Humanistic Economy vs. finansocracy

The first version of this paper (“Humanistic Economy Concept”)
was published in 2008 in a Web Journal “New Paradigm”:
This new version of the paper is supplemented with some additional facts and arguments.
This paper is neither about charity and welfare works nor about introducing more humanistic details or features to the existing economy. It's about the economy of the future if it materializes - since the existing modes of economy and civilization are incompatible not only with sustainability but also with the survival of civilization itself! Of course the current economy of parasitism and exploitation theoretically may have some chance to survive somehow if it is able to reduce harmful environmental impacts and to smooth over other conflicts and contradictions but it means only that although parasitism on the Nature/Environment may be decreased significantly the exploitation of people will continue and may become more severe.
Many of the ideas and concepts stated below may sound revolutionary but please don't consider them as my appeal for immediate socio - economic revolution. If I appeal to anybody for anything it is for a mind revolution which in turn will be followed by changes in "real life": economy, politics etc.
I "invented" the term "Humanistic economy" independently (when I was invited by Dr. Michael Ellis to contribute to above New Paradigm Journal in 2008) but after browsing in the English and Russian Internet I've found that of course I am not the first who has started to apply this term. However, despite unavoidable resemblance to other ideas and views there is no one fixed or commonly accepted concept of Humanistic economy since of course it's a rather new concept which is being developed by just a few economists. What I have read about "humanistic economy" is mostly a fragmentary recommendation to correct certain economic problems.
In January of 2011 I read an article published by Irene Nygеrdsvik: “A HUMANISTIC ECONOMY -Life-enriching businesses with life-enriching bottom lines”. Conceptually her thinking resonates with mine. She stated, inter alia: “In a capitalistic economy "the business of business" is to make profits. In a humanistic economy "the business of business" is to enrich the lives of the owners, the employees, the customers, the suppliers, and also to be an enriching force in relation to the local community, the global community and to nature”. She provided a sound comparison between “a capitalistic economy” and “a humanistic economy and also gave examples or appearances of a humanistic economy within dominating capitalistic economy. However, political and hidden power background of the modern (more and more globalized) economy was not considered in her article, I mean the stranglehold of finances (financial institutes, instruments and their holders/owners) and the virtual economy.
I think it's important to create the holistic image or model of the future Humanistic economy, which would be desirable for over 95 % of the planet population. We will otherwise miss the core issues. I hope that my own view presented in this brief thesis is comprehensive and adequate.
Is the modern type of the economy the best and only possible economy? I think the majority of people and many economists would say: "no, of course the existing economy is not perfect and may be even far from perfection". Some economists would emphasize that the major problem is that the economy generates external effects, and that it doesn't properly take into consideration the interests of our future generations.
Ecological economists who are in all probability the most progressive thinkers among the economists, would mention undervaluation of Nature, ecosystems etc. Some economists will mention the far from optimal taxation systems which tax, i.e. de-stimulate some positive factors and create obstacles and disincentives for production while some negative factors are not taxed and thus are stimulated.
Liberal and neoliberal economists rebel against any subsidies and governmental involvement in and influence on the economy. Many people would mention financial and economical crises – especially now, after global crisis started in 2008. Socialist and communist theoreticians and some other outstanding thinkers such as E. Fromm, would say about tremendous disparities, about private appropriation of land and rental income as well as exploitation and about the incompatibility of the modern western style economy with the positive evolution of humankind and the maintenance of a sustainable civilization and Global existence.
My opinion is that the existing economy is getting antiquated in its cornerstone concepts and in the near future will not be able to maintain a sustainable civilization.
Of course an economic model depends on the state of people's minds, people's consciousness, and Humankind's collective karma. One can say that people's imperfections predetermine the economy's defects. Someone may conclude that consumer's preferences including their vices cause economic deficiencies and distortions and that if people were righteous the existing mode of economy would be in this case quite adequate. The Modern dominating economy is not just a consequence, a simple result of people's consciousness, preferences, values, needs, and demands - it is now also able itself to actively and intentionally form state of mind, world outlook, values, needs and demand.
I am going to describe a very different mode of economy which is not derived from the existing economic type by means of certain improvements.
I would like to draw a framework of a constructive (not purely ideal) economy in principle free of the vices of the current economy which like tiny cracks in a stone monolith will sooner or later destroy it. Humanistic economy is the economy without the cracks of false distribution and redistribution, parasitism and exploitation potentials. I believe that educated people will support and vote for a new economic model.
So, what I want to do here is not to describe the ideal economy but just to portray major principles of the positive, constructive economy which is able to improve people's lives and  societies. For the beginning we need only to follow the principle of human rights and democratic procedures while the majority of people vote for transition to the new type of economy. Of course, all important components of this new economy should be comprehensively explained to the people, including providing comparison with the existing economy.
