1. Posted by Maria Khodorkovsky on October 15, 2008Maria Khodorkovsky “Like many words frequently used in matters of state and government, economy has its origins in Ancient Greece. Eco is a derivation of the Greek oikos, meaning an extended family unit. The oikos was run by the oldest male of the family, whose role it was to tend to agriculture and to ensure that all components of the family unit were running smoothly. Thus, eco now designates a broad, self-sustained unit, as in the terms ecology and ecosystem. The suffix –nomy is derived from the Greek nomos, meaning management, law, or principle. Thus oikonomos, the original form of economics, meant the management of the hearth and home.”

2. This presentation is intended to serve as an introduction to the knowledge and insight provided by Henry George in his book, Progress and Poverty: An Inquiry into the Cause of Industrial Depressions and of Increase of Want with Increase of Wealth: The Remedy, written in 1879.

3. While many people today overlook George’s work, believing his 19 th century ideas about interest, rent, wage and capital are not relevant to our current global economy, ‘The Remedy’ that he is truly offering should be understood as a timeless, deep structural insight into the problem of limited human constructions of power.

4. In this presentation, you will hopefully gain greater understanding of the error in human perception that is perpetuated when individuals agree to participate in a society that organizes survival around the perpetuation of a highly-constructed and illusory, predatory, competitive political economy.

5. You will be able to differentiate the norms of morally-unregulated, non-reflective, individualistic human behavior within a political economy from the norms of a nurturing, mindful, relational human behavior within a renewed manifestation of an ecological economy.

6. This understanding will hopefully provide youth with preliminary tools for clear discernment between models of governance and education that perpetuate fundamental errors in human perception, leaving the people of the world unprotected from poverty, emotional and mental depression, and environmental degradation, and new, emerging models of governance and education that protect universal health, education and the arts, offering genuine progress for all humanity.

7. By the end of the presentation you will hopefully have insight to guide your reflection as an activist towards a much more penetrating and profound vision of structural change within the present day social order.

8. With the internalization of this prophetic vision, the individual is able to re-organize values, attention and perception and to restore the generative energies of youth… liberating a freedom of mind and movement that WILL unite and transform our world! The hope is that this preliminary presentation will provide you with the deepened insight and critical knowledge for discernment to inspire you to be a catalyst of profound social change.

9. BE A CATALYST OF DEEP STRUCTURAL SOCIAL CHANGE — from a message dated 8 January 2000 written by the Universal House of Justice to the Friends gathered at the Youth Congress in Paraguay “As this generation of youth assumes the responsibilities of conducting the affairs of society, it will encounter a landscape of bewildering contrast. On the one hand, the region can justly boast brilliant achievements in the intellectual, technological and economic spheres. On the other, it has failed to reduce widespread poverty or to avoid a rising sea of violence that threatens to submerge its peoples. Why– and the question needs to be asked plainly– has this society been impotent, despite its great wealth, to remove the injustices that are tearing its fiber apart? The answer to this question, as amply evidenced by decades of contentious history, cannot be found in political passion, conflicting expressions of class interest, or technical recipes. What is called for is a spiritual revival, as a prerequisite to the successful application of political, economic and technological instruments. But there is a need for a catalyst. Be assured that, in spite of your small numbers, you are the channels through which such a catalyst can be provided.”

10. “Our material civilization has reached a fruition point— a perfect state of imperfection so that its limitations may be recognized and we may progress with new self- awareness towards our next point of wholeness and fruition—the Great Peace. Our material ‘free’ world has culminated in a reverse totalitarian state where the liberties of the individual to organize their attention around the materially-constructed rewards of social survival and to pursue our own course of meaning- making actually block the rightful path of freedom for the human spirit to achieve its true happiness through malleable expression in world harmony.” – Julie Mazzarella Geredien, World Citizen Letter

11. In his book, Progress and Poverty, George addresses the massive integrative problem in our current system that creates a schism between the world of social body inner pain and poverty and the world of imagined ‘progress’ achieved by the commodification of scientific knowledge by the wealthy and educated elite.

12. All people participate in an inner schism until our social agreement aligns with universal principles of inter-participatory harmony and justice. When man relates to the physical reality without cohesive moral and spiritual sensitivity to inter-relationships and universal laws, he creates a schism in the social reality.

13. Although the continual uplifting presence of the human spirit persists– emerging as the unifying power within social justice movements, as sincere practice within faith traditions, as break-throughs in heart-felt human research, as well as in daily narratives, both quiet and dramatic, of human sacrifice and generosity– the dominant forces of materialism prevent these fruits of the larger, ennobling human story from reaching and ennobling the developmental trajectory of all people.

