Sex Trafficking will END in Equal Money Capitalism: DAY 168

January 25, 2013 in Equal Money Blog

Sex trafficking is really just a fancy word for slavery specialized in sex. It is not new, it has been happening since the beginning of mankind. It is happening because of who we have allowed ourselves to become. Now it is time to stop. And to stop sex trafficking, we got to stop and change who we are as humanity.

In the previous blog post we discussed migrant domestic workers. In this blog post we will discuss another phenomenon that, to some extent, has been created through globalization and that has to do with migratory movements around the globe. As information technology has developed and borders have opened up through commercialization it has become easier to travel from country to country. As such we have especially over the last two decades increasingly heard about the phenomenon of sex trafficking. However – it is only at the surface level that globalization as we know it today is the cause. Because people have enslaved and trafficked other people since the beginning of mankind. It is simply easier and cheaper now.

What is Sex Trafficking?

Sex trafficking is much more widespread and common than most people are aware of. It happens in all countries around the globe. Sex trafficking is when a vulnerable person (often a young girl or boy) is being moved from one place to another by an abuser either unwillingly or through being deceived and manipulated or made dependent upon the abuser – and thus by force – for the purposes of being sold for sex, most often to men in Europe or America, but also in Latin America, Australia, Africa and Asia.

More explicitly child trafficking is defined in Article 3 (a) of the UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (adopted by the UN General Assembly Resolution 55/25 of November 15, 2000) as “… the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation”, and where “Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs.”

To show how widespread and diverse sex-trafficking is, here are examples of the various types of sex-trafficking that occurs today all over the world of every minute of every day. I’ve added loads of links to documentaries and articles on each topic so that those interested in getting more insight into sex-trafficking can do so.

Before continuing I will here share some important educational material from the Eqafe team on sex that will place the question of why sexual trafficking exists into full context:

Life Review – The Path of Money – interview with impoverished woman who was forced to become a prostitute to survive
Life Review – Educated into a Sex-Slave – interview with a woman who lived her entire adult live as a trafficked sex slave
Life Review – Ego + Sex = Catastrophe – interview with man addiced to sex
Pornography Messed up my Sex Life – Life Review – interview with man addicted to violent porn
Death by Sex – interview with woman addicted to sex
What is Sex – OverView – interview series explaining how and why sex have become what it is today
Day 247: Rich Pedophilia in Poor Countries – How to End it For Good by Eleonora Gozzini

SEX TRAFFICKING – THE PROBLEM:

Domestic sex trafficking

When people think of sex trafficking they often think about girls from Eastern Europe who have been lured by a pimp to be a prostitute in another country. But a new epidemic has emerged that is rapidly spreading, especially in the U.S. Vulnerable girls, often from poor areas with troubled or absent parents and even minors are lead on by older boys and men who sweet talk them with words of love and protection and material gifts such as food, jewelry and clothes. They get under the girls skin and pretend to be their boyfriends for a couple of days or weeks or however long it takes to gain the girl’s trust and emotionally manipulate her into dependency and guilt. This is a very common form of self-trafficking and it devastates these girls’ lives.

Very Young Girls is a documentary about girls often under the age of 16 who has been sex-trafficked through a pimp or boyfriend into prostitution and sexual slavery

Internet sex trafficking

In recent years, the actual buying and selling of girls has started taking place online which makes it much harder for law enforcement agencies to intervene, none the least because sex trafficking rings are trans-national. This documentary shows how the internet is the modern market place for buying and selling underage sex slaves: Child Sex Trafficking on the Internet- “Selling the Girl Next Door” Documentary. Article on how Sex traffickers reach girls via social media

Sex trafficking of children

To be clear, children are AS exposed to sex trafficking as adult women are, often more so. And here we are speaking about children from the age of newborn and until 13 -15 of age. In the documentary Empowerment or Exploitation: Life as a Sex Worker two adult women share the brutal stories of how they were sex-trafficked as children. Several impoverished countries such as Cambodia, Nepal and Romania has become known as literal child sex paradises where men from richer countries in Europe and the U.S go to have sex with young girls and boys. But even countries such as Belgium and Denmark that are supposedly highly ‘civilized’ and ‘well educated’ has had several cases of extreme sexual abuse of children including the Belgium child-sex ring that was exposed in 2002. 16 men and 2 women were arrested. Even children placed into foster care are not safe as the following article is evidence of: Foster care sex trafficking: Pimps, labor contractors targeting youth in Florida foster care system. Another story exposes Child Sex Tourism and Child Sex Trade in Third World Countries

Despite common beliefs, sex trafficking and sex slavery does not only happen to girls and women. It also happens to boys. Boys from impoverished countries and poor areas of wealthier countries are particularly vulnerable because they are more desperate and therefore more likely to believe a stranger that offers them a new life with lots of money but also because there is no social security system, no adults that can or will take action if something happens to the boys. Even if the parents want to, they often can’t because they themselves are in dire situations. This documentary for example is about how poor boys in Afghanistan are forced to dance and have sex with men: The Dancing Boys Of Afghanistan and this article speaks about global sex-trafficking of boys: Male victims of sex trafficking.

When parents sell their own children

Another occurrence that has been emerging in the media over the last decades is parents who knowingly sell their children to sex traffickers or pimps. Few of these parents do so because they get sexual gratification out of it and those are mostly fathers (or mothers) in western countries, but the vast majority is poverty stricken families often with more than one child, who make the decision to sell their child to survive. Here are some of these stories:

Child Sex Ring Scandal: 5-year-old abuse victim returned to ‘pimp mother’

Parents Who Pimp Their Children

READ THE STORY OF A GIRL PROSTITUTED BY HER FATHER FROM AGE 5

Parents indicted for human trafficking – May 20, 2011

STOPPING SEX TRAFFICKING – THE SOLUTION

People often say when they hear about stuff like sex trafficking that “I can’t believe something like this is still happening”. Such a statement indicates that people believe that the world has changed for the better and that we are now so consciously and morally evolved that we – as humanity – no longer act in such barbaric ways. Not so. The truth of the matter is that there was not a time where we ever stopped being barbaric. We simply became better at deceiving ourselves and thereby also each other into believing that a form of civilized and moral society had been accomplished. Because obviously if you walk the streets of any western capital in the tourist areas at daytime you see a ‘perfect world’ of concrete and lights, but right beneath the surface, there are cockroaches and sex slaves.

There are two reasons why sex trafficking exists:

One is because of who we has become as humanity as greedy, self-interested people addicted to positive experiences. This is what creates the DEMAND for sexually trafficked people. The other is because of the world system we have created based on our human nature of self-interest where what rules the movement of money and resources on earth, is individual greed and self-interest. This is also why it is so difficult to stop, because the main priority of the world system is for everyone to serve their own self-interest. This system is what is responsible for the SUPPLY of sex slaves through impoverished regions with desperate people who are willing to do anything to survive and cynical handlers who will trade in people for a buck.

So – The solution to stopping sex trafficking is twofold. We require stopping the demand for sex slaves through redefining what sex is, what pleasure is, what consent and free will means. And to do that we require reeducating ourselves as humanity to stop living for our own self-interest, because it is clearly not working in the best interest of all of humanity or even for ourselves as individuals. We require a new psychology that to a greater extent can explain the patterns through which we grow up to become self-interested zombies that live to chase the next fix of feel-good-experiences.

We require a new system that is not based on everyone fighting each other to survive where some can exploit others and enslave them using promises of money. Such a system is what we are suggesting with Equal Money Capitalism. Through an Equal Money capitalistic system we can ensure that everyone can pursue their happiness but at the same time make it so that no one else is hurt in the process and that people who are vulnerable such as children, are at all times protected. Why will sex trafficking end in Equal Money Capitalism? Because we value life over profit. Because we value the life of all over the individual pleasure of some. Because we value life as equal for all.

STOPPING SEX TRAFFICKING – THE REWARD

The rewards of stopping sex trafficking is that no one ever again have to be forced into sexual slavery through desperate living conditions. The reward is a real expressive sexuality that is not based on automated addictions that people can’t control and where they abuse others in the process just to get an energetic kick. And by abusing others we are also here speaking about rape of children and infants and people being sexually slaved for years without end until they are killed. Parents will no longer have to worry about their young being lured by pimps posing as boyfriends and families won’t be forced to sell their children to survive.

Because in an Equal Money Capitalistic system we will protect each other and we will protect our children and make sure that no harm comes to them. Why? Because we will change what we prioritize in life, as individual agreements with ourselves to change and at a global and national level. Consider living in a world without sexual trafficking. It is possible. But it requires all of us to make it happen, because if we don’t change, it will continue until we do.

What’s the Problem with Migrant Domestic Workers? And is there a Solution? DAY 167

January 19, 2013 in Equal Money Blog, Equal Money System, World Exposed Blog

And How is Equal Money Capitalism The Solution to stopping the Abuse?

Right now, in this moment, on this very day or night were you’re sitting in front of the computer reading this blog, a woman somewhere in the world is cleaning, comforting a sick child waking up at night. She gets up before dawn and goes to sleep after midnight. Her body is aching because she has been standing up all day, carrying groceries, ironing, cooking, vacuuming, and playing with children. She does this all day long, sometimes seven days per week, all year round. And no, she is not a mother. Or she could be. But she is in a strange country and if she does have children, she is away from them, sometimes their entire childhood. She does it so that she can support them; give them food on the table, an education, a future. In the very worst cases, she gets beaten, raped and tortured at a daily basis. She has her passport taken and is given a fictive debt that she can never pay off. Her suffering is silent because the hard labor she provides is not considered actual work. It is work that women have done for thousands of years free of charge. And no, she is not a prostitute; she is a migrant domestic worker. And there are millions of her around the world, stuffed away into houses and apartments around the world, never to be seen or have their voices heard.

So in this blog post, we will be having a look at migrant domestic worker and ask why it is a problem, what the solution is to stopping it is and discuss how everyone, including you and me will be rewarded by stopping migrant domestic work.

Who are Migrant domestic workers?

Migrant domestic workers are most often women from what is known in academic literature as ‘the global south’. This refers to people from the southern part of the globe, though mostly from Africa, South America and South East Asia. These women travel to ‘the global north’ to work as cleaners, nannies and housekeepers, but also to the Middle East and in particularly to Saudi Arabia, Dubai and Hong Kong. The women often come from Bangladesh, India, the Philippines, Thailand, South America or Eastern Europe. Some also come from Africa. Some even migrate within countries such as China, Kenya or Bolivia where women – and young girls – travel from poor rural areas to the cities to work for families that can afford servants. Sometimes children are sold as slaves to perform domestic work.

What do Migrant domestic workers do?

Migrant domestic workers work in private homes to clean, cook, be a nanny and take care of the house. Sometimes their service is extended to gardening, sexual favors or even providing cleaning to their hosts friends and families. It is not only rich or elitist people who hire migrant domestic workers. It simply depends on how extensive economic inequality there is between people from different parts of the world or even within the same country. In other words: as Global inequality increases, more and more people in the ‘Global North’ are able to afford domestic help while more and more people from the ‘Global South’ will be forced to migrate and take on jobs as domestic workers. As economic conditions deteriorate in the south people become more desperate and find themselves forced to accept even unreasonable and unacceptable working conditions. And in many cases they will be lured with promises of fortune only to find themselves trapped in a foreign country without a passport and with a huge debt to the agency or agent that provided them with the job.

So what’s the problem with migrant domestic workers?

1. Inequality amplifies abuse

As global inequality increases and poor women are forced to migrate to work as domestic helpers, it means that their working conditions increasingly becomes more and more abusive. Because the workers is more in need of the work than the employer is of the assistance and therefore the workers can be exploited and taken advantage of because of their vulnerable situation. Their survival and often their entire family back home’s survival depends on them maintaining the job. Meanwhile their western counterparts can pick and choose between truckloads upon truckloads of migrant domestic workers and therefore the relationship between the two is extensively unequal.

2. The private space enables abuse

At the same time, the workplace is in a private home where the domestic worker often works alone in isolation and perhaps do not even know the language of her host country. This is another factor that leaves the domestic workers vulnerable and targets of abuse. The work is not regulated by authorities and therefore standards of minimum wage and living conditions are not supervised. The families that hire domestic workers can do whatever they want in their own home, including exploit and abuse vulnerable people who are looking for a better life. Families are the root of all evil. Because where else does it start?

3. The Care chain/Care drain problem

Some of the workers are mothers who are forced to leave their children behind to be raised by other family members or even other nannies, while their mother travels abroad to raise the children of a wealthier household. This is what has become known as the ‘care chain/care drain’ problem. In the western countries the problem often starts with the women entering the labor force without their country having a public childcare system to make up for the women who are no longer taking care of their children and the home. The consequence of the ‘care chain/care drain’ problem is extensive in that generations of children, on both sides of the economic fence, are being raised by strangers who are taking care of them as part of a job, where their own parents are off, either because of a necessity to survive or because of a need to realize themselves.

