This is where we see the critical assimilation and fusion of the ideas discussed into a new paradigm. The political constructivism of Kant veers away from that of Rawls. We will extend and synthetically a priori construct ideas that grow from Kant’s PPR and see how this also tends to fit and explain some radical political theories. The critical perspective taken from PPR will show that Kant’s ideas would dovetail with that of Marx and certain anarchist thinkers. It would also give clarity to some aspects of radical thought in the 20^th century and into our time as well, and open up space for further theorizing.

Kant’s political heteronomy

Based on the political ideas of republicanism, legalism and constitutionalism grounded on reactionary defence of the status quo, it is hard to see even superficially how Kant’s thinking here could bring forth autonomy. In fact, his entire political edifice rests on not only obedience to laws but of unquestioning acceptance of them. It makes a mockery of his critical philosophy. His political ideas are heteronomous in that they insist that people need external force, constructs and guidance in behaving themselves and doing what is right, and this can be further detected through Kant’s insistence that:

• There is a hierarchy that must be obeyed
• Without laws man is uncontrollable and cannot regulate or discipline himself at all
• That humans cannot be trusted to rely on morality and need external coercion to be good
• The contradictory but convenient conflation of obedience to laws made by man and duty to moral laws that supposedly come from within, and so the supervenience of external laws over internal imperatives  
• That only heads of state and the state apparatus can dictate what is best for everyone
• That only legislators and members of the state apparatus know what is best for everyone
• That strict linearity of logical extremism is the answer to the world’s problems
• Statism and the fetishization of its laws lead to a kind of transcendentalism that transmutes into transcendence and thereby mysticism
• Even unjust social contracts must be obeyed for the sake of obeying statist constricting notions which substitute inner motivation for external compulsion, such that everyone is forced into agreeing; it is a matter of expedience and what keeps one’s head intact instead of removal by Statism and Authority
• There can be no form of resistance or rebellion even if it is morally driven as all must be subject to obeisance to statist imposition of laws
• That ideas of a social contract are a priori and therefore a good thing as implicitly all such ideas are
• A fatalistic approach is needed and one accepts one’s lot in life, and injustice and tyranny are justified by a set of legal documents

Even the form of a law, as Kant explains in CP, provides a restraining influence on moral drives which are best expressed as maxims that are generated from the moral grounds of the free will of each person. So laws as such are heteronomous and do not encourage moral growth and progress due to their inherently stifling/restrictive nature.

Interestingly, in the CR the natural laws produced via synthetic a priori speculation help give the basis for knowledge and making epistemic claims about the world. However, this approach is anathema for practical reason which seeks discipline from moral expression of the individual that can be harnessed as an imperative force for societal co-creation by people. The heteronomous nature of laws is what distinguishes it from practical reason and its moral constructs.    

Kant’s political autonomy

The political autonomy of Kant is fused, of course, with his moral imperatives. Practical reason, the essence of pure reason, expresses itself in what we ought to do to be worthy of happiness as we avoid expediency and self serving interests at the expense of others. So anyone acting from reason as such would do so with moral interests in mind. Thus, based on the earlier discussion, Kant’s political autonomy would maintain that:

• Citizens and those representing them would do what is concomitant with the moral drive
• All members of a state or society would act on the moral imperatives and maxims that guide them irrespective of consequences (would be congruent to highest good of all)
• Doing what is right and not what is expedient is an act of freedom and the expression of our free will as autonomous beings
• The essence of humanity is freedom and this means freeing oneself from constraining constructs and laws that are inevitably heteronomous
• In order to be free we will live in a manner that keeps us in balance and as far as possible unshackled from heteronomous limitations
• To act reasonably and be as free as possible from the physical limitations of the phenomenal world, as well as make our lives intelligible, we must act morally always
• Yet the physical world can be changed to suit our moral force if we all act together as representatives of the supersensuous source of things, or noumena, which further expresses itself through free will and its moral grounding 
• We will all act and create what are the right, just and compassionate socio-economic-political structures as they are an expression of our moral centre as rational beings, and this is how moral imperatives imprint themselves on our co-created world
• We create what is for the highest good of all and this emanates from the moral centre of the universe which is also anchored within us (just as we are centred within it)
• What we believe from our free will to be right and for the highest good of everyone should be the societal and economic processes we must abide by and develop
• We are moral legislators of our world and we decide what is best for ourselves and our society from that which comes from our moral consciousness
• We are therefore empowered beings who do not and should not rely on external laws and incentives to divert us from expressing ourselves as members of an empowered society and world
• Human beings are an end in themselves and are of spiritual import that makes us and our moral expression beyond measure; we are indeed Immeasurable
• Fear must not be a stumbling block in realizing the human (noumenal/supersensuous) ideal of realistically living out our moral expressions through better lives and a better world for all

All this entails radical theorizing which tells us that from the root cause of what makes us humans grounded in morality, we would eschew those political institutions and their representatives, politicos, the State and its apparatus misaligned to the moral ground; these are but the epitome of restriction and heteronomy. As Kant says in the CP quote above, heteronomy is “…opposed to the principle of obligation and to the morality of the will” and so anything that is forced on us relieves us of any duty or obligation to it, as it is against morality itself. For we should only obey what we believe to be right for the highest good of all, and these are maxims taken without compromise and are an undiluted expression of the supersensuous in its moral grounding in the world.

To continue with the old paradigm that survives today in its form of feudalism-capitalism is the high end of heteronomy in our world. It needs to be resisted and dismantled as the direct expression of our autonomy. And our autonomy is the source of radical thinking and the ideas that coalesce from it – that is, the imperatives and maxims that manifest through PPR to create the forms, processes and models of distributive justice that are congruent to our moral centre as human beings.

