God I hate Dubai!

God I hate Dubai! It is funny when I think about how I will look back at my time here… a time spent learning so much about things I only read about in books. Learning about how unfair the world is, how unequal the distribution of resources is. But here I am after being here for 8 months and I have had enough of it all!

The sad thing is that all I want to do is run away from it all and bury my head in the sand of a comfortable western lifestyle, once again immune and ignorant to the plight of the majority. But to tell you the truth it really weighs you down seeing how unfair the world is to people and how lucky I have it. I mean I lie on my bed having a nice Saturday afternoon siesta and I feel guilty as the gardener is outside, slaving away in the sun. I know the low wages he earns, I know he is going back to a room he shares with several other people, I know he doesn’t have a kitchen, I know he rarely sees his family, the list goes on. And my gardener has it better than the laborer, who lives in the “labor camps” outside the city limits, where they even resort to eating cats for food (yes this was front page news a few months back - http://secretdubai.blogspot.com/2007/01/kitty-kebabs.html). And then I have to think about India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, where these people have come from, where conditions are infinitely worse.

It’s enough to make you scream to the heavens “My God, my God, why have you forsaken them all????”

So my question is; Where to from here? I mean all good and well for me to go off and move back into the world I consider normal and enjoy myself, but is there not more I owe this world. I now know that I am clearly in the top one percent of the world’s people when it comes to wealth and resources. What should I do about all this? One need look no further than the Bible: Jesus Said: But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your comfort already (Luke 6:24). I mean what does this say for our next life, we privileged top percent of the global pecking order? Are we enjoying now at the expense of tomorrow… Anyways it’s all a bit much for me at the moment.

It just shocks me, that is all. I mean is it okay to be wealthy whilst others starve? I mean I am not even wealthy. By western standards I am merely middle class, nothing more. Should the mode of comparison be local, national or global? I have to think with globalization and all the benefits it brings it also brings responsibilities. No longer can we be immune to the plight of those thousands of miles away. And me, I am much closer to the slums of Mumbai, than I am to the comfortable suburbs of Wollongong where I grew up.

I guess what aggravates this frustration more is the way some live out here. Those in my office worry themselves with which series BMW or Mercedes someone drives…. I know an expat manager here who owns a 7 series BMW and a Ferrari!?!!? I mean when is enough enough? I would think an Indian would have more sympathy to the plight of the impoverished, given they were faced with it every day as they grew up. But I think they are more used to it than the average western person and accept it as a fact of life, part of the cosmic balance of the universe (a key tenant to the functioning of the caste system).

Well it is not for me to judge. All I can say is that I have learnt that this world is a harsh place, but not a place devoid of hope and opportunity; I mean people out here are making a better life for themselves and their families back home. I just wish I knew where to head from here. Well I am confident in the fact that I have chosen the ideal life partner, one who shares all these concerns with me and that together we can at least try to make some kind of difference, rather than just make ourselves feel good about ourselves and less guilty about the kind fortunes that God has bestowed upon us.

Ha! But then one sees the IPCC report released this week and well…. Once again the poor lose out. Sometimes I cannot help but think God has it in for the less fortunate. Or maybe there is no God and it is up to us, the more fortunate ones to make things right. Maybe God was invented as someone to blame for the plight of the less fortunate, a convenient excuse for us to sit back, relax having a siesta, and do nothing to make these horribly unjust things right.

True Cost Economics

Economic theory states that social and environmental concerns should be left to the function of regulators and the Government and that businesses should stick to what they do best, which is making profits for their shareholders. Any move on the behalf on a corporation to invest time, money and resources in general in the pursuit of improving the conditions of anything other than that of the bank balance of their shareholders would be in contradiction of their charter and hence irresponsible and possibly even unethical.