4. Housework is not Real Work

It is highly problematic that housework and childrearing is not considered real work. Because the dynamic in the relationship between males and females have shifted so that it is no longer males who are the breadwinners of the families. Often the best chance for the family to get food on the table is for the woman to travel abroad to work as a maid or nanny. But in many countries domestic workers are not included under legal protection or employment regulations. An example is the American the National Labour Relations Act.^[2]That protects other groups of workers, but not those performing domestic work. For the women on the wealthier side of the fence, the fact that they have stepped into the labor market as fully participating laborers have not changed any governmental actions towards supporting families significantly. Therefore some families find themselves forced to hire help, others do so as a luxury. Often women are expected to be able to handle both demanding careers in companies whose structure was designed for male workers who have a wife at home as well as being a good housewife, cook, lover and mother.

5. Economic inequality is taken for granted

Migrant domestic work is a global problem as it is literally taking place across the globe. Migrant domestic work is also a result of increased global inequality, where the exploitation of some for the luxury lives of others is taken for granted. In the end it is quite simply: if you would not want to be in the shoes of a domestic worker, then why would you accept it for someone else? The only explanation is that economic inequality is taken for granted. But economic inequality is not a natural occurrence or development. Because it is us as human beings who have decided and agreed to the economic systems we have today. This also means that we are all responsible, even though we would like to think we are not. That’s the bad news. The good news is that we can change. So – what’s the solution if we don’t want to have people who are exploited to do domestic work and leave their children or people who are forced to hire domestic workers because they can’t do everything at once?

So what is the Solution?

1. Change the economic system

The most obvious solution to the problem of migrant domestic work is to change our economic and political systems. Because if the problem is born out of the current system and the way it functions based on inequality, the solution must be to change the system in its entirety – or rather the principle behind it. The solution is to create a system that does not require inequality to function. Within this we got to realize that the current economic system of free market capitalism is not the only way to live on earth. Nor is it the best solution. If it was, it would honor the principle of equal opportunity that capitalism has at the heart of its thought. Because at the moment, equal opportunity is an abstraction that has nothing to do with the real lives of real people. If someone is born into an indebted family they too are indebted, and debt can equally be in the shape of lack of education or someone having a criminal record. Therefore a first step that is required is to make sure that equal opportunities is given from us as the people on earth to us as the people on earth. To do that we got to vote for a new way of doing this. I suggest investigating Equal Money Capitalism (EMC) as such a solution because it is the most direct, commonsensical and simplistic way to change we system we have now into a system that is sustainable in actually giving everyone equal opportunities. You can read more about it here.

2. Reversing the need for domestic work

Within a system such as the Equal Money System with an economic model such as Equal Money Capitalism that emphasizes sustainability through equality, we can begin investigating and applying the changes that is required to stop migrant domestic work. Such a solution is to reduce and reverse the need for domestic work. This means that there is a balance for families in western and northern countries where mothers and fathers are now capable of taking care of their lives without requiring the service of someone else. For this to be possible equalization between males and females is required. Domestic work must be the equal responsibility of the individuals living in a house, no different than taking care of one’s body. In some homes servants are required because the home itself is simply so big that one or two people simply cannot take care of it themselves. Such cases, with people living in mansions and castles are directly due to a glorification of inequality with pompous displays of spitefulness through abundance. Both of these examples, inequality between men and women and gross displays of wealth requires a reeducation of us as people to come back to earth and practicality as both of these examples is unacceptable. So reeducation is required were people equalize themselves in realizing that they are not more or less worth than one another. A simply solution is that everyone simply cleans up after themselves. This way, very few people would want to live in a huge mansion because they would have to clean it themselves.

3. Reversing the need to migrate for work

In stopping the need for foreign domestic workers, there is a lot of people who in the current system would be without work or any opportunity and who will be stuck in poverty stricken countries with high percentages of the population being unemployed. However in an Equal Money Capitalist system a global initiative will be in place to firstly help the countries out of poverty and secondly assist them in being self-sufficient. When that is establishes the country will support its citizens with work. There will thus not be a need to travel abroad to survive and travelling will be something that one is free to do or not do as one please.

**So what do you get out of it?**

1. The satisfaction of being equal

When migrant domestic work is stopped, you will have the satisfaction of knowing that there are no women or children or men who are stuffed away into secret being abused and exploited as domestic workers. You will have the pleasure of knowing that all people of the earth will have the exact same opportunities as you do and if you meet someone from a foreign country in your homeland you will know that they are there because they want to be there and not because they have been trafficked or forced. You won’t have to feel guilty in knowing that people are being exploited in other parts of the world and you won’t have to feel sad and shocked when you hear stories of the abuse that domestic workers are exposed to.

2. The satisfaction of cleaning your own house

If you are super rich or for whatever reason have a migrant domestic worker now, you won’t have that in an Equal Money Capitalist system. But you know what? Maybe you can use this as an incentive to let go of the need to always be bigger and better and show of your lifestyle. Maybe you feel trapped in that huge mansion will all that stuff and maybe your dream is to live in a simple beach hut in Thailand. Maybe you constantly worry, if you have maid, whether she will steal your stuff or even kill you in your sleep. And the guilt. The guilt with stop. And maybe for the first time in your life you will experience the utmost satisfaction it is to clean your own home in careful consideration of your own needs. If you are a career woman who had to hand your child over to a nanny who spoke a different language, you no longer have to worry about your child speaking better Tagalog or Russian than English or whatever your native language is. You will actually be able to spend time with your children, perhaps for the first time in their lives.

3. No more abuse of domestic workers

Globally speaking we will all be rewarded by no longer accepting for people to be exploited through domestic work. No child or young girl will be forced and tricked into leaving her village to go work for strange people as a house slave. No mother has to leave her children behind so that she can be a nanny for someone else’s. No more do you as a domestic worker have to spend your days ironing, cleaning, and cooking for someone else for no pay. People will no longer have to take desperate measures to survive or trick each other into accepting crappy jobs in foreign countries. And that is only to mention a few benefits of stopping migrant domestic work.

There are no reasons not to stop migrant domestic work and implementing an Equal Money Capitalist system. It is simply matter of doing the math.

The following is a list of sources through which you can educate yourself further on the topic of Migrant Domestic Work.

Documentaries:

Seek My Face, Hear My Voice – Domestic workers in Hong Kong

http://vimeo.com/18789698

We are Humans: Three Stories of Domestic Workers in Bolivia

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXO3gID1iCI

Domestic Workers in Kenya

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMA55WpKgLk

Articles:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/52760.stm

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/may/24/domestic-workers-abuse-violence?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487

http://www.irr.org.uk/news/if-they-have-your-passport-they-have-your-life/

http://walrusmagazine.com/article.php?ref=2005.03-politics-international-labour-migration&page=

Extended References list:

Archibugi, D. (2008). The global commonwealth of citizens: toward cosmopolitan democracy. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Castels, S. (2010). Understanding Global Migration: A Social Transformation Perspective. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 36(10), 1565-1586.

Doyle, M., & Timonen, V. (2010). Migrant Care Workers’ Relationships with Care Recipients, Colleagues adn Employers. European Journal of Women’s Studies, 17(1), 25-41. Retrieved June 9, 2012, from http://ejw.sagepub.com/content/17/1/25

Fudge, J. (2011). Global Care Chains, Employment Agencies and the Conundrum of Jurisdiction: Decent Work for Domestic Workers in Canada. Canadian Journal of Women and the Law, 23(1), 235-264. Retrieved June 9, 2012, from http://papers.ssrn.com

Hochschild, A. R. (2000) “Global Care Chains and Emotional Surplus Value” in Hutton, W. and Giddens, A. (eds) On The Edge: Living with Global Capitalism, London: Jonathan Cape, p. 131

Hochschild, A. (2002). Global woman: nannies, maids and sex workers in the new economy. New York, N.Y.: Owl.

Kittay, E. F. (2010). The Global Heart Transplant and Caring across National Boundaries. The Southern Journal of Philosophy, 46(1), 138-165.

Magnusson, Charlotta (2009). Gender, Occupational Prestige, and Wages: A Test of Devaluation Theory in: European Sociological Review VOLUME 25 NUMBER 1 2009 87–101

Magnusson, Charlotta (2010). Why Is There a Gender Wage Gap According to Occupational Prestige? : An Analysis of the Gender Wage Gap by Occupational Prestige and Family Obligations in Sweden in: Acta Sociologica 2010 53: 99

Munck, R. (2008). Globalisation, Governance and Migration: an introduction. Third World Quarterly, 29(7), 1227-1246.

Nath, R. (2011). Equal Standing in The Global Community. The Monit, 94(4), 593-614.

Newland, K. (2010). The governance of international migration: mechanisms, processes and institutions. Global Governance, 16, 331-343. Retrieved June 9, 2012, from http://www.iom.int/jahia/webdav/site/myjahiasite/shared/shared/mainsite/policy_and_research/gcim/tp/TS8b.pdf

Päivänsalo, V. (2010). Responsibilities for Human Capabilities: Avoiding a Comprehensive Global Program. Human Rights Rev, 11, 565 – 579.

Sarti, R. (2010). Who cares for me?: Grandparents, nannies and babysitters caring for children in contemporary Italy. Paedagogica Historica, 46(6), 789-802.

Thicker, J. A. (2004). The Gendered Frontiers of Globalization. Globalizations, 1(1), 15 – 23.

Thomsen, A.B, (2012). The Intersectionality of Global Women – Does Gender Matter? How and When? Term paper for the course “Doing Gender”, Stockholm University 2012

Weir, A. (2010). Global Care Chains: Freedom, Responsibility, and Solidarity. The Southern Journal of Philosophy, 46(1), 166–175.

Yeates, N. (2004). Global Care Chains: critical reflections and lines of enquiry. International Feminist Journal of Politics, 6(3), 369–391.. Retrieved June 9, 2012, from http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1461674042000235573

Whats the Problem with Migrant Domestic Workers? And is there a Solution? DAY 167

Tags: Domestic work, Domestic worker, Eastern Europe, Equal Money Capitalism, Equal Money System, Feminization, Globalization, Hong Kong, Middle East, Migrant Domestic Workers, Migrant worker, Nannies, National Labor Relations Act, New Capitalism, South America, United States, Workers Rights
1 Comment »

Would You Want Your Child to Live YOUR Life?

September 7, 2012 in Equal Money Blog, Uncategorized

Will your Child be just Another Brick in the Wall? What can YOU do to support your Child? Are Preschools what is best for your Child – are they Best For All?

This is a continuation to Are you Playing Russian Roulette with Your Child’s Future?

In this blog we’ll again be looking at preschool education, education in general as well as the relationships between adults and children – and what exactly it is we are bringing our children up to become. I will once again use an example from practical reality where I had the opportunity to get a glimpse into the world of ‘education’ from a ground level.

Here in Sweden there is a ‘policy’ that all children should be as much outside as possible. I am not sure if it is distinct for this municipality as I’ve not worked in other areas of Sweden, but I recognize the concept from my work in Danish preschools. However here in Sweden I’ve found that every preschool has the principle that children should be outside from 7.30 to 11 /11.30 all year round. When one enters most preschools for example, the main door will be locked and one has to go through a gate onto a playground where teachers and children will be located.

I am quite sure that the idea is (I’ve not yet asked or researched the exact policy or principle behind this) that children today spend way too much time sitting still indoors and requires some fresh air. I remember reading that it is the preschool’s responsibility because parents often don’t take the time to do activities outside. So many preschools have decided that – as a rule – everyone has to be outside from 7.30 to 11 /11.30 (or from 12 – 15.00). When I worked in Denmark in such a preschool, I remember how most of the staff as teachers and assistants hated being outside. Only a minute few either loved it or at least agreed with the point of value. I was as sure as hell someone who hated it. I hated being forced to be outside when it was cold and I hated being outside when it was cold.

One time I worked in a preschool where the children could decide for themselves when they wanted to go out. They were themselves responsible for getting dressed which was also different from many preschools where children will stand in cue waiting for adults to dress and undress them. So one of the reasons it’s ‘easier’ to have everyone go in and out at the same time, is that the adults does not have to put on clothes and take on clothes all the time. However in this preschool there was a principle of learning to do it for yourself, even for the little kids. So sometimes one would look out the window and it was snowing and some little three years old would be outside in the snow with only one boot on or without their coat. Then of course we had to intervene and call them back in to get probably dressed. In this preschool, instead of the children having to sit down and eat at specific times, they had created a ‘café’ in the center of the preschool where children could come and eat whenever they wanted to. If they ate too fast and became hungry later, there would be food and fruit available. If they did not eat at all, the parents would be notified. The principle behind this was to respect children’s play time and forming of friendships so that the day would be constructed around their preferences and not for the convenience of adults. This preschool was a lot more effective, with a lot less crying and screaming than anywhere else I’ve been.

