Economics 101: Rewriting the Textbooks

Deborah Yedlin (2008-12-30) of the Calgary Herald’s Business section succinctly summarized the economic nightmare of 2008 in which the investment banking industry collapsed, Chicago school economics theories were debunked and their heroes dethroned, trusted risk management managers were vilified, and the axis of financial power shifted from the West to the East.

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Citations

“The consequences of the lack of regulation in the shadowy subprime housing market, and the ability of banks to get loans off their balance sheets and have investment banks repackage them as rated securities, allowed for the spreading risk. It was a practice that was supposed to ensure if something went bad, the damage would be contained because the exposure would be spread out. It was an axiom that was lent an even greater reliability because U. S. Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greens-pan was a believer in it. As many are now painfully aware, the dominos began to fall when two hedge funds at Bear Stearns collapsed in late 2007. This started the clock ticking on the 84-year-old investment bank, which proceeded to lose the confidence of investors and counterparties and was sold post-haste to JP Morgan Chase in March for $10 a share with the “help” of the U. S. Federal Reserve and its investment banking veteran, Hank Paulson (Yedlin 2008-12-30).”

“Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman, in opining on the multi-billion fraud perpetrated by Bernard Madoff, suggested one of the reasons he was not discovered was because of society’s worship of the wealthy. Too many, he said, have drawn the conclusion that people who have made huge sums of money must be very smart and to question these individuals would be to insult them (Yedlin 2008-12-30).”

Webliography and Bibliography

Yedlin, Deborah. 2008-12-30. “Storybook year ends in economic nightmare.” Calgary Herald.

Public Policies Keep 16% of Canadians Poor

Judith Maxwell (2008-01-28), former head of the Economic Council of Canada and Canadian Policy Research Networks, claimed that the high concentration of at-risk Canadians live in highly disadvantaged neighbourhoods of poverty by postal code. In 2008 the Canadian national poverty rate remained at c. 16% where we’ve been stuck for eight years. Maxwell claims that religions, some social-minded businesses and countless volunteers who constitute civil society are revitalizing desperately poor neighbourhoods, tackling homelessness and letting governments know that the current policies prevent people from escaping poverty.

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Maxwell, Judith. 2008-01-28. “Forget policy makers, civic leaders are spearheading the fight to end poverty.” Globe and Mail.

Counting Canada: Economic, Innovation, Environment, Education, Health and Society Indicators

“Canada’s social safety net results in lower rates of poverty and income inequality along with higher rates of self-sufficiency of vulnerable populations than in the United States. But many Canadians would be surprised to find out that the U.S. has a lower burglary rate, a lower suicide rate, and greater gender equity than Canada […] Canada’s relatively poor record on child poverty, income inequality, and assault [remain] shocking […] Particularly troubling is its ranking on child poverty. In Canada, according to OECD statistics, one child in seven lives in poverty. Canada also still has an unacceptably high rate of poverty among its working-age population. According to statistics published by the OECD, just over 10 per cent of its working-age population is below the poverty line. This is double the rate of Denmark, the best-performing country on this indicator. Canada’s crime record is also disturbing—with 17 times the rate of assaults as the best-ranked country, 7 times the rate of burglaries, and 3 times the rate of homicides. Crime takes its toll on trust—both within the community and within public institutions. This picture of crime is not what Canadians think of when they think of their society. […] Canada ranks high on the indicator measuring acceptance of diversity […] Canada’s past achievements, such as reducing poverty among its elderly, show that, given the political will, Canada could successfully address other social challenges to sustain future quality of life (Conference Board of Canada Society Overview 2008 ).”

The Conference Board of Canada (2008 ) compared economic, innovation, environment, education, health and society performances of Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom and United States which are considered to be Canada’s international peers. Canada’s standard of living ranking dropped from 4th spot in 1990 to 9th in 2008. In terms of Education and Skills, over 40% of adult Canadians lack literacy skills required for everyday life and work in modern society. In terms of innovation Canada scored D since the 1980s and has failed to produce any top global brands.

The full report for 2008 will not be available until September. I am curious to see how data specifically related to Canada’s growing aboriginal community with its unique social histories and current dilemmas will be analysed in this report. When we examine the weakest points in the report, it is obvious that the vulnerabilities faced by Canada’s most at-risk group (aboriginal women and children) affect our international ranking. It is also useful to consider the location of remote aboriginal communities in terms of the most volatile environmental debates in Canada.

Data for this annual report comes from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) (c.80%), the United Nations, the World Bank, and the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy. The report measures quality of life based on this definition:

“The Conference Board defines a high and sustainable quality of life for all Canadians as being achieved if Canada records high and sustainable performances in six categories: Economy, Innovation, Environment, Education and Skills, Health and Society (B 10/17). The word “sustainable” [1] is a critical qualifier. It is not enough for Canada to boost economic growth if it is done at the expense of the environment or social cohesion. For example, to take advantage of high commodity prices by mining and exporting all our natural resources may make the country rich in the short term, but this wealth will not be sustainable in the long or even medium term. The Conference Board has consistently argued that economic growth and sustainability of the physical environment need to be integrated into a single concept of sustainable national prosperity—what we call here a “high and sustainable quality of life for all Canadians.”

..