Such a new Economy serves for the good of the whole society and each person's inner well being.
It means that the beneficiaries are all people - not the extreme minority as is now. Economy serves humans - The people do not serve the economy but improve and modify it to make it more and more in harmony in which there is direct dependence between income and public benefit in order to, meet both long-term interests of the society and short and long term interests of individuals, These interests should be well balanced between mind, body, social and environmental ones. People should serve each other and society both through the economy and also without any mediation of the economy. Economy is designed to improve people's lives and their personal grade of development including spiritual, mental, and soul.
1. Today people are enslaved by the economy and by a Global technocratic civilization. It is usually the higher social ranks that impose slavery on many other people. At the same time they have themselves to follow the rules which they impose on those around them and are thus limited in the creation of human values The existing form of economy promotes economic growth, technical growth and development creating technical perfection and efficiency. This is at the expense of an approaching global catastrophe based on a spiritual and global health crisis which in turn is creating global environmental or military, genetic or microbiological, or humanitarian disaster.
To be honest the currently dominating civilization is not only technocratic but also finansocratic and even (what is much worse) parazitoctratic. This statement should be supported by serious substantiative explanations/arguments. Let me start with some historic background.
At first the financial capital of usury was relocated from Venice to Amsterdam as the place with the most favourable conditions for augmentation of financial and trade capital thanks to the fact that, in the first place, the liberation from the rule of the Spanish Crown along with the firm establishment of Protestantism left no obstacles in the way of moneylending practice  and, secondly, the Dutch fleet by then had grown to be one of the biggest fleets in the world while it was the colonial trade that was bringing major profits. By the middle of the 17th century the Dutch priority at sea was indisputable: Holland owned 15-16 thousand ships of the European total of 20,000 vessels. The trade domination of Holland however was far from corresponding to the level of the country’s industrial development and by late 17th century the world trade hegemony of Holland was coming to an end. The lead was being taken by England which was far ahead in terms of industrial production development. The defeat of Holland in the Anglo-Dutch wars of the 17th century resulted in the country’s capital being increasingly reallocated to foreign loans. Greater financial, economic and political potential in comparison to Holland apparently made it the finansocrats’ next target.
A series of dynastic and religious conflicts and wars had a logical ending: the English and Dutch usurers-moneychangers paid William of Orange to invade England. The new King managed to convince the government of the necessity to borrow 1.2 million pounds sterling from a private corporation required to wage a war against France. That corporation, also known as the Bank of England, was ready to obtain the required sum from an anonymous group (future shareholders) and lend it to the King at 8% interest plus 4,000 pounds per year. The offer was approved and the Bank of England was granted the right to issue bonds bearing stamps of the Kingdom and the Bank to the amount of the loan and on security of the government . This was how the first private central bank came into being in 1694. By 1698 the national debt had reached Ј16,000,000 and continued to grow. According to the Bill of Rights (1698), the King had no authority to abrogate the Banks’ privileges without consent of the Parliament, i.e. in fact of the Bank of England itself skilfully controlling all critical parliamentary activities . That was how London became the capital of international usury (in the second half of the 18th century London took over from Amsterdam the title of the financial capital of the world), the country’s government institutions turned into accomplices of the financial oligarchy, and the country itself came to be used as a money-making mechanism .
The creation of the Federal Reserve Bank in 1913 provided the international bankers an opportunity to rapidly build up their financial and political power in the USA. The Federal Reserve was established on 23 December 1913 as a private corporation with member-banks holding all shares and receiving tax-free dividends. The corporation is liable to postage as any other private company and its employees are not public servants.
In 1932 Louis McFadden, Chairman of the United States House Committee on Banking and Currency, summarised the activity of the FRS in his speech to the Congress: “... we have in this Country one of the most corrupt institutions the world has ever known. I refer to the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve Banks, hereinafter called the Fed. ... This evil institution has impoverished and ruined the people of these United States ... and has practically bankrupted our Government. It has done this ... through the corrupt practices of the moneyed vultures who control it”. This was said at the time of the worst economic crisis of 1929/1933. “Crisis” – that’s the favourite justification for reformatting (imperceptibly for the profane) the world’s financial setup. It is also the best instrument for revision of the world itself as well. Each crisis therefore serves several objectives. The progression of the FRS owners towards the world domination has been and will always be marked with milestones of carefully masterminded crises, be it stock market crash, war or currency and security prices slump. The Great Depression of the ‘20s-30s offers a perfect illustration to the above statement . Just like the Great Depression the present crisis was preceded with a period of massive economic development. The rapid growth was associated with the actions of the Federal Reserve which had dramatically increased money supply in circulation. What was it done for? The FRS owners were planning to buy up local US assets they were interested in for a song and, at the same time, to ruin all financial actors beyond their control so that nobody in the USA could take advantage of the election win to change the legislation and, with a dash of a pen, destroy the existing FRS to create an alternative organisation. Only finances, the overwhelming power of money supported by the mighty media can lift a politician to power. What is required to create a financial crisis? First, lend as much money as possible so that new credits would be required to pay debts with interest. The mechanism of organising a crisis is simple: lend no more money and demand old debts to be paid. That was how the Great Depression was created; the same pattern was used to trigger off the crisis of 2008/09 . The money supply, which was deliberately accumulated during the pre-crisis period, was reduced from 49 billion USD in July 1929 to 30 billion dollars by July 1933. Then it was time for the next step: once created, the problem had to be dealt with. How? The solution was sought and found: new personality and new policy. On March 4, 1933 Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected President of the United State. His primary objective was to destroy the gold standard. This was what the Great Depression was all about. The Dollar had to be dissociated from the lasting values heretofore considered unshakeable. It was to become the highest universal value itself and, in fact, to replace gold .