14. WORK ON THIS SLIDE on the schism– extremes and polarities We live in a spiritual desert …division of people into classes, fragmentation within learning and institutions, pain of social body unaddressed, where the conscience… work on this– scientist, artist educator as worker…insertion of false, human-constructed predators in the system– perpetuating old physiology of struggle and survival on the constructed, sociological level.

15. The majority of those dutifully maintaining the middle class status-quo in the dominant world culture feel socially coerced and obliged to oppress their vital life systems in conformity to the larger social system material agreements. They suffer from a host of stress-related ills, the most mundane and generally accepted of which include: back pain, depression, allergies, food cravings and addictions, as well as being held hostage to a family of negative or indifferent social emotions, intellectual frustration and anxiety, that develop when our social agreement is not supported by the primary biological and spiritual emotions of trust and caring.

16. George asks Why is our social reality so rife with ills? What is the error in our perception? If we directly address this error and clear our vision, we will clear our path to genuine progress and know the true spirit of humanity and wholeness to be always with us. Each day people will be released from the mundane prison of materially-centered reality to behold the light of their own natural capacity for determination, emotional courage, kindness, co- operation and creativity.

17. Our shared social reality is oppressive until the error of perception that George speaks of in Progress and Poverty is openly acknowledged and addressed.

18. George’s Insight for Us Henry George explains that at the root of all social injustice is a blurred conception of the word, ‘ownership’.

19. There is a difference between what can be owned and what cannot be owned. When people, through personal, corporate or institutional action, take exclusionary possession of what is meant to be a universally shared natural resource, the boundary between what we can rightfully own and what we cannot, has been crossed. The meaning of ownership becomes blurred. An ethic of ‘might is right’ begins to blunt our natural human sensitivities and without a conscious counter-system of awareness in place, we begin instinctually to harden our systems of attunement and empathy for fellow living creatures. We have the beginning of moral blindness– indifference to natural felt codes of fairness and reciprocity. This is the cause of social injustice and inequality.

20. We must develop a more discerning, moral comprehension of the concept of ownership. What can an individual rightfully own? What cannot be owned by any one individual? What is meant to be shared?

21. George writes that the ‘real and natural distinction’ we must make in order to discern ownership is between ‘things which are the product of labor and things which are the gratuitous offerings of nature.’ p. 337

22. Basically, George clarifies: 1.We OWN what we labor for. 2. We do NOT OWN the gratuitous bounty of Nature.

23. The current problem is that, right now, one word- -‘PROPERTY’– is used to talk about ownership. Today, action constructs of ownership– buying and selling– have been created to shape the false perception that individuals can own and profit from the gratuitous bounties of nature– that they can grow wealth without laboring for it.

24. People can refer to individuals or companies OWNING land, OWNING natural resources, OWNING reservoirs of data, OWNING complex portfolios of stocks in businesses they have never heard of… In this blurred social agreement at the root cause of all injustice, all of the above can be referred to as private property, although none of the above represents the fruits of an individual’s honest labor.

25. Instead, it represents the idea, that through a human-made, legal construct of ownership, certain individuals can secure greater degrees of power for themselves relative to other people. Owners of this type of false property can then control the standard for the living conditions within the society. They set salaries and rents, and use knowledge to create products, patterns of life style and living conditions that set in motion cycles of stress and addiction that prevent individuals from accessing their interiority and that establish the false notion that it is possible for individuals in a class society to grow profit without personal labor. This construct of ownership is the source of all exploitation and oppression.

26. Let us look more carefully at the distinction between labor and a bounty of Nature. 1.What do we mean when we say ‘we own what we labor for?’ What is labor? What does labor give us that we rightfully own? 2.What do we mean when we say ‘we do not own the bounty of Nature?’ What is the bounty of Nature? What is offered to us through the bounty of nature and if it can’t be owned by any one person fairly, how can it be shared fairly?

27. First, let us look at labor. 1.LABOR Labor is the exertion of one’s own faculties. Labor is at the heart of ownership because it is the active expression of the integration of the individual. Labor embodies our right to direct our will and to organize the action of our mind, brain and body through conscious, personal effort. Because the individual purposefully puts forth personal effort and directs this process, she can be said to own the fruits of her own labor with integrity. George explains that ‘the fact that each particular pair of hands obey a particular brain and are related to a particular stomach; the fact that each man is a definite, coherent, independent whole…justifies individual ownership. As a man belongs to himself, so his labor when put in concrete form belongs to him.” Progress and Poverty, p. 334

28. If we only own what we create through labor, then we will need to refine our currently bloated definition of the word property. In restoring justice to the concept of ownership, we will be able to restore truth and accuracy to the meaning of the word property.