“Having a high quality of life means living in communities that are free from fear of social unrest and violence, communities that accept racial and cultural diversity, and those that foster social networks. A country that provides a high quality of life also minimizes the extremes of inequality between its poorest and richest citizens, while reducing the social tensions and conflicts that result from these gaps. Performance in the Society category is assessed using 17 indicators across three dimensions: self-sufficiency, equity, and social cohesion. Self-sufficiency indicators measure the autonomy and active participation of individuals within society, including its most vulnerable citizens, such as persons with disabilities and youth. Equity indicators measure equity of access, opportunities, and outcomes. Social cohesion indicators measure the extent to which citizens participate in societal activities, the level of crime in society, and the acceptance of diversity [. . .] Canada’s social safety net results in lower rates of poverty and income inequality along with higher rates of self-sufficiency of vulnerable populations than in the United States. But many Canadians would be surprised to find out that the U.S. has a lower burglary rate, a lower suicide rate, and greater gender equity than Canada […] Canada’s relatively poor record on child poverty, income inequality, and assault [remain] shocking […] Particularly troubling is its ranking on child poverty. In Canada, according to OECD statistics, one child in seven lives in poverty. Canada also still has an unacceptably high rate of poverty among its working-age population. According to statistics published by the OECD, just over 10 per cent of its working-age population is below the poverty line. This is double the rate of Denmark, the best-performing country on this indicator. Canada’s crime record is also disturbing—with 17 times the rate of assaults as the best-ranked country, 7 times the rate of burglaries, and 3 times the rate of homicides. Crime takes its toll on trust—both within the community and within public institutions. This picture of crime is not what Canadians think of when they think of their society. […] Canada ranks high on the indicator measuring acceptance of diversity […] Canada’s past achievements, such as reducing poverty among its elderly, show that, given the political will, Canada could successfully address other social challenges to sustain future quality of life (Conference Board of Canada Society Overview 2008).”

Footnotes

1. “Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs (Brundtland 1987:43).”

Webliography and Bibliography

Brundtland, Gro Harlem. 1987. Our Common Future: World Commission on Environment and Development. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Conference Board of Canada. 2008.

Food, Fertilizer, Fuel

Through WSJ Online which I follow on Twitter, I was alerted to Kuroda’s Wall Street Journal timely and informative opinion piece on Asia’s Food Crisis (2008-05-05). I realized that this article was rich in research-based information and provided an excellent summary of a pivotal moment in the social history time-line of the way in which “Wealth Disparities Will Intensify.” See Drummond and Tulk (2006). First I dugg Kuroda’s article.

Then I began a slow world rhizomic process using the semantic web with its microblogs, blogs, social bookmarking, aggregators and folksonomies locating this article at the centre of a dendronic cartography.

Leaving all the windows and tabs open on Firefox I worked with and between Adobe Photoshop, notepad, blogs, etc to produce this series of layered images which I call digitage. They conform to Powerpoint’s default size and highest resolution (1440 x 900). I saved them as .jpg to upload to the Flickr account using my new handy Flickr desktop uploader. These images Circum Asian Pacific Globe http://snurl.com/27ekf 2. “Globalization: Food, Fertilizer and Fuel“, http://snurl.com/27el3 3. On the Tomato Trail 4. Consuming Questions: East and West http://snurl.com/27en3 were then combined into a .ppt PowerPoint file entitled “Food, Fertilizer, Fuel” which conforms to the slidenet.com default size. Once the slidenet.com presentation was uploaded I collected all the urls and transformed them into snurls. (Snurls are shortened urls that can also be used with microblogging services like Twitter.)

This article then on the East and West was a catalyst to my first “snurl cloud” or “snurl roll” on on Twitter. (A second snurl cloud links to the first: “Wealth Disparities Will Intensify also on Twitter (2008-05-06).

In a sense this is a virtual faint echo of Barndt’s Tangled Routes (2001). See also Flynn-Burhoe (2006-11-17) on the layered digitage linking tomatoes, French Fries, fast foods, high-meat-protein-consumption, Milton Friedman’s “The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase Profits” (1970), Cannibals with Forks and Barndt’s Tangled Routes: Women, Work and Globalization on the Tomato Trail (2001).

Webliography and Bibliography

Barndt, Deborah. 2001. Tangled Routes: Women, Work and Globalization on the Tomato Trail. Aurora, ON. Garamond Press.

Drummond, Don & Tulk, David (2006 ) Lifestyles of the Rich and Unequal: an Investigation into Wealth Inequality in Canada. TD Bank Financial Group.

Flynn-Burhoe, Maureen. 2006. “Wealth Disparities Will Intensify (Drummond and Tulk 2006).” >> December 15, 2006.

Kuroda, Haruhiko. 2008. “Solving Asia’s Food Crisis“. Wall Street Journal Asia. May 5, 2008.

Homelessness: from crisis management to ending the disgrace

Leading US advocate for homeless praised The Calgary Committee to End Homelessness’ 10-year plan business plan’s innovation, measurable benchmarks, field-tested, evidence-based & modeled on best practices in US cities which house homeless families, provide supported housing and treatment for homeless who suffer from mental illness and addictions.

