Jean-Pierre Monet – Geneva – These texts were written more than twenty years ago, a few small changes have been made to update some figures.
In the part 2, the texts are presented in a very relative order, they begin with: politics, economics, authoritarianism, those responsible for totalitarianism, powers in the United States, religions, the third world, other reflections, they try to show that all human problems are intertwined, that we must understand them in a global vision in order to be able to understand them, and thus try to solve them. To tackle a problem without taking into account, for example, its causes and those responsible for its causes, is to play into the hands of the powers and of totalitarianism, which themselves have a vital need to reign…. to divide.
Utopian” criticisms and proposals concerning our social, economic and political system.
This text begins with a description of True Liberalism Transparentism (TLV), a society where each individual must be the producer and consumer of change and profit, and then shows our global society in its true context, the one we must not see, and which proposes a reality quite different from the official version, which tries to show that everything is fine, while we are in the middle of a world war.
What do we choose between eating and drinking? Both are indispensable and inseparable, as is “transparency” in any social, political or economic project.
If we ask a 5 year old child if he prefers to see or to be blind, he will answer without hesitation. Transparency is “blind”, which is why we do not see it, but the 5-year-old child immediately understands that it is essential. Isn’t it too subversive to propose transparency to opaque democracies? And how to manage it? This last question seems to go far beyond our intellectual development! What humans cannot do, fish can! With their so-called primitive brain, fish show us how to manage a transparent system. They have understood that, gathered in large schools, with little effort, they control the situation. Wherever they are, “right, left, centre“, from any position, there is an observer to signal a danger or a particular problem. Each fish is watching from its own side, some may be distracted or even uninterested in the situation, but thanks to their ability to see and the willingness of some to want to see, there are enough on all sides to react and act. What the fish do, we could not do?
Transparency + fair trade + sustainable development
Micro, small and medium-sized enterprises represent the vast majority of enterprises and jobs on our planet, “the foundation of the economy”, and the entrepreneurs of these enterprises from all walks of life and professions must be the main driving force behind the changes that must take place in our society.
Many can offer “company transparency” (salaries – profits – communication – projects) “justice and honesty“, and in “exchange” have “motivation for all“.
By transforming the links of the SME through a real exchange, “transparency and a more balanced distribution of profits or future profits” proposed by the employer, against a “motivation and acceptance of more difficult (current) conditions” in the work by the employees, this exchange is naturally made for the benefit of the dynamism of the company, for its survival, and therefore for the survival of the biological families that make it up, and a real solidarity can be born.
The “archaic” capitalist law of the strongest, which benefits only a small minority of the wealthy, must be replaced by the “law of exchange” which offers “human enterprise” and hope for the future for all.
For those who are terrorised by statism and red tape, no government, no party, no laws, nothing and no one to impose “exchange”, it is you as a free entrepreneur who takes the decision alone, you are entirely free to choose dictatorship by fear, or, exchange by reason.
Transparency profoundly changes the nature of the economic system, it gives it a human form through a better relationship between individuals, and it creates a powerful “bond” of convergence in the current struggle against totalitarian economic power.
Why should the company not be transparent? Does the entrepreneur have to be dishonest? Is he less efficient, does he alter his qualities, his motivation, his creativity, his technique, his authority, by being honest?
After every economic or political scandal, all the hypocrites plead for a lack of transparency… but don’t offer it. Transparency is not going to save a company in great difficulty, but for some whose staff and management all have to tighten their belts and work harder, who have no more job security and no more security for their future than others, shouldn’t they try? Thankfully,
Many SMEs are already “living” transparency, they have understood that better communication is needed to be motivated, others have chosen the path of trade and fair trade companies directly, they use “capital” to help people live and not the other way round.
Is not the “first profit” of any company to allow each of its members to feed his family, educate his children, provide for his health and ensure his old age, the “motivation” is perhaps to be able to afford a house, a boat, a nice car,
However, under no circumstances should the dream of some be based on the nightmare of others, for which it is essential to move from “utopian transparency” to “practical transparency”.
Hope can only come from a “real exchange”, which only entrepreneurs who take into account the changes that our regions and our planet have undergone will undertake. They will quickly draw in the large companies, many of whose staff no longer accept the insecurity of their mobile capital, and will thus join the current that takes into account the company, the people who work there, and the relations with the “outside world”.
Fair trade” (or true liberalism) consists in allowing each company to benefit from the product of its work, in giving priority to creators, in acting by “accurately informing” workers, peasants, small traders and entrepreneurs, “all the populations” of “all countries” on “the distribution of profits, the price of work and products, on the way products are produced and their quality” from “the place of production” to “the place of consumption”.
World trade must develop with “enlightened” producers and consumers. Do we have the technical capacity to organise and manage a fair economy? Our supercomputers and huge investments, so effective for the military or cosmonauts, should have no difficulty.