World War II manifested another step towards strengthening the world power of the finansocrats. In 1944, the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference in Bretton Woods created an international monetary and financial system making it an obligation for each country to adopt a monetary policy that maintained the exchange rate by tying its currency to the U.S. dollar ($35 per troy ounce), i.e. the US dollar was actually made an international currency. The USA domination in the post-war world economy facilitated the expansion of the dollar and ever-growing power of the international bankers. The termination of convertibility of the dollar to gold in 1971 resulted in the situation when dollars were no more supported by any real assets; the money, of course, is to be secured by commodities and services (but the size of the US produced goods and services is incomparable with the money supply) to be evaluated in that same money . But the issue of money is controlled by a small group of people exclusively in their own interests no matter how contradictory those might be to any interests or benefits of any states and nations.
The US Federal Government borrows dollars from the Federal Reserve System. As a result, as of now the US Government owes to the Federal Reserve over $10 trillion while continuing to pay annual interest of about $400 billion from the taxes collected from US citizens. No unencumbered, interest-free money is generated by the USA: both companies and citizens therefore ultimately have to borrow money from the Federal Reserve System only in order to pay interest on loans and credits. The population is sinking deeper and deeper into a bottomless debt abyss. As a consequence the accumulated debt of individuals, legal entities and authorities of all levels currently exceeds $60 trillion, which they don’t have the ability to service (i.e. pay interest). In fact 98% of the US citizens are in life debt bondage, i.e. all their property and earnings are far less than their total debt and debt service cost; moreover, neither they nor their children will never ever be able to break free from the debt slavery. Past decades have been marked by a world-wide expansion of that kind of usurious enslavement practiced by the US Federal Reserve System.
The international finance system, which is based on the US dollar issued by the FRS and secured by nothing but bonds never to be redeemed, is characterised by all signs of a typical financial pyramid. The only difference is in the gigantic, global scale of the enterprise and unprecedented, unparalleled resources of the powers which support it. The value of the dollar is determined by continuously generated artificial demand on it as the world’s main reserve currency. “The annual increase of the dollar supply is estimated at 10%. The dollar is a “security” that relies exclusively on the payers’ trust, which is maintained by a complex system of political, military, financial and institutional measures. The international finance system dictates an obligation for each country to adopt the US dollar as the main reserve currency, the primary payment instrument supporting the world trade; moreover, a much more significant obligation consists in the fact that those countries must take loans in dollars and borrow more and more dollars to service their debts. Thus the FRS is granted the right and possibility of unlimited issue of money which is creating the world financial pyramid. “Having engaged the USA first and further all the dollar-wise countries into the servicing of the financial pyramid, the Federal Reserve System already cannot (and doesn’t want to – Author) stop this process. All actors on the international financial market become involuntary players or participants of the pyramid. In order to support relative stability of the dollar pyramid, the Federal Reserve System assisted by the US Government artificially creates demand on this currency thereby forming an endless chain of ongoing refinancing of old loans and progressive borrowing, i.e. procurement of new loans”  .
The surplus money supply is dumped on the international commodity market in exchange for raw materials or otherwise injected in the high profit sectors of the financial market.  The dollar must be in constant demand on the international market in order to maintain the pyramid operation, while the growing dollar supply requires ever growing consumption to discharge the surplus. Surplus dollars are being increasingly tied  by means of inflating fictitious speculative bubbles of various securities. The money has ultimately lost connection with the production of real values since the 1970s; the “financial bubble” kept growing at a simply threatening rate by far exceeding the real economy rates of growth – see table 1 and figure 1 below.

