Many of our values and institutions, shaped in centuries of scarcity, are inappropriate in our age of opulence. People whose self-worth is built on their ability to be self-supporting, contributing members of their community are being marginalized by globalization and automation. Our society is running on inertia and the support of a propertied class that profits from the economic system, one that drains the planet dry and lets the people die. Gullible Americans have chosen as their deliverer a party and president who practice is to abandon those considered non-productive to charity!

The elites attempt to dominate emerging nations by imposing intellectual property rights and investor protection measures through the Trans Pacific Trade Pact has been postponed. This won’t slow the Republican administration. The fictitious corporate person will be protected by a conservative Supreme Court. Eliminating national standards will throw states into competition with one another, hoping to secure crumbs from the corporate table. Creative accounting will saddle the public with operational costs of public-private partnerships and award profits to the privateers. Corporate cronies will feast on the carcass of the United States as Putin’s cronies and the Russian Mafioso fed on the corpses of the USSR. Trump finds Putin admirable! Will we allow such people to determine our future?

Institutions for the age of plenty would preserve human lives irrespective of what they produce. All would be covered by a universal health care system to the degree that society chose to afford such care. Law abiding citizens over 18 would receive a Universal Basic Income. Assured that basic needs would be met, individuals would be encouraged to create and enjoy instead of chasing mass produced culture. Whatever economic, political or religious institutions evolve to meet these goals will fail if entrusted persons betray their assigned roles for personal advantage. That system that can best hold employees to their collectively assigned tasks is the best system.

John E. Gibson

Owatonna