Back to the Swedish preschool principle. So what I noticed as I have been visiting preschools where children has to be outside at certain times, is that the adults are not enjoying themselves. In many cases the adults are freezing cold, standing in a corner with their hands around a hot coffee mug and otherwise merely ‘supervising’ the children on the playground, performing ‘damage control’ (It’s not called ‘child rearing for nothing).

I’ve heard and seen many preschool teachers, who, when it’s their time to go inside and sit down and take a break express a sigh of relief almost and will even fight, scheme and manipulate their colleagues to be the one who gets to go in. This is of course because everyone has agreed to hold up the facade that ‘it’s so good to be outside’ – so no one is willing to admit that they in fact hate it and would much rather being inside. (Obviously I am primarily talking about the cold/winter time which here in Sweden lasts between 6-8 months from October to May.)

One day I later talked to a little boy who recently had his birthday and he had gotten a race track as a birthday present. He said that he had played with it all morning before we met. I asked him if he would have rather stayed at home and very firmly he replied: Yes, but we can’t do that. Exactly as his parents, he understands that he cannot stay at home, because his parents have to go to work and therefore he has to go to preschool. He understands. Because he has no choice.

So I started looking at this point: Why are we upholding traditions just to hold up traditions when we’re not even standing by them ourselves? Both the adults and the children at the party were merely there, representing a system. The adults understand that they are here to ‘rear’ the children into ‘civilized’ human beings. From a certain perspective – that’s all they’re there to do: make sure the children do not kill each other and understand that they can’t have everything they point at.

If we take this example with the principle that ‘kids needs to be outside and get fresh air’ – the absurdity is obvious. Because the same kids after the age of 6 will not be expected – or sometimes even allowed – to go outside. The older they get, the more it will be expected of them to sit still inside. So what does that mean? That only children under 6 benefits from fresh air? That adults do not benefit from being outside in the fresh air? Or that it lays a good foundation for a ‘healthy disposition’? How come are we not applying the same principles for children as for adults? An obvious answer is of course that children don’t have to work and therefore have time to be outside and enjoy the benefits of nature and fresh air. But I don’t know and have never met any child or adult who enjoys being forced to be outside in any kind of weather for hours at a time. Another argument is that if the children are not forced to be outside, most of them would chose something ‘unhealthy’ like sitting and watching TV and therefore we obviously have to make decisions on their behalf that they can’t make for themselves.

However at the preschool I mentioned previously where the children could go out whenever they wanted to, many children would opt to go out and it was especially children who were more expressive and who wanted to run around and express themselves loudly, whereas in an indoor environment they would be told to quiet themselves down with ‘indoor voices’.

Why is it that we’re expecting children to enjoy something that we don’t ourselves enjoy? Why do we want children to pretend like they’re having fun when they’re not and when we’re not? Why is it more important to SAY that you’re sorry than to actually understand the consequences of your actions? If being outside and getting fresh air is so great – why are we not applying the same rules for adults? People working in offices could be forced to go out for an hour every day. Why are they not if it’s so beneficial?

The point is once again that children who are in company with adults, who are actually enjoying themselves, are much more likely to also enjoy themselves. It’s absurd that we create a living and working environment based on principles and values that has no practical common sense. And what this shows is that what is in control and is directing us is the system that we’ve abdicated ourselves to.

The adults are doing it because ‘it’s part of the job’ and with the job comes money and money is required to survive in this world. A few of them actually believe in the principles and values placed within such a learning environment as a preschool is. But mostly they’re simply living their own self-abdication to the system, to such an extent that they’ll convince themselves that they’re having fun – so that they can stand as examples for the children in ‘supporting’ the children to also learn to lie to themselves and deny their basic physical self-support, for example to go inside when one’s body is too cold. But is it truly best for children to be outside every day for 4 hours? Or is it best for children to live in an environment with adults who are self-honest, who live in self-respect and dignity? Who support their physical bodies to it’s optimum potential instead of supporting myths and values that has no practical common sense?

What would you want for your child? What would you want if you were a child? The answer is obvious isn’t’ it? Even a child would agree. So why the hell are we so adamantly supporting a system that is not existing to support us? Because it’s all about the money – because the adults KNOW that just as they have abdicated themselves to the system to survive, the children have to do the same. And obviously whatever the adults accept for themselves, they will automatically accept for the children as well. Preschool teachers are thus deliberately training children to become submissive, complacent apathetic human beings who ironically, for the most part, will be forced sit inside an office for the rest of their lives (unless they become preschool teachers or forest rangers).

And the preschool teachers don’t dare to do things differently because then they would have to question their own lives as well and they would have to face the fact that they’re living on a lie and that they are telling themselves that they’re happy and free when in fact they’re existing as servants of the system, clapping their hands for the system, freezing their asses off for the system.

And the children accept that this is the lay of the land: “learn to love it” seems to be the parole. Because if you don’t love it and convince yourself into accepting the way the world works, your life will be even more hellish and you won’t survive. That’s the fear we all live in.

How dare we as adults coerce and force children into obedience to live on a lie, just so that we don’t have to face the fact that we are? How can we believe that it’s possible to change the world when we’re not even willing to change ourselves or the environment our children are brought into?

Our children will certainly not have a different life than we did and do, if we don’t change ourselves to be able to provide a living space where such a transformation and development is possible. So as long as well live in the cage, that’s what we’ll teach our children too – no matter what.

There is a solution to this mess: to reeducate ourselves as adults to become self-honest self-responsible human beings who are considerate and caring and who do not suppress our self-expression, adults who considers what is best for all within a given moment unconditionally without being limited and restricted by absurd bureaucracies. This is only possible if we change our economic and political systems, from systems based on competition for survival to systems based on common sense and equality.

Do you want your child to have the life you had? To live the life you’ve lived? To be the person you are? I am sure the answer is no. So if that is true what kind of example are you setting? Why the hell are you not changing yourself to stand as an example for your children, for all children– so that they can see that it is possible to grow up and become a person of integrity and self-respect, a person that is comfortable and expressive with their physical body, a person that cares about what is best for all life?

The only answer would be: because I want to keep living on a lie – even though it drains me and exhausts me and literally kills me to do day in and day out. Because this is all I know and I am afraid of leaving my cage, because at least ‘it’s comfortable in here’.

Well – if you would not want that for your child, why would you want it for yourself? If you see how unacceptable it is for a child to be brought up just to suppress themselves, why do you still insist on suppressing yourself? If you see that it’s absurd that a child is brought up only to live in fear of not surviving, why are you still allowing yourself to live in fear of not surviving?

Will you let the same shitty world system continue to decide for us because we have abdicated our own self-responsibility to it?

Or will you take yourself in the hand as a child and guide and direct yourself firmly in gentleness and unconditional support to change yourself to become a human being of self-trust and integrity – and thus stand as an example that it is possible to change and live in a way that in fact is best for all?

The solution is an Equal Money System – where all are provided for by a global system of equality from birth. All we have to do is to change the starting-point from which we live – from fear and competition and self-interest, to the courage to live in self-honesty and equality with each other. Investigate Desteni for tools on how to Change yourself so that we can Change the world together.

Whatever you decide – will be the future your children will have to live with.

———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————-

Give yourself the daily gift of reading the blogs from Creation’s Journey to Life, Earth’s Journey to Life and Heaven’s Journey to Life. Join us at Desteni, where a forum is available 24/7 with support on how to write oneself out in self-honesty and where any questions regarding the Desteni Material will be answered by competent Destonians who are walking their own process. Visit the Destonian Network where videos and blogs are streamed daily. Suggest to also check out the Desteni I Process and Relationship courses for extended training and support. Walk with us in implementing an Equal Money System as a new System on Earth based on Equality as what is Best for All. Let’s Walk!

Tags: Another brick in the wall, Child, Denmark, Education, Indoctrination, Parenting, Preschool education, Preschool philosophy, Preschool Policies, Preschool values, Revolution, Sweden, Teacher
1 Comment »

Are you Playing Russian Roulette with Your Child’s Future?

August 26, 2012 in Equal Money Blog

This week, I have been visiting preschools for my new job and on Friday, I went to four different preschools. What I noticed while I was there was how each preschool had a different environment, a different expression and where the children and the adults behaved in a distinct way.

The first place I visited, there was quiet, the adults were not speaking much and there seemed to be a sort of gentleness in both the adults and the children’s expression. The children were not particularly interested in me and simply played around themselves, investigating a sandbox or riding a bike. The next place I went was big with a huge playground surrounded by forest. The children I was meeting, immediately took my hand and started talking and laughing. The adults came over to greet me and the environment was similar to a party where people mingle around talking and getting to know each other. The third place I visited was very small. Here the children were told to not jump on the tables, that they could fall down or that it was time to eat fruit. They also had a greenhouse and I walked with some of the children around, while they showed me all the plants they were growing and we relocated a snail from the greenhouse to the garden. The environment here was sort of ‘small’ and very gentle, for some of the children too gentle in that they did not have the opportunity to express themselves more than what the adults allowed in terms of sitting still and walking around. The fourth and last place I visited was very big. Here, all the children were running around in a courtyard, there were fights breaking out, screaming and several children were walking around, looking quite lost. The adults were standing in small groups only talking to each other, focusing on each other and only occasionally they would stop and go to break up a fight or tell the children that they weren’t allowed to do this or that.

What I realized is that the children’s expression would shape after the environment they were in. It was also so that the second and the fourth preschool were public while the first and the third were private, with the third being parent cooperative based. This definitely plays a role as well. And even though the third place was the most ‘harmonious’ in that it was quiet and calm and the adults were very much ‘present’ it was clear that for some of the children, this environment was restrictive. They were not allowed to jump or run around or explore the environment with their bodies. On the fourth place however they were crawling all over the place without any supervision unless someone started crying intensely and alerted an adult.

So two preschools, within an area of 500 m of each other, probably with children who live in the same neighborhood, are providing a learning and development environment that is completely different – where one teaches the children to cope in a ‘dog eat dog’ world and the other that they must restrict and suppress their expression to fit in and not get in trouble. The second place I went to was definitely the one were the children seemed the most expressive and I see that it is largely to do with the adults, who also seemed more expressive and relaxed with one another.

I once saw a documentary about a public nursing home where they had had lots of trouble with very high sick rates among the nurses and care workers. They then hired a new visionary leader and the first thing she did was to ask all the employees: “If this was your nursing home and you lived here as an elderly person, how would you have liked it to be?” Immediately after that they changed the entire ‘business strategy’ of the nursing home. The nurses and care workers stopped wearing uniforms and started wearing their own clothes. They stopped forcing the elderly to go to bed at 10 pm and instead allowed them to go to bed whenever they wanted to. They started allowing the elderly to have alcoholic beverages at dinner and to choose their own meals, even if it would then be pork chops three nights in a row. They introduced a piano in the dining room and started allowing people to bring their pet if I’m not mistaking. Since then, the nursing home has almost no sick absence from the employees. Several of the elderly people that had been expected to die at any moment would ‘come to live’ and would sit long evenings in the dining room singing and even create romantic relationships. The workplace is now one of the most sought after among nurses and care workers as well as for the elderly people seeking a place to end their days when they can no longer care for themselves.

This principle of doing onto another as we would have liked done onto us, could with success be applied to children’s education as well and should be. I’ve worked in many preschools and stopped because I found my colleges and the general work environment very depressing. It is created around ideals that the child care workers must apply and adhere to, for example in relation to children’s learning and development, but it does not include the adults and is not based on common sense, but on regurgitating ideals of “equality” and “learning” where the child care workers simply have to follow the schedule at best and at worst simply stand as child rearing robots who are there to make sure that the children do not kill each other.

The places I have worked as a child care worker, we adults would want to talk to each other the most, drink coffee in the break room – because the activities with the children were repeating day after day, with focus on ‘keeping the traditions alive’ and ‘providing a stable environment’ but where no one considered that it is the adults that is the foundation of such a stable environment. The entire focus was on what the children could ‘produce’ and display to their parents – not on them expressing themselves or exploring for themselves. Even the toys and provided play spaces where simulating ‘life’ in areas where they could ‘play house’ with a play stove or a grocery store with products in plastic, simply teaching the children to grow up and fit in to the hamster wheel of consumer society.