Table 1
Year 1973 1988 1990 1997 2000 2008
Speculative finance capital, $ billions ~20 ~150 ~210 ~370 ~400 >900
World GDP, $ trillion. 3.9 18.07 20.4 32.3 40 65.6

The dominating type of the modern economy can be characterised as parasitic. This situation is supported by a system of financial, political, military, institutional, information/ideological and a number of other instruments. From the historic perspective, the main driving force of the fictitious parasitic economy has been primarily represented by usurers and moneychangers. Over two centuries ago those instruments were supplemented with a privately controlled issue of uncovered, or rather partially covered monetary funds. The mechanisms of fictitious economy and parasitism in general were essentially improved in the 20th century. The instruments of usury, private issue of money uncovered by real assets and currency speculation were combined with catalytic mechanisms for the issue of dollars. These mechanisms were, in the first place, to support high dollar demand in the real economic sector on a global scale in prejudice of other currencies and respective economies (actually weakening those), which required inspiration of the two world wars, revolutions, numerous local conflicts and coups; secondly, the objective was to tie  surplus dollars by means of inflating fictitious speculative bubbles while establishing international financial institutions to maintain ever growing demand of the “developing countries” for the dollar loans and thus increasing their debt bondage.
The most dramatic unfavourable trend does not consist even in the scale of economically measured injustice. The transformation boils down to the following: while earlier there existed religious or secular authorities capable of even temporarily suspending usury as such or at least limiting interest rates, now the power and authority of the former usurers and moneychangers proved to be superior to those of once sovereign states. At present the level and scope of injustice have soared by orders of magnitude: firstly, colossal scale of redistribution of income from the majority of the population in favour of a few individuals; secondly, subordination of governments and media to the interests of the finansocrats.
The latter phenomenon is particularly important. On the one hand, it resulted in the full legalisation of all critical instruments of the fictitious economy with the public failing to understand not only the viciousness and depravity of such an economy but unable to admit even a possibility of an alternative non-parasitic economy; on the other hand, this alliance allowed organisation of local and global crises, wars and revolutions, subversive actions under the kind of an information and ideological cover that the overwhelming majority of the people can’t even suspect who indeed stands behind those actions. Last but not least the parasitocrats have prepared a foundation for the ultimate seizure of power at a global scale to be followed by the coup legalisation and establishment of “the new world order”. 
Since the world finansokratia (finansocracy) has been most actively using the USA for the past 100 years as a substrate while preparing the final spurt to the global supremacy, the USA got the better of the two world wars and secured world leading positions both politically and economically. The brutal exploitation of the US population by the finansocrats is accompanied with a far more oppressive and ruthless exploitation of the other countries, first of all of the third-world economies. The parasitism and exploitation are at their highest at the international, global level.
According to the official statistics, the USA accounts for about 20% of the world GDP while consuming 40% of the world product. Meanwhile, the estimated real GDP of the USA does not exceed 15% of the world product. While spending next to nothing on printing of dollars, the USA exchanges full-value goods for actually worthless paper. If Russia, for example, keeps the national gold and foreign currency reserves in the US long-term securities at maximum 2 to 3% annual rate thereby transferring annually $175 billion into the country’s reserves, it means that the Russian investments in the American economy in the past years will amount to hundreds of billions US dollars. Since this money, which was initially received by Russia for raw materials, then are returned back to the USA, the net outcome of such transactions is nothing but pumping over of resources from Russia to the USA. 
The monetary value of imports in the USA has been considerably higher than that of exports over past years resulting in an approximate annual trade deficit of $700 billion; the trade deficit accumulated over 25 years is approaching $10 trillion. Profitability of issuing/printing $100 banknotes is 165,566.7%  . When a tonne of steel or oil is sold to the USA for $100 with the exporting countries using dollars received for respective goods for mutual settlements, everything they got from the USA is a couple of paper slips each worth around 5-6 cents in terms of self-cost. It is not possible to get from the USA real values equivalent to the sum of dollars circulating outside the USA as no such values are physically available inside the USA: it is estimated that each $100 bill is covered with tangible assets worth $2.75; besides, it is an American bank only that has a legal right to declare a dollar banknote counterfeit. Printed dollars impose no obligations on the USA FRS while the exchange value of the dollar reflects the readiness of other countries to deliver resources and goods for dollars.
The UN Human Development Report 1996 says, that today, the net worth of the 358 richest people is equal in dollar terms to the combined income of the poorest 45% of the world's population.   It is this finansokratia (finansocracy) that sets the current rules of the global development. They operate through their agents in control of the critical government positions while the national governments act as “supply-line fuses” covering global oligarchs (globoligarchs).
