The Sun Paradigm
Rodney Shakespeare
While directly addressing major environmental issues including:-
the Sun Paradigm (in contrast to the old Dark Paradigm) also enables:-
The Sun Paradigm is the democratic alternative to the elitist Great Reset.
This paper contains large-scale research into the factors contributing to a major change of paradigm and so the possibility of considerable benefit for society. The research, costing millions of dollars, was done at the behest of the American government and carried out by Professor Rogers Hollingsworth and colleagues.
The research is not widely known and its precise location is uncertain because it may have been suppressed. Be that as it may, it is recorded here that all credit goes to Rogers Hollingsworth and colleagues.
Special acknowledgement is made of the initiatives and perseverance of Richard Nelson and colleagues whose solar inventions combine vision with everyday practicality.
A ‘paradigm’ is a mindset with underlying, interconnected assumptions and underpinnings which are, in effect, axioms or self-evident truths. It is thus both a set of connections forming an intellectual edifice and, in particular, an understanding of reality.
NB. Paradigms decide what does, or does not, happen.
It’s time for a change – and a big one, too.
For twenty years or more, economists have realised that something is amiss with the basic principles of their study but only now – and belatedly – are they waking up to the need for ‘sustainable’, rather than exploitative, growth. Furthermore, rather than ‘growth’, a solution focussing on human well-being is necessary.
Environmentalists, however, have been awake for sixty years (Carson, R., 1962, Silent Spring) and are today pointing to the need for sustainable retreat e.g., by evacuating millions of people from low-lying areas such as Bangladesh and New Orleans.
Indeed, James Lovelock (of Gaia fame) sees civilization itself as endangered because environmental disaster will result in George Orwell’s 1984 satanic warlords or, even more likely, the ghoulish technocrats of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World.
Yet, while there is much commendable protest (especially from the young), things stay the same. It is as though a monolith is crushing ideas and resisting all substantial change. The result is a deep intellectual and spiritual inertia.
But why – when danger threatens – is there inertia? Why is the Green movement struggling to succeed? Why do ‘alternative’ schools of thought fail to get their proposals implemented?
The answer is because all proposals, Green or otherwise, have to be implemented in today’s economies which are based upon (at least) fifty eight false, interconnected assumptions about reality. These assumptions constitute the prevailing paradigm and paradigms decide what is, or is not, implemented.
The proposals, therefore, whilst admirable in themselves, inevitably come up against diehard political and academic opponents determined to deny any change (even if that means extinguishing the human race).
Chief among these opponents are the pontificators who assume that only they know what is practical. Showing no sense of history and devoid of empathy, they are ensconced in government and university departments where they promote outdated policies bringing death to millions now – and more in the future.
It won’t be death for everybody, of course, because a tiny elite will survive. Thinking only selfishly, it is building doomsday bunkers and ensuring it owns and controls everything.
And let nobody have any illusions – a tiny elite owning and controlling everything (particularly humans) is the true meaning of the Great Reset now being canvassed at the highest levels and in the media. It will be a fascist police state manipulating everybody (by their ‘social credit’ score) via digital bank accounts.
The basic problem is that the fifty eight false assumptions underpin an intellectual edifice (i.e., a paradigm) supporting economies, institutions and societies.
Worse, the assumptions are interconnected so that, in practice, one thing cannot be changed without changing others (hence the inertia).
However – and this will shock the pontificators – the interconnection of the assumptions also means that it only needs two or three of the assumptions to be revealed as false before the whole intellectual edifice starts to crack and soon comes tumbling down.
That is astonishing – and provides hope for the Green movement which is acutely aware that something is profoundly wrong.
Yet even more astonishing is what happens when each individual false assumption is fairly examined whereupon it is realised that its reversal (or near-reversal) is true (or, at the very least, truer) and so a fresh component assumption (for the new paradigm) becomes available.
Indeed, after only two or three reversals (with consequent recognition of potentially available fresh components), intriguing possibilities will be glimpsed.
