Obama’s speech yesterday in Cairo is receiving enormous attention around the world, and that makes sense. Here’s the conclusion:

The Holy Koran tells us: “O mankind! We have created you male and a female; and we have made you into nations and tribes so that you may know one another.”

The Talmud tells us: “The whole of the Torah is for the purpose of promoting peace.”

The Holy Bible tells us: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.”

The people of the world can live together in peace. We know that is God’s vision. Now that must be our work here on Earth.

A practical path to peace is to start with income security for all. It’s easy to understand how and why that is so.

From my perspective, the major obstacles to world peace are habitual ideas and attitudes, particularly the conventional practice of thinking in terms of abstractions, such as “war,” “peace,” “terrorism,” and “the economy.”

Instead of abstractions, the way thinking at the core of income security for all starts with individuals and our everyday lives.

Imagine that everyone in, say, Palestine has a guaranteed basic income, enough for food and shelter.

Ordinary Palestinians have never known economic security, no matter who governed their territory, Turkey, Great Britain, Egypt, Jordan, Israel, or the Palestinian Authority. There have been reports for years that the Palestinian Authority is corrupt, inefficient, ineffectual; that was the main reason for the emergence of Hamas. About half of the 4.1 million Palestinians live below the regional poverty line of $2 a day. Unemployment is more than 40 percent overall, more than 60 percent in some areas.

Suppose the international community offered to provide the funds and help the Palestinians establish their own version of Citizen Dividends. Just $3 billion a year would double the incomes of the poorest. Every Palestinian would have a more direct stake in seeking peace, ending terrorism, and remaking the Palestinian Authority into an effective government that can negotiate with Israel. The plight of the Palestinians will no longer be a rallying point for Hezbollah, Syria, Iran, and other enemies of Israel, including Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda. Moderate voices might finally be heard over the shouting of militants and fundamentalists.

A few billion dollars a year. That’s a lot less than current international aid to the region. It’s less, in fact, than the current aid that pays for weapons.

Does this make sense? Could it work, do you think? Have you heard anything else that might lead to peace in the Middle East?

The complete proposal, the benefits, and the plan to make it happen is in my book, Peaceful, Positive Revolution,.

A lot of additional information about Citizen Dividends is on this web site, IncomeSecurityForAll.org.

Please explore the web site, read the book, and help spread the word.

We can achieve world peace, and we will, when We the People demand it.

Steven Shafarman

That phrase, “saved capitalism,” is one many historians use to describe Franklin Roosevelt’s actions in response to the Great Depression. We got Social Security; the FDIC, to insure bank deposits; the SEC, to protect investors and restore confidence in financial markets; and other government agencies and programs.

Roosevelt also reconceived government as “the employer of last resort.”

We’re now in the midst of the Great Recession, and Barack Obama is responding by trying to update or resurrect Roosevelt’s legacy. That appears logical, because current conditions are generally attributed to decades of deregulation. One form of deregulation has been the failure – most notably by the SEC, the Federal Reserve, and the Treasury Department – to apply and enforce regulations.

Though Obama’s approach is keeping things from getting too much worse, it’s not enough. It’s only providing aid to people who are losing their jobs, bandaging the failed government programs, and comforting the victims of Wall Street’s excesses and crimes. Aiding, bandaging, and comforting are good, often necessary, but in this case mostly just rearranging the deck chairs on a sinking ship. The deck-chairing can’t go on much longer. The ship really is sinking.

We need more fundamental reform, a peaceful, positive revolution.

It’s time to update an idea millions of Americans supported in the 1930s, an idea that was nearly enacted in the 1960s, an idea that actually has its roots in the founding of our nation. That idea is guaranteed income. We can and must ensure that every citizen has an income independent of any job. Income security for all.

In the 1960s, guaranteed income was a mainstream, moderate idea. Martin Luther King called for it in his last book, and a plan to provide it passed the House of Representatives by two-to-one, but was blocked in the Senate. Proponents including leading economists from the left and the right.

In the 1930s, mass movements for guaranteed income security generated the political will for Social Security, and that history is document on the official web site of the Social Security administration.

As for the Founders: Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine clearly endorsed ideas about income security. Think for a moment about the real meaning and logic of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Life requires food and shelter, and therefore an income to pay for food and shelter. Liberty is denied, at least partly, to people who cannot afford basic necessities. And happiness, though it is clearly more than money, almost always requires some income. If we sincerely believe in the ideals of the Declaration, it makes sense to enact income security for all.