The parasitic evil essence of the finansocracy (finansokratia) can be most convincingly demonstrated with the following calculation: “one penny invested at the birth of Jesus Christ at 4% interest would have bought in 1750 one ball of gold equal to the weight of the earth. In 1990, however, it would buy 8,190 balls of gold...”   That is why the fictitious financial capital has grown to loom large: turnovers of the foreign exchange and stock markets are hundreds of times higher than production and trade turnovers. However, the public productive force, which draws on natural and human resources, cannot support an exponential growth of production in theory or essence. In any case, the usury, which is virtually authorised to issue world money and create worldwide demand for their “merchandise” and which has all the potential to instigate financial crises, is an ideal foundation to enable a small group of people at some moment in history to misappropriate all basic assets and acquire the overall authority, i.e. plenitude of the power. After legalisation of the usury followed with usurpation by private individuals of the right to issue ‘the very world” money, the ultimate financial enslavement of the earthmen became just a question of time.
Figure 1 illustrates the income distribution in a modern finansocratic economy (on the left) and a hypothetical model which may evolve out of the present model should it persist freely on a global basis. The income size is marked on the vertical axis while the share of the population with respective income level is depicted horizontally. The current model is developed on the basis of the diagrams from the “Poverty, inequality and the distribution of income in the Group of 20” by Xavier Sala-i-Martin and Sanket Mohapatra, which provides ample graphic data on the distribution of the population for each the G20 economies.
 

Fig. 1 Income distribution in a modern parasitofinansocratic economy as illustrated by a ”developed country” (on the left) and a hypothetical model of per-capita income distribution on a global basis (on the right). (The figure scales are different).

Similar income distribution “bulbs” can be produced to match conditions in each country the only difference being that the “bulb body” (including the bottom section, “the equator” (in particular), and the narrowing of the shoot) will be positioned much lower for Russia, China, leave alone India, than for the western countries or economies.
 
Fig. 2 Income distribution models for different groups of economies (developed, “in transition”, “developing”).

The income distribution “bubbles” for Japan (as a typically developed country), Russia, China and India are schematically represented in Fig. 2 to visually facilitate comparison. The income distribution model is a bulb shaped with the shoot billion times  taller/higher than the bulb body (at least for the USA and “the global bulb” model). The upper sections of “the shoot” (see fig.1, on the right) are occupied by “almighty” owners of the FRS, the USA and of the major part of the world; big bankers and industrialists sit a couple of steps lower; comes the main (as the most massive) part of the establishment, i.e. all those who are actively interested in the support of this finansocratic system; the systems small fry (rank-and-file political scientists, analysts, etc.) feel comfortable at the base of the bulb’s shoot. All the above mentioned form a solid, unshakeable hierarchical structure and, at the same time, they are one mechanism of the interest-money-issuing power. The occupants of the bulb’s shoot not only receive huge incomings: they parasitize on the rest of the population, in fact, they hold it in bondage.
Of the world’s 6 billion people, almost half live on less than $2 a day ( ).Globally, the 20% of the world's people in the highest-income countries account for 86% of total private consumption expenditures ( ). Developing countries return $13 per each $1 received in subsidies. ( ). One hundred billion dollars a year would be required to provide the entire planet’s population with education and healthcare, to eliminate famine and appalling misery. Annual sums required to cope with plagues of today: $5 billion to eliminate famine; $9 billion to provide the entire planet’s population with good quality drinking water; $13 billion to ensure primary healthcare services and adequate food supply for everybody. An estimated breakdown of annual destructive expenses is rather impressive: $400 billion for drugs, $780 billion for weapons, and $1.5 trillion for daily stock exchange speculations. The rapid growth of the financial debt of the “third world” countries resulted in $1 trillion accumulated by early ‘90s. The debt interest annually paid by the developing countries is three times higher than the assistance received. All this occurs against the background of the growing intensity of enslavement of and parasitizing on the non-developed countries.
The evolution of the finance-centred (finacocentric) economy has been developing both by means of expanded application of traditional instruments of usurers and moneychangers as the world finances were getting concentrated in the hands of the few favoured along with a large-scale internalisation of financial and economic processes, and by way of improvement of conventional instruments, appearance of new ones and combination of those. The process also involved the establishing of special financial and economic institutions and engagement of essentially new non-financial instruments and institutions: pressure through preliminarily acquired media, through national and international political institutions.
A summary of the analysis of the world prevailing economic system allows the following conclusions: this system rests on the foundation which is composed of the four main sources and components:
• usury together with privately-controlled issue of the world money
• competition;
• certain postulates of Calvinistic Protestantism and Judaism;
• Newton-Carthusian scientific paradigm.
The above sources are listed in an ascending order, from particulars to generals, wherein the second two form a vision basis while the first two components are practical action mechanisms.
While competition is a general principle of relations in this society, the usury is a particular though most efficient instrument of success in that competitive struggle.