Further reversals and so more fresh components then allow a fuller view, whereon, after more reversals and more components, there appears the vivid panorama of the Sun Paradigm. In the panorama unusual animals and plants are seen i.e., new policies for solving the world’s economic and environmental problems.
The fifty eight false assumptions (with their brief reversals) are set out in the Appendix.
However, for space reasons, this paper only examines, and reverses, three of the assumptions but they suffice for showing how the new paradigm is created. As
each reversal is made, the Sun Paradigm appears with increasing clarity and its practical implementation may be summarised thus:-
That, for the purposes of addressing:-
there are no intellectual or physical barriers to the creation by public banks, national banks or international banking institutions of a large supply of interest-free money (administered by the private sector on wide ownership principles) as long as the money is repaid and cancelled leaving behind in existence the productive or environmental asset.
Moreover, in contrast to standard economics (which continually narrows ownership), the Sun Paradigm creates economic democracy by extending ownership of the real economy (and the associated income) to every person in society. This effects a balanced, efficient and just economy ensuring that daily economic power (in addition to the periodic vote) is widely spread thereby implementing a balance of supply and demand (as required by Say’s Theorem).
Furthermore, the Sun Paradigm contains a way of:-
In short, it is the democratic alternative to the elitist Great Reset.
NB. Say’s Theorem
Jean-Baptiste Say’s Law is usually stated as Supply = Demand. However, a scientific Law is something fairly deduced from the facts of reality whereas, in today’s reality, supply and demand are most certainly not equal because ownership of what creates most, or a large part, of the output (i.e., the capital instruments) is not widely spread. So it is better to refer to Say’s Theorem that When Supply = Demand, There is a Balanced and Just Economy.
At this point we should remember that a major new paradigm only arrives as the result of a paradigm shift which, as Thomas Kuhn observed, must be a revolution because any new paradigm is incompatible with the old one i.e., it completely replaces it. (Kuhn, T., 1962, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.)
Without that revolution, it is impossible to overcome the huge inertia occasioned by society’s outdated and inadequate comprehension of reality
Environmental/ecological collapse causes economic and social collapse – and vice versa.
The financialized (making money on money) ‘free market’ is destroying our environment and nobody needs reminding of the pollutions and depredations which:-
These things happen – Alas! – because standard economics views environmental matters as extraneous and imposing unnecessary cost.
The financialized ‘free market’ propagandists, moreover, deny that the world is on the verge of economic and social collapse. Indeed, they think that collapse is impossible because, they claim, the ‘free market’ is always in balance and, if sometimes a little out of kilter, will soon return to happy equilibrium.
They further claim that the ‘free market’ is efficient and, with egregious self-righteousness, claim that its outcomes are always morally fair and just – i.e., all people get what they deserve.
Yet every sane person knows that, far from being in balance or efficient, let alone just, the ‘free market’ is unbalanced, inefficient¸ and unjust, e.g., it has:-
Moreover:-
there is inability to address the great technological shift which is massively increasing potential output while smashing out traditional jobs and replacing them with temporary, part-time, zero-hours-contract, ‘gig economy’ jobs which are not really jobs at all. The result is a precariat.
Furthermore, there is:-
In sum, there is widespread failure and, after some precipitating ‘black swan’ event, a collapse is now likely.
Is there a solution?
No – not in the sense of a quick fix today immediately creating a hunky-dory tomorrow. The problem is that the mal-structure, deformation and deep-rooted inefficiencies of present economies have to be addressed before there can be any permanent solution.
That said, however, a Green, efficient and just recovery is possible IF it is first understood how difficult it is to effect major paradigmatic change. Indeed, without that understanding, no fundamental change is possible.
The difficulty becomes apparent by considering the remarkable research of Professor Rogers Hollingsworth and colleagues. Done twenty years ago at the behest of the American government, it cost millions of dollars and its purpose was to discover the factors contributing to a major change of paradigm and so the possibility of immense benefit for society.
The research is not widely known. Indeed, it may have been suppressed because it implies that American society is NOT the End of History Fukuyama, F., 1992 The End of History) i.e., at some future time, American global power and influence will decline.
