December 22
GUEST: George Lakey, co-founder of Earth Quaker Action Group, visiting Professor at Swarthmore College, and leader of over 1,500 workshops on five continents, talks about his latest book, Viking Economics: How the Scandinavians Got It Right and How We Can, Too.
I was looking forward to this interview. George's book is somewhat of a revelation to Americans brought up on the supposed superiority of our brand of capitalism.
But here are societies that don't really have poverty. Where all children get enough to eat, and go to college for virtually nothing. Where parents get months of leave when they have a child (yes, both parents). Where daycare and medical care are free for all citizens. Yet, the Viking economies are also more productive and more innovative than our own.
Try to wrap your head around that. Billionaires run our country, and spend their time trying to such the last dollar out of every working family in America. Billionaires were once the problem in the Nordic countries too. How did they overthrow their kleptocracy, and how do they protect their governments from the US version of savage capitalism?
Read the book. It is at once hopeful, and profoundly disturbing. What suffering and privation the very wealthy have caused us. What endless wars they have waged for economic exploitation. How long until we too can rise up and reclaim our democracy?
