We are approaching the end of the greatest half-century of socioeconomic growth in the history of humankind. Indeed, it is growth greater than was accomplished in the history of recorded civilization. To be sure, the last five decades have generated more wealth than the 14 million years of human evolution. And America has led this growth with its free enterprise principles and its free trade policy!

Why is it then that we Americans are not celebrating this most awesome accomplishment in human history? Could it be because we find ourselves attenuating in our leadership characteristics even as we are serving to culminate world growth? Could it be that even as we are powering forward and empowering others to do likewise, we are being “hollowed out” by enemies from within and without?

We may view illustrations of the influence of The Freedom Functions upon World Income Distribution (see Figure 1). As may be noted, there is significant growth in Per Capita Income for each decade. Not only is growth in income relative for countries but absolute for the world.

Figure 1. World Per Capita Growth Projected by Decades

These world economic curves are comprised of individual country curves. As may be noted, the curves build to a crescendo. Like a gathering “Tsunami,” they follow the leader. Like a gathering Tsunami, they project to build forever.

The movement toward growth has been led by the continuously growing American economy (). The USA has been functioning as the exemplary performer since the beginning of the world curve. Indeed, the USA has suffered great deficits in trade with its trading partners in order to drive The Free Enterprise Economy. All other large economies such as those of Japan and Europe run in America’s “draft.”Within the world’s curves, “The Great Leap Forward” of China, now with the world’s second-largest economy, is noteworthy. China is positioning itself to provide the alternative to the American model of Free People and Free Enterprise: “Controlled People and Free Enterprise!” Many Asian communities such as India are looking to China as the 21st century exemplar because it has built-in markets (Think 1.3 billion people). Idiosyncratically, the USSR is recovering from its eternal conflict between good and evil: Totalitarian Rule while hoping it can learn the technologies necessary to get enough fossil fuel out of the ground to embrace Free Enterprise Benefits. Of course, there are the exceptions to continuous growth. Countries are left behind. Where both Asia and Africa suffered from overwhelming poverty and disease five decades ago, now both continents are growing.

A Tsunami is a huge tidal wave caused by seaquakes and volcanic eruptions. Conceived as an economic wave, it promises huge benefits. Why are we not celebrating the projected benefits? Could it be because we fear the projected costs to our freedoms, our way of life, our way of learning, our way of working, our labor?

Could it be that we Americans fear the “Tsutsugamushi” of China—little micro-organisms transmitted by mites that cause the infectious disease of rickets? Could it be that we Americans fear being “hollowed out” as we play the “parasitical host” endorsed by our own leaders, including especially our president?! Could he be wrong? Let us explain.

No, you’re not going to drive the trucks on the NAFTA Superhighway! Nor are you going to produce the products hauled or provide the services offered, or even the solutions required!

That is because you were not involved in conceptualizing the NAFTA Proposal, or designing the Security and Prosperity Partnership System, or drafting the North American Union Constitution.

And that is because you were asleep at the wheel of your own truck! Known as the U.S. Constitution, it empowered “We the People” as policy-makers in this uniquely participative and democratic nation. When We the People were shunted aside, you did not even protest. Indeed, you didn’t even know. To be sure, you weren’t even “in the loop.” You didn’t heed Jefferson’s admonition: “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.” Whoever does not heed the warning loses his or her freedom.

No, you played into the hands of the totalitarian dictators who shunted you aside: “I don’t have to listen to you.”

To be sure, you fulfilled the condemnation of the most tyrannical of all dictators, Adolph Hitler: “What luck it is for rulers that men do not think.”

“You do not think! That is your problem. You can never grow up if you do not learn to think!”

The New Way

To be a child in a “Labor Family” is to carry on the ethic of concern for your fellow neighbors, workers, and citizens. I am such a son. I have helped in the birth of “The New Way:” from Labor to Human Resources to Human Capital:

• Labor emphasizing investments of Physical Energy to produce products and build;
• Human Resources emphasizing interpersonal investment of Emotional Energy to provide services and build teams;
• Human Capital emphasizing intellectual investments of Intellectual Energy to generate designs and resolve problems.

In Figure 3, we may view the building of proactive labor union objectives. As may be noted, the functions are to become Empathizing Relators, Enterprising Workers, and Enlightened Citizens.