Much has been said about the usury. What about competition? What is bad about it? The opposition of an individual (i.e. oneself) to others and the entire surrounding world in general is an anti-Christian and anti-divine vision foundation of the world dominating western civilization. However, a most universal simulator for the competition struggle training is the income distribution “bulb” in fig. 1: each level has a limited number of accommodations (ecological niches); the higher up the more rapidly this number decreases.
The humanistic logic requires that correct fundamental principles be imbedded in the foundation. The four source and four component parts of the humanistic economy society are:
• new scientific paradigm that would unite science and spirituality;
• purposeful evolution of the society, harmonious development of the personality;
• interest-free money;
• cooperation and competitiveness.
The new paradigm resolves contradictions in the dual pairs: spirit vs. matter, science vs. religion, physical (corporeal) values vs. spiritual ones. This paradigm describes the structure of the universe on an essentially new level, including explanation of the materiality of thought, emotions, soul. The authors of the communist and socialist theory did not have a conceptual basis of this kind.
A purposeful evolution of the society oriented towards harmonious development of personality and society is the result of application of the new scientific paradigm to the solution of the ultimate objective for sustainable progressive development of the society on the basis of the principally new knowledge of the universe organisation. In a way, the socialist society was also developing purposefully. However, in view of knowledge and approaches limited by the Newton-Carthusian scientific paradigm, the goals and objectives could not be identified accurately; the methods of achieving those were not always correct. One cannot leave aside the objectives associated with the external threat. The defence needs, respective industries, etc. Combined to cause a forced “skewness of economy”.
In the current economic view, need creates demand. The problem is not that needs create demand. The real problem is that needs are not value driven but economy driven.
This means that values do not play a part in the so called science of economics. Where there is a demand there is supply and perverse desires and voyeuristic needs are therefore easily satisfied in an economic market. This so called vicious "economy" is a symptom of how the ego has broken free from control of the basic principals relating to the common ground of consciousness, spirituality and universal intelligence as the fundamental basis of personality. Because of the supremacy of the ego we have a fragmented accessory and auxiliary world where the natural growth of the natural market (liberal economy) is inextricably entwined with occupation of all possible vicious market niches, and thus, with an accelerated development of the "vicious economy". This is because of two factors.
Firstly the degradation of the personality and the enhancement of the ego is much more easily obtainable and seemingly enjoyable than the full development of the true self or true personality which above all requires spirituality, tenacity of purpose, strong will, inner strength, dedication, continuous effort and self improvement.
Secondly the development of egoistic drives for satisfaction and aggrandisement is vast in comparison to the narrow sector of balanced development and harmony within the self and with the environment. An analogy is it is rare to hear a virtuoso performance of Mozart compared with the many poor or bad performances.
This means that the more we satisfy basic human needs and drives the greater is the role whereby artificial and unnatural needs of humans are stimulated. These artificial or unnatural needs which are stimulated are not limited to drugs and alcohol and pornography, but also include an industry of racial discrimination, sexploitation, seamy-side movies, as well as such seemingly harmless market economic segments of the market pertaining to the sports industry, the pharmaceutical industry, the legal market, the medical system and the casino or stock markets.
In fact, the accelerated growth of this form of vicious economy is intrinsically tied to the development of a technocratic, materialistic civilization which seeks for the achievement of the highest possible level of the satisfaction needs of the majority.
Economy is meant to be subordinate to the people and properly governed to secure its subordinate role as service to the people. Nowadays public governance is neglected in favor of so called market self-regulation.
What this means is that the economy is share-held by transnational corporations, a number of the worlds largest banks and especially the Federal Reserve System of the USA.
This is neither federal nor reserve and owns almost all the US assets. The US Federal Government annually pays to the financial authorities over 400 billion USD as percentages for debts and only 2% of US citizens are 100% owners of their dwellings and cars.
One can assume that private owners of the US Federal Reserve are hundreds to thousands times richer than ordinary inhabitants of the Forbes pages which rank the richest people in the world.
In fact it is a reasonable hypothesis that this Forbes list was designed to hide those individuals who are in fact the richest ones, even though showcased billionaires are abnormally rich.
The basic function of economy should be to better serve to the good of the whole society on the one hand, and to produce necessary conditions for discovery and development of people's talents, creative abilities, spiritual and psychic potencies, in order to broaden people' consciousness. It is clear existing economic signs leaves all these tasks and issues outside the actual economy.
Consequences
Economy structures should be modified and designed to meet the needs of people in society. It is the government that should be responsible for this structural policy implementation which needs to be designed and substantiated by new research institutions. The current economy is deteriorating generally as shown by a possible global recession, global food shortages and peak oil in which there is an increasing sector to the global economic market of destructive and criminal tendencies.
It is essential that there be governance and regulation of the economy related to genuine public needs with the development of beneficial aspects and the abolition of harmful sections.
