Re: Poverty and Want Amidst Progress and Wealth.

[Kromkowski@aol.com]

>From the Deming Electronic Network:

<< But 30 years on from our first manned explorations of the moon sadly the
80/20 rule still applies, less than 20% of the global population commands
over 80% of the worlds wealth and resources. Deming said no country needs to 
be poor and yet significant advances in engineering, medicine, science and 
technology have failed to provide the basic necessities of life of clean 
wholesome water, food and shelter across the globe 

The march of the industrial revolution has more than anything increased the
divisions between rich and poor nations, and between citizens within nations
as I found so clearly demonstrated on the streets of Washington, DC.

It is perverse that despite all the advances that we have achieved at the
end of this millennium, with all the industrial power that we believe we
control, that we have been unable, or unwilling to address the basic needs
of humanity.<<

RC:

Over a hundred years ago, this how Henry George begins Progress and Poverty: 
An inquiry into the cause of industrial depressions and of increase of want 
with the increase of wealth ...  The Remedy (1879):

"The present century has been marked by a prodigious increase in 
wealth-producing power.  The utilization of steam and electricity, the 
introduction of improved process and laborsaving machinery, the greater 
subdivision and grander scale of production, the wonderful facilitation of 
exchanges, have multiplied enormously the effectiveness of labor.

"At the beginning of this marvelous era it was natural to expect, and it was 
expected, that laborsaving inventions would lighten the toil and improve the 
condition of the laborer; that the enormous increase in the power of 
producing wealth would make poverty a real thing of the past.  Could a man of 
the last century -- a Franklin or a Priestley -- have seen, in the vision of 
the future, the steamship taking the place of the sailing vessel, the 
railroad train of the wagon, the reaping machine of the scythe, the threshing 
machine of the flail; could he have heard the throb of engines that in 
obedience to human will, and for the satisfaction of human desire, exert a 
power greater than that of all the men and all the beasts of burden of the 
earth combined; could he have seen the forest tree transformed into finished 
lumber -- into doors, sashes, blinds, boxes or barrels, with hardly the touch 
of a human hand; the great workshops where boots and shoes are turned out by 
the case with less labor than the old-fashioned cobbler could have put on the 
sole; the factories under the eye of a girl, cotton becomes cloth faster than 
hundreds of stalwarts weavers ETC. ETC.  [the guy could write a long and 
beautiful sentence];  the diamond drill cutting through the heart of the 
rocks, and coal oil sparring the whale; could he have realized the enormous 
saving of labor resulting from the improved facilitation of exchange and 
communication -- sheep killed in Australian and eaten fresh in England, and 
the order given by the London banker in the afternoon executed in San 
Francisco in the morning of the same day; could he have conceived of the 
hundred thousands improvements which these could only suggest what would he 
have inferred as to the social condition of mankind?"

"ETC. ... For how could there be greed where all had enough?  How could the 
vice, the crime, the ignorance, the brutality, that spring from poverty and 
the fear of poverty, exist where poverty had vanished?  Who should crouch 
where all were freemen; who oppress where all were peers?"

"ETC.  Now, however, we are coming into collision with the facts which there 
can be no mistaking."

ETC., ETC.

"I propose in the following pages to attempt to solve by methods of political 
economy the great problem I have outlined.  I propose to seek the law which 
associates poverty with progress, and increases want with advancing wealth; 
ETC.
Properly commenced and carefully pursued, such an investigation must yield a 
conclusion that will stand every test, and as truth, will correlate with all 
other truth.  ETC.   
"I propose to beg no question, to shrink from no conclusion, but to follow 
truth wherever it may lead.  Upon us is the responsibility of seeking the 
law, for in the very heart of our civilization today women faint and little 
children moan.  But what that law may prove to be is not our affair.  If the 
conclusions that we reach run counter to our prejudices, let us not flinch; 
if the challenge institutions that have long been deemed wise and natural, 
let us not turn back."  END of Henry George quotation.

I'm going to bring this all back around to Deming, just be patient.

On Tuesday, I gave a lecture to a local Archdiocesan (catholic) group on 
Catholic social justice teaching from Abraham's "personal" journey for a 
special relationship with Land through God, our Duty of Stewardship and the 
Law of Jubilees, Paul III's (1537) encyclical about the sin of slavery, 
Leo's, Rerum Novarum (1891), and the whole line of social justice encyclicals 
including and though John Paul II's, On the Coming Third Millennium (1994).  
It was in the context of an introduction to the second lecturer who talked 
about proposed Land value taxation legislation in Maryland.  We are both 
Trustees of the Henry George Foundation of America.

I mention this because JP II not only identifies Jesus Christ as the 
summation of the "hoped for spirit" of the ancient Law of Jubilees and 
therefore teachings of Social Justice are part of this long line of a "free", 
"personal" and "universal" relationship with the land as stewards, but I also 
mention this because  JP II identifies 4 forces of production:  Labor, Land, 
Capital, and Management, each subject in the Catholic perspective to Social 
Justice critique.

What Deming does in OOTC and TNE for "the Management Question", Henry George 
did for "the Land Question". 

Even though neither was Catholic, the writings of both of these fellows are 
ultimately (once get over some semantical problems with want George properly 
meant by "ownership") harmonious with the Catholic Social Justice perspective 
and with each other.  That Deming philosophy is influenced by his own sense 
of religious conviction is patently obvious to me. The same is also true of 
Henry George.

I say to the DEN, that Deming (on Management) alone is not sufficient.  But 
when coupled with George (on Land), and overlaid by the long line of Catholic 
Social Justice teaching about "personal dignity of all", the duties of 
Stewardship and which handles Labor and Capital through its critique of 
Statism, Socialism, Communism, and unbridled Capitalism; now, we really have 
something.

So here is my request to you Demingistas: Get and read George's Progress and 
Poverty in light what you know about Deming's philosophy.  And reread Deming 
in light of a philosophy or theology of Social Justice.

JDKromkowski