#188 Commonwealth

Commonwealth

One of the things I love about living in my state is our name. I’m not speaking of “Penn’s Woods”, though that’s lovely as well, but of the “Commonwealth” of Pennsylvania. What a concept:  common wealth.

It’s related to “the commons”, which some of us learned about in history class. As part of the Industrial Revolution, the open areas in English villages where everybody freely grazed their cows and sheep were increasingly enclosed as private land, threatening rural livelihood and forcing villagers to move to the cities as industrial laborers.

We learned that it was sad but inevitable, and it all happened a long time ago. Yet the enclosure of the commons is a very current threat, with the idea of common wealth as central. In the US, our common land is in the form of parks (and state game lands in places), whose integrity is under increasing attack. There is also our common water, our common air, our common airwaves, all being exploited for private profit in one way or another. Privatization is steadily expanding to include our common heritage: knowledge, culture and even DNA.

Then there is all the wealth of our economy. Some flows to private owners as profit, some goes to maintain ourselves, some goes to taxes. While we could argue until those English village cows come home about who deserves the profits, I want to think here just about the taxes.

In Philadelphia, our local tax base and our share of federal taxes that come back as grants make up this part of our common wealth. Yet we currently have no control over the part that is not immediately put to use. We pay the big banks on Wall Street—the only ones currently big enough to manage that amount of money—to hold our wealth. They, in turn, invest it where they will get the greatest return—which is not in the social and infrastructure needs of our citizens. To pay for such needs, we float bonds and borrow it back from them. With interest between a third and a half of the total costs of such projects, this is no small deal. In Philadelphia last year, we paid $170 million in debt service.

What would it mean to keep our common wealth at home, in a public bank, owned by—and operated for the benefit of—the people of Philadelphia? Such a bank could be professionally managed under the governance of a Board that is politically independent and representative of our communities. It could reduce the costs of funding public projects and invest our common money locally rather than remain dependent on Wall Street banks. In this way it could promote programs of public benefit such as low-cost housing, renewable energy, energy efficiency, education, and the creation of family-sustaining jobs.

It can be done. The state Bank of North Dakota has been in operation for 100 years, receiving state funds and reinvesting them in state projects. It consistently makes a profit—40% of which is returned to the state treasury, and it supports more community banks per capita than any other state. Not surprisingly, North Dakota was the only state in the country to come through the recession of 2008 unscathed, because its money was not in the bubbles of Wall Street.

It’s exciting to be part of an effort to encourage Philadelphia to establish a public bank. The concept is powerful and the logic is compelling. Once ordinary people have the opportunity to imagine an alternative to the status quo, they get it immediately. We have found City Council members and staff remarkably receptive. All the studies that have been done are clear on the advantages of keeping our public money at home.

Of course it will be a battle because, as Frederick Douglass said, “Power concedes nothing without a demand”, and this is a challenge to the locus of greatest power in the world—the private financial sector. Yet there’s something refreshing about not nibbling around the edges, but going straight to the center and naming the big question: who should control our common wealth?






Private?

Our backyard neighbors
put up a tall wooden fence—
ensuring their privacy
blocking our little bit of sun,
the life of my lettuce and herbs,
flowers and currants
not their problem.

Our school’s neighbors
have cut down the great oak tree
that shaded us all.

I pass the magnolia
two blocks down
a neighborhood treasure—
now in full and glorious bloom.
It sits in a private yard—
fills it up.

My heart constricts.
What if they no longer chose
to have it there? Cut it down,
as is their right?
As is the right of wall builders
and tree cutters everywhere
on private property.

How did beauty
and sunlight
and shade
become private?





