Ironically, the one thing Wall Street protesters haven't yet considered is -- creating new jobs -- new kinds of jobs -- to build sustainable communities. After all, the most significant and lasting form of 'protest' is to permanently boycott the existing system. The best way to boycott a global system of inadequate job creation is for communities to begin creating new jobs -- new kinds of jobs -- jobs that are locally anchored, democratically controlled and ecologically sustainable.
According to Supreme Court Justice, Louis Brandeis, "You can have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few -- or democracy -- but you cannot have both". So, what if money and power were controlled democratically at the level of communities and enterprises? What if American communities became 'The Job Creators'? Job creation is where a mere 'protest' becomes a formidable 'movement'. The movement creates new jobs, and new jobs facilitate expansion of the movement.
This isn't a new idea, and Mondragon is not the only successful example in the world. Cheticamp and Sydney, Nova Scotia in northeastern Canada are two additional examples of previously 'depleted communities' that managed to survive and thrive by implementing democratic principles in their local economies. The Evergreen Cooperatives in Cleveland, Ohio are an impressive example of economic democracy in action in the United States. There are other examples sprouting up in New York City, California, South America and elsewhere.
These examples demonstrate that the success of community economic development is transferrable to any region, and is not contingent upon any particular culture, structure or ideology. But community economic development is not a serious discussion in the United States because most Americans don't take it seriously. We're too busy reaching for the 'golden ring' or protesting Wall Street because the 'American Dream' keeps moving further and further out of reach. Not only that, but job creation is considered a job for wealthy individuals or for government officials.
So, if 99-percent of the American public honestly wishes to absolve themselves of all personal responsibility for economic stability and instead define themselves as developmentally disabled victims of learned helplessness or institutional syndrome, then perhaps gathering in the streets with picket signs is the best we can do.
However, if that same 99-percent of the American public were to establish community development corporations in every major region throughout the United States, then community economic development could become the most significant American innovation of the 21st Century.
For every job that is exported overseas by a multinational corporation, a new and better one could be created by an American community. For every job that is lost to new technologies, American workers could receive additional training and new assignments, instead of being penalized for their contributions to technological advancement. For every violation of the environment, American communities could create new jobs -- new kinds of jobs -- to clean up the mess and to prevent similar violations in the future.
According to W. Edwards Deming, the most effective approach to quality control is to prevent errors from happening in the first place, not to correct them after they have occured or to march in the streets protesting a managerial system that inherently generates errors. The wreckage of the existing system is fuel for building a new one. This isn't just a matter of passively 'protesting' a system of social and environmental injustice. It's also a matter of American communities actively building a new system that facilitates justice.
In this way, community economic development can (and must) facilitate competition with multinational corporations for economic and ecological control of local communities. This is the economic leverage which is conspicuously missing from the current protests. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called it "constructive coercive power".
John Stuart Mill provides some additional insight:
"The form of association, however, which if mankind contrive to improve, must be expected in the end to predominate, is not that which can exist between a capitalist as chief, and workpeople without a voice in the management, but the association of the labourers themselves on terms of equality, collectively owning the capital with which they carry on their operations, and working under managers elected and removable by themselves." (John Stuart Mill, 1848)
So what kind of 'dream' do we want, America? Do we want to gather in the streets to protest a failed 20th century democracy, or do we want to create new jobs and build sustainable communities for the 21st century?
There is little point in trying to convince those who don't agree. It is imperative to mobilize those who already do. With all due respect for those who are brave enough to protest a failing system, there is no reason to support those who refuse to build a new one.
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