In order to accomplish these Human Processing Functions, we must become involved in designing and implementing systems that Educate and Empower our Human Capital.

We may label these Human Processing Functions, “The New 3Es.” They will empower Labor with all its worthy objectives to move forward in the growth curve, to once again assume a position of leadership.

Figure 3. Proactive Labor Union Objectives

Such learning, training, and thinking skills would place the American Labor Movement in a place of leadership in the world marketplace (See Figure 4). As may be viewed, the Labor Values may not only exceed Globalization Requirements, but drive World Growth.

Figure 4. World Growth Movement to Incorporate Labor Values
and Globalization Requirements

As an adult in the Labor Family, I offer my gift to you. I am my father’s legacy. He taught me to care. He trained me to help on those many missions of justice where I accompanied him.

I know his words right now. From his grave, he would say:

“Don’t ask for Protectionism!”

“Demand Skills for Thinking!”

Happy Labor Day!

“Hoch soll sie leben!”

I am a child of labor, born into a labor family; timewise, in the middle of The Great Depression; placewise, in the middle of an ethnically diverse working class town in New Jersey. I grew up with the Labor Movement.

My father was my hero. All 6 feet 2 inches and 195 pounds of him! A high school drop-out who later took an Associate of Science Degree in Chemistry. For that is where he worked, in a chemical factory on the waterfront!

Here was a man who was instrumental in founding a labor union—an Independent Labor Union—and then becoming its President during World War II. Here was a man who, at the end of his 50-year tour, was the only worker who refused to join the “closed shop” of a corrupt and tyrannical union that had taken over the Independent.

The Third Way

For Dad, American Labor was “The Third Way.” He rejected the greed of the “Capitalistic Credo” which he labeled “Management.” He rejected the tyranny of “Communistic Totalitarianism” which he termed “Tin Horn Dictators.”

The Labor Union Objectives were simple and linear. Dad summarized them as “The Three S’s” which insured performance (See Figure 2):

• Safety—Protection from harm;
• Security—Protection from abuses;
• Salary—Sharing in profits.

First, insure the safety of “the men.” In the 1920s and 1930s, dozens of men had died from poisonous fumes. Dad had, himself, been severely poisoned while running the pilot lab as a 16-year-old.

Second, insure the workers’ security. Seniority played an important role here in guaranteeing the job according to the time-on-job and independent of abuses of the manager’s sometimes “random whims.”

Figure 2. Historic Labor Union Objectives

Third, insure the workers’ salaries. The men understood that they were implementers and not initiators of the industrial designs. They simply wanted a “fair share” for their physical labor.

I accompanied Dad on many of his activities as union leader. The main principle that I got was his commitment to “The Third Way.” For example, when the union was going out on strike, management hired busloads of what Dad called “axe-handle-wielding goons” from the Pennsylvania mining towns. Dad chose to invite our town’s mayor and the council to visit the strike on the occasion of the “Pennsylvania Visitation.” Needless to say, there was no violence. When talking about it later, Dad claimed that his action had saved “those Pennsylvania boys’ lives.”

Leading this group of men was not an easy task. In fact, it was quite physical. Every few months, Dad had to “throw” one of the men who challenged his authority. The only movies that I saw which approached representing the workers’ experience were “On the Waterfront” and, later on, “Matewan.”

In terms of safety, Dad was the only person to ever climb down the ladders of the huge vats to save someone who had been overcome by poisonous gases. He saved six men that way.

In terms of salary, the union leaders were able to influence management to a “no lay-off” policy during “hard times.” First, they cut the work to four days a week; then they cut the work to three days a week. At least they ensured the survival of the workers’ families.

In terms of security, I accompanied Dad to a National Labor Relations Board-monitored election in 1953. Dad had forced this election when a “mobbed-up” union “bought off” many of the Independent delegates. Dad sat by the ballot box for two of the three shifts and was satisfied with the progress. During the third shift, another person monitored the voting.

When the votes were tallied, it seems more votes were cast than there were union members. When queried about abandoning his monitoring during the third shift, Dad said only this: “You have to trust somebody sometime.”

Many of the workers never enjoyed the benefits of retirement because they died by 60 years of age due to pulmonary problems and cancers related to the poisons that they breathed. Those were the times. These were “hard men.” The unions enabled their members to receive some greater benefits from the investments of their lives. “But, by no means equitable in God’s eyes,” Dad would add.