Practical political constructivism

So where does all this leave us? If we extrapolate Kant’s political constructivism we would see that defying reactionary tendencies, as well as authoritarianism, totalitarianism, dictatorships, fascism and feudalism (and the capitalism linked to it) are the basics his PPR would entail. It would also, as a positive thesis, evoke ideas of egalitarianism, sense of justice and fairness, compassion, rectitude, selfless service; speaking, standing and acting out one’s truth and showing moral courage in the face of adversity, danger and death. Kantian PPR would, therefore, fit with radical political theorizing.

All this would be a synthetic a priori extension and creation of Kant’s PPR via his practical political constructivism, or Kantian political constructivism/Kantian constructivism.

It seems that political theories and ideas that would appear a natural fit generated from Kantian constructivism would be socialism, communism and its variants (e.g. Marxism-Leninism), anarchism and various other combinations emanating from the creative energies of people transfused with practical reason. Thus, it can be said accurately that the political trend and constructivism that would naturally evolve from Kantian ideas would be those that could be broadly defined as that of a social economy. It is about empowered people and communities.

A social economy would thereby have characteristics that would include communities based on egalitarian principles which promote empowerment of the individual and the group. There would be active citizen participation in policy creation of a society or community. Representatives elected, where deemed necessary, would be indeed representatives of people and not politicians (whose participation in politics is usually a career option). What would be needed is PPR expressed in the formulation of Green and people friendly solutions and policies that do not need Statism and its repressive representatives, apparatus and laws. A social economy would diverge from all forms of heteronomy and abide by autonomy.

The obvious objection is how could an empowered society be possible, when man leads a Hobbesian life of nastiness. Well, heteronomy has been the perennial so-called solution that has been tried in all its extreme forms and the results have been catastrophic: It is a wonder we still exits as a species. It is a greater wonder that the planet hasn’t died on us. The alternative is to try and develop autonomy as far as is humanly possible. It can be tried in a transition phase from the current restrictive paradigm of heteronomous Statism and the corruption it brings, where everyone is either rewarded/bought through money or the threat of punishment.

This idea of radical empowerment and that we can create the world of our choice is shown in these words of Kant as mentioned earlier, that we can “…confer on the sensuous world the form of a system of rational beings. The least attention to ourself shows that this Idea really stands as a model for the determination of our will.” And so as rational beings we would strive for a moral society and this would be the ideal and the model we would naturally work towards in that we do not have the goal of a specific society which then may place ideological (heteronomous) restrictions on what we need to do.

Instead, we work towards our social economy and moral realm in the way that it will be what it is meant to be so as to make us worthy of happiness in serving the highest good of all life and the planet. This would then be an assertion of our autonomy and free will grounded on morality that is a defining characteristic of being human. This we achieve through PPR and the political constructivism it entails.

An example would be Marx and Engels's idea of Communism. They call it a goal but it is actually an open ended ideal which is the receptacle of our wishes for the highest good of all. To attempt to define it not only makes it sound utopian, but sets it as a goal to work towards and that makes it heteronomous. That is why, aiming for a specific goal can be damaging to the process in which we strive to attain it. What happens is that we insist on empirical validity in the forms of fixed measurements and specific structures/outcomes to be in place (that becomes the goal in itself) to prove realization of the goal; and people and resources become a means to an end. We sneak in utilitarianism even without intending to.

This does not imply that no form of measurement be used at all within the process of things, as it would be impractical and a block to moving forward. But it does imply that having an end goal that in itself must be measurable and used as the specific set of parameters to decide that the said goal has been achieved, is heteronomous and ultimately self-defeating; and it is damaging to moral evolution and autonomous expression along the way.

It is no wonder that the quest for creating a so-called ‘Communist state’ (a self-contradictory notion) has ended up in disaster. It is also not surprising that Marx and Engels, among others, could never with much clarity describe their exact vision of Communism as it is not meant to be a specific entity to be realized. Rather, it is a term that can be used to describe the use of PPR and Kantian constructivism as an expression of autonomy to do what is right by people in co-creating what is for the highest good of all. It is a never ending process of growth and evolution. The only end goal is to keep doing what is for the highest good of all; it is, therefore, practical reason in action (or PPR in this case) – for it is directing/directive in nature and not constitutive or regulative.

Due to the constructivist nature of this process of PPR, the ground activities of people based on moral imperatives, will feed up into the form of formulating workable socio-economic- political principles that are evolving; and that will ensure the ideas adopted are suitable for people to use so as to realize in the most pragmatic manner that which is for the highest good of all. Therefore, the entire process is grounded in what can be achieved and parameters are stretched as the moral drive shapes the way we choose to lead our lives in the world. This process of ground up adjustment of principles to be used to enact our co-created social economy would be called reflective equilibrium by Rawls. And this would apply to Kantian constructivism as well. 

So the co-created moral realm and society of Kantian constructivism demands nothing less than trying to create a realistic utopia and thereby work towards viable and feasible results. This is nothing to do with some ‘do-gooder’ altruism but rather taking the road rarely travelled, and finding our way forward as a species in an attempt to create a new earth. We will need to not only have collaboration between ourselves and various communities, but with other states-in-transition that work towards trans-communal cooperation and assistance.

This transnational group or community of people is akin to Kant’s transcendental idea of a ‘state of peoples’ mentioned earlier. Such a transnational community in its coagulating form will be the driving force of a state-in-transition. The latter is an evolutionary process that will see it move into the dismantling as such, or ‘vanishing/withering away’, of the state and its apparatus; the obverse of which would be the firming up of transnational communities as a social group unit of peoples. This would form the bedrock of radical political ideas some of which we can better appreciate in our moment in history, as they are manifested via the shifting tectonics of change occurring in the Middle East, Europe and as evinced by the Occupy movement in the US.