Dare to imagine – a new economy is possible!
Banking on Values

Beneficial State Bank, with more than 250 employees at 17 locations throughout California, Oregon, and Washington, boasts about $1 billion in assets. The bank is mandated to produce meaningful social justice and environmental benefits at the same time that it is financially sustainable. All the owners are non-profit organizations which collectively reinvest all distributed bank profits back into the communities they serve. Their main business is providing credit to constructive businesses and non-profits—especially those boosting entrepreneurial activity in inner cities, following and strengthening wellness models, or reconnecting vital rural/urban dependencies—with credit allowing these beneficial activities to grow and scale.
https://beneficialstatebank.com/our-story/about-us/our-history

Bank president, Kat Taylor, says that if Beneficial’s return exceeds 10%, “we’re likely either overcharging our customers or underpaying our colleagues”—and that “would be in defiance of our mission.” She believes that Beneficial can help upend the banking sector by demonstrating that a bank can thrive competitively, loan money in a way that boosts economic justice, is restorative to the planet, and still pay its workers 150% of a living wage.
https://capitalandmain.com/upending-the-nations-financial-giants-with-beneficial-state-banks-kat-taylor-0621





Some things that have made me hopeful recently

The news that thousands of bees living on top of Notre Dame have survived the fire, https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/bees-living-on-top-of-notre-dame-have-survived-fire/ 
along with the action by France to ban all five pesticides linked to bee deaths—the first country to do so. https://returntonow.net/2019/01/24/france-becomes-the-first-country-to-ban-all-five-pesticides-linked-to-bee-deaths/?fbclid=IwAR1uc9bsP80YiSXLHFCF11JtkRDY2FGRSUWOLQYHe3j0ialBuvLKTLYZS_g

A new movement, Freedom to Prosper, working to stop the student loan trap, and restore education to its rightful place as a public good. http://www.freedomtoprosper.org

A clean energy act in Washington DC which requires the city to transition to 100% renewable energy by 2032 and to invest millions of dollars in clean energy and sustainability projects that will benefit all D.C. residents. Read more and watch the video.

A barber whose training of other Black barbers in the South to act as informal mental health counselors has started a movement.
https://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/mental-health/what-is-barbershop-therapy-20180823





Resources

Money, Debt and Liberation
A video of a talk I gave at Pendle Hill in January, 2017
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7nP8eJ5vy8


Money and Soul
A transcript of a keynote address I delivered at a Quaker conference in New Mexico, June 2017
https://westernfriend.org/media/money-and-soul-unabridged


Toward a Right Relationship with Finance 
A book that I co-authored on Debt, Interest, Growth and Security.

The growth economy is failing to provide equitable well-being for humanity and a life-sustaining future for Earth.  However our institutional endowments and individual retirement are dependent on that same growth economy.  This book:
    • offers background on our current economic system--how it is based on unearned income on the one hand and debt on the other, with a built-in momentum toward economy inequality and ecological overshoot;
    • frames the conversation within the context of our deepest values and beliefs;
    • suggests plausible and historically grounded alternatives to the current system, particularly with regard to financing retirement; and
    • invites everyone to imagine new forms of durable economic and social security, and to help create the relationships and institutions that will make them a reality.
With many people now counting as never before on the performance of Wall Street for retirement security, how can this system be challenged with integrity and effectiveness?  Can we break with our dependence on financial speculation and build up new structures of security in a transformed, life-centered economy?

To order the book, or read it on line, go to http://www.quakerinstitute.org/?page_id=5 and scroll down.



More resources

www.findingsteadyground.org

Resource from my friend Daniel Hunter, Building a Movement to End the New Jim Crow; An Organizing Guide.  http://www.danielhunter.org/books/building-movement-end-new-jim-crow-organizing-guide 

Posts on other web/blog sites:

In http://www.classism.org/gifts-american-dream/, Pamela Haines locates her family's homey DIY celebrations on a class spectrum of different connections to upward mobility.

            http://www.transitionus.org/blog/unlikely-suspects-–-deep-outreach-diverse-initiating-groups-–-pace-building-trust

        http://www.classism.org/demolition-derby

Muscle Building for Peace and Justice; a Non-Violent Workout Routine for the 21st Century--an integration of much of my experience and thinking over the years:  https://www.trainingforchange.org/publications/muscle-building-peace-and-justice-nonviolent-workout-routine-21st-century (or just google the title)