Dad was the last one standing, the last of his beloved men to die. He suffered through all of the changes in insurance policies as the retirees’ numbers narrowed. He suffered worse for all the losses that the union movement had experienced.

In his dying moments, he knew that unionism was always several steps behind. It reactively handled past griefs but never proactively anticipated future initiatives.

Sadly, now more than ever, Dad would recognize that unionism was a victim of the past rather than a generator of the future: “Nothing lives beyond us but the principles we teach.”

Dad would add empathically: “I guess it’s time to grow up!”

Happy Labor Day!

We want to wish American Labor a Happy Labor Day, no matter what the data suggest:

• With most of the world’s countries participating in globalization, the growth of world trade has tripled to nearly $12 trillion.
• With increased mobility of financial capital, financial markets have expanded to $16 trillion or nearly 30 percent of the world’s GDP.
• With high profits serving to improve and redistribute both investments and productivity growth, globalization has generated a huge increase in the shares of profits.

To sum, Globalization has generated unprecedented global growth under America’s leadership. However, while the pie is getting exponentially larger, American’s share is becoming relatively smaller and American labor’s role is attenuating, if not truncating. Things change!

We may view American labor’s positioning in Figure 1. As may be noted, the World’s GDP Growth has moved to incorporate Globalization. Simultaneously, this growth movement has abandoned the labor movement: its default positioning is as the “dependent victim” of successful globalization.

Figure 1. World Growth Movement to Incorporate Globalization
and Abandon Labor Movement

So what initiatives does American Labor make? Accepting its victimization as its positioning, labor has asserted the following “Protectionistic Platform:”

• Protectionism for the benefits of American labor;
• Environmentalism for the benefits of the environment;
• Health and Safety for the benefits of all labor.

While we may agree with the humanistic values expressed in this platform, we may also agree that these values do not approach meeting the business requirements of the world’s growth.

In short, America Labor’s positioning is a “loser.” It offers no “comparative advantage” in the marketplace. Indeed, it has lost its “courage to change.”

It has already imposed its “Protectionistic Will” upon the “Maleable Candidates” for President, asking—no begging—for no less than trade sanctions with China if that country does not soon revalue its currency.

Perhaps the most dangerous consequence of its “Protectionistic Positioning” is America’s loss of confidence in its Free Market Ideology. We are the generators of globalization. We are the leaders—the models and the agents of its change. How can we now abandon our children to the “Totalitarian Onslaught” of nations with “Ignominious Motives?”

The “winner’s question” is this: Are labor’s people robust enough intellectually to realize that this worthy movement must be repositioned in the marketplace?

(Listen to the audio of this blog.)

Thanks for signing on. I’m Bob Carkhuff, and this is Freedomblog.com from our continuing series on “Case Study Venezuela.”

The theme for today is A Passion for Freedom.

For thinking people, this means that the totalitarians are committed to leveling down everything and everyone.

We may view the individual goals of Freedom and Totalitarianism in sharp relief in Table 1 below:

• Interdependent versus Dependent Relating;
• Generative versus Distributive Economics;
• Leader versus Follower Participation.

At their highest levels, the Freedom Goals empower and free interdependent relating, wealth-generating participants with leadership qualities.

At their highest levels, the Totalitarian Goals control dependent-adaptive, wealth-redistributing followers of “chain-of-command” systems.

It is noteworthy that the highest levels of Totalitarian Performance are the lowest levels of Free Performance. And vice-versa! Which world do you choose?!

Right now, the Totalitarian Leadership holds the reigns of power. But, with no history of success anywhere—ever—and no investments to meet the changing conditions of the Global Marketplace, Totalitarian Venezuela has nowhere to go but down! At some point soon, the authors of this “Concrete Utopia” will be asked, “Where’s the money?”
In transition, Free Venezuela sought to follow this model and become Latin America’s exemplary performer of the Freedom Functions. Unfortunately, she “got caught from behind” because:

• She moved too slowly!
• She moved too little!
• She was too satisfied!

In short, she lacked the vigilance that is “The Price of Freedom.”

Finally, there is the story that Venezuelans often told about themselves good-naturedly:

When God created the world, He gave an abundance of resources to Venezuela.