As for states-in-transition (towards an empowered society/community), the sharing of newly developing technology and non-monetary trade will assist and move us out of trade imbalances (debt forgiveness is a given). Stabilised currencies pegged to precious metals and the use of complementary currencies can assist transition societies towards constructing from the ground up what we want ourselves, communities and world to be. We would also have to channel resources towards good people coming out with the right ideas to solve our problems through citizen assemblies, work/idea groups and legislation that reflect our moral drives. Societal legislation will reflect autonomy and that can be changed not due to expediency but what is deemed to be right in our evolutionary process of growth as moral beings in a moral-centric universe.

And Kant, at the prime of his life and mental prowess, would have demanded nothing less -- but possibly much more.

“This book, being about work, is, by its very nature, about violence – to the spirit as well as to the body…It is, above all (or beneath all), about daily humiliation. To survive the day is triumph enough for the walking wounded among the great many of us.” -- Working, Studs Terkel

 

For the small group of readers of this blog, in case you may've been wondering, this has been a year of personal tragedy. Notwithstanding, I am grateful for the difficult but important spiritual lessons arising from this. This has also stopped in its tracks a project begun sometime last year which was meant to culminate in a book of sorts.

Rather than confine into obscurity some of the interviews that came about for this project, I've decided to put them here. This is an unfinished and perhaps never ending project. But I thank all those who gave me their time and shared their views: and to you all I do apologise that your effort is not being given a larger audience.

The people interviewed are at least a year or so older now.

Below is the draft preface I had in mind of which an extract is posted.

The preface that never was

A few years ago when visiting and staying with friends in Vancouver, Canada, I underwent an epiphany. I remember looking at the lovely view of English Bay, the mountains and downtown Vancouver all in one sweep from a penthouse view of a friend. As I was planning my day and the walk I would take across Granville Bridge to the downtown area and further on to visit some second hand bookshops, I recalled that if I were to traverse even further down I would be at the East End.

Part of the East End, which is next to Tinseltown cinema multiplex and Chinatown, was a very different side of the city. There not only will you find poverty but drug addicts shooting up openly in alleys in daylight. I remember once even seeing inert bodies lying in the middle of unclean streets which would over qualify for an archetypical movie setting for seediness. Police cars would drive by oblivious of the junkies and those peddling their addictive wares. The cops would not even stop to take a closer look at the bodies lying still in some streets to see if they had any life left in them.

I asked my friends what they thought of the remarkable contrast of the wonderful city and beautiful country they lived in with the inexplicable mess in the East Side -- this included mentioning to them the drug related violence in other parts of the city.

Most of the time my friends would give the answer that the reasons why this deplorable state existed was due to poverty in some instances and ‘wrong choices’ as the obverse side of ‘freedom’ in their land. Corruption among officials was also quoted as a perennial problem which also haunts so many other societies.

But let me give some more context to all this.

In 2006, I had dropped out of the System in the sense that I was not fully employed and had to live on a tight budget. This was not my first experience of such living but I did not realize that the economic hardship the world is facing was going to see so many others placed not only involuntarily in my position, but living on an even tighter budget.

In 2006 and 2007 I was on an extended meditation retreat at a Buddhist monastery in British Columbia, Canada. After the retreats I continued my stay there with friends before returning home to Singapore. The retreats were in a forested area where we lived off the grid but comfortable enough for most lay people to be able to adjust to. You did have to be sensitive to not frightening the lovely deers around the area and be cautious about running into bears, grizzlies too. I remember running into a couple of large grizzlies and standing perfectly still while recalling all the spiritual teachings I knew to stay calm as I was all alone on an afternoon walk in the woods. But on seeing a human, it was the grizzlies who turned tail and ran (they can really run, don't be fooled by the size).

Minutes later, I found empty bullet shells along the pathway I was on: some hunters must have been busy doing great PR work for humanity.

Later in 2007, I visited Sri Lanka when Colombo was in a near state of emergency with the then ongoing ethnic violence holding the island in its grip. With all the soldiers and armaments around in a quasi siege like atmosphere, I understood clearly why much of Nature has suffered at the hands of mankind. At that time I was also staying at a Buddhist monastery but was not on a retreat as such. I was taken to view a meditation centre that was being built in a beautiful hilly tea growing area and which I was supposed to live at as a coordinator of retreats in the near future.

This unfortunately did not work out in part due to funding problems for the meditation centre that delayed its construction and other issues that cropped up of a more bureaucratic nature that proved to be one obstacle too many. It is still being constructed.

Then in late 2008, I was on my third extended retreat this time in England. After the retreat I stayed with some family members who were residing in the suburbs of London. During the period of 2008 and 2009, due to certain experiences and some books that fell into my hands, I was propelled towards  many things including the project that has now led me to write these words.

...Some of the books that launched me towards my current project included Karl Marx’s Das Capital, Friedrich Engel’s The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844, Henry Mayhew’s London Labour and the London Poor, Jack London’s The People of the Abyss, George Orwell’s The Road to Wigan Pier and Down and Out in Paris and London, The Jungle (the unexpurgated version) by Upton Sinclair, Ernesto “Che” Guevara’s The Motorcycle Diaries (and his other major works), James Agee’s Let Us Now Praise Famous Men: The American Classic, in Words and Photographs, of Three Tenant Families in the Deep South, and William T. Vollmann’s Poor People to name the ones that come easily to mind.

...We have to see the people around us as our sisters and brothers and understand that we are all part of the collective consciousness of the planet. This means that no one who is underprivileged or living in poverty, even if it seems that they do so out of the choices they have made, should be left alone to bear the consequences and not receive any help.