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The Calgary Committee to End Homelessness unveiled its 10-year plan, “outlining the hundreds of millions of government dollars success will cost, as well as the projected $3.6 billion in eventual savings. The plan, developed by a committee 2007-2008, includes targets such as reducing the number of emergency shelter beds by half within five years, eliminating family homelessness within two years and chronic homelessness within seven, and creating more than 11,000 affordable housing units, including secondary suites and student housing [. . .] The Calgary committee has already launched two pilot projects it believes will put roofs over the heads of at least 100 people over the next year . . . A New York program is the model for Pathways to Housing, which finds supported housing for people with mental illness or addictions and then focuses on treatment. Hennepin County’s Rapid Exit program is being copied by CUPS as it matches homeless families and landlords, finding a place to live for at least six families in its first month (Guttormson 2008).”

My questions: How did structural changes over the last twenty years change the face of homelessness? When did the Canadian federal government download responsibilities regarding public health services including mental health to the provinces and the provinces to municipalities? What are the current demographic studies of the homeless, the proportion who are urban Inuit and First Nations? women? immigrants? children? families? mentally ill? relationship between mental illness and substance abuse?

Folksonomies or tag cloud

Calgary Committee to End Homelessness, Steve Snyder, Calgary’s housing prices are seriously unaffordable, Phillip Mangano, U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, homeless, 10-year plan, crisis-management, end the disgrace, innovative ideas, business plan, measurable benchmarks, innovative ideas, municipalities, field-tested, evidence-based, Pathways to Housing, Rapid Exit, best practice, Calgary Committee to End Homelessness, 10-year-plan, emergency shelter beds, homeless families, supported housing, mental illness, addictions, chronic homeless population,

Timeline

2006 3,400 people in Calgary, Alberta were considered homeless, that is, living without permanent shelter (Guttormson 2008).

2007 The Calgary Committee to End Homelessness launched two pilot projects Pathways to Housing and Rapid Exit in 2007 which are anticipated to put roofs over the heads of at least 100 people in 2008 (Guttormson 2008).

2008-01-28 Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey: 2008 pegged Calgary’s housing prices as “seriously unaffordable.”

2008-01-29 The Calgary Committee to End Homelessness unveiled its 10-year plan, outlining the hundreds of millions of government dollars success will cost, as well as the projected $3.6 billion in eventual savings (Guttormson 2008).

2010 According to the Calgary Committee to End Homelessness’ 10-year plan (2008-2018) officials hope to stabilize the homeless population at the 2006 numbers 3,400) and to eliminate family homelessness by 2010.

2013 Calgary Committee to End Homelessness 10-Year Plan promises to reduce the number of emergency shelter beds by half within five years (Guttormson 2008).

Who’s Who?

Calgary Urban Project Society (CUPS) is “a not-for-profit community health centre in Calgary’s downtown core. Offering collaborative and holistic services in the areas of health care, education and social services, CUPS Community Health Centre helps people make the transition from poverty to stability. Founded on the principle that all people have an inherent right to lead a life of dignity, equality and respect, CUPS is a safe, warm and welcoming environment free of judgment and rejection (CUPS website ).” CUPS is actively engaged in combatting poverty and homelessness in Calgary. They have inaugurated a pilot project which matches homeless families and landlords, finding a place to live for at least six families in its first month is modelled on the US Hennepin County’s Rapid Exit program.

Cox, Wendell a senior fellow at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy and Hugh Pavletich, a property investment manager in New Zealand produced the survey entitled

Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey: 2008.

Frontier Centre for Public Policy’s senior fellow Wendell Cox and Hugh Pavletich, a property investment manager in New Zealand produced the survey entitled

Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey: 2008.

Kim Guttormson is a journalist with the Calgary Herald which is part of the CanWest group.

Pathways to Housing, which finds supported housing for people with mental illness or addictions and then focuses on treatment is modelled on the successful New York program (Guttormson 2008).

Phillip Mangano is executive director of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness and a leading advocate for the homeless, who praised Calgary’s 10-year plan for ending homelessness. Mangano claimed that, “If this plan is implemented the way it is written, you will see in the next few years the number of people on the street, the number of people long-term in shelters, begin to be reduced. Calgary has decided to stop managing the crisis and begin ending the disgrace.” Mangano is confident that Calgary’s “bold and innovative” strategy will accomplish the plan’s ambitious goals. “Mangano, who has read Calgary’s report, calls it impressive and says it has the key components of successful plans in other cities — it’s based on a business plan, it has measurable benchmarks and it uses innovative ideas from other municipalities. “Calgary has done a very good job of uncovering the innovative ideas that are already field-tested and evidence-based, they’re already working somewhere else,” said Mangano, who has worked with more than 300 plans south of the border. “So you know if you invest in them, they’re going to work there (Guttormson 2008).”

Steve Snyder is chairman of the Calgary Committee to End Homelessness. Snyder explained how this plan differs from past approaches where money was “thrown at the homeless issue” in that there is nothing in this plan that is pie-in-the-sky. In order to break the cycle of homelessness the committee studied best practice models in American cities where ten-year plans developed since 2003 have proven successful. “New York has closed a 1,004-bed shelter, Portland reduced its chronic homeless population by 70 per cent, Denver saw its chronic numbers drop 36 per cent and Hennepin County in Minnesota recorded a 43 per cent decrease in homeless families (Guttormson 2008).”

