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May 22, 2007 1:57:31 PM
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As Einstein said, we can't solve any major problem while in the same mindset as we were when we created it. We need to reframe our thinking, first.
Frames of thinking are expressed by choice of vocabulary, which typically indicates a set of assumptions, and a set of connotations. The two examples which jump out from the question are "regulatory" and "market".
Regulation implies some sort of coercive authority. For the past 1000 years, at least, folks and factions have competed for the ability to coerce their neighbors. Once in power, they have established regulatory schemes which advantage themselves and (to varying degrees) beggar their neighbors. If this is going to change, a key question is "who regulates?" And the immediate corollary is "who regulates the regulators?" Our previous answers haven't worked, and figuring out an alternative is key to any success.
Once that's addressed, we can get to the aspects of the existing dominant socio-economic paradigm. I'd say its two salient aspects are corporations and maximized externalization of costs.
Corporations, as they currently exist in Western economies, are potentially immortal gollums based on the proposition that the love of money (especially more money for the relatively few who already have some) is the root of all happiness (hence their promulgation of maximized externalization of costs). The downside of corporations can, perhaps, be minimized by making them mortal (maximum lifespan before dispersion, set at time of corporate establishment) and by broadening their ownership (societies, through their governments, allow corporations to be created; why shouldn't the society insist on some significant (like 49%) ownership interest in corporations it allows to be created?).
Maximum externalization of costs (resource costs, social costs, costs of pollution, etc.) can only be addressed by insisting on some sort of full-cost life-cycle accounting. While, at present, this is unrealistic, if societies (peoples) as a whole are large-scale stockholders in all corporations, then societies (the folks who are going to get stuck with any costs which are, in fact, externalized) will have a strong motivation to make sure it happens.
by rjmart01
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