Stability does not necessarily mean doing the same thing every day at the same time. An environment where children can grow and develop themselves in the best way possible is an environment where the adults themselves are stable, consistent and enjoying themselves. Consider then also the four different preschools I mentioned here. Whether a child grows up to become someone who cannot sit still and listen or someone who has no self-expression because they’ve been taught that it’s dangerous to jump around or someone that feels completely lost and disconnected from everything and everyone, is determined by the environment they are brought into. This is the case for these fours preschools, all located in the same community in a vicinity of 1 kilometer. But it is also the case for the children of the world at a global scale, where the environment dictates who we will become, the capacity of our vocabulary and how we see and experience life and relationships with others and ourselves. Thus when we grow up and can’t read or can’t sit still and therefore don’t get an education or only focus on education while never developing a relationship with ourselves – it is because of the environment we were brought up in – not because of intelligence or luck or hard work.

The optimum environment for a child’s development and learning should thus be equally available for all children of earth, not as a rigid system with uniform colors on all the walls, but simplistically based on the principle of doing onto another as we would have done onto us. Each child’s development should be assessed and carefully administered according to that child’s expression and particular requirements. But simply creating a learning environment where adults enjoy being and where children get to participate with that which the adults themselves enjoy, can in itself transform the entire way children develop.

Through creating an Equal Money System based on the Principle of What is Best for All as that which all systems are based on, a child care facility (If it is even to exist still) will be based on what is Best for All, as children, care workers, parents and the general community – in anything from architecture to toys and learning tools and curriculum. It will be a fun place to go for everyone where we will focus on expanding ourselves to the utmost of our potential, together. Children will thus, through the living examples of adults, be supported to develop themselves as Human Beings that care about the well being of all life forms, that from an early age understand the cycles of the ecosystem, that know their own body and that develop integrity common sense.

For us to create such as system and to stand within that position as adults, we thus require reeducating ourselves to become living examples of integrity and equality. Because without us changing ourselves, children will be brought into the world to repeat the same mistakes, to suppress themselves as we have learned to suppress themselves and to mistrust themselves and each other.

The current way children are brought into the world, is a little like Russian roulette, where only the minute few are ‘lucky enough’ to dodge the bullet of being brought up in an environment that does not support them in fact. And even if the parents have good intentions, they often don’t have a choice about what day care or preschool or school to send their children to. And as we have seen, even within the same community one cannot be sure if the preschool one sends one’s child to will be one where children are supported to expand to their utmost potential – most likely it’s not. And in this current system, most parents will not even have the choice even if they do see that this is not the best environment for their child. Because just as we are busy chasing the endless hamster wheel of survival, so will our children be conditioned to follow in our footsteps. Unless we make a directive decision to change ourselves and change the systems through which we manage our lives and the principles we’ve decided to live by – from hamster wheeling into death, to systems that care about all life in equality.

If you’re interested in learning more about the Equal Money System or about the development of Education in an Equal Money System, join us on the Forum and participate in Changing the Future of our Children through Changing ourselves.

Here are some more blogs on the subject of children and education and Equal Money:

http://manuelaj.wordpress.com/2011/12/09/enjoy-your-child-in-the-equal-money-system/

http://marlenlife.wordpress.com/2012/06/05/2012-equal-money-removing-the-con-dictions-of-capitalism/

http://equalmoneysystem.blogspot.se/2011/10/is-education-compulsory-in-equal-money.html

http://earthincorporated.wordpress.com/2012/04/03/education-of-the-human-best-for-all-in-an-equal-money-system/

http://equalmoneysystem.blogspot.se/2011/12/it-is-currently-estimated-that-150.html

Are you Playing Russian Roulette with Your Childs Future?

Tags: Care Workers, Child, Child care, Child development, Choosing the right education for my child, Daycare or Preschool, Kindergarten, nature vs. nurture, Preschool education, Socialization
7 Comments »

Education of the Human – Best for All in an Equal Money System

April 3, 2012 in Equal Money Blog

In the article Reconceptualizing Human Capital, Nancy Folbre and Paula England present “capabilities” as a concept to describe the basic requirements humans need to function effectively in the world. They use this as a platform to critique the neoclassical notion of “human capital”. They introduce capabilities (or capital) from the perspective that these until now have not been valued as actual skills that human beings require to develop; and that requires to be a part of the political, economic and educational policies of the world. What is interesting about this perspective is that it offers an actual critical alternative to capabilities that as human capital until now (through neoclassical economics) has been seen more as preferences taken on by the rational self-interested human being.

The perspective I present in this article, is an amalgamation of the neoclassical notion of the rational and self-interested human being and Folbre and England’s notion of altruism as inherent (or at least emergent) in the development of capabilities. I do this to engage in a discussion on developing an educational policy applicable in an Equal Money System that is based on what is best for all. From this it is my aim to investigate what basic capabilities are to develop ourselves as human beings to a point of utmost support for our own well-being and for the well-being of all. I will go through the capabilities as they are described by Folbre and England and consequently discuss these in relation to an Equal Money System.

Let’s first have a look at what Folbre and England’s definition of capabilities:

A Capability is a state that requires effort from the individual. It requires to be developed and enables one to function effectively in society, once applied and implemented. Capabilities are beneficial both for the individual and for the collective well-being. Folbre and England describe four different types of capabilities: physical, cognitive, self-regulating and caring capabilities.

Capabilities

The physical capabilities are the basic physical requirements for caring physically for oneself, such as cooking food, getting dressed, cleaning the house, knowing when to respond to pain etc. However with these basic physical functioning capabilities, Folbre and England contends that they are often not discussed or emphasized (in social science or in economy) and suggests that this can be because of the tradition in this of valuing “mind over matter” in these traditions ranging back to a focus on the metaphysical . (C.F Descartes famous quote: “I think, therefore I am”.) [i]

Cognitive capabilities include what is considered “formal education” that according to Folbre and England has an extensive impact on one’s income earning abilities. Besides these capabilities that is achieved through education, such as reading, writing and math, Folbre and England describe capabilities such as house hold economy, the ability to see the cause and effect of one’s actions and points such as mental health and emotions as part of the cognitive capabilities.

Self-Regulation capabilities are based on the ability to have self-discipline and Folbre and England suggests that this capability is the basis for the other capabilities, because without self-discipline, one is not capable to develop for example the ability to write. When self-discipline is developed one becomes able to perform tasks that one does not necessarily want to do or experience as difficult. Folbre and England suggest that self-regulation as a capability is not valued by economics as a human capital because economic theory would define self-regulation as a preference and not as a skill. Instead Folbre and England contends that self-regulation in fact is both a skill and a preference and they mention how becoming skilled and enjoying oneself once skilled mutually constitutes.

Folbre and England describes Caring capabilities as a “service” that differs from the other capabilities in that it also contains an element of altruism where having the capability might not (only) benefit oneself but also others and even that one within this could express care without it being of benefit for oneself, something that according to Folbre and England, refutes the neo-classical notion of rational self-interest. Caring capability also requires the other capabilities to function effectively, yet however also requires certain emotions and motives exactly as altruism, but also affection and warmth. Folbre and England contends that that even though caring as a service can be exchanged on the labor market, it is still valued as less than other types of work. As with self-regulation, neo classical economy sees altruism as a preference, but also here Folbre and England contends that altruism and the capability of care, requires skills. These then in turn requires to be developed.

How are capabilities developed?

In Human Capital theory, capital is considered a “stock” as a long-lasting transformation of the human that focuses on self-investment within the definition of investment as “present cause for later pay-off”. Folbre and England however introduces the notion of “input” instead of investment and uses the transference of capabilities between parents and children as an example for why this is. This is then also used to argue for the notion of altruism in the caring capabilities, where parents act in supporting ways for the child to benefit, without getting anything out of it themselves. They are teaching the children skills that the children will use independently of the parents.

Why are capabilities important for society?

Folbre and England contends that capabilities are dependent on social embeddedness and as such exists as a social capital. They claim that as well new as traditional economics “underestimated the social and political nature that effects which children will have their capabilities developed the most” and that as such that “resource constraints should not be ignored.” What this means is that an assumption in neoclassical economic thinking (that which our world systems are based upon) is that everyone intrinsically have ‘equal opportunities’ to develop skills and capabilities. Folbre and England highlights the fact that the conditions we are born into determines to an utmost extend what opportunities we have to learn and develop skills and capabilities. These conditions are created through a political and financial system that in turn is created by us as human beings. Who and what we live as human beings is something we decide individually and collectively interdependent. The same goes for the capabilities that we support the development of, in ourselves, in our children and in society as a whole.

It is a Matter of stopping the Mind

For a long time physical work has been disregarded as “crude” and “simple”. This is reflected in how people that primarily work with the physical receive a much lower wage than those working in (and as) “mind-jobs”. When our children are sent to school, one of the primary points they are too learn, is to disconnect the mind from the body and use the body as a tool for the mind to expand, for example in sitting still and listening to the teacher and suppress the body’s urge to jump or sing or move. In all educational policies, it is thus the cognitive capabilities that are prioritized which can be seen in how all forms of craft classes and sports are minimized and cut back. But if we look at what it is the children are learning about the world, that which they are supposed to learn, to enable themselves to live as effective human beings, it is all in the head. They are expected to grow up and direct their physical world and reality, from within and as the mind, while the body remains a mere vehicle, a tool. In very few schools do children learn about their own bodies or how their bodies feel.They do not learn how to cook, clean or care for animals.

They do not (at least not effectively) learn how to interact with nature, with animals or with the bodies of other children and adults. Instead they learn to disconnect themselves from the physical, to use the body for competitive sports or transportation and as they grow up, they are expected to know how to move and care for their bodies, without actually being in (contact with) their bodies. They might learn about health regimes and that milk is good for you, but they don’t learn to feel in their stomach when some food is not supportive for them. They do not learn to touch or support themselves or each other in ways to alleviate pain or simply for enjoyment. We can draw a straight line from how the physical is disregarded in the current education system to how the state the world currently is in. What thrives is mind-based designs and constructs at the expense of the physical world – the real world – in which and as we live and which we cannot live without. The aspect of physical functioning thus reaches beyond learning basic skills of buttoning buttons – it involves caring for the entire planet as well as for ourselves and each other. A Destonian perspective on education will thus focus exactly on the physical, on us getting out of our heads and into the physical to actually learn to care and nurture ourselves, our bodies and the planet.

Learning is not fun in a capitalistic system

According to Folbre and England, self-regulation and discipline is both a preference and a skill. It becomes a preference when we discover the joy of completing a task or in learning something new. But as education is designed in the current system, a sole emphasis is on the skill aspect of self-discipline, where we are skilling ourselves to be able to compete with others on an unstable job market. The competition is based on fear of not survival and in many countries that is what enables children to remain disciplined – not because they are enjoying what they are learning or perfecting themselves within it. Furthermore, the way education systems are designed, children and adults are most often running on tight deadlines where text books have to be consumed with the speed of light and there is absolutely no focus on disciplining oneself for the sake of self-enjoyment. Furthermore: those of us who has had teachers that enjoyed teaching and teachers that did not, know that there is a lot more to learn from a teacher that enjoys what they are doing. But how can we expect teachers to enjoy themselves, when they get placed close to nothing and are stuffed into a small room with 40-60 students, disconnected and high on sugar and an old curriculum to teach from?

A Destonian perspective is that learning is about expanding and exploring oneself, alone and together with others – teaching is about standing as a living example, not a regurgitator of indoctrinating brainwash that only has the purpose of creating stupid obedient consumer slaves. Furthermore: learning is physical and education, both physical and cognitive could be developed in a variety of ways that incorporate physical learning – if only the focus was on developing capabilities that are best for all as well as the individual in a setting that is not based on fear of not surviving, but instead on self-expression, dedication and openness. If self-discipline is taught without self-consideration or direction, we educate followers that will create secret inner lives where they can live out their desires, we create workers that only do exactly as much as they have to for then to go home and leave the rest to someone else – instead we can educate ourselves (and the children) to develop a self-discipline that is based on dignity, on self-integrity and on doing what is best for all, simply in seeing the basic common sense in that principle – because the world-systems are based on equality.

Caring is Equal Money For all

A mentioned by Folbre and England, the caring sector is highly underpaid compared to occupations that favor cognitive capabilities. This includes teachers, nurses and all other professions where it is the care for other humans (and animals) that is the primary work function. What this means is that Care in itself is highly under-prioritized in our societies, something that can clearly be seen in the many cases of negligence and lack of funding in many care facilities. We are as a species underdeveloped in our ability to care for others (as well as ourselves and the planet). Care as a capability is furthermore a physical act, that one can do even if one does not get something out of it – this is also why there are still people volunteering and working in these positions even though they get no or little pay for their work. Obviously there is in this, a dimension of self-interest, in that a person in a care position can get something out of defining themselves as ‘carers’, something we shall come back to. However there are also people who place themselves in such positions, because they can see that it is of benefit for the group or individual they are working with or because they can see that it is best for all.

