is offering a fair deal to workers, the suppliers, and the customers. In a company where
profit is the only motive, it is important to cheat the workers, suppliers, and customers so as to maximise profit, and of
course, protest that you are being as fair as possible!
For a company that is manufacturing a finished product, it is essential to cater for any pollution risk from the first design,
rather than discover it after everything has been built. Factories that belch their polluted smokes in to the atmosphere do
so because the company does not care. And the local inspectors cannot be bothered to take action, or are bribed by the
companies to do nothing. It is no good imposing a fine. The factory has to be rebuilt or closed down.
If any of these actions were taken, there would be significant changes to current practices immediately.
All the ‘developing’ countries, that are claiming their places in the new economies will not be able to enjoy the luxuries of the
North American and European capitalists. ‘The West’ will have hoodwinked the rest yet again!
The force of Ted Trainer’s arguments is that we cannot go on as before. It will all change whether we like it or not, and we
shall have to face the consequences.
I accept that you may not want to go as far as Trainer’s forecasts. But it is time for a seed change in our thinking.
‘Exploitation’ leads us to see other people, plants and animals as objects to be used and abused. Our thinking is dominated
by competition and individualism. Within this mindset, ‘social responsibility’ is just another way to take advantage of those
‘objects’. ‘Growth’ involves expansion and greater profits. A company that makes the same profit as the year before is seen
to be failing. ‘Expansion’ means that more land, more resources, are consumed and converted into products and
profit. This capitalist cycle will have to stop.
Already, in the wake of the credit crunch of 2007/8/9, responsible financiers are questioning free markets, and calling for
greater regulation, and suggesting the extension of redistributive taxes. Even senior officers  such as S.Roach at
MorganStanley, a principal investment bank, are raising questions about unfettered capitalism. At one level you could
argue that the financial corporations should regulate themselves more rigorously. At another level, one has to admit that
the ‘crunch’ occurred because these financiers were busy offering packages to a wider range of customers so as to seek
growth, and to maximise their profits. In other words, they were doing what they are supposed to do! in a capitalist system.
And they are looking for greater regulation because many of the key players like JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, Goldman
Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Lehmann Brothers, BearSterns, CitiGroup, and SocGen, Barclays, Northern Rock have lost millions
for themselves, and of course…….for their clients.
Some environmental organisations, such as Earth Action, World Wild life Fund, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace,
LiveGreen, and Ted Trainer’s The Simpler Way [www.ssis.arts.unsw.edu.au] see the capitalist search for growth as the key
to exploitation and destruction. The fact that most companies are not satisfied with stability as the norm, and  are busy
pursuing greater growth and market share, drives them to produce more and to devise a wider range of other products. For
example, local supermarkets will offer 2 for 1 to increase their turnover. But the impact of this is to increase demands for
greater production in the field and under glass, and the ploughing up of forest or scrubland in different parts of the world.
The history of Walmart in the USA has shown the devastating effects on the environment of low prices and bulk demands.
www.walmartwatch.com report  that Walmart promote organic foods, even though many products sold are not organic. Their
superstores create significant atmospheric pollution and water erosion. Their insistence on low prices forces farmers to
adopt industrial farming methods, thus altering the ecology of the locality. The fact that they buy many products from China,
and are in fact their fifth largest trading partner, means that they are part  of the pollution cycle in China.
We have to conclude that a ‘fair price’ is not always a low price. It is a price that allows farmers to cultivate in eco-friendly
ways; and is affordable to the consumers; and generates profit for the shop and the farmer. ‘Walmart Watch’ are clearly
indicating that big-block superstores and their systems of bulk purchase and global transport are unsustainable in the
future, and need to be replaced by smaller mini-markets. The future should be local suppliers for local customers. One
could argue that if we were part of a system in which the price of any product was the sum of costs, plus a premium for
services, then there would be no need for price competition. Or is that being too naïve?