U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness

Webliography and Bibliography

Guttormson, Kim. 2008. “U.S. advocate for homeless raves about Calgary plan: City lauded for decision to start ending ‘disgrace’.” City & Region. Calgary Herald. January 29. B3.

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CC Flynn-Burhoe, Maureen. 2008. “Homelessness: from crisis management to ending the disgrace” >> Google Docs. Uploaded January 29.

Debate: Does Global Inequality Fade as Global Economy Grows? Hong Kong tops

Sala-i-Martin, Xavier. 2006.”Global Inequality Fades as the Global Economy Grows.” 2007 Index of Economic Freedom.

The report of 13th annual Heritage Foundation/Wall Street Journal Index of Economic Freedom 2007 was cited in the January 23, 2007 online version of The Economist under Business This Week. Economic Freedom of 161 countries is measured and ranked from 0 to 100 with 0 demarcating countries with the least freedom. The index designed for public policymakers and investors uses ten variables, such as tax rates, ability to do business, property rights, corruption, labour freedom and property rights. Some countries such as Iraq were excluded from the survey. Using a new formula this year liberty worldwide is on the rise compared to the entire period investigated (c.1995-2006) although slightly less in 2006(60.6%) as compared to 2005 figures. What is problematic about this index is the way in which market liberalism is confounded with a more inclusive concept of liberty.
This annual index cites Adam Smith‘s The Wealth of Nations in 1776 as its foundational theoretical framework and measures ten variables, such as the ability to do business, property rights, corruption and labour freedom. The average score (0 equals repressed, 100 equals free) was 60.6%, down slightly from last year but the second-highest since the survey began. North Korea remained rooted at the bottom (several countries, including Iraq, were not ranked).

According to Index of Economic Freedom 2007 Hong Kong, United States, Britain, Chile, Japan, Germany, Israel and Thailand are the best countries in the world to do business. North Korea, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Russia, China, Turkey, Brazil and Italy are the worst places for free market trade.

Since the 18th century Smith’s theories have been used to explain capitalism asa means of promulgating peace since war interrupts trade between nations. In a recent article (2006) in Le monde diplomatique,sociologist Professor Alain Bihr, reveals how this concept of capitalism and freedom of the market as generator of peace, embedded in concepts of classical liberal economy, forgets the nature of production (Bihr 2006 citing Smith 1904 [1776]). Smith’s theories continue to inform investigations of the study of liberal thought and the history of capitalism, such as the Index of Economic Freedom.

Adam Smith’s arguments are used as a rebuttal to the United Nations Development Programme’s Human Development Report (1999) which decries the widening gap between the poorest and richest countries. In 1997 the upper quintile controlled 74 times the income of the lowest quintile, whereas in 1960 the figure was 30 times the income. (The extremes of wealth and poverty in Canada are discussed in )

What is too often ignored in liberal market theories is Adam Smith’s final concluding chapter in which he clearly indicates what must be done with surplus wealth in order to prevent the extremes of wealth and poverty. There is a responsibility on the part of the super rich to not simply accumulate their wealth as is the case of the ultra rich but to redistribute their wealth with an eye to hospitality.

When neither commerce nor manufactures furnish anything for which the owner can exchange the greater part of those materials which are over and above his own consumption, he can do nothing with the surplus but feed and clothe nearly as many people as it will feed and clothe. A hospitality in which there is no luxury, and a liberality in which there is no ostentation, occasion, in this situation of things, the principal expences of the rich and the great. But these, I have likewise endeavoured to show in the same book, are expences by which people are not very apt to ruin themselves. There is not, perhaps, any selfish pleasure so frivolous of which the pursuit has not sometimes ruined even sensible men. A passion for cock-fighting has ruined many. But the instances, I believe, are not very numerous of people who have been ruined by a hospitality or liberality of this kind, though the hospitality of luxury and the liberality of ostentation have ruined many (Smith 1902 [1776]: V.3.1).

In a future world individuals may well be entrusted with doing this voluntarily. But we are far from this state of equilibrium where the market balances itself. The Index of Economic Freedom cannot therefore be relied upon as a stand-alone tool measuring freedom. Concepts of hospitality and liberty need to be measured with the more sophisticated critical tools of the 21st century not with limited readings of brilliant texts of the 17the century.

In 2001 Peter Robinson invited Bruce Bartlett, Senior Fellow, National Center for Policy Analysis and Peter Orszag, Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution to debate questions concerning income inequality such as:

“How much does the gap between rich and poor matter? In 1979, for every dollar the poorest fifth of the American population earned, the richest fifth earned nine. By 1997, that gap had increased to fifteen to one. Is this growing income inequality a serious problem? Is the size of the gap between rich and poor less important than the poor’s absolute level of income? In other words, should we focus on reducing the income gap or on fighting poverty?” See the transcript or listen to the multimedia of Robinson, Peter. 2001. “Rich Man, Poor Man: Income Inequality.” Uncommon Knowledge. Filmed July 18, 2001 hosted by the Hoover Institution and funded by John M. Olin Foundation and the Starr Foundation, all pro-business think tanks.

