| Free Trade
The powerful and cunning of the world had learned to plunder by trade centuries ago and societies ever since have been caught in the trap of those unequal trades, and thus insecurity, instability, social unrest, rebellion, suffering, and the torment of the human soul has gone on for ages. As Smith put it, “Once unequal trades were in place, restructuring to equal trade would mean the severing of arteries of commerce which provide the higher standard of living for the dominant society and collapse of those living standards would almost certainly trigger open revolt, The world is trapped in that pattern of unequal trades yet today.” The integrity of globalization’s principles, which has been severely lacking in this regard, requires a great and profound change. Free world trade is a concept that has behind it the implied practice of unequal trade and that is not healthy in any sense of the word for anyone. ‘Free’
world trade and other self-protective philosophies There is no quick restructuring to equal trade in the world because such an adjustment would mean immediate loss of wealth to the many who have it. It would signal in a drastic drop in living standards for Americans and Europeans and that is not politically acceptable. The deeper ideas and vision behind globalization are actually quite good but we see many people actively protesting it. The present engineers of globalization do not see really that the evolution of the whole system cannot take place in fact and in reality unless all its parts are raised in potential. The Buddhist view affirms that the selfish seeking of one’s own bliss (financial and spiritual) without fully sharing it with all others is an ineffective goal that is always self-defeating. The world at large is on the edge of such self-defeat and it is one of the main messages of this book that now our survival in many areas of life now depends on caring and loving. Free trade, which sounds good, is really a massive Concern for the well-being of others has become indispensable for the protection and security of us all. We have not and will not see the emergence of conscientious leaders in powerful nations with such concerns for the whole because politics as usual requires leaders to care for their own even as billions of people are impoverished by their strategies of the most powerful nations. The great problem of course has been that all to often, leaders care not even for their own constituents, too often paying attention to their own pockets and the interests of lobbyists who represent special interest groups that finance much of the political world. Much of what we read and hear in the
news We protect naturally what is ours; the power of possession, control, greed, ambition, lust dominates in places that are disastrous to a healthy collective human consciousness on this planet. Nothing will work until at the highest levels these forces are brought under some kind of control. Many people are working toward many creative solutions, and there are answers. Communism has already collapsed as a potential world system for many reasons though it did hold some perspective on what might be a way toward some kind of common good. It at least had that principle at heart no matter how cruelly and stupidly it sought to make it to that vision. Communism violated the basic principle that tells us that there is really no separation between the means and the end thus their means became their end. There is something about capitalism that ignites the passion and creativity of humankind but our present form of selfish unfair capitalism is leading to its own end. The basic reason why some have tried to lead us to think that the basic nature of business cycles has finished is to turn our consciousness away from the probability that the next serious downturn will not be a cycle but and end meaning chance for a creative and necessary rebirth. What we basically need in the world of business and finance is less greed and more responsibility for the common wealth of all nations, of all people. We are in absolute desperate need of real integrity and caring in the power centers and yet the power and wealth of these centers seem to be the largest obstacles to this integrity and caring. So much can and needs to be said about these crucial subjects. The dice have been thrown though and the die has been set and there is little anyone can really do about it but hold on as the squall of change hits the bows of all ships. We cannot expect the kingpins of the present world order to change so our expectations of the near future have to be predicated on that basic assumption. World Psychology is treating a race under stress; a race deluded with false assumptions about some key life issues. Most psychologists know that it is almost impossible to help or treat someone who does not even believe they have a problem, and though most of us know in our heart of hearts the trouble we are up against, the mainstream will not acknowledge much of anything until it has no other choice. Once the real problems are admitted and an open world dialogue starts about how to really begin to address the issues, we will have a great task that will challenge the heart and soul of humanity. How we do with that challenge will be reflected strongly in the lives of our children and grandchildren. Their future is in our hands. Even if we are helpless to navigate a different path in the present, we need to start plotting course changes on the international map of the collective consciousness of humanity. American
domestic and foreign policy is now,
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