Cast Away : For These Reasons. Lambert Timothy James
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arena, a nationâs ability to race against others of at least the same size predetermines its prospect for growth and development. The Republic of Burundi and the Kingdom of Belgium, two countries of roughly the same size and population, cannot be further apart economically. Burundiâs GDP is half of one percent that of Belgium. Other than racking debt higher than the tiny Kingdomâs GDP, how else did Belgium achieve this prowess?
The historians tell the story of Belgiumâs comparative advantage over Burundi beginning in the 19th century. Belgiumâs King Leopold II2 applied the well-traveled path of, âif you donât have resources, go grab some.â Through this, just like The Netherlands, Britain, France, Italy and Germany they were able to amass personal and national wealth. Colonization was not a self-defeating drain on the domestic economy. Quite the opposite.
While Germans were decimating Burundiâs socio-cultural structures, from 1887 to 1965, King Leopold II of Belgium, and subsequently Belgium as a nation, was quietly plundering the natural resources from a territory eighty times its size, known today as the Democratic Republic of Congo. After World War II, Burundi was wrenched from Germanyâs grip and given to Belgium by the League of Nations for enduring the temporary hardships of war by their big neighbor.
Developing countries are not the sole sources of evidence of the global malfeasance by politicos and their economist stooges. On the one hand, centralized economies have failed by imposing a uniform basket of needs for the ninety-nine percent of the population at the bottom. The defunct Soviet Union implemented Communism by plundering the wealth of the ruling class and then ate the middle class when the wealthy were extinguished. The intelligentsia filled Gulags who knew how to run a nation and economy no matter how poorly, or who quickly deserted the nation of their birth for France, England, Germany and America. This left the Soviet Union with management at every level with no knowledge of how to run a nation let alone a war-torn bankrupt economy.
Whereas on the other hand, the free market is failing us with a morally bankrupt rules of survival of the fittest, catering to the new investor classes of fractional class elite. The defunct Soviet Union implemented Communism correctly until it hit a wall, literally. Whereas on the other hand, the free market is failing us with an unethical rule of the survival of the fittest, catering to a small group of the one percent at the top. The only time, in recent memories, The United States Congress came together in bipartisan fashion was to bail out numerous "too big to fail" U.S. banks and insurance companies. In contrast, in 2013, the same Congress slashed billions of dollars from the food stamp program that had kept a chunk of The United States population noses above the poverty level3.
When you pay attention to the global financial transactionsâ postcard, you should be able to see how the Capitalism model has confined lucrative international financial flows within the same economies. Other countries are reduced to mere providers of raw material and cheaper labor. However, the fat lady is about to stop singing very soon; she is getting too plump to stand on her feet. In 2010, General Motors shut down their plant in Antwerp, Belgium, because of the excess capacity in the European car industry. Subsequently, other plants across different industries in Europe and North America have since closed their doors.
"Koketsu ni irazunba koji wo ezu."â Japanese Wisdom
Although by respective economic doctrine, the Republic of Cuba and England are recklessly doing right. At the assessment of the two existing economic lines of attacks (poverty, pollution, war, etc.) suggests to our sense of humanity that neither approaches are the right thing to do. I had a glimmer of hope when the former Soviet Union and China decided to go cold turkey, breaking out from the communist penitentiary institution, until they ran straight into the psychiatric Capitalism facility, which is a pure form of insanity!
Currently, the world lacks full-bodied alternatives and, after multiple frantic financial crises, acknowledging Capitalism's barbarism and flaws should not be a mortal sin. In the light of recurrent facts, financial cataclysms' austerity and spending have shown not to be sustainable solutions, but rather a lampooning of the struggling class. I allow myself here to say in the most simplistic way, new markets need to be promoted to rejuvenate the global economic system, but in doing so, new trends need to be developed to avoid the final cataclysm. This change requires applying the appropriate social, commerce and trade, and political form that will not only move "poor" countries into the international trade system, as to say from exploited bystanders to active producers and buyers but also break current markets' affairs from the old order and the New World Order.
Creative as humans are, I used to wait on the side for a superwoman to save us all. Then I learned that in 1945 when American and British battleships and aircraft carriers were getting close to the Japanese mainland, ordinary young people were asked to make the ultimate sacrifice to save the empire of the rising sun - their lives. The pitch of victimhood built on the atomic attacks in Hiroshima and Nagasaki romanticized these young men's fearlessness. I took an offense when called a kamikaze for my attacks on Capitalism only after I learned about the Nanjing Massacre, and women forced into sex slavery for the Japanese military.
Tired of waiting for a whistle that will halt our deliberate destruction, I am not going to bore you with the same crybaby wailing that you have come to associate with critics of Capitalism or social, commerce and trade, and political injustices. To burst your bubble, the solution is neither increasing the minimum wage, give a dog a bone, nor building up tax barracks, Nezumi kozo. These two are nothing more than economic palliative remedies. To your delight or indignation, I am going to expose your few remaining neurons to a new social, commerce and trade, and political form that potentially transposes general notions by propelling the ninety-nine percent to the top and take care of the one percent less fortunate at the bottom. And Caesar, ahem, you the reader, would have to decide my fate!
3
I see poor people
"In a country well governed, poverty is something to be ashamed of. In a country badly governed, wealth is something to be ashamed of."â Confucius
In my view, by far the creepiest social site out there is the one dedicated to M. Night Shyamalan by one of his diehard followers. For an Indian-American to achieve such a high level of success as a screenwriter, film producer, director, and A-listed star of Hollywood without relying on the clichéd dancing and chanting in Bollywood cinematographic format is impressive. I am, myself, a huge fan of his breakthrough and most celebrated movie The Sixth Sense (1999). This movie's box office gross suggests that there are not many homo-sapiens who have not watched it. For the rest of you who were still living in cages around that time, the superb plot is around a boy, Cole, who has the ability to communicate with spirits that don't know they are dead. He seeks the help of a depressed child psychologist, a role superbly played by one of Hollywood's biggest stars at the time, Bruce Willis. The movie's good bumping moment comes when the camera slowly zooms to the boy's face, then-unknown child actor, Haley Joel Osment, and he whispers, "I see dead people," turning the line instantly into one of the most used catchphrases of that time.
It has been quite some time since I found myself entangled in a dilemma similar to Cole's. No doubt that the crusade I have embarked on has drawn me to experience life as I never thought I would. Let me assure you, the life of a hermit monk has not sounded appealing to me, yet. I have to say that the emotional expedition has broken my myopic life lenses, which forced me to observe my surroundings, relying on all of my senses, and upped my state of consciousness. After enlisting new priorities in my daily life, nowadays, I have a hard time sleeping all through the night. My mind fly miles away in the middle of dull seminars and conversations. When you have voices nagging in your head, pointing left and right, life becomes a wild roller coaster ride. I came to wonder when the devil had possessed me? I cannot afford to hire my own disheartened shrink, even less so Bruce Willis (I tried). In the goal of exorcising my demons, I hope that pinning down critical events in my ordinary life will help me trace the original trigger that led to my obsession with caring for the less fortunate. I cannot stop seeing poor people!
Tara's