When His helper asked, “Why?”, he answered mischieviously:

Ah, but now I am going to populate it with Venezuelan people!

Perhaps many Venezuelans will no longer find the humor in this story.

Perhaps the Venezuelan people will never again see the humor in anything!

Perhaps Venezuelans may never feel passion again for anything, for if they cannot experience “a Passion for Freedom,” then they cannot experience passion at all!

Perhaps there is a message here for the citizens of the U.S.!

Signing off for Freedomblog, this is Bob Carkhuff.

Remember, We the People, if we do not have a passion for freedom, we cannot have a passion for anything. Think about it!

We invite your comments. Send to Bob at Freedomblog.com.

“May the road rise to meet you,
And the wind be at your back.”

(Listen to the audio of this blog.)

Thanks for signing on. I’m Bob Carkhuff, and this is Freedomblog.com from our continuing series on “Case Study Venezuela.”

The theme for today is Participative Governance.

For thinking people, this means building a dictatorship for the totalitarians.

The third Freedom Function is Participative Governance. Basically, the Free Governance Mission was to empower all citizens to participate fully and directly in government:

• Transitionally, to build a Republic, with representatives to represent citizen concerns;
• Ultimately, to build a Participative Democracy where citizens participate directly in governance;
• Finally, to empower people through education to become enlightened citizens who guide the democracy through Policy-Making.

This Freedom Mission was for enlightened citizens to participate directly in the means of governance, offering their input to legislation and feedback from its effects.

Again, while Free Venezuela was progressing in democratic functions, she failed to accomplish her mission in time:

• Too much of her political power was converged in the hands of too few “leaders.”
• While the middle class was enlightened, it was also complacent to have the “good life,” subsidized by Venezuela’s abundance of natural resources.
• Most destructive of democracy, the lower classes were not inspired, educated or reinforced to participate in the democratic freedoms.

Perhaps the greatest failure was the success of the members of the middle class who “patted themselves on the back” for their “enlightenment” in understanding democracy. They loved themselves too much and their poorer brothers and sisters not enough! They did not have “a Passion for Freedom!”

To sum, Venezuela was again a product of “too little, too slow!” Its middle class citizens simply were caught in self-congratulatory complacency. Those who bowed to no one in their understanding of democracy now bow to autocrats in their implementation of Totalitarianism!

Whereas the Freedom Mission emphasized Participative Governance, the Totalitarian Protocol emphasized directly the opposite: to destroy Participative Governance and build Totalitarian Dictatorship:

• To destroy the exemplars of democratic leadership;
• To control the sources of representation of the people;
• To surround and penetrate the people with an intelligence system: surrounding them with “block leaders” and district supervisors, and penetrating them with 20,000 “urban guerillas” from Cuba in Caracas, alone.

In short, whereas the Freedom Mission was to produce directly participative and ethically representative leaders, the Totalitarian Protocol was to replace the democratic leaders with underclass “stand-ins,” and to establish “chain-of-command” authority from the dictator down to these “make-believe” leaders.

Once again, the Totalitarians are succeeding because Free Venezuelans did not accelerate the goals of a Participative Governance mission. Because they did not fully share the freedoms that were generated, the dependent-adaptive people were reinforced by their apparent empowerment and elevation.

Signing off for Freedomblog, this is Bob Carkhuff.

Remember, We the People, this means empowering every citizen to participate fully and directly in governance. Think about it!

We invite your comments. Send to Bob at Freedomblog.com.

“May the road rise to meet you,
And the wind be at your back.”

(Listen to the audio of this blog.)

Thanks for signing on. I’m Bob Carkhuff, and this is Freedomblog.com from our continuing series on “Case Study Venezuela.”

The theme for today is Economic Enterprise.

For thinking people, this means state control of the economy for totalitarians.

The second Freedom Function is Economic Enterprise. Basically, the Free Enterprise Mission was to empower the economy through private ownership:

• To motivate the people to the acquisition, development and protection of private property;
• To motivate the people to the privatization of the economy, including especially the nation’s natural resources;
• To empower the people to become entrepreneurial initiators in leading the Free Enterprise Economy.

This Freedom Mission was for the private sector to own, operate and profit from the means of production while “spreading the wealth” in a “flow-down” economy.