This has always been something that bothered me. I mean when you consider that the corporation itself is considered in a legal sense as a individual and hence bestowed with the rights of the individual, would it not be fair that all the responsibilities of being an individual and hence citizen be levied on a corporation? The question is what are the responsibilities of a citizen? Is it ethical for a person to focus on the profits of their shareholders (themselves and immediate family) at the expense of all other parties of the society in which the individual lives?

I guess I have been thinking of this a great deal ever since I took economics at university. What do corporations owe society? Is the payment of tax all that is required? Should the social function of a corporation not extend beyond this point? The same should be asked of the citizen. Does the citizen owe anything else to society?

A good example is war. In times gone past, when a country goes to war it was a “duty” of the citizen to support the war effort of their nation, whether by physically fighting on the front line or simply by accepting the rationing of their personal resources in the support of the campaign. Now although conscription is a thing of the past it is important to my point here. The citizen is intrinsically, as part of their involvement with society, expected to be willing and able to give more of themselves than simply their annual tax payment. So given this, it should be expected that more than corporate tax revenues should be expected from corporations.

So what? What does this mean? We are not at war anyways so who cares, right? Well besides the fact that we are technically at war (most western nations are involved in the ongoing war on terror and occupations of Iraq, Afghanistan etc) the logic of owing something to society should hold true at all times, whether at war or not.

Given we are arguably in the middle of the fight for the survival of the planet I would say that the call for something more than just taxes is called from all global citizens, including corporations. By saying “survival” I refer to the numerous negative impacts the human race is having upon our biosphere (Climate Charge, habit destruction, toxic waste etc), impacts that will in the next fifty years start to seriously impact not only the successful functioning of the biosphere but of the existence of the human race and heaven forbid the fat bottom line of the world’s major corporations.

So when the call the arms comes (it has already come, we are just waiting for the official declaration of war to be announced) we should expect corporations to join the fight with all the resources at their disposal. Profits for shareholders are not enough, corporations, as part of their contribution, beyond taxes (which they attempt to minimise at all times anyway), is the start help solve the problem. Corporations need to consider all their impacts on the society they function in. They need to factor in costs of advertising (which increases unsustainable consumption of goods [insert info on record personal debt levels in developed nations here] which are often unhealthy for their consumers and the world as a whole), pollution (CO2, hazardous waste etc), workers rights (increasing employee insecurity and over work is causing an epidemic of stress/depression in the west resulting in a great strain on our health care systems worldwide), contributions to cultural diversity (rapid globalization has tended to greatly reduce cultural diversity – Just look at Central America or the Gulf countries in the Middle East or even Indian and Chinese “Pop Culture”) and creativity (What movies and music are the most profitable? How many remakes and sequels are on at the movies these days?), Journalistic independence (anyone watched Fox News or CNN of late?) etc and etc.

The corporation after all is the same as a Government, it is just owned by fewer people and is mandated only to care about the needs of these few. But in the end the fate of the corporation, the Government and the citizen are all tied to the fate of the planet. It has been the attempted compartmentalization of society by economists and other theorists that have caused so many of the problems we face today. The sooner we all realize that we are in this fight together the sooner we will be able to rally all resources for the good fight, the fight that will help ensure the sustainable future of the planet and of the human race. Were corporations and individuals to focus on their immediate needs at the expense of their true and complete involvement with the world as a whole then we, corporations, Governments and citizens included are all doomed.

The goal: True cost economics. We need to include all costs and impacts in all decisions. We need to have the confidence that when we invest money in BHP Billiton that they are making decisions that promote sustainable interactions with the biosphere, increases to fourth quarter earnings are no longer sufficient custodianship of our resources. As all resources come from the earth and all will go back. The sooner the business world realizes that the sooner we can start to rebuild the economic order in a manner that suits the children born in one thousand years time as today will be gone tomorrow but forever will be with us for eternity.

http://www.truecosteconomics.org

Also have put up photos of Paris... what a place... and what better person to be there with than Farah aka Brown Squirrel! http://lucas.intercate.net/gallery/farahnlucas