The researchers found that three factors contribute to the creation of major paradigm-changing ideas:-
The first factor is widespread, conservative knowledge of the main subject with its underlying assumptions about reality.
An example is the old Ptolemaic geocentric system which put the Earth at the centre of the universe and therefore all rulers are appointed by God. It logically follows that democrats, for example, are attempting to overthrow Divinely-appointed rulers and so must be killed….
The second factor is rising tension between conservatives in the centre of the subject and progressives on the edge. This tension is essentially a life-or-death struggle between conservatives upholding an outdated power structure and progressives who want to change it. Thus the conservative upholders of the geocentric system were determined to crush Copernicus and Galileo (whose observations of planetary movement revealed that the Earth is not the centre of the universe and so the rulers were not appointed by God).
Furthermore, the conservatives propounded the ‘epicycle’ theory saying that the planets revolve in circles while also going around the Earth. This theory was totally false but the falsity kept the Earth at the centre of the universe and so served the purpose of defending the autocratic rulers.
Thus falsity was the weapon used to maintain autocracy thereby demonstrating a salutary lesson – power structures will do anything (e.g., maintaining false beliefs about reality) to stop a new paradigm coming into existence.
So what is the third factor?
It is some force or opposition, powerfully present, coming from outside which interacts with progressive thinking on the edge of the subject to create the new paradigm.
But what force? What opposition? And how can it come ‘from outside’? After all, ideas arise inside people’s heads!
The way to understand this force or opposition is to remember that, in the Ptolemaic system, God had put the world at the centre of the universe and thus had appointed the world’s rulers. Therefore any re-thinking of geocentric theory was certain to be of revolutionary consequence and so anybody doing that re-thinking would be tortured and killed. Copernicus and Galileo were up against the thumbscrew and axe of the Inquisition.
Thus the ‘force or opposition, powerfully present, coming from outside’ can only be a deep-seated, radical willingness to challenge the prevailing power structure of society even though torture and death is the penalty.
So it was a combination of radical cast of mind, intellectual courage and immense physical bravery which was the third factor contributing to the Copernican Revolution. The Revolution led to modern rocketry as well as the overthrow of the power of kings and autocrats without which there would be no political democracy today.
And the bravery tells of the difficulty in ever achieving major change because, unless people proposing and explaining the change are prepared to put their careers, even their lives, at risk, nothing positive will happen.
Indeed, history demonstrates that, time and time again, conservative power structures always attempt to strangle big, new ideas at birth so that their originators despair of ever being understood within their own lifetimes. Examples of thinkers who faced vicious, diehard opposition are:- Louis Pasteur (invisible germs); Charles Darwin (evolution); Barbara McClintock (‘jumping’ genes), Alfred Wegener (tectonic plates) and James Lovelock (Gaia).
Moreover, it took 144 years (from Copernicus, 1543, to Newton, 1687) before the Copernican Revolution was accepted at the highest levels. But we do not have 144 years – 14 is more likely!
Thus those attempting to introduce a new paradigm might well be forgiven for thinking that the game is not worth the candle….!
The telling question therefore arises – Are today’s activists prepared to think anew? Or do they prefer to continue with the falsities of the past?
Let us hope they wish to:-
be courageous remembering that when the time has come to throw out the old, personal advantage arises from being among the first to welcome the new.
Since the fifty eight false assumptions are interconnected, discussion of one leads to discussion of others.
That said, however, three of the assumptions are particularly pernicious and the most pernicious is the assumption that human labour creates all, or most, of the productive output while the capital instruments create little or none. Capital instruments are everything non-human e.g., machinery, technology, mines, buildings, land, animals, plants, even seeds!. And the sun is a ‘capital instrument’ – but one which cannot be owned!
The false assumption stems from Adam Smith who, doing his thinking before the Industrial Revolution had started (and so the productive contribution of machinery was not apparent), said that labour (particularly when specialized) creates all productive output (Wealth of Nations, 1776).