Again, while Venezuela was progressing, she failed to accomplish her mission in time:

• Too much of her wealth in oil was focused in the hands of the state with few of the directors disposed to sharing the benefits with the general population.
• While the middle class was increasingly affluent, the process of building wealth in the middle class was far too slow.
• Most disastrously, the working class accepted an unchanging peasant fate while the underclass was left to fend on its own.

Perhaps her greatest failure was Venezuela’s inability to accomplish her mission of producing an entrepreneurial class that would lead and generate Free Enterprise Economics.

To sum, Venezuela in the late 1990s was a product of “too little, too late.” Her citizens simply did not have the attitude of urgency in empowering people that is prerequisite to true freedom. In a sense, Venezuelans accepted their “European” fates: survival for the lower classes; comfort for the middle class; luxury for the upper class.

Whereas the Freedom Functions emphasized the Free Enterprise Economy, the Totalitarian Protocol emphasized directly the opposite: to destroy the private sector economy and build a state-controlled economy. Basically, the Totalitarian Mission of Venezuela was to destroy private ownership of anything:

• To tear down the centerpiece of freedom, private ownership;
• To control the sources of production and the benefits derived therefrom;
• To undermine the development of individualism and true entrepreneurship because this, like all other initiatives, threatens state control.

In short, whereas the Freedom Mission was to produce entrepreneurial initiatives that would drive the Free Enterprise Economy, the Totalitarian Protocol was to “communize” the economy: undermining private ownership; emphasizing state ownership; destroying individualism and entrepreneurism.

Once again, the Totalitarians are succeeding because Freedom-Loving Peoples did not accelerate the goals of the Free Enterprise mission. Because they did not fully share the wealth that they helped to produce, the dependent-adaptive people of Venezuela willingly accept the redistribution of asset-derived wealth (oil) as a market mechanism.

Signing off for Freedomblog, this is Bob Carkhuff.

Remember, We the People must motivate people to the free enterprise mission. Think about it!

We invite your comments. Send to Bob at Freedomblog.com.

“May the road rise to meet you,
And the wind be at your back.”

(Listen to the audio of this blog.)

Thanks for signing on. I’m Bob Carkhuff, and this is Freedomblog.com from our continuing series on “Case Study Venezuela.”

The theme for today is Cultural Relating.

For thinking people, this means continuous class conflict for the totalitarians.

The fundamental principles of freedom are labeled The Freedom Functions:

• Cultural Relating,
• Economic Enterprise,
• Participative Governance.

We will compare the operations of Freedom and Totalitarianism in Venezuela on these functions.

For Venezuela, the issue of relating is the issue of relating across classes rather than cultures. Basically, the Free Cultural Relating Mission was to empower class mobility:

• To enable the underclass to become members of the working class;
• To enable the working class to become members of the middle class;
• To enable the middle class to become members of an upper class that invests in economic projects benefiting the other classes.

This Freedom Mission was to produce people who were independent, yet disposed to contribute collaboratively to the welfare of all.

While progressing in her short 50-year life, Venezuela failed to fulfill her mission “in time:”

• Too many members of the underclass were left behind in the barrios as poor and helpless members of the Informal Labor Market.
• Perhaps more important, while the middle class was growing, Venezuela had not accelerated systematic ways of transforming more of the working class into middle class.
• Most critical, no progress was made in “bridging the gap” between the middle and upper classes, thus leaving a few to dominate the investment class.

To sum, while Venezuela’s intentions were to produce independent people disposed to collaborative efforts, she succeeded mostly in producing largely dependent people who were adaptive to authority. This made Venezuelans very vulnerable to takeover by Totalitarians.

Whereas the Freedom Functions emphasize relating between classes and among cultures, the Totalitarian Protocol emphasized directly the opposite: fomenting continuous class struggle and even violence. Basically, the Totalitarian Mission of Venezuela was to create a new privileged class comprised of leaders of the Protocol and members of the Proletariat.

• To intimidate the investment class to leave because it, alone, possessed the resources to resist a complete “takeover” by the state.
• To demote or eliminate the middle class in order to reduce its strategic balance of power in influencing the nation’s direction.
• To promote the working and underclasses to take over the positions previously held by the middle class.

In short, whereas the Freedom Mission was to produce independent and collaborative people, the Totalitarian Mission was to produce dependent and adaptive people. They are beginning to succeed, especially with the underclass “Bolivarians” whom they pay, promote and arm.