29. After reading and reflecting upon George’s clarification of the definition of property, I arrive at a deepened understanding of the essence of this word. The heart of this understanding is necessary for a new purity of thinking and bio-political shift in our whole concept of ownership : The word property in the social world may realign conceptually with its original association with science and math. Property, in the scientific and mathematical sense, refers to the distinct, integral nature or quality of an entity, such as of an element on the Periodic Table or of a mathematical operation. A ‘property’ of an element or a mathematical law is a specific wholeness that can be claimed and owned through descriptive language because we are able to define its distinct parameters of being.

30. The metal element copper has properties that are distinct from the elemental salt, lithium. The commutative property describes one organizational mathematical truth, while the distributive property describes a separate, distinct truth. Properties are radically individual while remaining equal in regards to the virtue of their coherent descriptive functionality and integrity.

31. We achieve property through labor because labor produces a consolidation of the individual through effort and intention that is akin to the distinct inner integral structure of a mathematical or scientific property.

32. In order to establish a universal moral and spiritual value system centered in the heart of human feeling, it is important to distinguish that through honest labor we may be said to own two categories of property: 1. Outer World Property– Material, physical goods as property attained through labor When the requisite prior raw resources have been acquired without harming or causing imbalance to other living systems, we can fairly say that we physically own what we have created through the exertion of our own labor— the cabin that we build, the basket that we weave, the picture that we paint -- all are examples of the rightful property of the laborer, who may now justly offer this fruit of labor to a larger collective of people, and by doing so, participate actively in a living economy. The cabin, the basket, the picture-- are all the distinct result of the inner integration of intention and bodily effort put forth by the particular individual or individuals who labored in the creation. In this basic sphere of individual and small group material, creative endeavor, it is evident that if a person did not participate in the exertion of labor entailed, he cannot rightfully claim as property what has manifested as the result of that labor.

33. 2.Inner World Property– moral, emotional, intellectual and spiritual cohesive development of self as ’proper’ Property of Character attained through labor We own the fruits of our interior landscape when we labor. We are radically free to enjoy our own states of being when we cultivate ourselves through intentional, integrative efforts. our emotional ground of being when we have done good work that serves a good cause, the inner networking of our brain when we have organized our skills dynamically around a higher principle, Our beneficial habits of mind and developed capacities for attention, reasoning, imagination and ethical well-being when we have engaged our own faculties creatively for the benefit of the world, are in a sense, gifts of recompense to us in return for our purposeful actions, our labors of love in the world

34. We rightfully own the inner capacities of our heart and mind that we have labored to develop. Quotes Abe Lincoln– when I do good, I feel good…

35. Through labors of education and practice, we come to OWN our capacity to think critically and compassionately, to develop life-long skills of mindfulness and creativity, and capacities to know happiness through offering our service, and feeling it joyfully benefitting the world.

36. The virtues we acquire through devoted effort may rightfully be considered personal properties. They are dynamic structures and sub-structures that create within us consistent strongholds of skills, and of life-affirming cognitive and emotional dispositions, and that allow us to attain an inner stability of traits that grant us ownership of the inner property of trustworthiness.

37. The fourth Taráz concerneth trustworthiness. Verily it is the door of security for all that dwell on earth and a token of glory on the part of the All-Merciful. He who partaketh thereof hath indeed partaken of the treasures of wealth and prosperity. Trustworthiness is the greatest portal leading unto the tranquility and security of the people. In truth the stability of every affair hath depended and doth depend upon it. All the domains of power, of grandeur and of wealth are illumined by its light. from Tarazát (Ornaments), Bahá’u’lláh, the Bahá’i Faith

38. Review— Through labor we are able to own both the inner and outer fruits of our efforts.

39. In contrast, we do not OWN what we have not labored for. Gratuitous bounties of Nature are fruits that emerge from dynamic creative processes in creation. Because we only OWN what we LABOR for, no one can claim to OWN gratuitous bounties of Nature. There are two types of resources in this category that no one individual or group of individuals can own and that must be shared fairly, because no ONE individual or ONE isolated group of people has LABORED for it. The two categories of gratuitous bounties of Nature are: 1.The literal, physical, natural resources of the land. 2.The collective mental power that emerges from many individuals working together in relationship. This power can be new knowledge or creative resources that bring into fruition new cognitive capacities of the human mind that are beneficial for human optimal development when applied with proper education.