And so, nowadays, standard productivity is calculated as total output ÷ human labour input which not only says that labour does it all but also ignores the contribution to production of the capital instruments.
A thought experiment is helpful. Consider the production coming from a fully automated factory. The designers have been paid. The engineers and builders who constructed the factory have been paid. And the maintenance team (on standby to ensure continuous output) is just that – the maintenance team. It is like your doctor who, it’s hoped, does a good job maintaining your health but who is most certainly not part of your production.
In short, a fully automated factory itself does 100% of the input (thereby creating the output) and so, because there is 0% human labour input, standard productivity collapses to nought! (Ashford, R. and Shakespeare, R. (1999). Binary Economics − the new paradigm.)
Thus standard productivity is wrong and the truth is a near-opposite i.e., in a task, human labour:-
Nowadays, with computers and automation, the latter is increasingly the case.
Therefore standard productivity hides the true contribution to production made by capital instruments and so is part of a gigantic connivance which:-
The second false assumption is that commercial banks lend existing money.
However, the truth is the near-opposite – they do not lend existing money. The lent money is created out of nothing by pressing computer buttons! Nobody’s private money ─ not yours, not even the bank’s ─ is being lent. New money is created. Depositors’ and bank capital money act as a reserve and the newly-created money is many times the reserve amount..
The Bank of England says:-
‘In the modern economy, most money takes the form of bank deposits. But how those bank deposits are created is often misunderstood: the principal way is through commercial banks making loans. Whenever a bank makes a loan, it simultaneously creates a matching deposit in the borrower’s bank account, thereby creating new money.
The reality of how money is created today differs from the description found in some economics textbooks ─ Rather than banks receiving deposits when households save and then lending them out, bank lending creates deposits.’ (McLeay, M. et al. (2014). Money Creation in the Modern Economy, Bank of England, Quarterly Bulletin, Q.1.)
Nothing could be clearer – by pressing computer buttons the banks create the money that they lend and the economics textbooks tell untruths.
Furthermore, the famous American economist J.K. Galbraith wrote:-
‘The process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled…. It is, moreover, one that is almost breathtaking in its audacity.’ (Galbraith, J.K., 1975, Money: Whence It Came, Where It Went.)
This quotation is significant because J.K. Galbraith, perhaps the world’s greatest economist, was never awarded a Nobel Prize. That was because he blazoned the truth (‘….so simple that the mind is repelled….breathtaking in its audacity….’) and consequently the Western power structures never forgave him.
So how come that the banks are able to do what is essentially criminal counterfeiting?
Firstly, simply, the public is not aware that banks create money out of nothing.
Secondly, propaganda claims that the economy’s purposes are being properly served because the lent money is being directed at productive capacity (it claims) in an efficient and just way which creates growth from which all fairly benefit.
That is the claim. Thus, according to the propaganda, bank money (created out of nothing with interest added for the benefit of its creator) is the magic element in the (claimed) successful operation of the ‘free market’ because the new money is directed at, and serving, the needs of the real economy and of justice.
But bank money does not serve the needs of the real economy, nor of justice. The claim of efficiently allocating resources is untrue – only 2% of the money supply goes into new productive capacity. (Lietaer, B., 2001, The Future of Money.)
Indeed, today’s banking system instead allocates money to:-
And remember – unless productive power is widely spread, there can never be a true balance of supply and demand. When there is no spreading the rich get richer and the rich-poor gap increases.
The third false assumption is that interest is necessary. However, while genuine administration cost (which is small) is necessary as are collateral and business plan, interest (imposed on top of administration cost) is NOT necessary.
Interest is a gigantic hoovering mechanism which sucks up wealth from the poor and transfers it to the rich. Generally, interest causes 80% of the people to pay out more than they receive; 10% are in balance; and the last 10% receive much more than they pay out.
In Aachen, Germany, interest is 12% of the cost of rubbish collection; 38% of drinking water; 47% of sewage; and 77% of public housing.
Moreover, over the period 1950-1989 German GDP increased twenty two times, but interest on the National Debt increased seventy five times!