For example, long term strategies should be put in place relating to national and regional requirements aimed at enhancing the satisfaction of people's genuine needs and creating beneficial economic structures. Strategic planning should among other issues be aimed at increasing of economy sustainability, environmental safety, transition to the use of renewable natural resources instead of non-renewable, reduction and finally elimination of non-renewable resources use, improvement of geographical distribution of the economy.
There also needs to be a new science of economy devoted to the understanding of population distribution, conversion of large urban conglomerations into more decentralized eco-settlements and substitution of exploitative industries into more eco and human friendly production and services.
Specific sectoral policies
Promotion of the useful/positive economy sectors and sound consumption:
clean energy, ecologically sound agriculture and food production, environmentally sound town-planning and harmonic architecture, ecologically clean construction and building material production; advanced public and environmentally sound personal transport, qualitative water supply; science, education especially based on new intellectual paradigm, including education aimed on preventative health, self care, ecological education and spiritual development, positive arts, medicine placing emphasis on organic foods, sustainable agricultural practices and cellular and herbal medicines; tourism, especially environmental, scientific and educational tourism; small business in all above and other positive sectors.
Limitation of negative aspects of economy
This includes military industry, cigarette and alcohol production. If these sectors are in private ownership it is impossible to limit the production of hazardous goods compared with the ownership being the hands of the state.
Criminal or vicious sectors
The criminal or vicious sectors such as narcotics/drugs, slave-trading, internal organs trade, pornography production, prostitution of course can not be in the state property. Possible remedies are as follows:
-Education based on the new paradigm, raising spirituality;
-Creation (via direct founding and through different types of incentives) of attractive jobs, businesses, fields of activities in all regions;
-Criminal prosecution for those who was not affected by the above measures; however convicted people and prisoners should be re-educated again based on the new paradigm and humanistic concepts in terms of changing consciousness and trained from the professional point of view to be able to work in new sectors of the economy.
Geographical and Ecological Economy
This requires the optimization and improvement of the geographical and spatial distribution of people, settlements and means of production: primary and secondary industries, energy/power generation and transmission, agriculture, transport, communication; services, science, education entities. Optimization involves taking into consideration such criteria as climate, transportation efficiency, availability of and distances to raw materials sources and suppliers, access to goods consumers and the carrying and assimilative capacity of the environment. There needs to take place the development of new regions and places for the conversion of large urban dwellings into more decentralized eco-settlements. The development of eco-settlements should be directly financed from the states or federal, regional and local budgets or stimulated by 0 % loans, subsidies etc. Overcrowded cities create toxic conditions of environment, psychological climate, extreme deficiency of personal space, polluted energy from electromagnetic fields and pollutants in the atmosphere. They negate the possibility of enabling an individual to have solitude and the opportunity to be in contact with the pure energies of Nature.
Employment
Any country has the right to create economic conditions based on their local requirements rather than be subject to economic efficiency criteria created by world and international markets. People have the right to live. To secure this right people should be given a possibility to work and get salary at a level exceeding the respective costs of living. Doles, in fact, should be a rare commodity even if there are sufficient reserves. This is because it is not sufficient to give a dole allowance to people purely to maintain their survival. Instead money should be available to give people possibilities for their personal growth and development through interesting work, study, trainings etc. This opportunity is the basis for true human rights which is more significant than the need to balance a country's economy.
Household economy
Household economy should be valued as equal in labour and usefulness to society as the dominating/money economy. "The ability of people to create political will to enable their governments to act against globalised economic pressure is found in them being able to create greater self reliance and a sustainable lively hood in their local communities". (Hilkka Pietila, M. Sc, Basic elements of human Economy)
It is more appropriate to consider household economy in a broader context of "domesticized" life style when people will be able to work for the "external" monetary economy much shorter than now: 6 hours a day, then 5, finally 4.
If people's office work is home based due to advanced communication technology then they will be able to spend less time at their offices and have more time for other activities including interests, continual education, enhancing the household economy as well as cooking and also would include garden cultivation, growing vegetables and fruits, landscape works and repairs. Thus the simple domestic activities would be enhanced to the sustainability of the community in an eco sustainable and social way.
Transport Policy
In the scenario of a humanistic economy, will gradually force out personal cars which now are a celebration egoism, inefficiency and environmental unfriendliness. Personal transport within eco-settlements boundaries will be fuel free and enabled by the use of bicycles and similar kinds of transport. In these situations, people will be able to walk and exercise more for the benefit of their health. Public transport will also be available.
In a humanistic economy there is direct dependence and connection between personal income and the public benefit in the sense that the personal economy is related to the overall good of society. No possibilities for inverse negative relationship between individual benefit and good for the society exist. Initially this principle can be introduced and secured by legislation. Later it will become a cultural norm that each person will be able to self monitor themselves that they do not have earnings that exceed the benefits for society.
