“It is assumed that the momentum for change must come from outside the situation, rather than from the self-reflection and creativity of those within the situation to restructure their own patterns of interaction.”

~ From Elinor Ostrom’s speech upon receipt of the 2009 Nobel Prize for Economics

Christmas has been largely hijacked by capitalism, it is true – but the underlying desire to meet another’s need and fulfill a loved one’s dream has neither died, nor is it likely to as long as human beings exist. Many of us shop ‘til we drop to find that perfect gift.

Of course, we all now realize that there is another invisible price tag attached to what we buy: it has to do with human health and the environment on which our health depends. That second price tag also involves the poor health of slave labourers in those countries to whom our profit-hungry corporations outsource as much work as possible, and our own health when we buy goods made by that slave labour – goods often laced with all kinds of chemical toxins in fabrics, foods, furniture, electronics, etc. The wealth of a nation can now be readily interpreted in terms of the health of its people. The pursuit of profit has brought a great deal of sickness to people and to our natural support system – the world of plants, animals, water, earth, and air. The core problem, however, is something very unemotional: economic inefficiency based on illusions about reality and negative assumptions about human nature.

Consider, for example, that 50% of Ontario’s annual budget goes into health care. Will there be money for anything else in the future? Political economist David DeGraw, discussing “economic terrorism,” points to some grim statistics: 50 million U.S. citizens live in poverty and have no access to health care, and 50% of all U.S. children use food stamps (in Canada, one million children use food banks). In 2009, about 1.4 million people filed for bankruptcy, an increase of 32% in one year, and 60% of those were due to medical bills, even though all of them had health care insurance, which turned out to be dramatically insufficient. Despite the high concentration of medical research, products, and technology in the U.S., it rates 37th in overall satisfactory health care in the world. The U.S. unemployment rate hovers at 20%. By 2011, the U.S. national debt will surpass its entire gross national product of over $15 trillion.

“Fuzzy stuff” like love and respect for nature, and valuing the common good above maximization of personal profit, do not generally get expressed in the language of mathematical models, empirical experiments, and hard core economic analysis of real life situations. Nor do they get enthusiastic support from publications like Forbes Magazine and Fortune 500. But that is what happened when the 2009 Nobel Prize in economics went to Elinor Ostrom. Educated at Indiana and Arizona universities, her work represents the most radical departure from current economic thinking, and that of the last three centuries, possibly since Adam Smith.

The Nobel Committee stated in their press releases on October 12, 2009 that “Ostrom challenged the conventional wisdom that resources held in common must be poorly managed [and showed] that common resources can be managed successfully by the people who use them, rather than by governments or private companies.” Her many studies over four decades, including user-managed fish stocks, pastures, woods, lakes, groundwater basins, decentralized police forces, and more, showed outcomes “better than predicted by standard theories.” She analyzed the spontaneously arising collective behavioural and administrative rules and how these “promote successful outcomes.” Indeed, Ostrom created a solid research foundation for Margret Mead’s famous observation: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”

To appreciate the tectonic shift involved, we need to look at what it is that Ostrom reinterprets. An examination of the current economic mess is perfect for this. The world’s economy is dominated by notions of globalization, deregulation, and its attendant spin-doctoring of the facts to suit the dogmas of the Church of Capitalism. These notions made corporate self-interest go viral and brought the world to the brink of a total economic meltdown in October 2008, as the President of the Bank of Canada explained to CBC Radio’s Michael Enright on November 21. (Nevertheless, $150 billion was paid out in bonuses to Wall Street executives in 2009 in apparent appreciation of their diligence which wrecked the U.S. economy and messed up the world’s money supply.)

To read the full article, please visit:
http://www.vitalitymagazine.com/dec10_helkefeat

---

David Suzuki: On Big Business, the Environment & the Future

"In 1989, when the Exxon Valdez oil spill happened, the American GDP went up by $2 billion. If you looked only at GDP growth, then you'd say, "Well, that's great--spill oil all over the place, it's good for the GDP." This is a nutty, stupid notion of an indicator of anything, and yet every politician will turn somersaults to try and keep the GDP growing."

To read the full article, please visit:
http://www.canadianbusiness.com/managing/ceo_interviews/article.jsp?content=20060108_173119_4708