Also 50% of the price of all goods and services relates to borrowing costs. (Kennedy, M.,1995, Interest and Inflation-Free Money.)
Compound interest:-
Consider the UK Humber Bridge. Starting at £28,000,000, compound interest (with price rises) took the cost to £439,000,000. That’s fifteen times higher!
Yet the Bridge is profitable! Every year, its operating costs ─ repair, maintenance and salaries ─ are less than the fees received from travellers. In short, the Bridge is a money-maker but compound interest makes it a money-loser!
In 1981, when the Bridge opened, the original cost of £28,000.000 had risen to £98,000,000 (because of compound interest, inflation and price increases). By 1992 compound interest had taken the cost to £439,000,000 whereon the UK government removed it from the citizens of Humberside and put it onto the National Debt.
The Sun Paradigm is created by reversing, or near-reversing, the false assumptions. The reversals (or near-reversals) are seen to be true (or, at the very least, truer) and so a fresh component assumption (for the new paradigm) becomes available.
The reversals or near-reversals then interact with one another:-
interacts with
the recognition that there can only be a balanced economy IF there is a spreading of ownership of what really does create the wealth – the capital instruments.
When the spreading is done the result is that, in addition to jobs, everybody owns some productive capital (and has the associated income) in contrast to today’s situation where most people are confined to their labour (if possible) and/or welfare benefit.
interacts with
the fact that money is created out of nothing. This then enables a huge interest-free money supply – Sun Money – for spreading the real economy and addressing environmental problems in a counter-inflationary, justice-enabling way. (Since the real economy and justice are furthered in a counter-inflationary way, a new word is necessary. ‘Doe-flation’ (‘doe’ as in a female deer) seems appropriate.)
NB. The Sun Paradigm will NOT stop commercial banks charging interest. Indeed, a large pool of money for lending at interest will remain.
The Sun Paradigm (through a gentle rise to 100% banking reserves) only stops commercial banks from creating new money. This is the Chicago Plan long promoted by economists Simons, Fisher, Friedman and even Mervyn King (ex-Governor of the Bank of England).
However, none of them ever proposed the key Sun Paradigm aspects – the use of Sun Money for:-
the spreading of productive (and associated purchasing) capacity to every individual.
The Sun Paradigm provides a new opportunity for public, national, and international banking institutions to address the world’s economic and environmental problems.
To do so, the institutions will need to:-
Uses of Sun Money (there are many) include:-
Asian commercial banks charge an outrageous 60%/year while rural lenders charge 200% (or even 300%).
However, the Grameen Bank averages 34%. Half is for borrowed money and half is for high administration costs which include the cost of training the borrower.
Grameen and similar organisations have a 98% repayment rate and so could receive Sun Money, lend it to their clients at 17% (thereby halving the usual cost) and then repay it to the central bank.
And at 17% there would likely be a 100% repayment rate.
Small businesses are often crushed by interest-bearing debt. But interest is not necessary for small businesses. As long as they have a viable proposal with provision for collateral and administration cost, there is no reason for interest.
Sun Money is available for medium-sized businesses ONLY IF the loans are associated with the widening of ownership.
The Sun Paradigm, over time, enables ALL individuals to have an independent income (thereby diminishing the need for welfare benefit and people living off interest). Moreover, charitable institutions, like individuals, can be linked to the real economy.
If a person has a job – that’s good. However, computers and incredible new technology are destroying secure well-paid jobs and replacing them, if at all, with temporary, insecure, low-paid, ‘gig economy’ ones. Standard economics has no way of ensuring that, in future, everybody will be directly involved in the real economy with a steady, reasonable income.
Nevertheless, the Sun Paradigm does have a way – corporations widening their ownership may have Sun Money (a huge advantage)!
Indeed, using the practical mechanisms of Binary Economics, it is possible to achieve wide capital ownership in the large corporations by which the capital pays
out its full returns which would be five to eight times existing returns. The full payout is essential for enabling all people to have an independent income. www.binaryeconomics.net
With a basket of full-payout shares, ALL individuals can have a steady income because they are being directly connected to the real economy. A child would have a small income which would increase over time.
