[imc-st.louis] "Industrial Disease..."- Crisis Forewarned in 1993

[scottie a_]

	    Scott Addison    *    St. Louis, MO    

		8 Apr.'09

		Economic Daze of Future Past:
		"Industrial Disease..."
		   -- Crisis Forewarned in 1993
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	It's a bit surprising that the current 
economic meltdown was surprising at all.  The 
devolving forces have been steadily at work for a 
long time, the effects foreseeable, but the Pols 
& Pundits chose not to look.  They all kept 
blithely echoing the sure axioms of the annointed 
economic experts, which now ring hollow.  Some 
persist on the rhetorical bully pulpit, bandying 
20-20 hindsight, but our creedance is strained... 
if they're so smart now, why were they so wrong 
then?

	There is a sense of déja vu in all this: 
Recall the election of 1992, as the Clinton 
administration came in with an agenda of economic 
change, in the wake of another Repugnican 
recession... (remember the bumper sticker:  "It's 
the Economy, Stupid").  Even then, it seemed that 
the laissez-faire 'suppy-side' ideologies of the 
Reagan years had exhausted their thin logic.
Bill Clinton campaigned against NAFTA, promoted 
domestic jobs, equity, & healthcare reform, and 
hinted at long-needed innovations in industrial 
policy -- already a focus of my work for 10 
years.  When he formed the first 'National 
Economic Council'  as President-Elect, it  was a 
politically volatile moment in these debates, and 
it looked like a promising one for new ideas.

	So I called DC, shared some thoughts, 
they asked for fuller inputs in writing, and I 
obliged... it took 2 months to compose a serious 
economic research & policy essay, presented in 
February 1993:

         ** 
	<http://www.free-assembly.org/libtree/addison-works/indl-disease-fe09.pdf>"INDUSTRIAL 
DISEASE ~ Soft Cures in the NeoEconomy"
	(PDF format, 37 pp., 328 kb ... full link below**)

	It was ambitious in scope, connecting 
best ideas with pragmatic solutions:
       It surveyed forward-thinking economic 
critiques in the realms of Sustainability, 
Regionalism, Responsible Investment, and Urban 
Design, and posited an emergent 'NeoEconomic' 
model in the synthesis of these insights.  Noting 
patterns of capital flight and industrial loss, 
retail-driven sprawl, and the excesses of the 
finance, insurance, and real estate sectors, it 
predicted inevitable crisis if these trends 
continued -- showing why real economic change was 
essential, better sooner than later.
      Then it outlined a broad policy plan under 
these 4 major themes, with coordinated program & 
project initiatives -- setting up near-term 
remedies and long-term transitions in economic 
life & theory.  Restoring productive diversity 
and balance to communities would prove the 
viability of the new model.  The hope was to 
avert future crisis, and not wait to endure it.

	However as the Clinton team settled in, 
it started looking like more of the same:
He backpedaled on campaign positions, embraced 
deregulation, turned around and supported NAFTA 
five months into office.  His economic agenda 
entrenched the influences of globalist bankers, 
brokers, and marketeers -- unmoved by progressive 
critiques, unwilling or unable to see systemic 
problems -- so this promising discourse never 
went forward.

	Now 16 years later, the 'future crisis' 
is fully upon us, landing on a new Democratic 
President once again.  The issues are the same 
because they were never addressed, but more 
sweeping than feared.  Obama seems to grasp 
`some` of the big picture, with elements of a 
progressive analysis and laudable notions of 
green reinvestment in infrastructure & 
communities.  But again the political push is to 
revive the economy as we knew it, to save 
dinosaur institutions and restore the Old Order. 
These inertial powers and habitual views drag on 
the momentum for creative change, and he lacks a 
clear strategic vision posing a viable 
alternative model.  This is what 'NeoEconomics' 
meant to provide in 1993...  what could have been 
proactive and wise then is urgent and imperative 
now.
It is the nature of ideas before their time to 
become current and compelling later on.

	The time for these ideas has come -- 
"Indusrial Disease..." has been presented to the 
White House once more, sent to the National 
Economic Council in March 2009, with minor 
revisions:
       Keeping it authentic, the main body of the 
essay is largely unaltered, true to its 1993 
context and significant in that light.  The 
scholarly research and policy ideas are still 
true and workable, even if some `program` 
parlance might change.  However a new 'Foreword, 
2009' chronicles the origins of this essay, its 
political fate, and the effects of intervening 
years... and the original closing is 
supplemented, where 'Epilogue 2009' adds 
admonitions on the current crisis:

"There is no going back.  This is not just a 
cyclic 'recession', it is a seismic shift in 
economic grounds, forcing a deep  restructuring 
and permanent changes in our modus operandi.  ... 
Now the NeoEconomy must evolve fast..."  (pp. 
36-37).


	Bringing this old essay to the new public 
debate, it seemed most fitting to present an 
'updated original' in this way, as an item of 
history with current commentary... a future from 
the past.
	**Here is the full direct link:
	<http://www.free-assembly.org/libtree/addison-works/indl-disease-fe09.pdf>http://www.free-assembly.org/libtree/addison-works/indl-disease-fe09.pdf


		in service --

			\_scottie addison__
			     St. Louis, MO

			    \__Planning, Design, Land Policy & Law


-- 
   |///  This eMail address ~		"The trouble with Americans is they
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