Footnotes

While Canada now has a $4.8 trillion net worth, the lower quintile of the population have seen their net worth diminish while the net worth of the Ultra rich has increased.

Selected webliography

Bihr, Alain. 2006.“Aux origines du capitalisme: L’erreur fondamentale d’Adam Smith.” Le monde diplomatique online.November.
Flynn-Burhoe. 2007. “Rich Man Poor Man: Hospitality, Liberty and Measuring the Measurements.” Google Docs and Spreadsheets. January 24, 2007.

Heritage Foundation/Wall Street Journal Index of Economic Freedom 2007.

Robinson, Peter. 2001. “Rich Man, Poor Man: Income Inequality.” Uncommon Knowledge. Filmed July 18, 2001 hosted by the Hoover Institution.

Sala-i-Martin, Xavier. 2006.”Global Inequality Fades as the Global Economy Grows.” 2007 Index of Economic Freedom.

Smith, Adam. 1776. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. London: Methuen and Co., Ltd., ed. Edwin Cannan,1904. Fifth edition. complete online version

Our Distant Relatives from the Baroque period

The Baroque, Neoclassical and Romantic periods in Europe coincide with the period of colonization in what was called the New World. When we admire artistic creations from these periods how can be also remember colonial activities and their implications for everyday life in 2007.

Freeman (2000a 127) describes one of the distant relatives of the 17th century as a fur trader, interpreter and man of public affairs whose influence increased in 1643 with the formation of the United Colonies of New England (Plymouth, Connecticut, Massechusetts and New Haven). His name was connected with almost every Indian transaction on record.

Selected webliography and bibliography

Freeman, Victoria. 2000. Distant Relations: How My Ancestors Colonized North America. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart.

Freeman, Victoria. 2000a. “Ambassador to the Indians.”Distant Relations: How My Ancestors Colonized North America. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart. pp.127-147.

Nishnawbe Aski Nation’s editorial in $55B diamond industry’s Rapaport News

Moratorium on what some call Canadian ‘Blood Diamonds’? De Beers Canada benefit from government stalling tactics on land claims to extract valuable raw resources leaving behind environmental devastation. Many of the 45,000 Cree and Ojibwa in NAN region live in fourth world conditions in post-RCAP Canada. How many more NAN youth will choose suicide? Let’s not forget Nishnawbe Aski Nation’s Kash’s still unsolved water problem.
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For more reading check out my Customized Search Engine on Nishnawbe Aski Nation on Swicki

Billions in trade gap, pennies for workers in China’s Special Economic Zone

Richard Nixon noted, “[In 1994] China’s economic power makes US lectures about human rights imprudent. Within a decade it will make them irrelevant. Within two decades it will make them laughable (Huntington 1997:195).” Rural norther women (2006) in southern SEZ, earn pennies. Profits shared by retailers, Tianjin, Klein, Nautica, Chaps, Feniger

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Challenges of Human Rights within a Geopolitics of Exclusion

Originally presented as part of: Flynn, Burhoe, M. 2004. “Human Rights Comprehensive,” Carleton University, Ottawa, ON.

 

The 1993 Vienna Human Rights Conference revealed the ideological schism between the Western bloc of liberal democracies embodied in European and North American countries and diverse ideologies of fifty non-Western countries[1] which the West lumped together as Asian-Islamic. In spite of this, cultural relativism was rejected in favour of the universality of human rights. At this same conference Islamic and Chinese delegates emphatically stated that the universality of human rights was not questioned. But as China’s economic clout increases so does the demand for a shift in the dominant western-centred human rights lexicon to include Asian values (Falk 2000:8). See also Ignatieff.

The rapid dramatic economic, industrial and technological growth of China’s Special Economic Zones has situated China as a formidable trade partner in the global economy attracting foreign investors particularly the US and Japan. This has a profound effect on Human Rights debates which became visibly apparently in 1994 with Clinton was forced to retract threats to impose sanctions on China for its human rights abuses. It is the hope of the Western world that China’s need for trade partners will lead to greater transparency but in the unpredictable shifts of power dynamics, economic forces alone will not compel China to adopt western values. As China’s international market strength gathers momentum human rights concerns conveyed by even the more vocal dissenters, Tibet and Taiwan are set aside.

At a recent conference on Governance Self-Government and Legal Pluralism (2003) Premier Okalik[2] defined traditional knowledge as a collective means of re-interpreting a rapidly changing world. Falk suggested an “alternative to the false universalism of globalization in the form of an intercivilizational world order that combines the ecological and biological conditions of unity with the civilizational[3] realities of difference and self-definition (Falk 2000b:161). This radical shift recognizes the emergence of civilizational identities which challenges the dominant statist identities (2000b:147). Another term that is used to describe this geopolitics of inclusion is multi-civilizational dialogical relationship. An international globalization research centre, Institute for Global Peace and Policy Research (TODA) is developing a multi-civilizational conceptual framework focusing on the unity and variety of conditions and institutions for global democracy in an age of globalization and regionalization (TODA 2000).

The end of the cold war, ideological passivity of China, spread of market liberalism set the stage for a new period in human rights. The new western political ideology claimed that only democratic forms of governance are legitimate and promote human rights (Falk 2000a:47).

