The thought that this far along the human continuum can produce any original thoughts is debatable. Yet there is the possibility that old thoughts can resurrect and become “heard” in ways that promote new actions and stabilizing policy. It all rests with need. Need produces the willingness to adopt ideas that will lead to change.
For instance, Raj Patel, a past member of the World Bank, and currently on staff at Berkley suggests in his new book “The Value of Nothing” that we have lost the ability, or the need, to account for the true value of the products we consume. He believes, as Oscar Wilde once quoted, “We know the price of everything and the value of nothing.”
For example, Patel outlines the real costs in heavily laden sugar products (i.e. diabetes) might be offset by a “sugar tax.” The idea that social costs should be barred by the consumer is not ground breaking, but the current political interest is (i.e. smoking area limits, sin taxes, even consumer taxes replacing income tax as some propose). Thought and action rarely are human bedfellows.
These ideas, like Patel’s notion of mimicking early Greece in allowing our policies to be driven by a legislative body (Congress) picked randomly (like jury duty) and in power for one year, only to replaced by a couple hundred fresh citizens, is obviously old, but profound.
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