Figures contained in a 1998 study by Northeast Ohio Employee Ownership Center, Kent State University, Ohio and a 2005 study from the Center for Economic and Social Justice, Washington, D.C., indicate that, aged sixty five, an adult would have a binary income of about $26,000 and a capital accumulation of $200,000 with both figures continuing to increase after the age of sixty five. (The figures would be very much higher today.)
NB. In a world of increasing automation, spreading capital ownership is the only way of ensuring that all people have income from real production so that, in society as a whole, there is a true balance of supply and demand.
Homes and villages can incorporate production – see Section 16.1.
With Sun Money public housing can halve its cost.
And so can private housing. Loans would be:-
These projects include roads, bridges, sewage works, railways etc.
Financing is simple – the national bank (or other institution) lends Sun Money to the government. As today, money for repayment is collected out of fees and taxes but the amount required would be half, or less, of the usual amount.
Guernsey (which has minimal debt) has used the loans and so has Malaysia.
Over the prosperous period 1939-1974, Canada used the loans and, today, many Canadian municipalities are demanding their use to upgrade infrastructure.
After 1935, New Zealand used the loans – for hydropower schemes, railways, state housing etc. – and had a prosperous period.
In the late 1940s Taiwan used the loans to spread ownership of farm land without harming the rich.
Student loans can be interest-free. The taxation system collects repayment and so acts as collateral.
Sun Money is important for the generation of clean electricity e.g., from geothermal power, hydroelectric schemes, windmills, underwater turbines, wave machines and tidal lagoons. Tides rise and ebb twice a day and tidal lagoons use old technology – concrete and slow-moving turbines. Lagoons are easily constructed but, because it takes a long time to do so, compound interest stops them being built.
Most countries are suitable for solar electricity and coming along are extraordinary new technologies such as bio-oil from algae and SolaRoof technology – see Section 16.1. These are important for the local generation of energy and they end our losing battle with nature and, instead, enable us to turn to life-science for critical solutions.
Sun Money should be available for all forms of green technology and can be used for mangrove-crested sea barrages. Annually, millions of tons of valuable soil are lost because of erosion.
S.O.S. – Save Our Soils!
There must be multi-species tree-planting.
However, the most immediate aspect of the Sun Paradigm will be the safe, transparent and translucent structures seen, for example, at https://youtu.be/awBJzEfM7wM
and http://www.podnet.is demonstrating a SolaRoof village and ecological living.
The POD Enterprise Network explains that the structures enable the sun to do the work of providing local organic food, fresh water and energy thereby enabling clean, healthy and responsible living. Richard Nelson describes how:-
‘….the architecture of every home, receiving natural sunlight, makes every household a wealth-producer with the capital (money) easily repaid while the benefit of ongoing regenerative operations continues adding to the health and wealth of the family and the community into the future.’
The structures are low cost, zero-carbon and so efficient in growing food that land can be ‘re-wilded’. Crucially, they provide Sun Fuel – natural gas and liquid fuel – which is local, not centrally-supplied, energy.
Unlike the Great Reset, the structures (individually or co-operatively owned) spread productive power directly to consumers (i.e., the buildings’ occupiers).
Indeed, the structures elegantly ensure that widespread production matches widespread consumption – which is an accurate implementation of Say’s Theorem!
Nevertheless, more than Greenery and solar structures is necessary if environmental problems are to be solved.
To that end it can be observed that when any society has:-
population levels tend to stabilise, even decline.
This happens because, in the above circumstances, people do not need many children to ensure that at least some survive: nor are children needed to provide for the senior generation.
Thus the tendency of the Sun Paradigm is to allow societies voluntarily to have smaller numbers of people with benefits for the planet as a whole.
Of course, Dark Paradigm thinking will claim that many people are necessary to produce wealth. However, this is nonsense – the future world will not need many people in order to achieve adequate output because a huge proportion of production will be made by technologies which have an independent, or near-independent, existence.