40. Let us investigate together why these two categories of resources CANNOT be owned. 1.Why no one can person can own the LAND No one grows a tree through their own effort. No one labors to make berries spring forth from bushes or makes the water flow…no one forms the rocks and minerals that can be used for tools, or spends countless years converting old leaves to coal. No one makes the sun shine or the rain drops fall to keep life nourished and growing. No human being can rightfully claim to OWN land, water, air or the life within it, because no one can honestly say that they labor for it. We participate in it.

41. George states this understanding for us clearly: ‘The essential character’ of the natural resources of the land is that “they do not embody labor, and exist irrespective of human exertion and irrespective of man; they are the field or environment in which man finds himself; the storehouse from which his needs must be supplied, the raw material upon which and the forces with which alone his labor can act.” George p. 337-338

42. Further explanation- Why no one can person can own the LAND These resources are meant to be shared. They are the gifts and bounties of Nature. This has been the first natural impression of all peoples. This is natural law. The integrative, individualizing reality of PROPERTY, as we have discussed, can only be attained through the integrative, individualizing action of human exertion upon resources that are themselves not unjustly confiscated and manipulated as personal possession for creating unjust profit.

43. George explains the justice of equality and non- ownership in this natural, biological law: “If we are all here by the equal permission of the Creator, we are all here with an equal title to the enjoyment of his bounty– with an equal right to the use of all that nature so impartially offers… There is in nature no such thing as a fee simple in land. There is on earth no power which can rightfully make a grant of exclusive ownership in land…Have we made the earth, that we should determine the rights of those who after us shall tenant it in their turn?” George p.

44. 2.Why no one person or group can own knowledge that arises from COLLECTIVE MENTAL POWER Each person has been given innate core faculties such as memory, attention, imagination. These are our INNER bounties from Nature. We do not LABOR for these innate faculties. We are born with them. Understanding this allows us to engage our creative capacities with the necessary detachment and humility required for self-awareness that protects our mental equilibrium.

45. The development of all human skills also calls upon deeper universal principles of inter- relationship, harmony and flow that are likewise bountiful expressions of creative self- organizing capacities within Nature. The integrative power of these principles play a far more essential role in skill emergence than an individual’s effortful exertion of labor.

46. For example, we do not CREATE our imagination. It is a gift within us that we DISCOVER. If we relate to our imagination through the mistaken paradigm of OWNERSHIP, we create with a sense of entitlement and greed, and, in a self-involved, limited state of mind, design fanciful ways to increase our own advantage, personal power and false profit. These creations have harm and injustice embedded in them because they seek to attain for the self rather than to share universal health and benefit. If we relate to our imagination through the rightful paradigm of RADICAL ACCEPTANCE and RESPONSIBLE STEWARDSHIP, then we open the door to create with a sense of gratitude and respect for the mystery of the creative bounties of Nature within us. We apply the ethical principles of high reason and engage ALL of our emotionally-based critical thinking capacities to create what is most beneficial for all humanity, that which only helps optimally and does not harm.

47. When a person or group identifies their personal power with the emergent, creative power of their collective faculties through the mistaken paradigm of OWNERSHIP, harm, distortion of reality, oppression of vital knowledge and imbalances of the mind pollute the social culture.

48. In contrast, when people sincerely engage their mental capacities as accepting and responsible stewards, they participate in the mysterious and beautiful powers and bestowals of our mind. Their discoveries represent moments of insight and gift. They reveal a participation in a much greater reality. Human discoveries of genuine inter-relationship are rightfully intended to benefit all humanity– not just one group or category of select people.

49. The bounties of these emergent gifts can be considered like the natural gratuitous bounties within Nature. They require human interaction to emerge-- however, no one human being or group owns this bounty that comes forth from human collaboration.

50. Further explanation--Why no one person or group can own COLLECTIVE POWER A deepened biological and spiritual appreciation of the emergence of collective power is necessary to raise our level of self- awareness and to prevent oppression caused by false identification and ownership of this collective power.

51. Dynamic Systems, Dynamic Skill Development, and the Emergence of Whole New Levels of Dynamic Creative Possibility– Collective Power The understanding, that living systems in dynamic inter-relationship with one another allow new levels of skill and consciousness to emerge, comes to us through the study of dynamic systems theory and dynamic skill theory. These fields of study provide us with a conceptual framework of dynamic structure to distinguish distinctly organized living systems and to discern underlying patterns of stability within them, as well as principles of dynamic support and relationship between them. Through this lens of scientific, biological observation, we are able to observe how deep, self- organizing powers serve to integrate the emergence of whole new levels of consciousness and skill. A gratuitous creative bounty is born at this new level. No individual or group can rightfully claim that this bounty is the result of their labor alone. The mysterious integrity at the source of this bounty must be recognized as a distinct creative reality that is beyond the scope of labor or planned intention of any one individual or group.