The updated idea is to set some amount, say $1,000 a month, and provide that to every adult citizen. It should be enough for food and shelter, but just enough, so people still have strong incentives to work and earn.

Why don’t we have that? Because we individuals and We the People are not demanding it.

The complete plan, the idea, the benefits, and how we can make it happen, is in Peaceful, Positive Revolution,.

Additional information is on the home page and elsewhere on this web site.

I hope you’ll also comment on this blog. And please help spread the word.

Steven Shafarman

By “us” and “we” and “our” in those questions, I’m referring to ordinary Americans, those who used to be called the “silent majority.”

When we read about Obama, when we hear him on the radio and see him on television, we should remember something: America is a democracy. We citizens are his bosses. His job is to follow our directions.

Our job is give him clear directions. That means we have to be active citizens. We can’t just go to sleep and expect him to know and do what’s right.

It’s not enough to just complain, criticize, and protest. That’s particularly true these days, when some protests are like the anti-tax “tea parties” of two weeks ago. Those were mainly PR events for the Republican party and its friends at Fox news.

The reason I write this blog and work so hard to promote the idea of Citizen Dividends is that I want to live in a society based on real justice for all, real freedom for all, real dignity for all. Too often, it seems to me, justice, freedom, and dignity are just rhetoric.

Justice, freedom, and dignity are denied or impaired when people lack an income, enough for food and shelter at least. Income security for all is necessary.

But we can’t just sit back and wait for Obama to solve our problems for us. Indeed, if we expect him to do so, we’re just reinforcing our sense of powerlessness. And we’re actually making it less likely that there will be any real progress on climate change, health care, education reform, and so on.

What do you think? Do these ideas make sense to you? Do you see the connection between income security and democracy?

To learn more about these ideas, visit the home page and other material on this web site, www.IncomeSecurityForAll.org.

You can read the complete plan, the idea and how we can implement it, in my book, Peaceful, Positive Revolution, which is available from Tendril Press.

I hope you’ll also comment on this blog. And please help spread the word. That’s how real change happens, from individuals talking to our friends, family members, neighbors, co-workers.

Steven Shafarman

Aid to small businesses is a step, potentially, though only a baby step, in the direction of a guaranteed basic income for all Americans.

A New York Times story about President Obama’s announcement is here and a 15-minute video is here.

A story in the Washington Post, here, includes the following paragraph:

“Small businesses are the heart of the American economy,” Obama said in announcing the measures. “They’re responsible for half of all private-sector jobs, and they created roughly 70 percent of all new jobs in the past decade.

That’s well known and documented. Our government should be helping small businesses, not big ones. Obama’s announcement made that point, though only indirectly, when he began his remarks by criticizing AIG and the harms and waste that have been caused recently by big companies and government support for big companies.

When each of us has a guaranteed basic income, lots of us will start small businesses. Starting a business, after all, being self-employed, is for many of us a core part of the American dream. If the Obama administration really wants to create jobs and promote economic growth, it will make it a lot easier for every would-be entrepreneur to start a small business. Basic income will do that.

The AIG bailout is a clear indicator of the underlying problem. Last September, when the financial system was freezing up, our government set out to save AIG, Citibank, Bank of America, and other big finance corporations. That reflected a knee-jerk assumption that big businesses are good, deserving respect and support. Big is good, many people seem to believe, and bigger much therefore be better. That’s wrong.

Suppose our government had not been afflicted by those assumptions, and not further biased by campaign contributions from the finance industry. (For evidence of the biases and assumptions, see Henry Paulson and Robert Rubin and so many other Wall Street officials in our government.) When the credit markets froze, instead of bailing out AIG, Citibank, Bank of America, et. al., our government could have loaned funds to community banks and credit unions arounds the country. Restore the credit and finance system from the ground up, rather than trying to do so from the top down.

Obama began his remarks by praising community banks. It would be great if he put those ideas more thoroughly into practice. Truly great if he goes even further and endorses the guaranteed basic income. One step at a time.