We live in a world that does not prioritize what is best for all – that in fact demotes the people who work for what is best for all, and as such stand in direct opposition to creating a world (and an education system) that is best for all. By implementing an Equal Money System that in fact is Best for All, caring will be a basic fundamental priority as it is embedded directly into the very notion of what is Best for All and in the practical policies developed therewith. Another important point here to mention is that care work traditionally has been women’s work. And in that is thus also an intrinsic degradation of women, instead promoting only a patriarchal system that emphasizes traditional masculine values (note: not the values of males) that essentially is based on competition and war. By bringing caring into the forefront of a political and economic (and educational) system, we can no longer deny or ignore the suffering of others. We can no longer justify the exploitation of some for benefit of others. We can no longer push and pressure ourselves to only excel and not consider the consequences of our thrusting through the earth. Finally we no longer need to compete, deceive and fight each other to survive.

Altruism and Self-Interest

Folbre and England mentions that children begin developing capabilities even before such a point as “self-investment” even emerges. In this, adults are required that are able to act in ways that are not based on self-interest with then as mentioned conflicts with the rationality of neoclassical economy. A critical (Destonian) perspective on this is that when parents support children to develop specific capabilities, they are in fact acting in self-interest as they see the children as reflections of themselves; thus how ‘successful’ the children become, will reflect back on the parents as ‘successful parents’ and as such ‘successful individuals’.

This shows how altruism is difficult to apply and questions whether such an application is even possible. According to the neoclassical economists, it is not. In relation to care work Folbre and England emphasizes this capability as one that benefits all and as such is best for all. Within this they bring up an interesting perspective, that there perhaps are other ways to make care work more valuable for society and in this they wish to challenge neoclassical definitions of human capital. Instead they suggest collective strategies for example within using taxes or policies to create inputs that emphasizes care as a capability.

Humans self-interested by nature but that does not mean we cannot educate ourselves to change

Neither acknowledging altruism as inherent (or at least emergent in how parents support their children to develop capabilities) or in the neoclassical theory of rational self-interest is common sense applied.

Therefore an amalgamating perspective is required in an understanding that in spite of self-interest being pre-dominant in human beings, policies and education (as developing skills and capabilities) can be applied to support the development of capabilities currently defined as ‘altruism’ and ‘care’, without expecting that parents do this because of some innate altruism. Through basing policies on principles that are created to implement solutions that are best for all, will support an actual emergence of altruism. In this, if all live in a way that is best for all, an application such as altruism will not even exist, as it exists directly in opposition to ‘self-interest’. If all are educated, skilled and capable of supporting what is best for all, practically speaking, the concept of altruism will be redundant.

In the development of an Equal Money System, we are researching and developing policies based on the practical and physical capabilities that each human being requires to live a dignified life and the implementations of such policies in our society, based on what is Best for All at a practical, physical level. It is open for anyone to participate, who are willing an interested in creating a world, where children can thrive and learn how to support themselves and the earth to live a life of self-expression, dignity, care and enjoyment – a life that in all ways will be best for all. Join us at the Equal Money Forum, on the Destonians Network, join the Desteni Group on YouTube and Facebook and partake in making this Earth a heaven for the Children to come.

“The Equal Money System have as Goal to Educate prospective parents with the skills and understanding necessary BEFORE a child is Born to make sure that the Child have every opportunity of an excellent Life and the required Base foundation as example of what it means to give as you would receive with a dedication to care for Life in all ways. We are what we are taught form Birth and changing our Beginning Here will change Human Nature. We all know this, yet we continue to ignore what can be changed” Bernard Poolman

[i] As a critique of Folbre and England’s theory, I suggest considering the emerging trends in sociology of sociology of body and sociology of sports. Because the paper is written in 1997, a certain progression in development of the field must be taken into account, but it is interesting to consider that there in fact has been some movement on this point in social science.

Tags: Capabilities, Desteni, Destonians, Education, Education Policies, Equal Education, Equal Money System, Human Capital, Human Rights
3 Comments »

2012 – Global Women: Inequality is Interconnected

March 6, 2012 in Equal Money Blog

Women have been taught that, for us, the earth is flat, and that if we venture out, we will fall off the edge. ~Andrea Dworkin

Abstract

Keywords: Global Women, Inequality, Intersectionality, Feminist Theory, Sociological Theory

(The article was submitted by Anna Brix Thomsen as a part of an examination at Stockholm University in February 2012. A new foreword has been added for the purpose of this publication and a few comments has been added. All rights are reserved.)

The article draws on the initial inaugurators of intersectionality in social science, the black feminists, specifically with Patricia Collins as its representative[1] with their initial aim of introducing intersectionality as critical approach to the predominant discourse in social science and from there place the term into a current context drawing on scholars such as Leslie McCall and a practical example that is indicative of a new type of inequality that also raise a discussion for a renewal of intersectionality as a methodological tool to analyze society in general and inequalities in particular. This example is chosen specifically to highlight the discussion about how intersectionality has progressed (or should progress cf. McCall 2005) in analyzing new inequalities. Within placing the introduction text to Global Women in context to intersections of inequality that are emerging, my aim is to show how intersectionality can be applied to extract and understand the underlying inequalities that are playing out within the complexity of women migrating cross the world.

Foreword

The article is written from the starting-point of showing how global inequalities require global political solutions. It is the aim of the paper to show how global inequalities are created in interdependent relationships between the people that have access to the capitalistic system and those that do not. The reason why a woman in the Philippines is unable to efficiently support herself and her children and therefore has to migrate across the world is directly interconnected with how a woman in the U.S or in Europe is able to hire a nanny to take care of her child. It starts and ends with money and in between are the lives and stories of these women and their children. The children are the ones that in the end pay the price of an unequal money-system where no global policy exists and where money is all that matters to everyone because that is how we have constructed our world and our reality to function. These are the children that will grow up and become adults in this world, having to fight for their survival in a constant chase after money – exactly as do we all.

The article stands in support of a Global Equal Money System based on a Global democratic solution as the decision to change the systems and paradigms of this world with which we allow our lives to be managed, directed and controlled – to a system of equality that is based on the basic principle of what is best for all, as the practical living in such a way that all life-forms are equally supported to live optimally.

Introduction

In December 2011, I walked into a small classroom in the basement at Stockholm University for my first session in a course called “Doing Gender”; I had no idea that this course would alter my foundation as a sociologist as well as provide me with an entire new vocabulary and perspective on understanding global inequality. I had never been introduced to feminist theories during my years at the university and I had never before encountered the concept of “Intersectionality”. Initially I was gripped by the fact that I had never before heard of intersectionality, because as it was introduced to me, I immediately saw the potential of intersectionality as an analytical tool and how it could expand the methodologies used in social sciences.

As someone who had never before encountered the concept of Intersectionality, I had, admittedly, a somewhat innocent and perhaps idealistic understanding of what intersectionality is and how it can or should be applied in social sciences. However, looking with fresh eyes at something that for scholars long in the field might seem more like a ‘sticky situation’ (referring to the debates within and about feminist theory in general), I hope to bring a grounded common-sense to the debate and through this, make an abstract and complex term simple and practical. Within this I also comment on the fact that the term that Intersectionality seems to have been applied and discussed mostly at a theoretical level and in academic feminist debates. (McCall 2005, Knudsen 2006, Shields 2008, Choo and Ferree 2010,) The critique is that Intersectionality is a “buzzword” that does not rise to the level of an effective analytical tool as its methodologies are not specific. (C.f. Prins 2006, Davis 2008 in Choo and Ferree, 2010)

The perspective I will share thus contends Intersectionality as a vital approach within analyzing complexity in and through the social sciences, (cf. McCall 2005, Shields 2008) yet it is also the aim of this paper to investigate Intersectionality as a basic sociological method and the various approaches that have emerged and are emerging using the practical example of “Global Women”[2].

I refer to Choo and Ferree’s definition of Intersectionality as “the importance of including the perspective of multi-marginalized people (…) [in] seeing multiple institutions as overlapping in their co-determination of inequalities to produce complex configurations.” (Choo and Ferree, 2010, p. 131)

Patricia Collins and Black Feminist Epistemology

Patricia Hill Collins was as one of the first black feminists that criticized the way traditional social science was predominantly patriarchal. She contended that traditional science was actually preventing social change and presented instead a new black feminist epistemology that had a different starting-point within how it approached and viewed knowledge and the analysis of information; within this she called for a humble approach that was based on compassion. For Collins, Intersectionality could do exactly that through embracing the narratives of individual stories and expanding them into a broader analysis of emergent patterns of inequality and oppression, instead of as conventional science to separate the researcher from the research. The basis of Collins theory is thus that only those who themselves have experienced oppression on their own bodies are equipped of analyzing it fully. She calls for a dialog between the researcher and the research as “all knowledge is value-laden and should be tested by the presence of empathy and compassion. “P. 3) the approach thus requires accountability in the awareness that knowledge is created, selected and impulsed and not simply the act of presenting scientific facts.

Even though Collins emphasize the personal narrative, she does not promote a collective categorization of for example “black women”, yet at the same time she recognizes that there are challenges that a black woman faces that is within a collective tendency. (Allan, 2009.) P. 3)

Collins furthermore accentuates that oppressed groups require a “space” where they can come together safe from the oppressive and hegemonic rulers. (Allan, 2009.) P. 5) This is something that practically and specifically can be placed into the context of Global women as we shall see, but it can also be used as a metaphor for how traditional science that is supposed to be ‘objective’ and ‘neutral’, is in fact indicative and product of a subjugating Eurocentric “white” hegemony. Even though Collins meant it more literally, I contend that the intersectional approach thus can be a “safe place” where oppressed voices can speak and be heard. What Collins perspective on Intersectionality can contribute with is thus that an alteration in thinking can change how specific inequalities are seen and approached and consequently through that re-articulate points that might often be seen in the public sphere, but not articulated sufficiently to actually accommodate actual change. (Allan, 2009, p. 07)

In relation to gender, an accumulative result of for example Collins research on how knowledge is produced juxtaposed with power relations (c.f. Prins, 2006 p. 4), that in turn has a subjugating effect, has been an increased focus on and awareness of how one’s own social identity and cultural allocation affects how one sees gender. It is therefore that the social location is a primary point to identify, allocated through an investigation of the intersecting identities that are at play. “In particular, gender must be understood in the context of power relations embedded in social identities”. (Collins 1999; 2000, in Shields, 2008, p. 1) And as we shall see, this becomes relevant in particular when investigating emerging and complex new social inequalities as exemplified by the text on Global Women and in Leslie McCall’s contends for a new approach to Intersectionality.

Intersectionality and the matrixes of domination

Within how we through Intersectionality can see the different forms of oppression and inequalities that interweave into and as a lived experience, Collins contends the fact that these are influenced by the predominant views on objective knowledge that can silence the voices of the oppressed. (Allen, 2009, p. 8, see also Shields, 2008, p. 1) To expose and expand on this, she focuses on the matrixes of domination as the organization of power in a society. (Allen, 2009, p. 08) These matrixes are featured by how the intersections are manifested according to historical, cultural and socially specific conditions, through which the systems of oppression operate. In this Collins accentuate four domains in which power is organized: structural, disciplinary, hegemonic and interpersonal. (Allen, 2009, p. 08)

These can be described roughly as legislative/ policy-based, bureaucratic, cultural and every day spheres such as education and community groups. What emerges when investigating intersections of oppression and inequality in relation to these spheres is a complex system of power relations that in itself intersects. This thus also brings a perspective to the nuances of intersections of inequality that shows that they are multidimensional rather than one-dimensional. The social categories through which intersections are defined are thus not static or permanent as the can alter and shift in level of inequality and oppression according to which sphere or dimension is influential and intersecting.

Leslie McCall on the Complexities of Intersectionality

McCall represents for the purposes of this article, a modern approach to Intersectionality that also encompasses a critique of the initial approach to Intersectionality. McCall criticizes how feminist theory so far has failed to expand Intersectional theory into and as an interdisciplinary field; she furthermore criticizes how this has failed to expand and develop Intersectionality as a methodology that potentially is capable of amending to an analysis of the new inequalities that has arisen over the last thirty years. Instead intersectionality remains within and as an anti-categorical stance and attitude on how to practically apply Intersectionality in investigating social inequality and oppression.