The culture of capitalism means that one is free to use your own , and other people’s, capital for your personal profit; to
use the labour of others for your own profit; to organise companies so that they make the most profit for you. When these
cultural beliefs are associated with the culture of paternalism, some individuals are given greater value than others. For
example, the father is the leader of the family, and  the lines are drawn  for systems of patriarchy, in which the ‘father’ is the
most important individual, to whom homage is owed. My analysis has revealed that the capitalist system of the world is
controlled by many such families. It is run by the ‘barons’ of capital. When associated with elitism, those individuals deemed
to be the most able, and the richest, are allowed to form an upper class distinct from the rest, with the power to control the
rest. Recently, Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs went so far as to declare that such an elite is 'doing God's work '!  In
such a closed  system what does corporate social responsibility mean?  
I want to argue that whether we see ourselves as individuals equal to all others; individuals independent of all others;
individuals as part of a patriarchy; elders of the tribe; or members of an elite; we live in conditions of social
interdependence. The one depends on the many for survival, for prosperity, for language, for culture, for education, for
work, for support, for love, creativity, skills. And of course each one of us benefit from, and contribute to, the networks of
social interdependence.
Social ecology leads us to think and act in the interests of all humans, animals, and plants. Social responsibility involves the
seed change in our thinking that Thabo Mbeki is looking for, and leading us to new ways of behaving that will benefit all: a
new morality!

1. WEALTH and POVERTY:  poverty lines
I have been examining how the distribution of wealth among the 6.89 billion people living across the world is measured. I
have to concede, first, that the concept of wealth is confusing: there are those who have lots of capital, and assets,
and little income; and there are those who have lots of income, which they spend, and so have little capital. But both these
groups are rich! and those with lots of capital, and a large income, are super rich. Then there are those with land and
income; land but no income; no land and no income; labour skills and income/or no income. And there are 2.2 billion
children. Second, during my researches,  it has become clear that a lot more is known about the rich than the poor. For
example, it is known that in 2007 there were 10.1 million $ millionaires in the world, of whom 103,320 were multi-
millionaires, all of whom, together, owned $42 trillion[assets and income], out of a global GDP of $54 trillion. The World
Wealth Report 2009, indicated that in 2008, as a result of the credit crisis,  this number had fallen to  8.6 million
$millionaires, including 78,000 multi-millionaires, controlling $32.8 trillion out of less than $54 trillion. At the top of this rich
list were 1125 billionaires with $4.4 trillion. The  World Wealth Report 2010 announced that there are 10 million individuals
worth $39 trillion. Of these, 3 million are in Europe worth $9.5 trillion; 3 million in Asia-Pacific worth $9.7 trillion; and 3.1
million in North America worth $10.7 trillion. 53.5% of these richest people live in the USA, Japan, and Germany.  Now,
Forbes.com  knows exactly who these people are, where they are, and what they do. In June 2009, Forbes reported that
the billionaires had reduced in number  to 793 and their fortunes reduced to $2.4 trillion. In April 2010, Forbes Russia
revealed the 62 billionaires in Russia who had $297 billion. The World Wealth Report of 2011 declares that the rich are
getting richer. 10.9 million people with access to investments worth $42.7 trillion. [3.1 million in the USA with $11.6 trillion;
3.3 million in Asia/Pacific with $10.8 trillion; and 3.1 million in Europe with $10.2 trillion.]
For the  many people, who believe that individualism and meritocracy and elitism are best, this millionaire elite represent
this elect, the chosen, the blessed, the best of society: models for the rest of us. But what about the rest of us.................
the other 6.88 billion?
According to the elitist paradigm, it is just that the poor majority serve the interests of the wealthy elite. According to the
'social freedom' ethic, the elite should serve the  needs of all others by promoting the redistribution of wealth and the
alleviation of poverty.  Anup Shah, in Global Issues, indicates that there are 5.4 billion people living on less than $10  a
day; and 1.4 billion living on more than $10 a day. It is clear that poverty is the global norm. This is confirmed by a recent
World Bank report which established that the average annual income across the globe is $8000, or $22 a day.