We are truly indeed one another’s keepers and we should come up with new ideas to issue in a new paradigm of creating and measuring growth and move away from the browbeaten capitalist mode of competition at all cost, and greed over human dignity. We need to centre within our beings care for the planet, our environment, all living species and, above all, place the highest value on human beings over grasping for money.

The voices represented here are based on interviews with some people whom I know and those whom I do not. In many instances, I have let the people speak for themselves and that will be their way of directly communicating with you. They are speaking, in some cases, with much more thought put in than they would in a casual interview by someone who is just performing a journalistic function.

Not all those interviewed were comfortable in communicating entirely in English, but they managed what they could and I re-checked with them what they said before writing it up as quickly as possible on the same day I spoke to them from my usually verbatim notes.

Three basic questions were asked of all I interviewed and spoke to:

What is your idea of being poor?

What is your idea of abundance?

Why are people poor/What is poverty?

...Those who were not comfortable in English mainly responded to the last questions and as the dialogue went on I clarified what they said and they responded in their own way to the first two questions as well.

I had not read Studs Terkel when I thought of this project and began it, but was pleasantly surprised and impressed by the wonderful work he did as I started to read (among others while finishing my project) -- Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression, and Working (people talking about their work).

The biggest influence on me probably came from sections of Marx’s Das Capital: Volume One, and the books by Engels, Mayhew, Orwell and London. I had studied formally philosophy and political theory as an undergraduate and over the years kept up with my reading. In graduate school I was steeped in literary theory and aesthetics. But only in recent times did I re-read many works I had studied and then some as the scales finally fell from my eyes.

The second part of this book looks at possible economic models that can be used for firms or enterprises of all sizes. There needs to be a move away from the way most businesses are run. In particular, we need to move away from how mega corporations are run with their obsession in serving profits and shareholders at the expense of the rest of the planet.

The time has come for this to change radically.

And so,

Daily grindings

Madam Sawami (Aged 64, road sweeper, unable to retain her job after reaching 65. She has since been looking for work and I have no idea if she has been successful):

"I can work only now till 67 years old. So three more years. I want to be by myself. I want independence. My children and I, problems, cannot get along. I have my own problems don’t want to hear what their problems with their husband or wife. Then I must hear their wife’s problems also.

I want flat of my own, single room. I ask the HDB (Housing Development Board, Singapore) to help me and they say – you can wait, we have to help plenty people with no house living now on the beach. You have problem, they also have problem. What kind of help, this? Why can’t government help me? I have done nothing wrong, but government can’t help me in this, just to get a single room flat for myself.

What I earn, only $1000 one month…so I can pay installment say less than $100 a month, but please don’t take away $500 a month from me for a single room flat.

As long as I can work, help myself, have enough to eat, I am happy -- no one else will help, so I must help myself.

Now, I am alone. My children all forget what I do for them when young all, now see, I am on my own.

Can you help me with my house problem, I don’t know who [to] ask…HDB don’t want to help."

 

Mr Lam (Aged 62, food stall holder at a small hawker centre from which he rented his stall. The stall closed down as it was bought over by someone who has since set up a snazzy restaurant. No idea if he has since found another place to sell food):

"I come from a poor family. Many children, I am one of the eldest. My parents had a small stationery shop, and we managed, all of us. Now, my wife and me work at this food stall. We are not rich, if I can earn say $1,500 month I am happy, it is enough. We manage.

People who are rich -- say they earn $4,500 to $5,000 or much more…are they happy? Money is one thing, happiness something else. As the eldest in my family and myself, we had to be the bread winners to help my parents and sisters and brothers.

My family have the old Chinese thinking, the older ones sacrifice education all to support the younger ones. So my education highest – secondary 2…what to do. My English not so good, but I learn on my own by using English language tapes when I was 30 years old. I worked many things, like taxi driver and clerk in office. I also try to improve my English by speaking to those with good English, environment important to learn and practice language.

Because of my and my older brothers sacrifice, my younger sisters and brothers well educated. One of my brothers just retired as a teacher, he went to university. My daughter also is fine, she is working.

English is very important, the main business language. I think the government policy is correct, importance for English and own language or second language. Must balance with language for your own culture. But English is important. Now people can learn Japanese and French in school. Other languages very important. My younger sister learn Japanese at a language school and now she works in a Japanese company.

We were poor, but what is important is good family, happiness and health. Don’t always think of money, money, money! This rich people what happiness they have? If you are rich and happy, good for you. But most of them not like that. Everyday worry, cannot sleep, always thinking about how the business good, can make it, can make more money…all the problems of business…no peace of mind. So what if you have so much money?

Some people become poor because they don’t know how to save. They spend all the time, they want nice house, car, everything. Then when employment difficult, cannot get job, how? Cannot pay installments, become financial problems. You look at the young, they only want to have good time, spend, sports car, but never think of future, no savings. Then one day, if they cannot find work, what to do?

Some become poor because they gamble, throw away money. They think they will always be young or healthy and have a job. They don’t save. Gamble, then they lose all the money, so what to do?

The future cannot tell, cannot predict, better not to waste money and think no problems one day.

Also, I think sometimes people are poor, like in many very poor countries…because of karma. Their past life, many, many years ago, something they did, now they have to pay back. Hopefully after this life, it will be better for them.

Rich people should be generous, help the poor with donations, charity, not just here but help them in other countries also. What for keep all the money and don’t share? You cannot take with you when you leave [die], so why keep and don’t want to give?

The rich cannot enjoy life sometimes, they are so busy, so busy with time and making money. No time for family, loved ones, children…what kind of life? Even those who are top people like government, the ministers, no privacy? What kind of family life can they have, always their time is for someone else…their time and appointments all planned for them…what kind of freedom do they have?

