Deliberative polling is an essential ingredient of building a new reality. It has the potential to revitalize culture, improve public discourse, and generate better solutions to our most urgent problems, because it relies on the collective wisdom of an informed crowd.
8. GLIA: Think Globally and Act Locally
Can we establish a substantial organization—a GLIA—that cares about the needs of ordinary people, and has sufficient influence to counterbalance the powerful government and corporate interests that dominate the world?
7. A Kinder, Gentler Capitalist
Jack Bogle died this year with less than $100 million. Having given away half of his income to charities every year, Bogle truly was in the vanguard of a New Reality in capitalism.
6. A Disparity In Corporate Compensation and Value
Disparity in wealth is evident not only when comparing ordinary people with the billionaire founders and owners of large corporations, but also with the managers of those corporations.
5. Redistribution of Wealth
Although Ray Dalio, the founder and manager of the largest hedge fund in the world, built a fortune thanks to capitalism, he’s keenly aware that it is a deeply flawed system. “Capitalism basically is not working for the majority of people. That’s just the reality.” Dalio predicts the income gap will only get worse.
4. Democracy or Aristocracy?
Democratic capitalism finds itself facing an ominous challenge. Will democracies throughout the world truly represent all their citizens, or will they continue to favor the wealthy and powerful minority, who can influence elections and government regulations to their own benefit? Will free market capitalism share its gains in productivity with everyone…or not?
3. The Spirit of ’76
Jefferson’s final draft of the Declaration of Independence, published on July 4, 1776, proposed an ideal of democracy that did not exist anywhere in the world, and which we still aspire to fully achieve: government with the consent of the governed. But something went wrong…
2. From Crony to Caring
Corrupt governance corrupts the free market. The free market, after all, is simply a democratic decision-making mechanism, in which people vote with their money. Their collective purchases, sales and investments influence what is produced, how much of it and how much it costs. In a New Reality, consumers have a choice of what kind of corporate ethics and values they want to support with their patronage.
1. Free Market Capitalism
“While non-profit corporations must be just as businesslike as their profit-making counterparts, they have different motives and behaviors than for-profit corporations.”
Part 3: The Power of Check-Ins
Editor’s Note: In the final installment of our four-part series (here’s last week’s installment) on restorative practices in the workplace, author Richard Cohen talks about why he created the website “Check-in Success” from which the following is excerpted. This series is also part of our ongoing efforts to apply restorative practices to the six facets […]