 

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[1](including Communist Cuba, Buddhist Myanmar, Confucian Singapore, Vietnam, North Korea, China, Muslim Malaysia, Indonesia, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Sudan and Libya)

[2] At a recent conference on Governance Self-Government and Legal Pluralism Premier Okalik acknowledged the challenges of transforming a society afflicted with inherited social wrongs. Governance for the new territory is based on traditional Inuit values respected for the full weight of the history it reflects, as a proactive means engaging the transition. Inuit culture remained intact until relatively recently unlike other indigenous peoples in North America. Okalik described one of the pivotal values of Inuit governance resides in unique form of communication based on listening to others while never losing one’s own horizon in a process that is as complex in execution as it is simple in expressing. In this way Nunavut governance evolved using the best of the Westminster style of government but with unique Inuit traits that reflect Inuit culture and knowledge Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit. The application of IQ is contemporary and continues to evolve although it is steeped in tradition (Okalik 2003).

[3] Falk traced the roots of the civilizational explorations to Braudel (Braudel 1949[1969]) and Toynbee (1961). Elitist and ethnocentric art historian Erwin Panofsky (1939) measured all art history in relation to highpoints of Western civilization, particularly Gothic France and Renaissance Italy (1984; Holly 1997). In education both Hutchins (1936) and Allan Bloom (1987) in his Great Books series assumed the primacy of western civilization over all others. Lord Kenneth Clark’s (1970) televised popular mini-series Civilisation (Alter 1999) spanned eleven countries and sixteen centuries claiming achievements in the name of western civilization through art, architecture, philosophy and history.

 

The end of the cold war, ideological passivity of China, spread of market liberalism set the stage for a new period in human rights. The new western political ideology claims that only democratic forms of governance are legitimate and promote human rights (Falk 2000:47). In 1989 China cracked down on pro-democracy activists in Beijing‘s Tiananmen Square. This was denounced by Clinton when he was campaigning for the US Presidency. However ever since China initiated its more market-friendly policies in its Special Economic Zones, its GNP has risen dramatically. Currently its economy is second only to the United States. Unlike many other late comers to development, China strategically developed its own technical expertise with rapidity thereby limiting China’s dependency on the United States. This has profound effect on Human Rights debates which became official in 1994 with Clinton was forced to retract threats to impose sanctions on China for its human rights abuses. China is attracting foreign investors particularly the US and Japan. It is the hope of the Western world that China’s need for trade partners will lead to greater transparency such as is beginning in the Special Economic Zone. (See the timeline of events that led to the shift.)

Flynn-Burhoe, Maureen. 2004. “Challenges of Human Rights within a Geopolitics of Exclusion,” “Overview of the Context, Content, Conceptual Framework and Outcomes of Designing and Teaching a Human Rights Course in Iqaluit, Nunavut,” Comprehensive Exam II, submitted to PhD committee members Professors Rob Shields, Phillip Thurtle, Donna Patrick. May 21, 2004 in partial requirement for a PhD in Sociology/Anthropology at Carleton University, Ottawa, ON.  Creative Commons license applies.

 

Selected Bibliography

Axworthy, Lloyd. 1995. “Statement.” in World Summit for Social Development. Copenhagen, Denmark.

Braudel, Fernand. 1949[1969]. La Méditerranée et le monde méditerranéen à l’époque de Philippe II, vol. 1. Paris, FR: Flammarion. http://www.armand-colin.com/cgi-bin/bookf.pl?is=2200372248

Brittan, Sir Samuel. 1996. “Review of Charles K. Rowley’s “The Political Economy of the Minimal State”.” The Times Literary Supplement. http://www.thelockeinstitute.org/books/politicaleconomy_review1.html

Falk, Richard A. 2000. Human Rights Horizons: The Pursuit of Justice in a Globalizing World. New York: Routledge.

Gadamer, Hans-Georg. 1960 [1975]. Truth and Method. New York: Crossroad Publishing Company.

Habermas, Jurgen. 1981. “The Theory of Communicative Action.” vol. 2.

Hutchins, Robert. 1936. The Higher Education in America. Chicago.

Leary, Virginia A. 1998. “Globalization and Human Rights.” Pp. 265-276 in Human Rights: New Dimensions and Challenges: Manual on Human Rights, edited by Janusz Symonides. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate Dartmouth Publishing Company Ltd. / UNESCO Publishing. hum/sym/hum

Lyons, Oron R. 1992. “The American Indian in the Past.” in Exiled in the Land of the Free: Democracy, Indian Nations and the U.S.Constitution, edited by Oron R. Lyons and John C. Mohawk. Santa Fe, New Mexico: Clearlight Press.

Okalik, Paul. 2003. “The Naujaat Challenge: Working Together.” in To the Conference on Governance Self-Government and Legal Pluralism. Hull, Quebec. http://www.gov.nu.ca/Nunavut/English/premier/press/cgsglp.shtml

Powless, Irving Jr. 2000. “Treaty Making.” Pp. 115-126 in Treaty of Canandaigua 1794: 200 Years of Treaty Relations between Iroquois Confederacy and the United States, edited by G. Peter Jemison and Anna M. Schein. Santa Fe: Clearlight Press.