At the same time McCall criticizes traditional social science for not effectively implementing Intersectionality as a cross- or interdisciplinary methodology. She claims that there is a disconnect between reality and theory in both fields and that a new way of applying Intersectionality is thus required, that is able to embrace the complexities that are emerging with the new forms of inequality, such as the increasing gap between rich and poor. (McCall, 2005, pg. 22) The inequalities become complex because the conditions in and through which they play out are complex and inequalities and dimensions of inequalities overlap.

“Reality is complexly patterned, but patterned none the less. We can determine the source of the complexity, we can describe it, and we can theorize it. In this view changes of patterns of inequality and in the underlying structural conditions of society are dynamic, complex, and contingent but also amendable to explanation”. (McCall, 2005, pg. 25)

McCall calls this the inter-categorical (or categorical) Intersectionality and argues that one of the reasons why feminist theory not yet have fully embraced such a theory can be explained within how they (as other theoretic fields) have not been equipped with being able to address the new forms on inequality that has emerged. (McCall, 2005, p. 23) She argues that the method is based in feminist theory yet invites to interdisciplinary application (McCall, 2005, pg. 25)

What McCall found within applying this method, is that inequalities as intersectional exist rather as configurations of several forms or dimensions of inequality specifically placed in the context of economic structure.

The advantages of the categorical methodology of Intersectionality is that it allows for a much more complex set of data to be used in a much more simplistic way than traditional approaches.

McCall’s analysis holds the categorical method up against two more traditional methodologies where the anti-categorical emerged with the black feminists with focus on narratives and the intra-categorical with a focus on single groups or individuals. She describes how the categorical approach investigates each element of inequality in a given dimension for then to analyze these within a holistic framework, for example held up against an economic situation or analyzing the relationship two groups at a time. This way the complexity of investigating multiple groups is managed.

What is perhaps the most different from the traditional approach is as McCall describes how the categorical approach within multigroup studies as “analyze the intersection of the full set of dimensions of multiple categories and thus examine both advantage and disadvantage explicitly and simultaneously.” (McCall 2005, p. 18) In the following section, I superimpose McCall’s proposal of an explicitly categorical methodology to show why such a methodology is specifically applicable for analyzing new inequalities, onto the example of on Global Women.

The intersections of Global Women

Global women present and represent an example of the new social inequalities that have emerged over the last 30-50 years with an increasing migration of women from the poor south/east to the rich north/west[3], conglomerating with the increase of labor market participation and the increase independent income of women in the west.

I use this example for three reasons: firstly, I use it to exemplify the increasing complexity that McCall describes and the consequent requirement for a re-assessment of the methodologies of Intersectionality. Secondly I use it to show how an intersectional approach in general can assist to analyze and understand such emergence of complex intersections of inequality and why the intersectional approach can be one of the most important methodological analytical tools of social science today. Thirdly, I pose a somewhat polemic stance within how it through an intersectional view on the emergence of the new complex social (and economic) inequalities, can be seen that what converges is a global phenomenon that is clearly not being met adequately by the policies currently being applied to accommodate the consequences of such global inequalities.

Global Women – Emerging new social inequalities

The introductory text to Global Women focuses on the narrative of a Sri Lankan woman named Josephine who works in Athens as a nanny. Already on the first few pages a conglomerate of intersections is playing out: the role of being a nanny can be categorized within the intersection of class as well as within how a woman from a poor country is working for an affluent family in a more wealthy country and the intersections of South/East versus North/West. The woman being from Sri Lanka relates to culture, nationality, ethnicity as well as language (and language barriers). There is furthermore a generational element, wherein Josephine’s ability to travel and work abroad is defined as “an independence her mother could not have imagined” (Ehrenrich and Hochschild, 2002, p. 11). This suggests a generational shift economic independence and women’s ability to participate on the labor market.

This is furthermore described directly in relation to how Josephine is not receiving help from her ex-husband and thus suggests an intersection of gender inequality. Josephine is saving up for a “modest dowry” for her daughter and is paying off on a bus that her son is driving, a reference to gender and class as well as cultural differences. (Ehrenrich and Hochschild, 2002, p. 13) Finally, the parents of the child for whom Josephine is hired as nanny are characterized as “devoting” themselves to “careers and avocations” (Ehrenrich and Hochschild, 2002, p. 13). This again refers to an intersection of class, but also a specific unequal discourse of valuation within that, where Josephine’s job is seen as survival, her daughter’s dowry as “modest” while the affluent Greek parents have “careers and avocations” that they are “devoting” themselves to, something that suggests choice as well as a view on work as personally or professional fulfilling. The intersection of race is seen within how the migrating women are largely “women of color” (Ehrenrich, p. 3) and through a notion among the Western women that employ the migrating women as nannies of seeing women from 3. World countries as more in touch with nature and traditional values, quality that is valued in relation to caring for a child. (Ehrenrich, p. 9)

What we can see here is a multitude of intersections that are influencing how and why and what Josephine’s story imply within a bigger picture of emerging new global inequalities and this is still barely touching upon the intersections related to the Western women involved in this story as well as Josephine’s Sri Lankan family and how they are affected by Josephine’s leaving to work abroad.

According to McCall’s theory on the categorical approach to Intersectionality that is required to be applied to understand an analyze new emerging inequalities, we would now have to analyze each of these intersections “in its own right” for then only after to bring all these dimensions together in a holistic analysis of for example the entire phenomena of Global women migration and the general inequalities that are playing out here.

What is effective with this approach is that it does in fact encompass Collins notion of Intersectionality as method that works with humility and compassion within the principle that to understand oppression, one virtually has to be able to place oneself in the shoes of the lives of the people one is researching.

A dimension that further more speaks for a juxtaposition of Collins notion of humility relates to the emotional dimensions of the story of Josephine, which reveals complex emotions that has emerged as a result of a global “care deficit” (Ehrenrich, p.3 ) that in turn reveals a broader global inequality that influences the lives on both side of the deficit.[4]

With Collins approach we can thus place ourselves in the shoes of the women whose lives we are investigating and with McCall we can place that information into a more structural and global context without its losing its humility, because we in fact take each dimension pertaining to the specific intersections of inequality into consideration.

Discussion on emerging new inequalities

What can thus emerge when we extract the complex dimensions of inequality involved in this one example, through applying an intersectional point of view and methodology, is in fact a wholeness, a holistic perspective on the global situation, from which we can see that lives are not only influencing each other reciprocally, but are indeed intertwined; “Third world women achieve their success only by assuming the cast-off domestic roles of middle- and high-income women in the first world.” (Ehrenrich and Hochschild, 2002, p. 3)

It is interesting that the third world women within migrating to the west to be nannies or maids are defined as having achieved “success”. Within this it can be argued that a discursive vocabulary is revealed that assumes that all women in the world have become “liberated” and “independent” and thus successful, also connecting this to travelling and uprooting oneself. A different perspective is that success is defined as one’s ability to make money and as such women like Josephine are successful in fact – simply because they do make money.

However this can also be seen as a form of oppression that serves to silence the voices of the global women, who might not feel successful, free or independent, because their fears and worries and concerns are still revolving around how to survive and how to feed their children as well as the intense emotions that can be related to having to leave one’s child in the care of others.

Within looking at these points the question emerges whether equality and independence of “Women”[5] has in fact increased or whether the inequalities have simply shifted around and shifted places. This perspective is only possible within viewing the world as a whole and that is made possible through the consideration of each dimension involved in the intersections of a certain inequality.

This thus also brings the discussion of Intersectionality back to the question of power relations and specifically shows how and why Intersectionality was coined within and through a political movement to expose and abolish inequalities where the black feminists sought to give a voice to the voiceless black women as a “significant political as well as intellectual demand, since only by inclusion of the perspectives of these groups could the political issues emerging from their experiences be addressed by movements, law or policy-relevant scholarship.” (Choo and Ferree, 2010, p. 131)

Conclusion

Within the new emerging inequalities among the migrating women are nation and culture specific migration patterns and streams which results in for example Eastern European women going to Western European countries or Algerian women migrating to France. However, there is also a relevance in talking about Women in general, as the patterns that are emerging at culture-geographical level show that it increasingly are women that are migrating to work abroad as well as in regards to the changes in the lives of women in the Western countries, facilitates the demand for care workers from abroad. What often happens is that these women migrating to become nannies, maids and sex workers in the West, become isolated as their jobs are within the home and not on public display and therefore not receiving media attention. (Ehrenrich and Hochschild, 2002, p. 3-4)

What are emerging are thus new forms of inequality and a new way lives intersect that is complex within how multiple inequalities intertwine at a global level. To address this, the ability to analyze global tendencies from a multidimensional perspective, Intersectionality can potentially be utilized to bring these complex inequalities to the surface, both politically and academically. Polemically speaking, one could say that global issues require global policies. Although it might be hard to comprise a monocausal analysis when taking all the dimensions of how inequalities intersects (Choo and Ferree, 2010, p. 135), there is the silver-lining of an unequal monetary system where a global corporate world acts transnationally while few global policies are made to countervail or interfere. The consequences for women migrating, such as Josephine, can thus be that they have no rights or choices but to follow the stream of migration as they are caught between intersections of inequalities that are caused by global problems. The women who migrate have a greater chance of making money and supporting their family if they leave their home-countries to work in the west as nannies, maids or sex workers. But they pay a price within being separated from their children and often within not actually being integrated into the culture or country they are living in (sometimes for the rest of their lives) because they are merely there to serve a service function that is seen in many cases as empowering by policy-makers and in the media, because they can then send money home and as such “support the country”. So the discourse around the empowerment that the migrating women experience in comparison to past generations, might exactly is a part of that same hegemony that is responsible for the continuation of global inequality. The Solution is an Equal Money System because within its implementation, it is acknowledged at a fundamental and practical level, that the interconnectedness of human beings lives requires solutions that are able to encompass such interconnectedness and interdependence. The current financial and political systems and institutions are prioritizing segregation and profit and do not take human beings actual lives into consideration. The result is a world of disconnection, where everyone is able to abdicate responsibility because there is always someone else to hold responsible and because the system is not set up in such a way that it is even possible to take responsibility for one’s own life, even if one wanted to.

The effect of an Equal Money System is in fact that all forms of intersectionality of inequalities will be absolved, because it is acknowledged, into the very core of the policies implemented, that only a holistic solution will ensure equality for all.

For more information I refer to the Equal Money System Wikipage

In the following video I expand on the points brought up in this article: 2012 – One Woman’s Liberation… The Solution to Global Inequality

Bibliography

Allan, K. D. (2009). Patricia Collins: Intersecting Oppressions. http://www.sagepub.com/upm-data/13299_Chapter_16_Web_Byte_Patricia_Hill_Collins.pdf den 01 01/ 2012

Choo, H. Y., & Ferree, M. M. (2010). Practicing Intersectionality in Sociological Research: A Critical Analysis of Inclusions, Interactions and Institutions in the Study of Inequalities. Sociological Theory, 28:2 .

Deutsch. (2007). Undoing Gender. Gender and Society, 1.125: 51.

Ehrenrich, B., & Hochschild, A. (2002). i B. Ehrenrich, & A. Hochschild, Global Women: Nannies, Maids, and Sex Workers in the New Economy (ss. Ch. 1 – 2 ). New York : Metropolitian Books.

Knudsen, S. (2005). “Intersectionality—A Theoretical Inspiration in the Analysis of Minority Cultures and Identities in Textbooks. Caught in the Web or Lost in thte Text Book?, (ss. 61-76). Paris.

Lutz, H., Vavik Herrera, M. T., & Supik, L. (2011). Framing Intersectionality: An Introduction. Ashgate. Hämtat från http://www.ashgate.com/pdf/SamplePages/Framing_Intersectionality_Intro.pdf den 25 12 2011

McCall, L. (2005). The Complexity of Intersectionality. Signs, Chicago Journals, 3(3), 1771 – 1800.

Prins, B. (2006). Narrative Accounts of Origins : A Blind Spot in the Intersectional Approach? European Journal of Women’s Studies, 13.

Shields, S. A. (2008). Gender: An Intersectional Perspective. Sex Roles, 301 – 311.

West, C., & Zimmermanm, D. (u.d.). Doing Gender. Gender and Society, 1.125: 51.

(The article was submitted by Anna Brix Thomsen as a part of an examination at Stockholm University in February 2012. All rights are reserved.)

[1] Even though Kimberleé Crenshaw is famous for coining the terms, I refer to Collins because she is a sociologist (Crenshaw is a professor in law) and because of her specific approach towards Intersectionality as intra-categorical and because of her view on Intersectionality as providing a needed compassion in the social sciences. (Allan, 2009, p. 3)

[2] I use the term in italics when referring to the text and without italics when referring to the actual lives of Global Women.

