Archive - 2007
May 24th
Follow the links
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Thu, 05/24/2007 - 14:49One of the things that is important about any conference is the face to face networking that goes on outside of the keynotes and panels. At Personal Democracy Forum, I received lots of different cards, links etc., and I thought it would be helpful to highlight some of them.
I was part of the Change.org beta and have been very interested in the site. They are a site where people can list nonprofits that they are interested in, encourage people to donate or take actions on behalf of the nonprofit. This week, they came out of beta. They’ve added a section for politics. Please stop by and add .
I spoke with Heather Cronk for a little bit at Personal Democracy Forum. Heather used to work with the New Organizing Institute, and has moved on to PledgeBank. PledgeBank is similar to Change.org, but they have an interesting take. People pledge to do something, if a bunch of other people pledge to do the same thing, sort of like grassroots driven matching donations on our local public broadcasting station.
PledgeBank is part of MySociety.org, which has been doing some very interesting work on eGovernance in Great Britain.
I spoke with Jo Lee for a little bit. She handed me a card for ringtones08.com. They also have a MySpace page and have started a facebook group. At RingTones08, you can upload Ringtones for the 2008 Presidential Election. I played my Howard Dean Scream Ringtone for Jo Lee and she encouraged me to upload it. I will sometime soon.
I spent a little time talking with Gwen Rose from the Vote Solar Initiative. They grew out of a bond initiative in San Francisco in 2001. They work on the state and municipal level to support solar energy projects. They have an action alert network that encourages people to contact their elected officials.
A problem that they are running into is how to find the best tools to contact members of state legislatures. I kicked around some ideas about using the grassroots to come up with better ways of contacting state legislators.
Later, I ran into Sarah Schacht from Knowledge as Power.
Knowledge as Power is a 501(c)3 aimed at providing citizens timely access to legislative information and encouraging people to contact their state legislators about issues. I spoke with Sarah about the problems that Gwen had been having and suggested that the two might want to explore ways to work together.
Other folks I ran into included Rafael DeGennaro of Read The Bill, Ruby Sinreich of lotusmedia, Liza Sabater of Culture Kitchen and Beka from The Change You Want to See.
So, if you didn’t get a chance to attend Personal Democracy Forum, at least follow the links and stop by and say hello.
May 23rd
Making the debate a little more serious
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Wed, 05/23/2007 - 10:20Gavin Kennedy and I have been trading blog posts concerning Adam Smith and trade policy today. His current post is Let Debate Continue (it's better than fighting a trade war).
May 22nd
Wordless Wednesday
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Tue, 05/22/2007 - 23:58
World War III?
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Tue, 05/22/2007 - 20:55Gavin Kennedy, in his blog, Adam Smith’s Lost Legacy criticizes my by recent blog post Unshackling Adam Smith’s invisible hand – Carbon Credits, entitling his post, How to Start World War III & IV. Does he really believe that tying trade policies to energy consumption or environmental policies would start World War III & IV?
NAFTA's explicit inclusion of environmental issues in dispute settlement jurisdiction didn’t start a World War. Why would they in other trade agreements? It appears as if Kennedy is just being a polemicist, not seriously interested in thinking seriously about how trade policies affect our world.
Unshackling Adam Smith’s invisible hand – Carbon Credits
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Tue, 05/22/2007 - 09:52After I wrote my blog piece, The Innovation Invitation, Jock Gill called me up and we had an interesting talk about it. He pointed out that the invitation to innovate should not be restricted new technology changing the way we communicate on campaigns. We need innovative ideas that transcend campaigning and go beyond relying solely on technology to solve our problems.
The conversation drifted to Adam Smith, and how the political spectrum is not a line, but a circle. The further to the left or right you go, the closer to those on the other side you end up. I think an interesting illustration of this is what I’ll call The Progressive Capitalist.
I must admit, I’ve only read very brief passages of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations, so I may be off based on some of my observations. Smith’s had big concerns about fairness and normative cultural values. Jock argued that Smith believed in a local marketplace, with local ownership and was opposed to absentee ownership and remote accumulation of capital. In a world of large multinational corporations, the market is no longer local. The playing field is not fair. A local community can no longer exert its cultural values on the businesses in its locality.
Indeed, if we are going to allow Adam Smith’s invisible hand to have an effect, we need to avoid entering trade agreements that give other countries unfair competitive advantage. For example, a country that puts disproportionate amounts of carbon dioxide into the air, a country that is essentially robbing its neighbors of a clean air and a healthy climate has an unfair advantage that would be unacceptable to Adam Smith. Instead, trade agreements should include fairness. If we want to unshackle Adam Smith’s invisible hand, we should tie our trade agreements to fairness. If we want to see a real market force, let’s require all imports to be carbon neutral. Instead of tariffs, companies would need to buy carbon offsets. Let’s tie Kyoto to all our trade agreements.
This is just a start. We should spend time thinking about how to make sure that in an increasingly flat world, Adam Smith’s invisible hand can help maximize human happiness.
(Cross posted at Greater Democracy)