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Neither Left nor Right, just wrong: Canadian Public Policy stalling tactics

Benign colonialism for dummies: how to impress OECD while Canada’s First People live in Brazil-like favela. Canadian Public Policy research has been usefully challenged by seasoned journalist Atkinson Fellow Marie Wadden’s recent series which continues her research begun in 1978 in response to the hidden horrors of Canada’s Innu town, Davis Inlet. The True North strong and free has been limping for a long time.

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Neither Left nor Right, just wrong

Decades later, Wadden concerned about the elusive solutions for problems of addiction in Canadian Aboriginal continues her research by visiting remote communities to find stories that will unsettle Canadian complacent apathy, compassion fatigue and worldly-wise jaded perspectives. We just do not want to give up the adventure stories that inspired our youth of Arctic explorers in frozen, isolated, hinterland Hudson Bay posts. Perhaps her shocking series will shake our stubborn pryde in our grandfathers’ mythologies while shamefully neglecting tragic tales from our Other grandparents.
Her passion for the subject earned her the 2005 Atkinson Fellowship in Public Policy and led her to a year-long, cross-country trek to look at the causes, effects and potential solutions to the addiction crisis among Aboriginals. Her series of stories — Tragedy or Triumph; Canadian Public Policy and Aboriginal Addictions — is appearing in the Star and online at thestar.com/atkinson. Wadden began her career at CBC television in Newfoundland 27 years ago and has won numerous journalism awards. The St. John’s resident is the 17th winner of the Atkinson Fellowship and the first from east of Montreal. The fellowship, sponsored by The Atkinson Charitable Foundation, the Toronto Star and the Beland Honderich family, aims to further liberal journalism in the tradition of Joseph E. Atkinson, the Star’s founder. The Atkinson Series, Tragedy or Triumph, Canadian Public Policy and Aboriginal Addictions

Seven years in a Third World military dictatorship did not prepare me for the harsh reality of the everyday lives of Canadian Inuit and First Nations. I felt shame, powerlessness and confusion stemming from years of work as insider in cultural institutions devoted to Inuit studies. It took me ten years to build heightened levels of trust so all the stories pored out. The more I learned and accepted without offering bandaid solutions, patent excuses, weak explanations or high-haded social theories, the more stories seemed to come to me. It was as if I had a pair of antennas, an open channel to a stream of unending stories each one corraborating the other. The more I learned the more I questioned so I paralleled the kitchen table accounts with deep research into footnotes of published materials, Hansards, and cross-disciplinary work. I asked more specific questions of Inuit elders and the knowers in communities. (The knowers were often Inuit women of any age who had been chosen to learn more because of their superior abilities to learn languages. Their emotional maturity, discretion and wisdom was daunting. Often stories were shared in whispers. I would never get permission to share them. Potent stories of individual personal strength, survival could not be shared because the surviving members of the perpetrators of violence and injustice were still alive. In small isolated hamlets there are systems of power in everyday life that are as imposing as those on parliament hill. This explains why a convicted sex offender can be chosen to represent a community (where family violence is extremely high — off the charts in terms of the Canadian average) in the political arena. In Third World countries there is always the hope that education and maturity, in civil society and democracy, might provide improved access to human rights for citizens. My despair, my overwhelming sense of hopelessness, became consuming as I realized that this tragedy was taking place in one of the more advanced democracies with a relatively informed civil society. I began to meticulously develop a detailed timeline of the social histories of First Nations, Inuit (and African-Canadians). I would take the stories shared by friends and students and cross-reference them with dates provided by classical ethnographers, anthropologists, art historians, museologists, geographers, geologists, administrators and Hudson Bay Company reports. I reread the entire series of Inuit Studies, Inuit Art Quarterly and realized that it was not bad research on my part that made me so shamefully unaware. The very cultural institutions on whom we depend for insight into our shared communal memories, these institutions have failed us miserably. They continue to perpetrate distorted histories insisting covertly on presenting a benign colonialism. Examine the brilliant RCAP, the most in-depth (and expensive) report, undertaken using a progressive research methodology called Participatory Action Research (PAR). It’s on-line and available for anyone! Read the section on how our institutions of public curricula were specifically called upon to reexamine distorted histories in collaboration with Inuit and First Nations communties. The do as I did and examine what these institutions have done since then. A tourist visiting Canada’s cultural institutions, either virtually or in glass, steel and stone buildings, such as the National Gallery of Canada or the Museum of Civilization, or exploring Cybermuse, will not learn of the depth of despair of First Nations and Inuit communties. They will leave perhaps learning something of the heroic status of the Hudson’s Bay Company, Inuit art cooperatives, the benefits to Inuit of entering the international art market, the exquisite aesthetics of Inuit clothing from the pre-1950s, Inuit legends shortened and deformed for consumer tastes. They will learn about the dynamic Inuit culture as if the best of the culture sank with the Nascopie. Explorers and Hudson Bay Company employees are heroized when their work should now be reviewed through the lens of the informed, intelligent generation born in the 1930s and 1940s. Remove the overt desire to portray colonialism in Canada’s north as benign, to continue to cherish histories of post WWII heroism of southerners who conquered the hinterland to benefit all Canadians. Challenge the assumptions that learning English, the market system and the northern form of Canadian democracy was beneficial in the long-run. Unsettle the assumption that the errors were in the past and we should all move on. The litany of mistakes outlined in this brilliant, moving, informed series can be complemented by a thorough reading of one of Canads’ most-difficult-to-read stories, Mistakes. Let’s ask the communal archives of memory for the answers to the questions about what really happened to Inuit-Scottish, Inuit-Danish and Inuit-Icelandic children abandoned in the 1930s, 1940, 1950s, 1960s by their fathers who returned south and built profitable careers on their heroism, adventures in Canada’s north while ignoring pleas from their former partners, and even own children abandoned to the care of small vulnerable hamlets. We no longer accept that the genetic pool of the Scottish, British, American, Danish and Icelandic improved Inuit and First Nations do we? How can we continue in 2006 to lionize those who felt pryde in their improvement of the gene pool? Is there no way that we can honour our blue eyed grandfathers without simply forgetting. We need serious, committed memory work on the level of what has been done in Post WWII Europe. The situations are in no way the same. But the revamping of our institutions of communal memory is just taking too long. In Post WWII Europe it became evident over the decades that it could not be ignored by national cultural institutions. In Canada it has been politically shrewd to use delaying tactics in our museums just as we have in land claims issues, and the dozens of other recommendations of the RCAP. Read the most recent articles by Canada’s anthropologist and you will find apologies for these institions arguing that great progress has been made. After al we do have an Algonquin canoe floating silently in the Group of Seven section of the National Gallery of Canada. Silently is the word. Speak to renowned Algonquin elder William Commanda and put his voice through a loud speaker in those galleries. Listen to him describe the starvation when tourism trade grew as southerners flocked north to enjoy the Canadian Shield. Hear his gentle, firm voice as he describes in elaborate detail how he built canoes to stave off starvation as the First Nations communities were denied access to their fishing camps which had become the land of the tourists. He speaks without rage. His voice is still powerfully spiritual. He calls for a freeing of the rivers from the damage of the dams. In the room devoted to Canadian art of the 1950s install a Stan Douglas type piece where the voices of Inuit and First Nations whose lives were irrevocably changed by the one of the worst incidence of TB on the planet speak of their grandfathers, camp leaders, fathers, the hunters, trappers and fishers buried in unmarked graves near Moose Factory’s sanitorium.