52. We can recognize the reality of emergent creative bounty in the dynamic development of both individuals and groups. This is because we are applying larger theoretical frameworks that purposefully seek to discern the universal principles of harmony recognizable on both the micro and macro levels of being. A deep unity of life is recognized in the ecological inter- coordination of dynamic systems.

53. Let us look first at an example of an emergent creative bounty manifesting through an individual, and then an example of such a bounty emerging through the living dynamics of a group. EMERGENT CREATIVE BOUNTY THROUGH AN INDIVIDUAL The basic underlying principles guiding the emergence of an infant’s intentional movement for the first time, are the same underlying principles of inter-participation that allow us to understand the emergence of any creative collective power. One day, for the first time, a baby is able to perform a controlled sensori-motor action. Before that, her movements were entirely uncontrolled. How is this possible? It is not because the baby suddenly ‘bought’ that ability, for a controlled action, as if it were a separate static entity that was just purchased and instantly attained. We do not attain or own new emergent holistic skills in this way.

54. Rather, what we know from researchers in the Dynamic Development Lab at Harvard and other research labs, is that distinct human skills, such as controlled sensori-motor action, EMERGE organically when many sets of systems, each one, a smaller micro skill set involved in controlling reflexes, begins to inter-participate with the other systems with increasing harmony. When the degree of inter-coordination between the systems reaches a sustainable level of resonating harmony, the baby attains a new skill– what was before an uncontrolled movement, may now become a controlled one. New levels of self-awareness emerge and a whole new organization of relationships is possible between the individual and the world.

55. We can understand the emergence of literacy within a society in the same organizing framework of dynamic structuralism that we apply to understand the infant’s emergent capacity for a controlled motor action. EMERGENT CREATIVE BOUNTY THROUGH THE LIVING DYNAMICS OF A GROUP The dynamic skill of literacy similarly requires the inter-coordination of many, many different skills, including individual skills of fine motor control and decoding and interpersonal skills of agreed pattern recognition. Each one of these skills has developed in inter-action with the environment and other living beings. Humans develop the many systems of skills required to write when they are in dynamic relationship with each other. As the new skill of writing emerges for a people, whole new possibilities open up for members of the group. They are now able to develop a new relationship to their working memory, as thoughts, ideas and stories are stabilized in the outer world. Attention can become organized in a new, far more focused way. They are able to capture the human imagination in form and to think more critically and collectively about its possibilities.

56. Literacy makes our inner landscape– the way in which memory, attention and imagination, for example, can be organized– fertile in a whole new productive way. In a way, when a new skill realization emerges, it is as if a new level of LAND or GROUND has been created. This new LAND– be it the newly acquired skill of greeting a person by name or of reading– has its own integrity and wholeness that allows for new creative bounties of our inner Nature to flow forth.

57. Because they allow us to perceive growing patterns of inter-relationship, harmony and emergence, dynamic systems and dynamic skill theory allows us to recognize scientifically that no one individual or group can rightfully claim as their own the organic creative power that culminates from a dynamic system of collaboration. Such an assumption of ownership would violate the principles of dynamic equilibrium and co- operation that allow new levels of creative collective power to emerge. HUMAN KNOWLEDGE IS NOT A COMMODITY. These fields of study provide us with cognitive tools for detachment and observation, so that the fruits of our incredibly mysterious and beautiful inner and outer life systems can be recognized rightfully as bounties of Nature, representing a holistic realization beyond the right of ownership accounted to any one person’s exertions.

58. No ONE individual can claim that skill entirely as his own. The fact that literacy has emerged organically in different environmental contexts proves the universally shared dimension of its organizing biology. We naturally share and teach these fruits of human development in the same spirit of dynamic inter-participation from which they emerged, unless forces of oppression block this natural flow of bio-philia.

59. The fruitful inner gifts of literacy represent a collective power with a mobilizing, integrative strength that far surpasses the exertion of labor expended by the individual alone in the effort of discovering it. LITERACY can be considered a gratuitous bounty of Nature with organizational and transformational powers that no one group of people may own.

60. The printing press and the internet represent progressive levels of emergent collective power that amplify and extend the power of literacy for humanity in vital ways.

