Part 3 (2/2)

Ten years later, it seems as if there aren't any more rich countries Just a whole lot of rich people People who got rich looting the public wealth and exhausting natural resources around the world

The point is, today everyone can see that the systereed has trashed the global econo the natural world as well We are overfishi+ng our oceans, polluting our water with fracking and deepwater drilling, and turning to the dirtiest fory on the planet, like the Alberta tar sands And the at into it, creating dangerous at The new norical

These are the facts on the ground They are so blatant, so obvious, that it is a lot easier to connect with the public than it was in 1999, and to build the movement quickly

We all know, or at least sense, that the world is upside down: We act as if there is no end to what is actually finite-fossil fuels and the atmospheric space to absorb their emissions And we act as if there are strict and immovable limits to what is actually bountiful-the financial resources to build the kind of society we need

The task of our tie this false scarcity To insist that we can afford to build a decent, inclusive society-while at the same time, respect the real lie means is that we have to do this on a deadline This tiet distracted, divided, burned out, or swept away by events This ti the banks and increasing taxes on the rich, though that's i values that govern our society That is hard to fit into a single ure out how to do it But it is no less urgent for being difficult

That is what I see happening in this square In the way you are feeding each other, keeping each other war health care,My favorite sign here says, ”I care about you” In a culture that trains people to avoid each other's gaze, to say, ”Let then carries a deeply radical statele, here are sos that don't matter:ear;whether we shake our fists or ns;whether we can fit our dreams for a better world into a s that do e;our moral coht with the most powerful econo And as this etAlways be aware that there will be a teets-like, say, the person sitting next to you at thisAfter all, that is a battle that's easier to win

Don't give in to the te don't call each other on shi+t But this time, let's treat each other as if we plan to work side by side in struggle for many, many years to co less

Let's treat this beautifulin the world Because it is It really is

Nao journalist, syndicated colu book, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism This chapter is the transcript of a speech delivered at Occupy Wall Street on October 6, 2011, and originally published in The Occupied Wall Street Journal on October 8, 2011

Photo by Fran Korten

SEATTLE, October 15, 2011

PART II

WHAT NEEDS TO CHANGE

When 1 of the population controls the bulk of the wealth and power, the resulting inequality poisons our entire society That's the point Richard Wilkinson makes in chapter 9, in his intervieith Brooke Jarvis

But hoe restructure our economy so that it benefits the 99 instead of just the 1?

A crucial step is to redesign thesystem to shi+ft power from Wall Street to Main Street, David Korten says in chapter 10 He elaborates six key changes to feed resources to the Main Street economy, which meets actual human needs, instead of to the Wall Street econoreed and speculation

Another key is to shi+ft taxes so that the wealthiest pay ressive taxation allows us to invest in transportation, schools, and other public goods while preventing the cancerous growth of inequality Chuck Collins shows in chapter 11 three immediate ways to e jobs that preserve and restore the soil, water, air, and other natural resources we rely on We can do that by building locally rooted econo Pibel sho to start

These are just some of the ways to turn our unfair econo of ordinary people, their communities, and the planet first

CHAPTER 9

HOW INEQUALITY POISONS SOCIETY AND EQUITY BENEFITS EVERYONE:

AN INTERVIEW WITH RICHARD WILKINSON

BROOKE JARVIS

”We are the 99” It's been perhaps the strongest rallying cry of the Occupy Wall Streetfor food, housing, and health care, while the incohts

But Occupy Wall Street has become a nize the failures of our current econoe benefits froe,” writes one self-identified 1-er in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street ”If it's not working for everyone, it's not working” She's right, in fact British epideist Richard Wilkinson has found that economic inequality has a host of corrosive i even those at the top of the pile I sat doith Wilkinson to discuss the surprising importance of equality-and the best ways to build it

Brooke: You've studied the i tis surprise you?

Richard: Oh, all of the in public health have looked for a link between poverty and social probleht that once you found the relationshi+p between income and death rates, for example, you would be able to predict what a state's death rate would be Actually, though, that doesn't produce a good prediction It turns out that what matters aren't the incomes themselves, but how unequal they are If you're a her death rate

In less equal societies, we find perhaps eight tie births per capita, ten times the homicide rate, three tis that it's the status divisions themselves that create the problems It's almost impossible to find any other consistent explanation

Brooke: How does thinking about these problerapple with them?

Richard: I think people have been worried by the scale of social probleh we're , and we don't knohy The media are always full of these social probleion or whatever It makes an important difference to people to have an analysis that really fits, not only in a sort of academic way, but also that fits intuitions that people have had People have intuited for hundreds of years that inequality was divisive and socially corrosive

Inequality has psychosocial effects-the is of superiority or inferiority If you grow up in an unequal society, your actual experience of human relationshi+ps is different Your idea of hues For instance, in more equal countries or more equal states, two-thirds of the population eneral, whereas in the more unequal countries or states, it may drop as low as 15 percent or 25 percent

Brooke: Once we become aware of the impact of inequality on all of these social ills, what do we do about it?

Richard: Countries seereater equality in quite different ways Sweden, for exa differences in earnings, which are redistributed through taxes and benefits It has a large welfare state japan, on the other hand, has smaller income differences to start with, does h social expenditure But both countries do very well-they're a the more equal countries and their health and social outcoood

But we can't just rely just on taxes and benefits to increase equality-the next governet this structure of equality much more deeply embedded in our society I think that means more economic de about friendly societies, mutual societies, employee ownershi+p, employee representatives on the board, cooperatives-ways in which business is subjected to democratic influence The bonus culture is only possible because the people at the top are not answerable to the employees at all Employee ownershi+p turns a company into a community The chief executive becoht vote for your boss to have, I don't know, three times as much income as you-but not three hundred or four hundred tireater equality and more democratic accountability in our institutions doesincome distribution or wealth distribution And, a number of studies show that if you coet quite reliable increases in productivity This is about hoork better together

Brooke Jarvis is YES! Magazine's web editor and a regular contributor to YES! This chapter is adapted fro on March 4, 2010

CHAPTER 10

SIX WAYS TO LIBERATE MAIN STREET FROM WALL STREET