Tikkun Daily Blog Archive (https://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/category/politics/the-economy/page/16/)
Rather than an exhaustive introduction to Gandhian economics, which can be found through a search on the web, I chose, instead, to look more deeply at two core principles that resonate deeply with me and the path I am on with regards to thinking about money and the economy.
After many years as a psychotherapist studying the psychodynamics leading Americans to move to the Right, (before I became a rabbi and editor of Tikkun), I began to understand why a fringe and extremist group could be so successful in gathering support that would eventually lead to its ability to shut down the functioning of the government.
Every once in a while, you get the artistic perfect storm of an exceptional raconteur and brilliant teacher, an extremely talented set of technical people, and a topical subject, all coming together. Jacob Kornbluth’s latest movie, Inequality for All (starring Robert Reich), is terrific documentary cinema.
Michael Bloomberg’s legacy was written this week by Mireya Navarro of The New York Times. Her painful profile of New York City residents who are both employed (some with multiple jobs) and living in homeless shelters revealed the narrative, human costs of the nation’s worst income inequality gap.
Fast food workers and Wal-Mart employees are today’s heroes, taking back the rights and working conditions that were won in the past.
Last month, Goldman Sachs announced its second quarter profits doubled the previous year to $1.93 billion. The bi-polar world of rich bankers in the North racking up record profits and workers everywhere receiving a shrinking share of national income spells out the class basis of “recovery” and “depression,” prosperity for the few and immiseration for the many. By the end of 2013, the imbalances between finance and production foretell a new cycle of boom and bust.
Two decisions on Monday August 12th have offered possible opportunities to move away from the tough-on crime-policies that have dominated the American criminal justice system since at least the late 1960s. But we should not expect these rulings and decisions to magically transform America’s political, economic and spiritual culture overnight to a non-racist world of caring. For real change to occur, we need to begin a broad-based movement at least partly rooted in electoral politics led by the people most affected by the policies now being questioned.
At a time when too many people are out of work and too many others are holding down two or three jobs just to survive, it might seem a bit frivolous to lament the lost art of leisure. But leisure – restorative time – is a basic human need. And fewer people are getting the benefit of it, apparently even when they’re on paid vacations. A new Harris survey finds that more than half of all U.S. employees planned to work during their summer vacations this year – up six percent from the previous year. (Email is a prime suspect in this crime against leisure.) Soon enough, all of us will be taking presidential-style vacations like the one starting tomorrow.
AVODAH corps members sign up to staff women’s shelters, advocate for senior citizens, provide services to those living with HIV/AIDS, organize youth leaders, and feed the hungry. It remains an open question as to whether the collective action that would be necessary to make real systemic change in our cities is possible with a few dozen, or even a few hundred, faith-driven volunteers entering schools of social work and becoming community organizers. AVODAH may not have the answer yet, but it is pushing forward with plans that go beyond a one-year service placement for recent college graduates.
Many progressive clergy have recently spent our entire discretionary accounts on travel to our state capitals. An experiment is occurring in North Carolina to reunite our spiritual souls with our political bodies. Instead of episodic lobbying, on Moral Mondays, clergy visit with their representatives as chaplains. They change the language from the pragmatics of the political to the hope of our God.