The Sun Paradigm therefore gives hope that the world’s population (at present increasing) will trend towards levels more in harmony with resources, fauna and flora.
NB. Many people fear that the Great Reset elite intend a violent reduction of population e.g., by laboratory-created viruses, electro-magnetic pulse attack or atomic war.
In contrast, the Sun Paradigm influences population levels in a gentle way.
At the centre of standard economics is the concept of homo economicus which claims to describe human psychology accurately by viewing all humans as ‘rational’ i.e., selfish and greedy. The concept says humans have a limitless desire for material possessions.
Thus a text book may open by saying that economics is about scarcity. This means that, while some people are able to get most (but not all) of the things they want, the rest of humanity does not, cannot, and never will, get what it wants.
The text book is essentially saying that nobody is ever satisfied (not even the very rich!) and, as for the poor, well, it’s too bad – they will always be poor….
Therefore, according to standard economics, greed is everywhere – which means that strife and war are inevitable as also is the depredation of resources and the environment resulting in the extinction of human, and other, life.
Furthermore, at present, the standard view is reasonable because greed is essentially caused by a mixture of:-
Thus, when there is a lot of insecurity in the world (as today), there is certain to be a lot of greed.
But what happens when everybody has their basic needs – for comfort, food and shelter – being consistently and securely met and so they need never fear penury?
In that situation, people will begin to question if selfishness and greed really are unalterable human qualities or whether, in new positive circumstances, they can reasonably be expected to change.
After considering the question, people might then perceive the activities of the very rich (who think it clever to flaunt their wealth) as grossly immature and selfish.
Indeed, whereas greed is worshipped today, in future (when every person has security), greed could suddenly become unfashionable and so sensible living (i.e., living without excess) could become the fashionable norm for those wishing to lead responsible lives.
In those circumstances, homo co-operans will prevail and changing attitudes towards consumption will combine with more responsible attitudes towards irreplaceable natural resources and the glories of fauna and flora.
It is rarely understood that Western ‘democracy’ is not true democracy because it permits but a weak power – the political vote – which:-
In contrast, people need economic democracy which is a strong, everyday power to control their own lives i.e., widespread property ownership and an independent income sufficient for requirements. Only then will people be able to free themselves from bullying and control by others.
Readers might reflect that the Sun Paradigm is:-
A justice which creates the efficiency and an efficiency which creates the justice.
Furthermore, they might also reflect that, with the Sun Paradigm, the impossible becomes possible and the intractable becomes tractable.
Thus they may begin to have hope…..
Below are fifty eight assumptions about reality underlying standard economics. They are interconnected and accepted as true (or taken for granted as inevitable or sensible) but which, in fact, are false.
The interconnection is of importance because if only one assumption is false (or, at most, two or three are false) then the whole edifice of standard economics starts to crumble.
However, the Sun Paradigm becomes easily understood if the fifty eight false assumptions are one by one, and simply, reversed or near-reversed (as briefly seen in the italicised text).
Indeed, after only two or three reversals, a new panorama begins to appear.
NB. Many people say they “don’t understand economics”. This is NOT because they are stupid. It is because standard economics contains contradictions and falsities which make understanding impossible. However, when the reversals are made, people suddenly begin to realize that they do understand….
The false assumptions are:-
The Sun Paradigm begins to appear when the fifty eight false assumptions are individually reversed or near-reversed (see the italicised text in brackets).
It soon becomes apparent that a different picture is materializing and then, long before all the false assumptions have been reversed, it is brightly clear that a totally new landscape – the Sun Paradigm landscape – has emerged.
For ten years Rodney Shakespeare was Visiting Professor of Binary Economics (holding the only academic post in the subject in the world) at Trisakti University, Jakarta. Binary Economics is a new paradigm economics addressing the technological shift now smashing out traditional well-paid jobs and upholding democratic economic rights as well as the usual political ones.
Rodney is a widower with two children and two grandchildren. He is a private tutor, Chair of the Committee Against Torture in Bahrain and, due to an accident, has impaired hearing.