Actual situation
There are many types of parasitism, exploitation and unequal wealth distribution and re-distribution associated mostly with the interest rate based banking system, private appropriation of natural resources, rentals and the monopolies created by transnational corporations.
While in some situations there is a direct correlation between personal income and products and in a lot of situations there are severe failures where profits are made a the expense of harm to people in terms of poverty and illness. The overwhelming majority of people get far less than their contribution to the GDP.
One of the world leading experts Dr. Margrit Kennedy explains in clear detail about the parasitism and exploitation caused by "interest money". She emphasize that we pay interest money only when we borrow money (though overwhelming majority of people in USA and other western countries used to borrow money to buy dwelling and cars). I placed below a couple of quotations from her work "Why Do We Need Monetary Innovation?":
"… every price we pay includes a certain amount of interest. The exact proportion varies according to the labor versus the capital costs of the goods and services we buy. This ranges from a 12 % interest component for garbage collection, (because here the share of capital costs is relatively low and the share of physical labor is particularly high) to 38% for drinking water and up to 77% in the rent for public housing (over 100 years, which is the time houses in Germany mostly last). On the average we pay about 40% interest in all the prices of our goods and services. In medieval times people paid 'the tenth' of their income or produce to the feudal landlord. In this respect they were better off than we are nowadays, where almost one half of each dollar goes to the people who own capital…"
"…there are indeed huge differences as to who profits and who pays in this system. Comparing the interest payments and income from interest in ten equal parts of 2.5 million households in Germany, this figure shows that 80% of the population pay almost twice as much as they receive, 10% receive slightly more than they pay, and the remaining 10% receive more than twice as much interest as they pay, that is the share the first 80% lose. This illustrates one of the least understood reasons why the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. In Germany, in the year 2004, this amounted to a transfer of about 1 billion Ђ every day from those who work for their money to those can make their 'money work for them'. But have you ever seen money work? In other words, in our monetary system we allow the operation of a hidden redistribution mechanism which continually transfers money from the large majority to a small minority, creating a social polarization which no democracy can tolerate."
Practical Consequences/corollaries
a. The financial system should serve the wellbeing of society.
Interest money should be substituted by interest-free money. Interest rate credits should be liquidated, and since private banks would hardly agree to issue interest free loans it likely that traditional private banks will be replaced by the state or co-operative or private interest-free banks. National currency should not be issued by private financial entities. Minimal participation of private interests in central banks issuing money should excluded. Credits should become instruments of public governance applied for structural purposes, geographical distribution, development of priority economic directions. Insurance companies should be recreated so that they have no purpose in profit maximization.
b. Rental income from natural resource exploitation should not be appropriated by private businesses. There should be public ownership for subsurface resources and land (except for land which sustains residential houses and small business) and water (except for isolated water bodies attached to the land plots). There should be withdrawal of rental incomes by state, federal, regional and local public authorities. Instead this money should go towards enhancing wellbeing of the common good.
c. Transparency of corporate and personal incomes
It is important that we have openness as regards to corporate and incomes so that the public is not deceived as with respect to improper sequestration of funds and income.
Motivation to work
The true motivation for work:
• to produce something of value for the society;
• to improve one's environment, society and make people happier;
• to manifest, to apply one's creativity, ability and skills, to reach perfection in one's skills and arts;
• to earn as much as the equivalent of person's work goods (services) costs (salary share in the total cost/price of a product/service).
Of course, even now there are people that fully or partially follow the above principles. The overwhelming majority of people, at least in the developed countries, think about gaining as much money as possible irrespective of any other aspects/considerations. There are many people in society who through their activities selfishly acquire enormous amounts of money for themselves at the expense of harm to the society, economy, people and environment. It is important to compare consequences of a materialistic, consumer oriented society to a more spiritual, humanistic economy which is a humanistic economy.
Humanistic economy is not an ideal economy (at least in the beginning) but it is an economy based on strong sound principles. As the existing destructive economy is leading to spiritual, cultural, moral, environmental and other degradation while the new constructive (and not necessarily ideal) economy may serve to create positive development and evolution for humankind.
The picture of the humanistic economy I have drawn up in many respects looks utopian. However, my task is to describe the economy which meets principles of a humanistic and fair economy. Any compromise or deviation would be unfair. Of course, I do not appeal to the violent transition to the humanistic economy but I appeal to our ability to look at a hopeless future created by the current economic reality. The simple factor is that transition to a better economic mode and humanistic economy exists and depends on our own will and understanding of knowledge about the real situation we face with its extreme distortion and disharmony.
I'd like to complete by quotation from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: "None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." To become free we need first realize how enslaved we are, why and what we can do to slip the collar. I am sure that total and even fragmentary slavery is incompatible with Humanistic economy.