[3] I use the terms ”south/east” and ”north/west” loosely to describe the differences in global income and living conditions according to how the text “Global Women” uses these terms to describe the divide between women of affluence and women of poverty in the respective regions and continents.

[4] Referring to Ehrenrich’s description of how the West is experiencing a care deficit because of the increasing number of women on the labor market, which creates the demand for nannies from abroad but at the same time how the migrating women are too leaving their own children behind in the care of others. (Ehrenrich, p.8)

[5] As Collins referred to (black) as having a “collective standpoint does exist, one characterized by the tensions

That accrue [sic] to different responses to common challenges” (Collins p. 28, emphasis original in Allan, 2009, p.4).

Tags: Desteni2012, Destonians, Equal Money System, Global Inequality, Global Women, Sociology, Women Migrating
3 Comments »

2012 – The Dark Side of Anarchy and Naked Ladies

March 4, 2012 in Equal Money Blog

The following article discusses a picture that depicts a woman standing at a protest rally with bared and pierced breasts and a piece of fabric covering her mouth and nose. The picture is posted on Facebook in support of anarchism and activism. The picture stands as yet another snapshot of a world-view as it exposure of a Dark Side of humanity, of who and where we are in 2012.

The basic idea with how the picture is presented by the activists on Facebook is that this woman is a symbol of fighting the system, of freeing oneself of the oppressing grab of capitalism and conformism. From what people express in the comments, what they see when they look at this picture is a symbol of empowerment and self-emancipation.

The Dark Side that is exposed here, as a veneer and vice of humanity’s self-deception and delusion is that the picture is not depicting activism, empowerment or freedom in any way whatsoever. Why? Let’s have a look at the more than 1000 words this picture is portraying.

One of the perspectives shared in the discussion about the picture of the activist with the naked breasts is that: “Anarchy is the ability to be free from one man’s rules and governance over one’s self (when not harming those in that society)….”

So the woman is seen as freeing herself from the restrains of oppression, she is making a bold statement to claim her right to be naked in public.

A bold question to ask could be the following: is being naked in public not simply the same as porn and other forms of portrayals of nudity and sexual images?

It is apparently being ‘outrageous’ that a woman shows her breasts is public – that is considered anarchy – when in fact every day there are images of women with naked breasts in our faces, with new twists of fetishes that people jerk off too. All over billboards, phones, screens and in magazines we see pictures of naked and half naked women. The fact that it is still considered outrageous and over the edge, is in itself quite a paradox. Naked women can be used to sell anything, even anarchy.

Another question is that if the woman had been 100 kg. Heavier, would she have been seen the same way? Looking at the picture, the women resemble Lara Croft with her facial expression and how her backpack is placed around her shoulders. She looks fierce, like an amazon warrior and just like there are men that are turned on by girls in school uniforms, so is this a classic fantasy portrayal of women, one that is impulsed by the capitalistic mass-media industry. Accordingly one commenter says: “I FKN Love Hot Women in Masks!”.

Such an image would thus never have been applauded if the woman had been weighing 100 kg or if she had been a naked man. It “works” because she is fitting the picture of an attractive young woman with perky breasts and a slim figure. The fantasies and fetishes with specific narratives also bear witness of this, with the storyline of a naked anarchist woman that speaks to the mind of the anarchist man. This image falls straight into the lap of the generic porn industry where money is made on the portrayal of a certain body-image and fantasy. So the image is ironically not expressing anarchy, but in fact conformism. We are so used to seeing images of naked women, so used to being impulsed and directed by sexual subjection that we don’t even see that what we are considering to be emancipating, is in fact subjugating to the utmost extend.

Another statement goes: “It’s a protest… she looks angry… and she looks like my many anarchist friends… nothing more”

Alright so the woman looks the part of an anarchist at a protest. That is not emancipating or empowering for anyone, including her. What this comment is revealing is that being an anarchist or an activist is a life-style, a culture that requires specific symbols and costumes where one does in fact ‘fit an image’ or a symbol – rather than that being free in itself, or happy or revolutionary.

I used to believe that activist people were the most free. When I joined a group of radical left wing anarchists, I was shocked to discover that most of them came from middle to upper-class homes and had proper educations. Their culture was in most cases a vice they had dressed themselves in, not unlike the business man puts on his suit to fit the part in the corporate world. I remember one time where I went to a squatted house where all the ‘radicals’ hanged out. Over the door there was a sign that said “NO sexism, NO racism, NO specism! When I entered the house, all the people were dressed in black, the proper uniform of a radical activist. I was the only person wearing color and the people there clearly felt I did not belong; the girls would speak about me and whisper exactly as in any other narrative of a teenage or high school drama. These people were exactly as judgmental as everyone else – a big difference however was the bigotry of claiming they were not.

That was when I realized that politics exists within me, in every moment of interaction with other human beings.

If we claim to be political activists that fight against war and for the oppressed, how can we be intolerant in our personal interaction with other people? How can we exclude others in our reality and at the same time claim to be tolerant towards the oppressed?

Let’s look at another comment from the Facebook discussion on the women with the bared breasts. The commenter says:

“I see a loud statement. She isn’t hurting anyone and obviously knows people are going to react. It’s a sound tactic.”

It is absurd that the pinnacle of making a “loud statement” is to be naked. This is my point exactly: the fact that we need naked women to make loud statements says more about our view on naked women than actual statements of change – and it shows exactly the kind of politics that is predominant in this world.

Another commenter says: ” Don’t forget the component of compassion. Nobody is trying to hurt anyone. Helping other is a good thing. We just don’t want to be oppressed.”

Being naked in public is not the same as not being oppressed. The point with protesting against being oppressed is that one is in fact validating one’s own oppression by accepting oneself as powerless to begin with – changing the system requires that we stand equal to it, that we change it from within it and take self-responsibility for the system instead of seeing ourselves as victims of the system – naked or not. Let’s have a closer look at this:

“I don’t think revolution is the answer either. Rebellion is a different story, we should think about taking down the corporations that own the government, not the government itself.”

Who is it that “rebels” in this world? What is the essential symbol of a rebel? Children fighting against parents, children throwing tantrums. Yet who has the power? The parents. Rebellion by definition points to a power struggle between oppressor and oppressed. It points to the very existence of the possibility of someone oppressing another. Superiority and Inferiority is two sides of the same polarity-coin. One cannot exist without the other. This reveals a side of power-relations that once realized, can be the key to actual freedom. Only by standing equal can we change what is here.

“Sadly, we are victims, whether we like it or not. The system is so corrupt that there is no way to change it from the inside. It doesn’t matter who you vote for. The corporations own the politicians, all of them. We have to bring change from the outside…”

Each and every one of us is equally responsible for what is here. Some are capable of responding in a way that makes change possible, while others are not. More than 3 billion people, half the Earth’s population is not because they are excluded from participating in the capitalistic system. The top-elite are too brainwashed by their own greed, fear and power to let it go – that leaves us, the middle-class, the “middle-ground” – the ones that are able and capable of making change happen – the “democratic consumers” as it were. In order to do that we require stopping seeing ourselves as victims and realize that if we don’t direct a change, no one will. Throwing tantrums and being angry, helps no-one, least of all ourselves. And we can’t do that by seeing ourselves as victims of an evil system – only by taking responsibility for that system and our own participation in it, can we make change happen. For many years I refused to participate in the system. I lived “off the grid”, made money through odd jobs and remained in the enclosure of my activist community.

I went to rally after rally, protest after protest and participated in street riots. I finally realized that what we were doing was abdicating self-responsibility for what is here by judging the system and claiming to be more than it, while we were in fact equally a part of it, whether we liked it or not. So – I started taking an education, standing in the system, yet not off it – and are slowly but surely placing myself in a position of being able to make an actual difference. This is not to say that the system is not corrupt – but it is the realization that the system only listens to the system itself and that no one is free until all are free. I dedicate my life and myself to change what is here, no matter what it takes – until it is done.

“What do we do, as the middle class, to protect ourselves from the ‘they’ that don’t exist, as our wages decrease, the cost of living goes up, and we find ourselves amongst the ranks of the poor, unable to do anything but try to survive?”

We cannot protect ourselves – the system is as brutal as it gets. In terms of survival as the system currently exists, all one can do is to make sure that one can support oneself financially and support others to do the same. So what is required is that we place ourselves in a stable position from which we can start making the necessary changes. Before I refused to take an education. Now I am almost done with a masters and will continue to place myself effectively in the system. Why? Because the system listens to people it considers being “experts” – The system only listens to those that have a paper saying they are approved by the system to speak. That is “having a voice” in this world – screaming against politicians in protest is not as we’ve seen over and over again. Why? Because the political system is representing ourselves, whether we like it or not. That is the cruel joke of democracy. So what we are protesting against, what we judge, what we turn our backs to: is ourselves.

So instead of going haywire with anger and desperation, we utilize democracy. We change the family-systems, the education-systems, the relationship-systems and the inner systems of our minds that are reflecting and reflected in the world-systems. We go into politics; we educate ourselves in understanding the political and economic systems in depth. One of the major reasons for our current powerlessness is that we don’t understand the economic system – only those on top knows how the system works and by keeping people ignorant, some remain in control of others. By understanding how the system works, by not fearing it or whining over it or feeling powerless towards it – we can start changing it. We become educated in law, in psychology – in the fields that the system respects as valid and we expose the system for what it really is to ourselves – because essentially, at the end of the day: we are the system. Claiming that the world is someone else’s responsibility is conveniently used to abdicate one’s own.

“What are you saying? That we should just accept the fact that we are getting fucked over, and move on? I don’t get it.”

No quite the contrary. The acceptance of being powerless is in fact a giving-up, a giving-in and an acceptance of the system as it is – remaining within a desperation and rage instead of actually taking self-responsibility, realizing that we’re not powerless – because we are self-responsible for what is here. This is what we require accepting. Then real change becomes possible. Investigate the Equal Money System.

Politics happens in every moment of every breath. Every thought we think, every step we take, every feeling we participate in – is political in-fact, because through that we make our statement of who we are, of that which we are going to be and of what is acceptable in the world.

We are living politics as we speak.

Suggested reading and listening for extended perspectives:

Articles:

Anarchism & Equal Money System by Marlen Vargas Del Razo

2012 Democracy Is The Key To Freedom Allegory of the Cave: our excuse to remain as slaves by Marlen Vargas Del Razo

2012 When is ‘Inner Revolution’ real? by Kim Amourette

Videos and interviews:

2012 Real Progress = Political Reform of the System

Attention Anarchists: The Secret to Real Anarchy and my story

SHOUT-OUT to all the Activists out there that want to CHANGE THE WORLD!

REVOLUTION 2.0

Tags: Activism, Anarchist, Anarchy, Dark Side, Desteni2012, Equal Money System, Lara Croft, Naked Ladies, Politics, Rioting
8 Comments »

What will END Jehovah’s Witnesses?

December 10, 2011 in Equal Money Blog

I once heard a joke that went something like this: “A man died and went to heaven. As he knocked on the door to heaven, Sct. Peter opened the door and invited him in. Sct. Peter welcomed him to heaven and started showing him around. The man saw people sitting and drinking coffee and chatting, just like normal. They passed by a room and the man looked in. The people that was sitting in there waved hello The man thought that they looked perfectly normal. Sct. Peter said “oh yes, that is the muslims”. They continued down a hallway and came to a closed door. Sct. Peter said: “Listen, I am going to open this door and you can look in, but do UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES let the people know that you are there.” The man said: “why not?” and Sct. Peter replied: “Because they are Jehovah’s witnesses and they believe they are the only ones here.”

One of the primary beliefs of the Jehovah’s witnesses is the belief in armagedon as the end of the world as we know it. They also believe, hence the joke, that only those who give themselves to God (as the Jehovah’s witnesses) will be saved and be a part of a new world with heaven on Earth. The Jehovah’s witnesses outlook on the world is thus one of division, where there are only two kinds of people: the soon-to-be-saved people (themselves) and the profane and soon-to-be-doomed (everyone else).

In looking at why people subscribe to something like Jehovah’s witnesses, there are multiple and many complex, intersectional reasons – and at the same time, Jehovah’s witnesses are just like any other group or individual in the world that abdicates the total responsibility for their lives by projecting it onto a elusive creator-figure located in some ‘distant realm’ conveniently out of reach. Being a Jehovah’s witness makes the people that define themselves as “witnesses” feel safe. By belonging to a community such as the Jehovah’s witnesses, one does not have to be alone in the world and are supported by the community to care for ones basic needs. If one however leave the community, one risk being ex-communicated and never again see one’s family or friends. By being a Jehovah’s witness, one hand over one’s life to a “higher power” and through that never have to ask any questions or stand accountable for the consequences of their actions based on their beliefs. The same goes for the community ones live in.