61. GEORGE ON SPECIALIZATION, COLLECTIVE POWER AND LEGAL CODE “That civilization is an evolution—that it is, in the language of Herbert Spencer, a progress from an indefinite, incoherent homogeneity to a definite, coherent heterogeneity– there is no doubt.” Societies advance as groups of people are able to specialize in certain skills. …

62. Due to structures created through specialization, certain groups of people will have direct access to the collective power that emerges within their domain. The problem comes into being when individuals and groups who have the most direct access to these sources of universal collective power create ways of dominating that system and closing off access to it by others.

63. It is in this way that the right to read, write and study were closed off to women and people outside of the dominant white group. Legal codes were created that banned certain groups of people from attaining an education and having access to these forms of collective power.

64. While mechanisms are in place to change legal codes and to counter effects of inequality– we have changed and now ‘officially’ give access to all people, deeper institutional agreements still perpetuate the underlying assumptions shaping the social reality. Without a conscious awareness of the ways in which collective power is lodged, we continue to live submerged in an oppressive reality.

65. p. 514-515- George “Now, this process of integration, of the specialization of functions and powers, as it goes on in society, is, by virtue of what is probably one of the deepest laws of human nature, accompanied by a constant liability to inequality. I do not mean that inequality is then necessary result of social growth, but that it is the constant tendency of social growth if unaccompanied by changes in social adjustments which, in the new conditions that growth produces, will secure equality. I mean, so to speak, that the garment of laws, customs, and political institutions, which each society weaves for itself, is constantly tending to become too tight as the society develops. I mean, so to speak, that man, as he advances, threads a labyrinth, in which, if he keeps straight ahead, he will infallibly lose his way, and through which reason and justice can alone keep him continuously in an ascending path. For, while, the integration which accompanies growth tends in itself to set free mental power to work improvement, there is, both with increase of numbers and with increase in complexity of the social organization, a counter tendency set up to the production of a state of inequality, which wastes mental power, and as it increases, brings improvement to a halt.”

66. “Now, as society grows, the disposition to continue previous social adjustments tends to lodge this collective power, as it arises, in the hands of a portion of the community; and this unequal distribution of the wealth and power gained as society advances tends to produce greater inequality, since aggression grows by what it feeds on, and the idea of justice is blurred by the habitual toleration of injustice.”

67. “A dominant class, who concentrate power in their hands, will likewise soon concentrate ownership of the land. To them will fall large partitions of conquered land, which the former inhabitants will till as tenants or serfs, and the public domain, or common lands… are readily acquired as we see by modern instances. And inequality once established, the ownership of land tends to concentrate as development goes on.” P. 518 George

68. A summary of Walter Bagehot’s understanding— cause of rigidity and stagnation in the social order– false codes of maintaining power “That the first thing necessary to civilize man is to tame him; to induce him to live in association with his fellow in subordination to law; and hence a body or ‘cake’ of laws and customs grows up, being intensified and extended by natural selection, the tribe or nation thus bound together having an advantage over those who are not. That this cake of custom and law finally become too thick and hard to permit further progress, which can go on only as circumstances occur which introduce discussion, and thus permits the freedom and mobility necessary to improvement.

69. In this state of ‘retained motion’ we have the absence of genuine dynamic human development (progress) and societal rigidity. Quotes from current day. People are stuck in certain categories of work, within certain ranges of educational and learning opportunities, in a caste-like system. In the model of STATIC CODE holding order, the individual is not capable of true mobility. Laws of physics and meta-narratives in history allow us to infer that the retained motion of stuck individualism and enforced hierarchical power structures will be dissipated by either interior deterioration caused by moral and mental decline, (created by ‘norming’ practices of commodification and standardization)or interruption from ‘barbaric’ forces, in this case, terrorists and volatile climate changes occurring in Nature. The root causes of both these obstacles to dynamic liberation and progress are unjust mindsets and actions that claim ownership of the natural and human resources in ways that inherently distort systems of sensitive, dynamic equanimity.

70. A large system of legal codes emerges to protect the unearned individualistic rights of the dominant class and a whole culture of legal thinking– a culture of mutualism rather than altruism– emerges. The laws and customs of the society become thick as they are all based on the underlying concern to PROTECT the ownership of personal power.

