Paradigm shift: a fundamental change in approach or underlying assumptions.
It is time for a paradigm shift - perhaps far past time. The ruling paradigm for the past several decades has been free-market, unfettered capitalism that was supposed to solve all problems through the magic-thinking of the invisible hand of the marketplace.
The beauty of it was that it provided a creative escape from responsibility to others, or ethics or morality with a kind of financial Darwinism of the survival of the richest, usually meaning the most deviously manipulative.
We could then focus on money and, by prioritizing money far ahead of people, we could be absolved of all the "taking care of your neighbors or fellow citizens" that tended to be the bulwarks of religion and democracy in the past.
Well, that paradigm has pretty much bankrupted the ordinary citizens of this nation (and of the world for that matter), both financially and morally. The leaders of that paradigm have enriched themselves at everyone else's expense and left the economies and the environments of the world in a shambles.
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That paradigm has just about taken our last pair of dimes and left us with perhaps a couple nickels or pennies or even penniless as it goes careening merrily on its way to the bank.
We do not even need to invent a new paradigm, we have perfectly good and proven paradigms to work with. Democracy with its concern for people above things, its concern with equality, justice, community and human decency; and religion with its concern for taking care of our fellow human beings in this life.
I would bet my last pair of dimes on that paradigm. I have faith that such a bet will pay off far better for all concerned.
Bob Passi
Baxter