The Totalitarians are succeeding because Free Venezuelans did not accelerate the goals of their Class Relating mission. Too many uneducated and unskilled people were “left behind,” to be “harvested” by the Totalitarians. These hapless people would gladly exchange the dictator’s promise of security and stability for the surrender of freedom! They had no “soulful stake” in freedom.

Signing off for Freedomblog, this is Bob Carkhuff.

Remember, We the People, this means relating to everyone. Think about it!

We invite your comments. Send to Bob at Freedomblog.com.

“May the road rise to meet you,
And the wind be at your back.”

(Listen to the audio of this blog.)

Thanks for signing on. I’m Bob Carkhuff, and this is Freedomblog.com from our series “Case Study Venezuela.”

The theme for today is The Price of Freedom.

For thinking people, this means “Eternal Vigilance!”

It is an old Hispanic proverb that says that parents whose children precede them in death live lives of hell here on Earth. Having reached the threshold of our maturity at precisely the same time as Venezuela’s in becoming South America’s first free democracy, we mourn Venezuela’s fall into the oblivion of totalitarianism.

How fragile the freedom!

How fleeting its time!

How profound its fall!

Nowhere is this more true than in the fallen Venezuelan people.

• They did not relate collaboratively across classes.
• They did not initiate entrepreneurially in free enterprise.
• They did not engage participatively in democratic government.

In short, they did not pay “The Price of Freedom”—the “eternal vigilance” that it demands. Now it is gone. Perhaps not forever!

It is not our purpose to define a democratic revolution that was stolen from Venezuela by its current dictator, in an election “blessed” by a former U.S. President, Carter, and the OAS, and condemned as fraudulent by scientists from M.I.T. and Harvard. It is not simply the intimidation and fraud before, during and after the referendum that destroyed Venezuelan freedoms. It is the lack of the “eternal vigilance” to protect the freedoms that Jefferson cautioned. Now the Venezuelan people must suffer the consequences:

• This precious democracy, the first in Latin America and not yet 50 years old, is being transformed into a totalitarian state under the harsh repression of an “elected” dictator.
• The leading economy in Latin America where workers earnings have been cut in half, the most precipitous decline of Per Capita GDP in recorded economic history.
• The class relations that were exemplary among all Latin countries have been “incendiarized” into class struggle and violence.

So where did a Free People go wrong? How did they allow themselves to become “inmates in jails” of their own making?

Signing off for Freedomblog, this is Bob Carkhuff.

Remember, We the People cannot relax our vigilance. Think about it!

We invite your comments. Send to Bob at Freedomblog.com.

“May the road rise to meet you,
And the wind be at your back.”

(Listen to the audio of this blog.)

Thanks for signing on. I’m Bob Carkhuff, and this is Freedomblog.com.

The theme for today is The Coming Totalitarian Takeover.

For thinking people, this means We the People are being taken over by Totalitarianism.

At the end of the 20th century, the American Freedom Functions were “peaking:”

• Collaborative Cultural Relating,
• Free Enterprise Economics,
• Democratic Participative Governance.

We the People were collaborating and participating in governance and economics.

Then We the People stopped. Unlike our peasant ancestors, we doubted that we could ever transform ourselves from “real” to “ideal.” We reversed our directions:

• Competitive and Dependent Cultural Relating,
• Command-and-Control Economics,
• Authoritarian and Totalitarian Governance.

These were the first signs of totalitarianism—a reversal of the things that gave us “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.”

President Eisenhower warned us of forming “The Military-Industrial Complex” as the precondition for the “totalitarian takeover.” We are now witnessing the third party to this complex: Government as facilitator and reinforcer of Totalitarian Multi-National Corporations; Government as political empowerer and reinforcer of the bureaucratic hierarchies of the Military.

We are now witnessing “the unrestrained internal axis of evil to all of our freedoms”:

The Government-Reinforced Industrial-Military Complex.

The future is indeed “GRIM!”

Signing off for Freedomblog, this is Bob Carkhuff.

Remember, We the People are the constitutional policy-makers and we must begin to act and face “The GRIM Complex.” Think about it!

We invite your comments. Send to Bob at Freedomblog.com.

“May the road rise to meet you,
And the wind be at your back.”