These are then some of the primary reasons for why people participate in such communities – however in the Jehovah’s witnesses community as also in other fundamentally religious communities and the 2012 movement, there is a further dimension of/as the belief in “the end of times” or armagedon. What this belief gives them, is a sense of “now” and an energetic excitement within knowing that the end is near. It is also because of the belief that the end is near, that they lay their life in the hands of god. Because, what do they have to lose? And ironically, the same goes the other way around – according to this belief, they have everything to lose if they did/do not subject themselves to god. Within the world constantly ending they can perceive what is here as unreal and irrelevant. They simply have to wait for the rest of the world to end and for them to ‘rise to the occasion.’

In an Equal Money System, there will be no Jehovah’s witnesses because in an Equal Money System there will be no reason to submit and subject ourselves to authorities outside, separate from ourselves. Our lives will not be so miserable that we literally have to hand ourselves over to a fictive savior-figure, to which the only security we have, is faith. Instead we will be supported – we will support ourselves – through a system of practical Equality, to stand up as self-authorities, as sovereign and equal citizens of Earth. The reason for this is that we in an Equal Money System, will be supported from the moment we are born with the basic necessities that each of us require; clean water, food, shelter and education.

Within this, we are all standing together as the point of support and self-authority. There is no need for ‘middle-men’ as God or church-leaders to decide who we are, or where we are gonna go, because we have taken life into our own hands and stand together to ensure that what is best for all life, is implemented into and as our world-systems and societal institutions. Life is in our own hands and it is on our own feet that we will be walking a new world into manifestation, one step at a time. We do not require beliefs in armagedon or any other beliefs to fee alive or to postpone our self-responsibility for what is here – we are directing ourselves here and immediately take care of what is required to be done, so that all citizens, all Earthlings are ensured a life of dignity.

An Equal Money System will be the end of Jehovah’s witnesses because in an Equal Money System, we will simply all be witnesses of our own self-direction and self-creation of a world that is best for all. The people who were Jehovah’s witnesses because they did not know what else to do, because there were no alternatives, will simply be people, equally living here.

Tags: Armagedon, Christ, Desteni Group, Desteni2012, Destonians, Equal Money System, God, Jehovah, Jehovah's witnesses, Jesus
2 Comments »

Where Ends Meet: The Retirement of an outdated Money-System

December 4, 2011 in Equal Money Blog

Have you ever seen those advertisements for retirement companies – you know, the ones that are showing happy men with silver stained hair and tanned with huge smiles standing on the golf course? Or the older couple sitting on a balcony in the sunset drinking margaritas and playing scrabble? Do you also dream that it will be you one day – walking barefoot in the sand with no worries and a loaded bank account?

Well, most likely that is never going to happen. And in this article, we are going to expose why – and how you can do something about it yourself, here and now, without having to slave away for years until you get the payoff of retirement.

Did you know that in order to even get a retirement fund, all you have to do is to work the next 20 – 40 years in a job you will most likely hate or change every couple of years for less pay as you wait for that retirement fund to kick in? All you have to do is to give 40 – 60 hours pr. week working and many more hours commuting in cramped subways or on packed highways for then to go home to sleep, only so that you can be ready to go to work again in the morning. You can then go out drinking in the weekends to get all the anger, that you’ve built up towards your boss, colleagues and yourself, ‘out of your system’. You can even go on holidays once in a while to ‘really reload’ so that you can manage to spend one or ten more years slaving away.

Is this really what we live for? What we give our lives for, each and every day slaving away in jobs, one more horrible than the next? We even make ourselves believe that what we are doing is wonderful and purposeful and satisfying, just so that we can push and force ourselves to keep going.

So – what if we did not have to work and live these exhausting lives where we have to lie to ourselves and everyone around us? Later we shall discuss how this is in fact possible.

An estimate from the European Union shows that the working population will fall by 50 million between 2008 and 2060, where the amount of people over 65 will have increased by 67 million. At the same time the fertility rate is decreasing, which means that the smaller younger generations will be responsible for caring for a large group of elderly people.

According to an analysis made by Russia Today, it is estimated that in Britain 7 out of 10 people cannot afford to retire on their pensions. And thus if the elderly are forced to remain on the job market because they cannot afford to retire, less young people are able to get into the job market. Subsequently there is in the US an estimated 24 % youth unemployment rate. This is the same country where the richest 400 Americans, has more money than the bottom 150 million people combined. The lucky few can obviously afford to retire whenever and wherever they wish to do so. Depending on our age, our income and where we live, you and I are more likely to have to work literally until we die. Of course none of this is even mentioning countries where there is no such thing as retirement and where people suffer in poverty from the moment they are born.

The solution is not to simply raise taxes for the rich as the problem is within the entirety of our systems and how we’ve allowed ourselves to exist and live accordingly. The problem is a system, where we accept and allow millions of elderly to suffer and die in poverty through the justification that the few who has all the money, has gotten to that position in life, fair and square and that we would do exactly the same, were we in their shoes, (which we properly would, but that does not justify the inequality we’ve allowed because of it). To support this belief, advertisements suggest that everyone can win a happy life on an exotic island somewhere, playing golf and sipping cocktails in the sunset if they just believe in it and work hard for it. Pension funds are created to further legitimize this belief and make it more probable than possible. The only problem is that, once we reach the age of 70 and realize that it was all one big scam, it is too late. There is no exotic island, just as not all little boys can become multi-million dollar soccer players or NFL stars. Yet these are the fantasies that are instilled and installed into us by the very system that we’ve created to manage ourselves and our lives.

We require an entire overhaul of our monetary and political systems, not to mention of our own outlook on the world and ourselves in it. We require overhauling how we have been romanticizing survival as a justification of inequality and suffering. We require to be self-honest about how we have manipulated and deceived ourselves and each other to keep going with a smile on our faces, even though we are slaving ourselves day in and day out in jobs we hate.

Because if we don’t, it is the same bleak future we are promising our children and their children – a future with no pensions or retirement, yet with lots of hopeless fantasies instilled – where the majority work to die, essentially to ensure that that the system keeps going and remains unequal in its basic foundation.

Now – in an Equal Money System, retirement will not exist. Why no one will retire in an equal money system, is because there is no requirement for retirement in a system where all life is supported equally and where each and every single human being has their life secured financially from the moment they are born.

The idea of retirement is a product of capitalism where middle class people were manipulated into believing that the system was doing them a favor, as supporting them and their children by placing in a social security system, yet as we can see, this system is not functioning in fact to the benefit of all and is largely placed-in to compensate for other costs and as such ensure the system profit.

In an Equal Money System, we don’t actually have to get tired and therefore require a re-tirement, because we can live our lives at our own pace, not rushing through trying to make ends meet to survive. We will not be competing and fighting against each other to be the one that wins a happy life on a paradise island – because first of all, we will all have woken up to realize that this was not real and that it was a fantasy that we’d instilled into and as ourselves to keep going in the delusion of the game-of-survival. Secondly, we will realize that in order to actually create paradise on Earth, we firstly have to take self-responsibility for what is already here, to face the world and the systems and ourselves and everything that is here, so that we can decide in clear assessment what kind of world we would like to live in and what is practically required to make that happen. If we want heaven on earth, we’ve got to create it for ourselves.

So – in an Equal Money System, which at this stage is as close as we get to heaven on earth, because it is a system that is based on what is best for all, everyone will from a certain perspective be retired all the time. Our entire lives will be more relaxed and enjoyable because we’ve dismantled the element of fighting to survive from our lives. We can still be busy and work hard, but it will be at our own accord and because we decide to do so in common sense consideration of what is best for all. It is quite astounding to realize that such a world and way of living is in fact possible, but it is even more astounding to realize that we’ve been chasing a fantasy of retirement while enslaving our entire lives to a system of suffering and inequality.

To realize this for ourselves is the first step to re-creating a new world on earth that is best for all life, equal and one. Because once we have realized this, that our entire motivation has been based on fear and delusional desires, we can start changing our starting-point within and as who and how we live and exist.

So - Where the ends meet is within the retirement of an outdated Money System and the beginning of an entirely new way of living on Earth, where all Life is cared for Equal and One. The solution is an Equal Money System.

Get your copy of the first Equal Money book here: http://store.desteni.org/products/equal-money-future-of-money-volume-1

Learn here how you too can reboot the system we call life:http://eqafe.com/i/abrix-thomsen-virus-free-mind You will see that it is possible to change the software of humanity, to change ourselves from self-interested beings of greed to actual living beings that care about Life

At Desteni our interest is life and the living. Join us in this journey of creating the way to life to stand the test of time. Desteni I Process is available to all regardless of affordability. http://desteniiprocess.com

Get your copy of the FREEDOM BLOGS HERE:http://eqafe.com/i/abrix-thomsen-freedom-blogs-the-birth-of-practivism-volume-1 It is available at the Desteni store along with many other self-supportive products.

Check out the Desteni website where we unveil what is here in common-sense self-honesty http://desteni.co.za . Join the Desteni Forum for discussions and start writing yourself to freedom with the support of people who are walking as equals.

Check out my process blog:
Anna’s Process Blog: http://annabrixthomsenprocess.wordpress.com

Tags: Care, Desteni, Destonians, Elderly, Equal Money System, Life, money-system, pension, Retirement, Taxes
No Comments »

How on Earth will an Equal Money System be Implemented?

November 28, 2011 in Equal Money Blog

One of the most frequently asked questions about the Equal Money System is the question of how the system will be implemented. Indeed it can be difficult to see how an entirely new way of existing is and will be possible considering how we currently exist. What is important to realize and understand is that a new way of living will not suddenly come about by itself. So how we will get from where we are today, to an Equal Money System , is through practical changes accumulated step by step, through actions taken by directive groups and individuals advocating the Equal Money System.

For an Equal Money System to be implemented, we require a re-education of the group, as all of humanity. This is required because we, as we currently exist, are in no condition to take self-responsibility for the world as a whole. It is also required so that we can realize and understand that a different way of existing is even possible and from there, educate ourselves to be able to implement the changes required practically. Even though we can somewhat consider the notion of an Equal Money System, we have a long way ahead of us to learn how to live together in a way that is in fact best for all. What is further more required for an Equal Money System to be implemented, is that the group of people that are currently starving and suffering, which counts more than half of the world’s population get breathing-space as a “break” from having to exist within a fight to survive, so that they actually become able to even vote for an Equal Money System.

We thus require an intermediate relief of the most pressing suffering and inequality that human beings currently exist within and conditioned to. Once this is in place as a basic system where all are given the necessities to live a dignified life, we have enable ourselves to practically stand together to implement an Equal Money System

This basic system is what is known as the BIG or Basic Income Grant or Guarantee system[1]. The basis of the system is to[2]:

Provide everyone with a minimum level of income,
Enable the nation’s poorest households to better meet their basic needs,
Stimulate equitable economic development,
Promote family and community stability, and
Affirm and support the inherent dignity of all.

This preliminary system will ensure a basic level of existing for all those countries participating where all citizens will be supported. It is from there that we can start implementing a fully functioning and Global Equal Money System. Once we get to this stage practically, we can start discussing and deciding how products are to be produced, how goods are stored and how work is going to be dispersed and all other questions pertaining to how to practically exist in a way that is best for all.

The first step in the implementation of an Equal Money System is thus a Basic Income Grant System and this will only be implemented as we re-educate ourselves to start caring about and understanding all life as equal to change our incentives within how we exist. We do this through changing ourselves and through exposing the system that is here for and as ourselves and each other, until we clearly see what is here for what it is and what are required to be done.

At Desteni, we encourage all to participate in the discussions on the forums to gain a practical understanding of what is required to be done and how we can each stand up to change the world. At The Equal Money Forum we discuss points specifically pertaining to the Equal Money System and at the Desteni Forum we come together to support ourselves to practically change and stand up as self-responsible, through writing ourselves to freedom in self-honesty and supporting each other to do the same.

We are active on Facebook and Youtube all year round, 24/7 as we participate from all areas of the world. Here we share links to relevant documentaries and news stories, personal experiences and realizations as well as music and videos. These is also available along with many products at the Destonians own shop EQAFE. Here we provide access to all the blog books written by Destonians as well as official books on the Equal Money System and exclusive interviews.

We encourage you to join us and begin the journey towards the making of a world that is Best for all, a world that is created from our very own hands, as we walk ourselves, step by step, breath by breath to self-honesty in self-responsibility for what is here. If we can do it, anyone can. And who will do it, if we don’t?

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income_guarantee

[2] http://www.big.org.za/

Tags: Basic Income Guarantee, big, Change, Desteni Group, Destonians, Equal Money System, Equal Money System FAQ, guru, Implementation, Know how, Namibia, OWS
No Comments »