. Since the last article

on the stratified (rocket- .shaped) certified society,

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ment".

_of the need for Proots" or "a homeland" and of "protec— tion of our natural environ—

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cerporate elite and the govf erment are looked at as two immensly rich persons, it is

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age) risk life and limb if they drive a bicycle. the latter is a terrific

machine in terms of mobility

Yet

I've had a few replies con— cerning the effects of large and increasing eco- nomic inequalities between people. Although the ine justice of such a situa—" Ltion in a sense is obvious, I want to clarify the rela—, tionship between external wealth(certifica§e, money) Land the human dimension of independence and would still appreciate any com- ments on this. ‘

" What we've come up Jwith so_far are five factors which are all closely re- lated: land, fodd—dollars, Societal direction, meaning— ful work, and monopoly tools.

..To say that man is independ— ent is to say he has the free potential of becoming fully human. JThe needs for inde— pendence have traditionally been defined as food,clothing and shelter(i.e. suStenance and protection). I think

.this has been a mistake and that we must upgrade this definition to include the abilities naturally inherent in man (i.e. mobility,health,, imagination,communication, _ etc.). To do this is tohbring;

Haney lightxon the concept of

,...I'Mdsftn12é¢ powerty" in the

; issehooleé. some ty- 1 _ ” The explanation of the ‘five poverty factors below attempts.to illustrate the

-re1ation between infringement

‘of independence (poverty) and human liberation. Space available here.only‘allows me to briefly explain each.of these. ' V

aé§2-- By working on nature, man creates culture and transforms his world. Food and shelter come direct— ly from the land and clothing nowadaysxcomes indirectly. To be landless is to be dependent on others. Where i land is_a commodityiit is the rich or the accreditation of agri—business that create poverty for others. Also in our language—thought we talk

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consumption patterns and a large service sector (both of which are de—humanizing and are perpetu ated by schools- ing)produce a high monetary turnover and create economic wealth. Such Vrich" nations or regions can outbid under— developed areas on food mar— kets even for food produced

_on rich landowners or multi-

nationalsgplantations within these areas. Although food production has increased faster than world population over the last two decades, there is even worse starva- tion and malnutrition in the Third World(where ironically increases in production have been greatest). We can't speak of human liberation while our economic power' means other people'are stari- ing to death; and in this‘ ” situation, unequal wealth most certainly does matter.' SOCIETAL I O -- Public allocation of re— sources and private corporate wealth Vinfluence the spirit or character of our society. UnfOrtunately we have been obsessively guided by ecoé nomics and techological science and most critical analytical theory has been- aimed at understanding the inner workings of these two bodies of knowledge instead of looking which way, as a whg g, these are sending us. For example, it is actually

l"sound economic practise" to

have industrialization,con— spicuous consumption,waste, pollution clean—up, and social engineering; further—

more, it is quite "scientific"!

to produce atomic reactors or biological or chemical ‘ weapons. Although they don't have to be, these are our guides of applied knowledge directing public wealth at the present time; in neither caSe, however, is human lib— eration increased. If the

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easy to see that their eco—

’nomic power often creates our

poverty. . MI W RK-— If the inappropriate allocation' of the public funds degrades the spirit of society and directs our efforts towards non—convival ends, it also reduces at the individual level, the availability of meaningful jobs. If neither the government nor the market system make available mean- ingful jobs and you lack the resources for independence

(read "are Door")wthan you will probably have to settle

for employment that ranges anywhere from unfulfilling to outright slavery. But there is no moral or logical reason that these two employers should alone dictate what jobs are available or should the rich be the only ones entit led to personally: initiated, creative, produc-

-tive , andlmeaningful work.

0 'sEss ONOPOLY TOOL Tools or systems take on the label of "obsessive monopoly" when they ]) overwhelm others methods of ability use, and 2) lock the imagination into obsession even after the mono— poly tool clearly becomes dys— functional. The problem starts when we translate the use of a natural human ability into the consumption of an industrial product or output. Thus, mobility is defined as high speed transportation, learning is defined as attend- ence at school, and health is defined as medical service. For example, those who can't afford the several thousand necessary for the operation

when compared to high speed transportation. Transporta— tion eﬁbrts 45% of the huge national enery budget of the U.S. The average American spends over L600hours to tra— vel 2500 miles —— less than

5 miles per hour. Poor coun- tries achieve a comparable performance by simply walking —— yet have greater freedom in direction, more equality and safety, and less stretcher out distance between home,the work place , and the market (eg. urban sprawl). Clearly after a certain limit of Spee( the wealthy speed addict overpowers the poor, and dys-; functionality and other in- dustrial sickness increases. Parallel analysis can be made for most of our machines and service systems.

I‘apologize if.I've' made this sound complicated — it is, of course, much easier

to simply talk of rich and

poor in dollar terms. But i you check back over the five

factors given, it seems ques— tionable whether more money for the poor will cure the situation. -The analysis

given in this article has ob— ”vious‘faultst there are,no' doubt,more than five signi— ficant dimensions of poverty; the area labeled "societal direction" doesn't yet fit neatly into the rich dominat— ing the poor; the fifth cate— gory of "monopoly tools" de— serves much more attention- than I've been_able to give here. (Incidently, Ivan Illich does just this in

Tools For Conviviality). Des—l pite these faults, I hope this

of.a car (transportation pack— artiele can be 0f some halp-

I WHYLIVEALIFE ~ wm-IOUTMEANING?

Too many of us are in places we don’t want to be. Doing things we really don’t want to be doing. Sometimes, it’s because we can’t think of anything better to do—but that’s no way to live.

Since you have only one life to live, you might as well live it with joy . . . with a feeling of satisfac- tion and accomplishment . . . and the knowledge that you are giving, not taking. Why not decide to live for the best . . . for a great purpose . . . for something bigger than you are?

If you want to change the di- rection of your life, you might in- vestigate the Paulist way of living. The Paulists are a small group of Catholic priests dedicated to preach-

|__

ing the Gospel of Christ to the North American people. For over 100 years the Paulists have done this through the communication arts— books, publications, television and ‘ radio—~on college campuses, in par- ishes, in missions in North America, in downtown cent‘ersdn working with young and old. Because we are ﬂexible, we continually pioneer new approaches. To do this We need dedicated, innovative men to carry on our work.

To ﬁnd out what road God has chosen us to walk is one of the most important tasks of our life.

v Which road will be yours? For more information on the

Paulists, ﬁll out.the coupon and mail today. "

l Missionaries 10 Canada and the U .S. j

I PAuusrs I Mail to: Address I I Rev. Frank DeSiano, C.S.P., C. Room 0239 “Y I PAULIerATHERs . . I 415 West 59th Street “mm” 2‘9 New York, N.Y. 10019 Colle 9 l atten mg Class Ofﬁ—J

L_usa. d__’