71. History colonization, capitalism As a society gains more collective power, it can use this power to dominate people in another area of land and to claim that it OWNS their land. Those people then become slaves or laborers of the dominant society. An inner value system based on aggressive ideas of accumulating skill and using it to assert power over others to attain gains for those in access of that power is established. It becomes acceptable to cut off concern for other’s human development of natural bounty of mind Quotes from Who Owns the Future?– data ownership– who has the biggest computer– degradation

72. New ways of specializing relationships and unfairly wielding what is rightfully the wealth of collective power allows for groups of people to form corporations and institutions where laboring classes exert large degrees of effort with limited opportunities to develop their skills dynamically in inter-relationship.

73. Agreements about WHAT is taught and HOW it is taught remain unquestioned and deep structural assumptions about preparing people for labor, about our relationship to debt, about the nature of human agency and our capacity to direct our own lives are unexamined.

74. Assumptions that reductionist perceptions of competition reflect the actual living complexity of laws within nature–– Assumptions that our human nature is predatory and that we cannot trust each other or cultivate our character and organize our actions around our shared common humanity— create an erroneous paradigm of fear, limitation and scarcity, the emotional basis of vulnerability that places us at risk for substituting the innate rewards and joys or rightful moral and spiritual paths of individuation with harmful, materialistic expressions of individual fulfillment.

75. Rather than re-organizing structure around deeper concerns for equality, allowing time for creative collaboration and reflection that allow the emergence of thoughtful expression and innovation… mainstream education focuses on a curriculum of instruction that demands the child conform to behavior and instructional norms that disallow more holistic skill integration, capping their capacity to achieve by the set standards in the society.

76. The result of the hardening of laws and customs is that collective power remains stuck in isolated institutions. Knowledge that would serve the betterment of all humanity is not fairly shared for all to enrich the soil of the inner landscape of each human individual. Knowledge about human development through respect for the learning ecology, moral development, ancient wisdom, respect for the biology of learning, variability in developmental pathways, is not shared. The ‘harsh’ ethic prevails. Knowledge about genuine health is locked out of the culture and mainstream culture substitutes go in its place.

77. Why the deterioration? Problems in education- lack of innovation- goods produced to feed the materialistic, acquisitive consumer, feeds the profit motive, not excellence or beauty of design or service– seeks to subjugate the consumer in addiction or induce a state of entitled individualism that releases the individual from feelings of concern and responsibility for those – hiding our higher purpose, greater creative possibilities together. The rewards of ‘being in charge’, feeling ease… INSERTION OF FALSE PREDATORS IN THE SYSTEM TO DRIVE THE MARKET ECONOMY COUNTERS THE OPTIMAL HEALTH SYSTEMS OF THE PEOPLE AND DETERIORATES THEIR MENTAL HEALTH The poor and working poor live in sub-standard conditions in a system where status quo is held through false rewards and pleasures (sensory stimulus--sugars, ritualistic entertainment, sexualized, dehumanized constructs of women,) maintaining the attention and value systems of the dominant mainstream– they are not able to benefit from the collective fruits of humanity’s development– universal health, education, arts, inter- faith Holy Days (holidays– with re-generative, shared pro-social, moral, aesthetic and spiritual emotion felt and nurtured)

78. Henry George’s articulation of this problem: “Invention may for awhile to some degree go on; but it will be the invention of refinements in luxury, not the inventions that relieve toil and increase power...For as it tends to lessen the mental power devoted to improvement, so does inequality tend to render men adverse to improvement. How strong is the disposition to adhere to old methods among the classes who are kept in ignorance by being compelled to toil for a mere existence, is too well known to require illustration; and on the other hand the conservatism of the classes to whom the existing social adjustment gives special advantages is equally apparent. “ p. 519

79. In the culture of addiction, habit, non-reflective continual action, people will either: 1.Participate in a mindset of acquisition, bias and dehumanization that is being ‘fed’ to them through the unspoken social agreements OR 2. Work to create social change, but within the status quo norms of the current social order– they will waste time participating in micro, reactive changes to the system– ex. Increasing the minimum wage by a few dollars, rather than engage in the deep structural paradigm shifts that liberate human consciousness and our understanding of what new conceptions and organizations of government, education and media would truly offer us worth and value and be generative of well-being and true progress.

80. The result is RETAINED MOTION in human development and in relationships. The laws and customs and protectionism creates a rigidity and a static form around all human relationships and around fields of knowledge and institutions.

81. Instead of dynamic human development that is integrated on physical, intellectual, emotional, social, moral and spiritual levels, you have individuals who are stuck in social roles and who do not have the mobility to develop creative relationships or to access universal knowledge, education, health and arts resources to develop their capacities.