I think I have enough, if I retire now still can survive. One of my customers who is rich and live in expensive condominium. He is 70 years old, and his wife is paralysed waist down and is in a wheelchair. He has two sons, both rich. None of them have time for him and his wife…they call on the mobile phone to find out…but too busy making money. They don’t care about their parents. So what for all this money?

When this old man tell me the story, he cry, the tears in his face as he tell me what his children are like. He and the wife are so lonely."

 

Ruwan (Aged 29, foreign worker, caregiver from Sri Lanka. Due to workplace exploitation and problems he returned home and his current situation is not known):

"People are poor because they sometimes are lazy. Not always because others at fault. They sometimes don’t know how to manage life. They throw money away and waste on things like drinking and women. Sometimes it is government’s fault why people poor. Government also don’t manage properly the country then whole country can be poor.

But to me, man is poor because it is own fault. Son from a poor family can actually do well if he studies hard in school and all, but also rich man’s son doesn’t do well because he is lazy and doesn’t want to work hard. What is important is the effort you want to have in things.

Sometimes religion can help explain all this. Like in Buddhism we are told life is dukkha, lot of suffering. So also karma is also responsible for our life. But during time of Buddha we are told there was lot of evil in world. Also people have different belief like worshipping the stone and water and all. But today, to me, also the same. When we pray to the statue we are praying to a stone or we belief in luck and things.

People the same even today from Buddha’s time till now. Now also we worship trees, water and earth. But this is not always a bad thing, sometimes this because we show respect for all around us. Nothing wrong with that. We are just grateful. Just as children who respect to parents or we show respect to our rice and food and drinking water, like in Sri Lanka, it is just a good habit.

Also, we can choose what we do, so not always karma to blame. We can choose to good or evil, we are responsible for choosing, so we are responsible also our life.

Money is important but it is not the most important. I think most important is happiness. If you’re not happy what for money? Most important is happiness to enjoy life but not waste time, meaning spend time to be happy with family and friends. That is what is important.

Nowadays when people supposed to smarter than animals, actually no difference. They are same. So much killing people do, they are not so clever. Why must there be so much killing?

In Singapore, people think money is number one. Everything is about money. People here are well to do, lot of money, money needed for everything here but parents no time for children. They put their time in money not the children. Main thing here is material things.

Children here always with maid, no parents spending time with them. So just as parents put children in nurseries because they no time for them, now children also put parents in nursing home because they also no time for them…all busy earning money.

Millionaire is not happy. He has worries like who will steal his money and property. Who can he trust? Will he loose all he have. Cannot sleep, no peace of mind. Poor man can sleep, if he has just enough for family he is okay…he doesn’t have so much problems and worry. No worry about who is going to rob him.

I see that in Singapore, it is like a car. Everything supposed to work well, very efficient, like car put in petrol make sure engine working then all is fine. But people here have no life. They are not happy, they have no time for family and friends.

My working place is a nursing home. Next to me is a child nursery. So I can see everyday what happens. They parents come and put the child in the nursery. Kids crying when hungry for mothers milk, but they get other milk not from humans. The cow is their mother because that is the only milk they get.

So I notice, parents come and put children in nursery then when children grow up they put parents in nursing home. I see and understand this for I experience this everyday. Singapore clients of my nursing home say what to do, they have to work to earn living and no choice but to put parents in home. They say in Singapore without money you cannot live, nothing you can do.

The parents have no time for children, and one day the children also no time for parents.'

Wan (Izwan, aged 25, retail supervisor at a supermarket chain):

"What does being poor mean? I think if your parents cannot provide for you, then you’re poor. If you’re grown up and cannot provide for yourself, or don’t want to, then it is because you’re lazy – so again you’re poor. If you don’t want to be poor, then you must be hardworking and provide for yourself.

A lot depends on your capability and that also depends on your education level. If you grow up without much education then you are stuck with a low paying job. No education, no high paying job. Or you just have a mediocre job.

My education is ‘O’ Levels and I am trying to upgrade myself. You must upgrade and work for it, otherwise you only can blame yourself. I have two jobs, in the day time I help out here at the coffee stall next to this market. Evening time I work as a retail supervisor at a supermarket. That is the only way I can save and have enough.

With what I can earn I provide for my parents and am saving to get married and try to own my own home. Actually in Singapore you can get jobs, that’s not the problem. It is the need for money always. The cost of housing here is high. In the long run, your property is your investment, but to try to own one – maybe 30-40 years to pay the loan to just own your roof over your head. Then the interest for the loan will kill you. Trying to settle down here is hard. You have to remember you have to feed your family.

Religion to me helps in providing knowledge about the world and your life, I mean, it’s up to each person whether they want to follow what the religion says. But you must help yourself first. If you’re lazy and don’t want to help yourself, why should God help you? You help yourself, then God will help.

I think there are people who want to help those who are poor, but also a lot of wayang [Malay word implying 'theatrics'] taking place, making a big show trying to attract attention to themselves, like the charities here – the big ones – they make a big show. Also groups or companies, like that who donate want attention only just advertise themselves and promote themselves. If you’re genuine you just give, if you give don’t make a big show and all the publicity. They just want brand recognition.

I think if we have problems in Singapore, realistically speaking, most people won’t help each other. I read a lot of books on World War Two, you see what human nature is like, here or anywhere else. People tend to be selfish, they rather not help others. Focus on the individual only.

In this world you need money. To me if you have no money then you have no happiness. Money needed for everything. It can’t be avoided. The coffee and tea cups I clean up on these tables, you can drink from what is left over from them if you don’t want to pay for it. But then, someone already had to pay for it before you can drink the remainder in the glasses. Again, you need money to have anything.

In the end you must help yourself, you must be hard working and that also depends on your health. We need self responsibility in everything.

My father’s advice to me is bear your own suffering but don’t let others suffer because of you.'

