During the decades immediately following World War II the United States was the principal supplier to all the world’s consumers whose factories, commerce and economies were destroyed by the war. Wealth flowed to U.S. shores and brought unparalleled riches to America. However, by the closing decades of the 20th century, countries to the East and to the West mastered with increasing efficiency the American know-how and began to beat America at its own game. Today, the roles are reversed; past consumer nations have become producers and the U.S. is now the big consumer of the world.
The tide of wealth is now receding from America’s
shores as U.S. innovations and technology migrate
to the low wage regions of the world. Increasingly,
U.S. innovations and technology are researched,
developed, turned into products and services
overseas. New technology cannot stop that receding
tide because it is very likely that it too will seek lower
production costs and will bring jobs and wealth to
foreign shores.
No politics or politician can hold back that tide. If innovation is the answer it will have to be innovation of a different kind. First, we need to recognize that technological innovation is a self-propelled fast breeding process while social innovation is dormant and motionless. Technology is innovating itself with a dizzying pace while humanity is stuck with social and economic models that have not advanced in centuries. Take, for example, our economic model, capitalism that became an unstable, over-consuming and hyper-polluting global economic monoculture. Look at our political model, democracy that became an overrated but underperforming money driven, corruptible and polarizing public spectacle. And our social norms and practices are still guided by millennia-old cultural and religious beliefs that are out of touch with 21st century scientific and environmental realities and largely at odds with our planet’s carrying capacity.
Holding back the tide of wealth receding from America’s shores is not a simple proposition; no political, technological or market solution exists to do that job. Indeed no conventional solution is conceivable to solve this problem. The road into the future for the U.S. splits three ways:
The Dead-end Road leads to protectionism and isolationism, which is an idea so bad that no sane and sincere politician would touch it, and for good reason.
The Low Road leads to a dark and tragic place. This is the road the U.S. is traveling. Alongside this road are blow-up props erected by economist and lenders with hyperactive imaginations. These make-believe happy facades have relatively short life-spans and when they deflate, the make believe wealth ends and the road turns rough and ugly. Optimistically, this scenario would lead to a time when U.S. wages would be depressed to a level at which the American worker would be competitive in the global labor market. This would be a logical solution for the competitiveness gap, but it is not likely that this road will take us there.
As the country gets poorer, the have-nots in the big cities, where most of the U.S. population lives, will get restless and angry. Riots in the cities will sweep across the nation that broke governments will not be able to quell. This will kill any hope for attracting capital and jobs back to the U.S. Consequently, the Low Road will lead to a socioeconomic collapse. It is a place the world has visited once in the first part of the 20th century. It is a place we do not want to revisit in the 21st century.
The High Road leads to a bright and hopeful place. The Holigent Solution proposes an unconventional model to stop the hemorrhaging of America’s wealth and generate economic security, social harmony and environmental healing.
The heart of the Holigent Solution is the Variable Commitment Allocation Plan (Delta Plan). It is a three-way agreement between participating employers, their employees, and the nonprofit developer/management organization of the Transitional/Holigent Urban Village community. Such a solution will provide live/work arrangements in mixed-use, car-free pedestrian communities. The Delta Plan contains agreements between employers and their employees by which employees agree to work for lower wages during times when staying competitive in the global economy demands it. The car-free live/work arrangement and significantly lowered housing cost facilitated by community credit earned in community service allows employees to work for lower wages yet maintain their housing and quality of life.
Holigent.org is pioneering the concept and the development of a demonstration Transitional/Holigent Urban Village on the bank of the soon-to-be revitalized LA River near downtown Los Angeles. When this socioeconomic innovation is tested and demonstrated to provide the solution that American competitiveness needs, this model can be replicated and expanded across the United States. This will create peaceful and secure conditions with a stable workforce that will attract investments and jobs and turn the tide of wealth back toward American shores.