Steven Shafarman

Regarding energy: Obama called on Congress to enact a cap on carbon to drive progress toward renewable energy sources. Caps will increase costs, though he didn’t mention that. Extra income for every American citizen will help us individuals offset those costs. Everyone will be more able to afford to invest in energy efficiency. Individuals and families will be able to invest in appropriate changes by, for example, buying hybrid cars and making their homes more energy efficient. Those changes will come without the complex system of tax credits that Obama is proposing. Starting with the guaranteed income, moreover, will make those changes more politically acceptable.

Regarding health care: Many of the excess costs of our health care system are due to poverty. People who are struggling economically often cannot afford to eat well, sleep well, care for themselves and the people they love. Poverty is stressful, and those stresses are a cause of many health problems, such as high blood pressure, anxiety, digestive difficulties, and so on. Enacting a guaranteed basic income will immediately reduce health care costs for individuals and our nation. That’s a necessary step toward reforming Medicare, Medicaid, and other health programs.

Regarding education: Obama wants everyone to graduate from high school and have at least one year beyond it. Extra income will make that possible. It will be a lot easier for people to stay in school or go back to school. And the benefits will grow over time. Imagine our society when every child knows that he or she will have some guaranteed income starting at age 18. Children will grow up with greater hope than today, knowing that they have the means to pursue their dreams.

A word he used many times was “responsibility,” notably with regard to children. “Responsibility for children must begin at home” and “We have a responsibility to ensure that we do not pass on to them a debt they cannot pay.”

Income security for all will make it easier for every parent to fulfill their responsibilities. Many of the problems Obama and others talk about, after all, are rooted in or related to economic uncertainty. Parents who are struggling to pay their bills typically cannot invest the time to be with their children, and cannot fully enjoy those times. Even parents who have good jobs today are increasingly worried about their finances, and therefore distracted from their responsibilities as parents. Every parent and every child will benefit when income security is guaranteed.

With regard to our national debt: It will almost certainly be more cost-effective to give everyone a basic income than to continue with the complex and costly efforts to bail out banks and other big corporations. And the guaranteed basic income will do much more to restore people’s trust and confidence in our government and economic system.

For Obama’s supporters: Lets do what we can to educate him and others about the basic income guarantee and how it can help him achieve his goals.

For Obama’s critics: Let’s do what we can to educate everyone about the basic income guarantee and how it can help all of us work together to rebuild our nation.

Steven Shafarman

Our immediate job is to reduce the downward spiral. And that means putting money into consumers’ pockets.

The bill he and Congress are working on, however, would put money only into some pockets. Who gets the money? How? How much? When? Who gets nothing? That’s what Democrats and Republicans are fighting about. Each party wants the money to go to it’s favored causes and constituencies, while denying money to the groups and issues it opposes.

A guaranteed basic income will put money into everyone’s pockets. Every American citizen, equally. No more fighting over it. No one left behind.

Obama also spoke about “restoring market confidence” and “restoring a sense of confidence in the market.” Here, too, the best way to achieve his objective, which just about every pundit and economist shares, is with a guaranteed basic income.

Every citizen will have an income independent of any job. Each of us will be confident that we can afford food and shelter, at least. Even if we lose our jobs, each of us will be confident that we have some income that is stable and certain.

One issue Obama seems to overlook, and another reason he ought to endorse the basic income guarantee, is the abstract nature of “the market.” The term is tricky, in part because there are several kinds of markets. Your neighborhood farmer’s market is very different than the New York Stock Exchange. At the farmer’s market and other local markets, real people provide real goods and services, paying real money.

Financial markets mostly exist in cyberspace only, where computerized trading programs tally bits of data representing securities, debt obligations, credit default swaps, and other such financial instruments. The currency of financial markets is confidence. Bankers and borrowers and investors have to trust one another, or financial markets break down. That’s what happened last summer and fall. Banks stopped lending, especially to one another. Their balance sheets were filled with stuff that couldn’t be sold, couldn’t even be accurately valued in many cases, so there was no basis for trust.

Our government is trying to restore confidence in the financial markets through the $700 billion bailout. That’s a top-down approach, bailing out the banks, buying their toxic assets, assuming that confidence and money will trickle downward and to ordinary people and small businesses. Instead, we could use a basic income to provide funds directly to ordinary people. That will build confidence from the bottom up.

Ordinary people, confident about our financial situations, will save and invest. Many of us will put our money in local banks and invest in local businesses. Money and confidence will flow upward. The financial sector will be rebuilt with a truly secure foundation.

Steven Shafarman

Steven Shafarman