 

Sam (Aged 63, barber):

"I have been barber since 1966. People are poor because sometimes they don’t want to work hard. You have choice, you can try and do your best or just give up. Work enough so that you at least have enough to eat. Some people are lazy, but they think they can get high paying job and also easy job. Younger generation now, some just don’t want to work, many don’t want to be barbers.

Some who are poor now actually only want to enjoy life, they spend money on woman and throw away money. No savings for rainy day. If I earn say $50 one day and spend $10 or $20 that day, the rest I save. Must save for old age. Don’t rely on government for everything, government here helps but in the end, you must help yourself.

Some younger ones today, no ambition, they see their father is a postman they follow him, don’t want to try and go beyond. They should study hard and upgrade and move up a little, but don’t want. In Singapore, if you cannot study well, hard to get good job. Here you must try to enter university then at least can earn $3 000-5 000 a month otherwise, how?

In Singapore you must pay for everything. Here there’s no large land area where you can have rice or things, if you cannot earn money then how to survive here? Government helps but again they cannot just give welfare always, we must also help our self. How else to pay for your food, housing and all.

To me health is important. No health you cannot work to earn money. You have money and no health, what for? No point. If you have health, not much money, still okay, can work.

One thing government here helps old people, at least the health and hospital care, they give some assistance to the aged. That’s a good thing.

Also we must respect all religions. Must have tolerance, and we must respect one another and not disturb each others belief. Again in Singapore, people do show tolerance of different religions. We should treat all people fairly, like our brothers, all are our family.

[At this point an Indonesia lady who is a foreign worker here and a friend of Sam’s family and came to visit them asked in Bahasa what the interview was about. She then added her views stating that in Indonesia and in Singapore only the poor help one another. She claimed the rich drive by and look down on the poor and blame the poor for what they are, not understanding that sometimes they can help. She then departed and the interview continued with Sam.]

Yes, I think all is a matter of attitude. Sometimes the rich here don’t want to help. They see poor people as different and separate from them. Must change the attitude. You find that people who have little to give are the ones who want to give, not always those who have plenty. We need more responsibility and kindness in our society. Not enough of it. [He used the Malay term timbang-rasa which means 'sympathy']

Have seen people in accidents and hardly the rich ones stop to help, the ordinary people seem to help mainly. But you must help, we must support each other.

Must be humble, not proud. That’s why I try to make my customers happy. I listen to them and do my best and try to provide service. In the work place must be professional, never mind what kind of work, must be the best, do your best. Younger people the attitude is different, they show they are unhappy and don’t know how to treat customers. That’s why I say, attitude is most important.

Also can’t blame God for everything. We have free choice, God gives us intelligence as humans so must think first, must think before doing things. Singapore now has some floods but actually in this case no point blaming government because it is act of God. But also there are poor people no homes have to stay on the beach. This is also wake up call for government to do more for those people who need some help.

I worry about bringing gambling into Singapore like casinos. People become greedy and try cheat and nothing good can happen from this. You know, I have one customer who works in the security of one of the casinos. He told me that in one day they catch usually 30 people – 30 people, you know – for cheating or trying to cheat. Foreigners and Singaporeans.

People do anything sometimes for money."

 

Anon. (Aged24, university student who has since graduated):

"1. What is your idea of poverty?

Poverty is entirely thought based for me as with everything else. I can be materially rich, but very very poor inside if I'm stingy, greedy, unhappy, etc. Likewise, I can be poor materially, but if my thoughts are calm and I can find happiness -> I'm rich. And sooner rather than later, my world will change to represent that abundance.

2. What is your idea of abundance?

Abundance is also a mindset to me. First in the mind then in matter. It is an attitude of gratitude, etc, etc, etc. That leads to a wonderful life affirming philosophy regardless of the pain that life can bring. Pain is necessary but that does not mean suffering is.

3. Why are people poor/why is there poverty?

This is very complex. I cannot understand sometimes why there is suffering and such debilitating poverty in Africa, South America or even in Singapore with the cardboard mattress 'uncles and aunties' [references to elderly people]. As in life can really be a very very painful sad experience for many people.

Some of poverty is created because of institutions which destroy our birthright to abundance and freedom and prevent information from being made public (that would eventually release our reliance on many things), but also some poverty is individual, just individual laziness, over reliance on governmental subsidies/or external care/support from children/parents, and leeching off of others' work. It's a human problem at the end of the day. And we do create the institutions that are reflective of our human flaws. Until we evolve out of our ugliness, poverty and suffering will continue to exist in this world."

 

Anon. (Aged 58, hotelier, now retired):

“1. What is your idea of poverty? Poverty in my eyes, is when someone does not have a roof over his/her or their head, hardly a job, no utilities whatsoever like electricity and water, unable to have access to decent medical facilities, barely have one meal a day, unable to send their children to school etc.

2. What is your idea of abundance?

Lavish and luxurious living, wastage and use of spending in a vulgar fashion; what I mean is - there is no harm in being rich and able to afford every materialistic need that is considered essential in such an instance. But to waste on lavish parties unnecessarily, (again, not my business) but it is sad to see such living, when the less fortunate can benefit from some of these monies. Perception of "Abundance" could be seen in different ways. In my life, I would pray for good health, and perhaps, my life may seem in abundance to some or of those less fortunate than myself. Abundance is where one does not need to crave for anything else, or have any more wants in life, e.g. a healthy bank account balance, travel frequently with enough expense money, good medical benefits, own luxury vehicles, homes which is evident in most cities in any country. There is so much more that could be added on to what is my idea of abundance.

3. Why are people poor/why is there poverty?

Could be born poor, lazy with no vision or ambition to improve this situation? See how people beg on the streets, when they could easily work in a house as a housemaid, houseboy etc. Just do any kind of work rather than beg!