Micro-enterprises, SMEs and SMIs have the future of the world in their hands, because they are the “little extra” that will unbalance the current balance of power in favour of large companies, which have a “dogma” that predicts that by developing, they will develop the others! This prediction is false and hypocritical, because they know that in the emerging countries where they operate, the majority of families are in appalling conditions, that two thirds of the world’s women and hundreds of millions of children are in slavery and that even in Western countries, 10 to 20% of the population is left out in the cold
We need to change the ‘nature’ of profits as a matter of priority, because winning against others as much and as fast as possible, by any means, is not tolerable.
The uncontrolled exploitation of nature’s resources must be replaced by “sustainable development”, which consists of a rational and respectful use of land and sea, promoting clean and renewable energies and moderating the use of those that are not.
The fight between capitalist (liberal) and communist (collectivist) power has been unable to tip the balance towards real human progress, only the support of SMEs will allow effective and peaceful solutions, even if they were fiercely individualistic and asocial entities, today victims of big business, many have understood that their camp is that of resistance. For this to happen, they must“coordinate” together (the means of communication easily allow this), despite the antagonisms that may arise for certain actions and between certain regions, it is necessary to have a “convergent” direction on the “substance”, for example to have “transparency” and “fair trade” as a “common denominator“.
A good coordination can compete with all the big multinationals, its millions of members are an “invincible” force, even if it does not have its own economic strength, through its multiple components (consumers for example) it will be more than enough, and the famous “inescapable” globalisation of capital, will make way for an “inescapable” fair trade
In addition to being the “most indispensable” engine of change for a balanced economy, they must also become “an example of motivation” between entrepreneurs and employees. If a company wants to survive and evolve, it must offer “exchange” and thus no longer divide itself into two clans, that of the entrepreneurs and that of the employees (they often do the same work), but into a single movement in which each person must feel that he or she belongs according to his or her technical abilities, must feel that he or she is an inseparable part of the company, even if for a time the conditions are harder for everyone, even if the salaries are different between the different members of the company. Asking a population to accept deregulations, to work more and to demand wage cuts, while promising to be kicked out if they refuse! What is dictatorship? Simply these liberal proposals. The military dictatorship is only the continuation of this economic dictatorship, which comes at a time when the workers “firmly” refuse liberalism. The far right is poking its dirty little nose everywhere, don’t you old-timers remember?
The large multinationals are no longer companies in the strict sense of the word, they are above all “capital”, this capital is only interested in the profits it generates, the employees, the managers, the subcontractors, the region, the country, the company itself is no longer of any importance, everything can be eliminated and thrown away with women and children, there is nothing more to expect from this opaque supranational capital, without any ties or humanity.
We need to deregulate and restructure most of the large corporations into smaller entities in order to restore diversity, develop production, distribution, ideas, “regionally”, and regain a human and balanced decision-making power.
The state denatured nature of these systems has made them destroyers of creativity and individual freedom, and they are the sisters of the late Soviet collectivist enterprises. The laxity of the regional and national authorities and the corruption at all levels of economic, political and judicial power have allowed these systems to develop in an unacceptable way.
We must be wary of high officials (democratic representatives?), because they dismantle the state and offer all profit-making sectors to big shareholders.
If they had the slightest bit of honesty and courage, the authorities would offer corporate transparency, especially for large multinationals, in exchange for the dismantling of social achievements, in order to turn the current deterioration into a positive for the future.
After the recent disasters in agribusiness, the oil pollution that poisons land and sea, the minimum would be that traceability (with responsibility) is the rule.
All public aid for business financing should be accompanied by a transparency obligation for the recipient companies.
If big business must all have state ownership and control, then in return many activities within the state can perfectly well be ‘run by private enterprise’. On the other hand, we must reject the liberalism that wants to “prune” the state or manage its activities on its own, we must as citizens be able to control our future – “part of the state for private enterprise, part of private enterprise for the state – give and take”.
Transparency’ is hated by the liberal economy and is cleverly presented as a form of inquisition into private life! Clever, because it is precisely the liberal economy that spies on every move of employees, clients, consumers, in the street, inside buildings, cameras and computers, violating privacy in the most scandalous way. On the other hand, when transparency, which is only the ‘foundation’ of democracy, is demanded, she cries wolf and sees it as an unacceptable attack on privacy!
“Privacy” begins at the “door of our home”, it is to be able to do what “we want” with the money we have honestly earned, but in private companies, self-managed or cooperative companies, in public administrations and governments, opacity and anonymity are intolerable. Only trade secrets, if they are the result of ethics, creativity, work and the rules of art, are acceptable.
Our future, our hope for a different world, a human world, can only become effective with the indispensable support of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises, by their will to progress, by their real knowledge of work and products, by their attachment to the company and to the region, by the motivation of their employees, by their collaboration in the fair and sustainable economic project, by the “VLT“.
Whether we are Europeans, Americans, Chinese, Cameroonians, Patagonians, or from anywhere on this earth, believers or non-believers, we must demand “transparency”, it is the only guarantor of “true freedom”, the powers that be “cannot divide it”, it is “democracy”.