In the National Gallery of Canada’s Inuit Art section (in the basement) remind visitors that the artists whose works continue to be revered, have suffered starvation in Canada in the 1940s and 1950s, have succumbed to alcoholism, and drugs, that they have met violent deaths through suicides, murders, or in preventable house fires. How many Canadians know the other stories connected to Inuit women artists who made history when they were honoured with the Order of Canada, Canada’s highest award or the Royal Canadian Academy? One died alone in a hospital near Montreal in the 1980s, so depressed because of her linguistic isolation (she could only speak Inuktitut) that she gave away her ulu, the woman’s knife so affectionately mentioned in articles about Inuit art. Another was confused at one time when nortern officials refused food to her family during the peoriod of starvation in the 1950s. What about Canada’s most widely admired Inuit artist whose works are honoured internationally who was now ill, forced to live on city streets and was so badly beaten by police he carried a lump on his forehead for weeks. They and/or their families still live in houses where the entire contents of their fridges are a plastic bottle of ketchup and mustard. The have developed diabetes. A few have become violent and abusive. So many Inuit artists are in the Baffin Correction Centre at any given time that local people suggest a visit as part of the itinerary for Iqaluit, Nunavut’s art scene. Then let’s see some footage of the renowned Inuit elder and activist, as he describes through his son, artist and interpretor, his trip to New York or his interpretation of one of his carvings. Let’s hear him sing with tears in his eyes, the song he wrote for the homeless man on the streets of New York. Where is the strong articulate voice of Sheila Watt-Cloutier in any contemporary site claiming to represent to Inuit culture? If you do not know this name you should. She has made history. What about Paul Okalik, Peter Erniq. These are names all Canadians should know. Let’s begin with something simple: honest, inclusive timelines. Let’s contextualize stories about Inuit culture. Stop funding Inuit studies unless there is a critical component that examines issues, not as tidy sanitized disciplines that claim to be protecting Inuit art and culture from the sordid truths of everyday life. Inuit art and culture are dynamic, alive, robust. The Inuit art and culture market will survive but perhaps not by continuing to enrich southerers or those who live decades in the north, return to the south and continue to become enriched on their insider knowledge. If Inuit benefited fully from their own art production in a sustainable, equitable fashion there would be far less need of so much government intervention. There is more percapita talent in the tiny hamlet of Clyde River waiting for a venue than there is many southern cities. There is also far more youth suicide, violence against women and despair.

Footnotes:

The private Atkinson Foundation, founded in 1942 by former publisher of The Toronto Star, promotes social and economic justice in the tradition Joseph E. Atkinson. This includes the work of Armine Yalnizyan, (2000), “Inequality Rises As More Families Slide To The Bottom Of The Income Scale: Tax cuts don’t address economic reality says new report,” Centre of Social Justice, January 27, 2000 http://www.atkinsonfoundation.ca/publications/The_Great_Divide_Armine_
Yallnizyan.htm