(I have been a hotelier for 30 years, besides being a sister, sister-in-law, housewife, mother, grandmother, and being a citizen of a country which has an average standard of living...worked hard to do what may be seen as abundance in the eyes of some).”

 

ONE of Karl Marx's quotable quotes includes his comment that history repeats itself first as tragedy, then as farce. So much of the twentieth century will be remembered as tragedy. So much of the last century will also be seen as farce.

This is because while we had two world wars, we then followed them by a cold war and the idea of a mutually assured destruction which was supposed to ensure the peace. Is it any wonder that one of the hit comics to come out from the 1950s was Mad with its farcical mascot Alfred E. Neuman and the incessant intrigues of “Spy vs. Spy” an espionage spoof.

From the quasi-serious and stylish early Bond films to the movies becoming caricatures of themselves in the 80s, and in the epitome of the cold war which culminated in a sense with the farce/slapstick of Austin Powers: you knew something bizarre was afoot in the mass psyche.

Ultimately, the whole idea of a nuclear sword of Damocles masquerading as an ‘umbrella’ meant to keep the peace (sic), was meant by the controllers of our world to initiate planet earth into an armed camp scenario. The manifesto of the 20^th century is clearly the perverse obverse side to the Orwellian axiom 'war is peace', where peace would also mean war in some form.

We also had the revolutions of the 1960s which resulted in a kind of change that descended into drugs, riots and assassinations throughout the world of various leaders. The global stage was fast becoming a multifarious drama aptly expressed by Polonius as “tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral” and whatnot.

But we took it some steps further. War is peace and peace is war. We started to wage peaceful war and have war within the ambit of peace. We started blind material obsession, profit mongering and a death-wish driven consumerism (in the background, like music from the Doors, were many so-called low intensity conflicts of which Vietnam was a highly intense one).

Yet we became sophisticated. Our consumer death-wish would see us decide to ‘shop till we drop’ and have euthanasia via ‘death by chocolate’. We would allow our unbridled appetites and destructive individualism to be manipulated by the media and legislate politically various ways to allow ourselves to die (politely called ‘pulling the plug’). We also took experimentation with execution ranging from hemp rope, bullets and electricity, to chemicals with lethal injection.

We used the knowledge gained from biological and chemical warfare from world wars to start poisoning one another. Logically, it meant we ended up using stuff like DDT in pesticides and called it progress: what was used to kill other humans in battle zones seeped into the food chain and destroyed not only various life forms and upset the ecological balance, but also had a nefarious effect on people. Yes, malaria and other diseases need control but do we have to harm ourselves as well?

In the name of science and progress, we have the mash up of big capital with scientific endeavour and academic research, and we discover that scientifically – regular and extensive use of synthetic chemicals in our food (and continued mass use of pesticides) are good and profitable. Any attempts to criticize any of this is a sign of unscientific irrationality. We learn that smoking doesn't necessarily cause cancer, and radiation from electrical equipment, hand phones and worse, microwave ovens, are not only profitable with the correct perspective but anyone against it lives in the dark ages.

The point is we are in the dark ages, the age of  Kalki as the Hindus would call it. We have reached the point where we believe that science and technology are in themselves an amorphous new Acropolis of human civilization while becoming completely cut off from our spiritual roots, and we wonder why the world is the way it is. This is farce-slapstick and well beyond Polonius's combinations.

But what takes the fruit cake is our belief that the vacuous ideology of Democracy is the ultimate goal of civilization. The West will even go to war to not only defend but spread it like a virus. This is where we come to the point in the 21^st century where we go beyond Marx's dictum and have evolved our history inexorably into slapstick.

Make no mistake, slapstick is appropriately defined as that which involves “exaggerated violence and activities which exceed the boundaries of common sense”. If that isn’t a defining characteristic of the world, nothing is.

Despite all the fuss over elections in so-called democracies, the millions spent on advertising and marketing, media commentaries, stump speeches, and all sorts of promises, are people really better off?

Curiously, things are worsening economically and politically worldwide. The counterpoint to this is that the change in the Middle East is a sign that even there one finally encounters limits to what people will take. It shows just how low things have gone that people are starting to rise up in places they normally don't against their regimes anyway. This is only the beginning.

The reason is that despite the rhetoric of politicos the world is governed, not by politicians (though they may think they are in charge), but by vested interests that actually determine to a large extent (for the worse) how things go. We mean here the international banking cartel and their families and children in the form of mega corporations and defence industries world wide: most born out of wedlock.

All these not only operate in the dark, with as much lack of transparency as possible and have produced and proliferated a scientific-technological dark age. These efforts are abetted by our ignorance and unwillingness to face up to many truths about the world. Science, tainted by self serving ego and big money is sadly the willing handmaiden of corruption in its many forms.

This is the high end dark age where we have reached the point of no return and must find our way back into the light. And it is going to be a struggle. Why would the dark age perpetrators make it easy for anyone to escape their clutches? This is still not the funny part, but here it comes.

With each successive 'democratically' elected government you have the same situation which is unemployment, deep emotional imbalance in homes and the work force, divisiveness and resentment expressed through high-tech means, the rich getting richer (though some get their hands duly burnt) and the poor spreading everywhere. Even to be middle class now is to be poor in some way. Global currencies are generally running on empty and the US dollar is a joke (trying not to use 'farce' too often).

No one government dares to challenge and upset the banking and corporate cartel because they are either hostages to them or are party to their intrigues (sometimes a combination). How many governments dare to tell banks and corporations to get their act together, enforce discipline and ensure transparency in their activities unequivocally? Until laws are changed to make banking and corporate institutions accountable to governments and the public, they will never serve the interest of the people.