The 1.4 billion people, who are the 'better-off', includes the millionaires and billionaires who live on more than $11000 a
day: and those who live on more than $11 a day; those on average wages, $22 a day; those who are wealthy with more
than $220 a day. Gross wealth inequality is the global norm. The UN tells us that 10% of the global population are wealthy;
90% are poor. Many people fall between $22 and $220 a day, and may be regarded as 'comfortable'. A recent UN report
suggested that if you earn $60,000 a year, you can be included amongst the wealthy.
January 27th. 2010. In the UK, a report produced by the National Equality Panel, led by Prof.John Hills, revealed that 10%
of the UK population received less than $44 a day[27GBP]; while 10% had an income of more than $186 a day; 5%, more
than $232, and 1%, $464 a day.  The poverty line was set at $54 a day [33.7GBP a day]. The report confirmed that the rich
are getting richer, and inequality is greater in 2010 than in 1990 [after 20 years of the so called 'trickle-down' effect]. 50%
of the UK population earn less than $91 a day [56GBP].
Journalists and politicians seem to find it difficult to accept the reality and significance of poverty and inequality. Publication
of the Report led to discussions and debates on the BBC, and in the Houses of Parliament. The participants, like Lord
Heseltine and Harriet Harman, were, however,  more concerned with blaming the poor for forming an under-class, and
accusing the political parties.
We may tinker with the figures, but the truth is that most people in the world are poor. And some of these poor are to be
found in the richest countries of the world like the USA,  Japan, Germany.
The precise definition of poverty is difficult. Until recently absolute poverty was '$1 a day'. But if you have ever tried to live
on a dollar a day, you will know that it is more accurate to say that you die on a dollar a day! unless you can live on a kilo of
tomatoes; or apples.
In the USA, in 2007, the definition of poverty, for a family of five, whereby you become entitled to benefits, is $67 a day. For
a single person, it is $30 a day or $10,991 a year. The latest US Census reports indicate that in 2007  37.3 million people
[12.5% of the population]  lived in poverty. In 2008, it is estimated that 17.1 million had to get by on $14.8 a day. 2009
reports confirmed that out of 310.5 million people, there were 43.6 million  living in poverty, 14.3% of the total population.  
In 2010 it is calculated that 38 million people receive food stamps, and the minimun wage is set at $7.25 per hour. 2011,
the Census declared 46.2 million people living in poverty.
So, 'poverty' across the globe can be defined as living on an income of between $1 and $67 a day.
In the UK, the Inequality Report indicates that there are 982,400 people with zero wealth, of which 614,000 are existing on
no more than '$1 a day'.  
It seems to me that in our global capitalist society about 6 billion people may be described as poor, and 0.2 billion as rich,
of whom 8.6 -10.1 million are very rich. If you live in the prosperous world, it will be difficult to imagine what it is like to be in
the world of the poor.
At this time of financial crises, it is possible to accept that for those on less than $10 a day, nothing has changed. Life
remains a struggle - Survival  accidental. Regular employment, a dream. It will be more catastrophic for those who now
have to live on $220, rather than $11,000 a day; for they will have to get rid of all their assets at cut price and  may have
lost all their savings and pensions as well as income.
At the height of the crisis, it seems that the International Monetary Fund is short of funds, and cannot help those distressed
nations on the verge of bankruptcy. Some of the cash rich countries, like the Oil States, are being lobbied to provide funds
for the IMF. I would suggest that the millionaires, with their $ trillion fortunes could be asked/required to  contribute funds to
the IMF and thereby help, significantly, to alleviate poverty across the globe. But we all know from the Wealth Reports of
Cap Gemini, that they will much prefer to spend their money on luxuries - another luxury car; a new boat; a cruiser;an
aeroplane; a helicopter; another mansion, a hotel; diamonds, gold; a football team; and so on. The strategy paper by
CITIGROUP in 2006 confirmed the existence of the plutonomy, and the need for fund managers to service their needs to
the exclusion of the poor majority.  It is noteworthy that in 2010 a group of billionaires declared their intentions to raise their
donations to charity, and actively support redistribution of money to alleviate poverty.
The financial crises has revealed clearly that the alleviation of poverty and inequality is not a priority for any
social/economic/investment/financial/  government policy.

JOIN THE DEBATE:  email:  hmr@kelvynrichards.com