82. Non-contextualized, mental constructs of static form, the mindset of isolated individualism and institutional norms that prevent mobility, inter- participation and dynamic harmony must be recognized in their present limitation and NEW integrative, reflective practices, cultivating meta-awareness of the relational self, creative process and complexity must be invited to flourish

83. Ending Poverty and Inequality… Creating One World of Progress for All Humanity It is time to apply critical social theory to perceive the history and limitations of the current system and then to embrace whole-heartedly a new ‘positive politics’ of World Citizenship and harmony– founded on the true spiritual vision of our country’s founding, on Dr. Martin Luther King’s expression of the promise of peace and justice and universal kinship offered to us through every faith.

84. THE PROPHETIC VISION OF JUSTICE THROUGH CLEARED PERCEPTION But if, while there is yet time…we turn to Justice and obey her, if we trust Liberty and follow her, the dangers that now threaten must disappear, the forces that now menace will turn to agencies of elevation. Think of the powers now wasted; of the infinite fields of knowledge yet to be explored; of the possibilities of which the wondrous inventions of this century give us but a hint. With want destroyed; with greed changed to noble passions; with the fraternity hat is born of equality taking the place of the jealousy and fear that now array men against each other; with mental power loosed by conditions that give to the humblest comfort and leisure; and who shall measure the heights to which our civilization may soar? Words fail the thought! It is the Golden Age of which the poets have sung and high-raised seers have told in metaphor! It is the glorious vision which has always haunted man with gleams of fitful splendor. It is what he saw whose eyes at Patmos were closed in a trance. It is the culmination of Christianity – the city of God on earth, with its walls of jasper and its gates of pearl! It is the reign of the Prince of Peace! – Henry George, p.552

85. If the learned and worldly-wise men of this age were to allow mankind to inhale the fragrance of fellowship and love, every understanding heart would apprehend the meaning of true liberty, and discover the secret of undisturbed peace and absolute composure. Were the earth to attain this station and be illumined with its light it could then be truly said of it: ‘Thou shall see in it no hollows or rising hills.’ --Bahá’u’lláh I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together. -- Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King

86. When we are freed from the perceptual limitations of materialism and individualism we are freed from pre-judgments that obstruct a deeper organization of knowledge, freed from habitual ways of relating through ownership with the ‘land’ of the outer environment and our inner creative capacity. This is what it means to level the playing field for humanity. This is the Dawn of a new era devoted to universal self-knowledge and self -sovereignty. It is the realization of principles of dynamic balance, reflective equilibrium (Elgin) and ecological gender equality. We are meant to realize these principles through the flesh, together as one people. Our work is to bring this realization into the world of being.

87. We need to bring together an activist universal peace and liberation movement made up of scientists, educators, artists and communicators, united through the love of Truth and energized with the spirit of youth within all people. Science for the People Education for the People Arts for the People Mass Communication of Truth for the People

88. We must establish new standards of governance for the people founded on true higher level guiding principles of civility, nurturance and reflective equilibrium. In this sense, the liberative movement of scientists, educators, artists and communicators is a wisdom movement and is an expression of a larger dynamic women’s movement for freedom of mobility and expression, for restoration of true pro-social and aesthetic values, for harmonic integration of the truth of the body, and for the universalizing of the realization of the primacy of home and human security.

89. “The laws of the universe are harmonious. And if the remedy to which we have been led is the true one, it must be consistent with justice; it must be practicable of application; it must accord with the tendencies of social development and must harmonize with other reforms.” George, p. 329 “I thus propose to show that the laws of the universe do not deny the natural aspirations of the human heart; that the progress of society might be, and, if it is to continue, must be, toward equality, not toward inequality; and that the economic harmonies prove the truth perceived by the Stoic Emperor– “We are made for co- operation—lie feet, like hands, like eyelids, like the rows of the upper and lower teeth.” George, p. 330

90. The true science of human development must be called upon to guide this endeavor In the next presentation, we will look at the inter-disciplinary scientific understandings emerging from dynamic systems research, ecology, neurobiology, affective and cultural neuroscience, and psychology, that allow us to properly focus our attention on the importance of nurturing the biology of ‘relational’ human emotions– reverence, respect, gratitude, humility, open-minded curiosity, attentive appreciation– for optimal human development and learning, as well as on the value of integrating the wisdom of low rationality systems regulating well-being through attuned homeostasis in the body, and on the virtue and innovation possible for humanity when we organize our thinking around high reason and moral and intellectual principles…

91. Please see www.gaclimatestewards.wikispaces.com for beginning infrastructures for organizing civic and creative arts renewal and multi-scalar alliances