For governments to actually act like governments would be to risk the banks and businesses telling some governments to take a hike (and give somebody else their tax hikes, like the people), as they threaten to go pack up their stalls and go to some other market place (when some do so, experts call it 'globalization'). In other words, governments – especially democracies – shiver in their pants when confronted by the dark spirit Mammon who says it, and it alone -- the guiding spirit of the money changers of the world who are always uniting -- is responsible for the circulation of money and work opportunities for the measly citizens.

Marx was wrong in that it was not the spectre of communism that was haunting the world as it was already possessed by the dark forces of capitalism. And as in the case of most exorcisms, it isn’t secular stuff that is going to rid the world of incubi that have impregnated the world with the money changers’ teachings of neo-classical economics, greed, constant sense of lack, mindless competition, and fear mongering. Sometimes a war or two are thrown in at bargain prices.

Despite pomp and circumstance of political office as in that of the President of the United Corporations of America (USA), for instance, you see in action those who are impotent to effect any real change. Whatever change that is enacted must result in confrontation with the money changers and then who cares what your title/post is? You can talk and shout all you want in congress and parliament, but you know bloody well who runs things around here.

Democracy today is the hiding place of fear. It is the fear and subjection of people and their elected representatives in not angering too much the money changers. We have bamboozled ourselves to thinking we are in charge and that democracy means freedom and a whole lot of other niceties: but ask yourselves – how much has really changed?

Don’t be fooled by the ‘human nature’ argument. Sure, the inability of humans to govern their emotions has resulted in their having to elect others to govern them; the inability of humans to have self control has resulted in their surrendering their moral conscience to institutional religion and corporations. We even have to surrender our sense of ethics to nebulous and harmful notions of ‘corporate social conscience’ (here farce turns into slapstick) and thinking that what causes harm to humans and the planet can actually do good to one and all.

It’s like killing all that’s good in one part of the world and then going to some corner and planting a fruit tree, which in turn gets killed etc, and there will be no amount of fertile earth left to make reparations for the ambition of the money changers.

We can travel into outer space and get involved in the pornographic details of nano technology but are unable to create sustainable, healthy, ethical and abundance sharing enterprises (guess why?).

There is something wrong on Earth.

We have reached such a point of pathology that we can listen to the mainstream media with all its amorality and immorality as stories flit from heinous crimes and acts of brutal violence, to royal weddings and scores of football games. We have become so desensitized that we can discuss the destruction of a human being’s life or reputation and with aplomb switch to the weather and what stocks to invest in.

This schizophrenic tendency which is regarded as normal today, also sees in democracies huge amounts spent on annual dinners, official openings of events and launches of some damned thing or the other; but all the time we have people who are in need and want.

Here comes more farce-slapstick, where you don’t know whether your tears come from laughter: we can even use scripture to deviously say, ah, but there will always be the poor. Must we deprive others of a good time as there will always be those in dire straits. Come on and think of all the money that is splashed around, what? This is scientifically proven by economics as ‘Growth’.

There is no reason for us not to celebrate and be happy. It always helps to smile and show kindness to people around you as that tends to generate a similar response. But in public life there must always be a sense of balance, decency and morality to know that you can’t throw state money on banquets when your citizens are going through difficult times. Some call this is disgraceful, most call it democracy.

Is it any wonder then that no matter who you vote for, things are the same? Unless things actually become worse as is happening now and as it will continue. Some resolution must be in the offing as this state of international debt and swindle is obviously reaching critical mass.

Instead of clinging on to worn out and failed ideas like democracy, which hide the grip of the money changers of the world, we need to look at new ways and ideas of empowering citizens. Democratic practices in the use of elections and ensuring a broad representation of citizens in decision making will be a necessity. This will tend to provide the ethical leavening necessary to raise some sort of system that serves people and life in general. It might even reduce wars.

The changes needed to initiate most of the positive aspects indicated here involve not changes in the poorer countries, though it helps. The world changes and bringing about a just, fair, and ethical grounding to local and international affairs starts with the democracies. They are the source of so much of the world's trouble. Once the democracies change, the world will follow suit. If the people in democracies do not push for change through citizen activism and new ideas on governance and economic practice, then things are going to get a lot rougher.

And this would also require visionary and moral leaders, and those who are not afraid of the money changers. None at present seem to exist that any of us are aware of in a manifest manner. We need leaders who realize that there’s more to life than protecting one’s bank balance. We need citizens who realize that they have to stand up for what is right and that they need to let go of fear and stop allowing themselves to be kept in perpetual thralldom by the money changers.

Which also means that if you fear adversity, you will fear change. No one wants unnecessary hardship but unless we speak up and act now, difficulties can only mount.

The solutions to many of these problems are spiritual ones which involve not only acting from conscience, but understanding that there is divine purpose to everything. That when faith, compassion, common sense, forgiveness and daring are mixed judiciously, the people of the world will finally be able to chase the money changers out of the temple once and for all.

But it starts from chasing out fear from the temple of our hearts.

We are fast approaching the event horizon in history where we will have to create and adopt a new way of living that safely takes us into the time and space of post-capitalism and post-democracy.

To end, I must mention a joke from many years ago about how in the Soviet Union scientists managed to revive the embalmed Lenin (this is actually miraculous as the man’s brain and all his organs have been removed as part of the preservation process).

Vladmir Ilyich was then sequestered in a comfortable room to acclimatize to the world he was living in. As the days went by, he asked for and read voraciously many newspapers to catch up with what was happening in the USSR and the world. After several days of this routine, his handlers entered the room as usual to bring him his tray of food. But the man was gone.

There on the table, was a note: ‘We must begin again!’

We have to put aside all preconceptions and ideologies and, most of all fear, and open ourselves to the truth we have always known within but have refused to acknowledge, that indeed – we must begin again.