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politicalprof:

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What has been learned from the brain and cognitive sciences is that words are defined by fixed frames we use in thinking, frames come in hierarchical systems, and political frames are defined in moral terms, where “morality” is very different for conservatives and progressives. What lies behind the Occupy movement is a moral view of democracy: Democracy is about citizens caring about each other and acting responsibly both socially and personally. This requires a robust public empowering and protecting everyone equally. Both private success and personal freedom depend on such a public. Every critique and proposal of the Occupy movement fits this moral view, which happens to be the progressive moral view.

What the Occupy movement can’t stand is the opposite “moral” view, that democracy provides the freedom to seek one’s self-interest and ignore what is good for other Americans and others in the world. That view lies behind the Wall Street ethic of the Greedy Market, as opposed to a Market for All, a market that should maximize the well-being of most Americans. This view leads to a hierarchical view of society, where success is always deserved and lack of success is moral failure. The rich are the moral, and they not only deserve their wealth, they also deserve the power it brings. This is the view that Luntz is defending.

Referring to the rich as “hardworking taxpayers” ignores the fact that a great percentage of the rich do not get their wealth from making things, but rather from investments in other people’s labor, and that most of the 1% are managers, not people who make things or directly provide services. The hardworking taxpayers are the 99%. That is not the frame that Luntz wants activated.

But Luntz is not just addressing his remarks to Republicans. He is also looking to take Democrats for suckers. How? By choosing his frames carefully, and getting Democrats to do the opposite of what he tells Republicans. There is a basic truth about framing. If you accept the other guy’s frame, you lose.

Take “capitalism.” It arises these days in socialist discourse, and is seen as the opposite of socialism. To attack “capitalism” in this frame is to accept “socialism.” Conservatives are trying to cast progressives, who mostly have businesses or work for businesses or are looking for good business jobs, as socialists. If you take the Luntz bait, you will be sucked into sounding like a socialist. Whatever one thinks of socialism, most Americans falsely identify it with communism, and will reject it out of hand.

Luntz would love to get Democrats using the word “tax” in the conservative sense of taking money from the pockets of hardworking folks and wasting it on people who don’t deserve it. Luntz doesn’t want Democrats pointing out how private success depends on public investment — in infrastructure, education, health, transportation, research, economic stability, protections of all sorts, and so on. He doesn’t want progressives talking about “revenue” which is defined in a business frame to mean money needed for any institution to function and flourish. He doesn’t want Democrats talking about the rich paying their fair share for the massive amount they have gotten from prior investments in a robust public. Luntz would love to lure progressives into talking about government “spending” rather than investments in education, health, and infrastructure that will benefit most Americans.

He doesn’t want progressives pointing out that corporations govern our lives far more than any government does — and for their profit, not ours. He doesn’t want any discussion of corporate waste, or military waste, which is huge.

Luntz would love to have Democrats talking about “entrepreneurs,” which evokes a Republican view of the market as a tool for self-interest. His proposal to discuss “job creators” instead hides the fact that the business community has not been hiring despite record profits. He certainly does not want discussion of outsourcing and minimizing pay for work, which leads corporations to eliminate or downgrade jobs and hence keep wages low when profits are high.

Hidden behind his proposal to substitute “careers” for “jobs” is his attempt to appeal to young people just out of college and grad school who expect more — a profession — not just a mere “job.” But of course, corporations are downgrading positions away from professional careers and more toward interchangeable McJobs requiring minimal ability and with minimal pay and benefits.

(Source: azspot)

Today’s belief in ineluctable certainty is the true innovation-killer of our age. In this environment, the best an audacious manager can do is to develop small improvements to existing systems—climbing the hill, as it were, toward a local maximum, trimming fat, eking out the occasional tiny innovation—like city planners painting bicycle lanes on the streets as a gesture toward solving our energy problems. Any strategy that involves crossing a valley—accepting short-term losses to reach a higher hill in the distance—will soon be brought to a halt by the demands of a system that celebrates short-term gains and tolerates stagnation, but condemns anything else as failure. In short, a world where big stuff can never get done.

underpaidgenius:

Sara Horowitz suggests that the way to change the hypercapitalist system that has led to wide inequity in our society is to defect: to reject the mass affiliation that our established institutions impose. To do so, we have to affiliate with those organizations and businesses that care about people more than profits. This is the Quiet Revolution:

Sara Horowitz via The Atlantic

The Quiet Revolution is not a vocal movement or a policy proposal. It’s people buying local food, supporting community businesses, living green, and sharing resources (time, money, and products). It’s people attacking the system by abdicating from it. It’s people who don’t want to work just to consume. They understand that the earth’s resources - and their finances - are limited, and that the consumption path we’re on isn’t sustainable. They recognize that their decisions have implications for society today, and for generations to come. They are “360° people” who are aware of the ecological, societal, and financial impact of their actions, and who want to connect to one another.

They also see that businesses and governments won’t meet all their needs. They know they need to build their own solutions to the challenges they face.

It’s possible to see the Quiet Revolution almost everywhere: collective purchasing and goods exchange (Zipcar and SnapGoods), solving social problems (Open Ideo), aggregating information (Ushahidi), financial lending (Prosper and Kickstarter), networking and connecting (Connect.me), office space sharing (Loosecubes), teaching (Skillshare), and even child care (babysitting co-ops).

This movement is inadvertently creating a new economic engine that has the potential to reorganize our economy. The Quiet Revolutions’ purchasing decisions could have a significant impact on what we expect from business in the future. 

We’ve been trained to believe that for businesses to be successful, they have to rake in as much profit as possible and deliver short-term gains at all costs. But the Quiet Revolution is creating a new social market ecosystem that values transparency and responsibility.

The new ecosystem supports social-purpose business, favoring long-term sustainability over quarterly profits. It offers new financial models to support social goals. The rise of B Corporations and social enterprises show it’s possible to achieve both profit and social responsibility.

In a way, the Quiet Revolution is a return to the basics, with a focus on community, health, ecology, happiness, and balance. At the root of it is the idea of mutualism - people coming together, pooling resources, and meeting their own needs. The simplicity of it is what makes it so appealing: it’s not led by government or big business, just a group of people with shared needs and a common vision. 

I support Sara’s conclusions but I will quibble on terminology. We don’t need to have a common vision, or to participate collectively. On the contrary, we need to pursue our individual visions, and to cooperate with others who are likewise doing their own thing. We need a connective vision, not a collective one. We need to moving in the same general direction, not marching in step.

So, for example, Zipcar works because it distributes the costs and impacts of car ownership across the membership of Zipcar, and makes a profit by diminishing the waste of resources from cars sitting unused most of the time. The individual members don’t have to agree on why they joined. Some do it to save money, some to save the planet, some for convenience. No matter. They form a loose network, moving along in the same general direction.

A collective is where people ascribe to the same set of principles, and have come to a very tight agreement on a set of principles, and this generally sets them apart from people outside the collective.

We need a connective movement — this quiet revolution — with a million small, regional, and focused activities, slowly pulling the participants outside the hypercapitalist marketplace. This includes the shared ownership companies (Zipcar, AirBNB, etc.), shared purpose organizations (food coops, credit unions, and so on), and other variants. 

We are not attacking the hypercapitalists head on: we need no Jacobins, no Reign Of Terror, no guillotine. We are defecting, redirecting our time and money to what we think is best for us and ours. We are turning our backs on them: they have no power over us.

The Republican Governors Association met this week in Florida to give GOP state executives a chance to rejuvenate, strategize and team-build. But during a plenary session on Wednesday, one question kept coming up: How can Republicans do a better job of talking about Occupy Wall Street?

Yahoo News sat in on the session, and counted 10 do’s and don’ts from Luntz covering how Republicans should fight back by changing the way they discuss the movement.

1. Don’t say ‘capitalism.’

“I’m trying to get that word removed and we’re replacing it with either ‘economic freedom’ or ‘free market,’ ” Luntz said. “The public . . . still prefers capitalism to socialism, but they think capitalism is immoral. And if we’re seen as defenders of quote, Wall Street, end quote, we’ve got a problem.”

2. Don’t say that the government ‘taxes the rich.’ Instead, tell them that the government ‘takes from the rich.’

“If you talk about raising taxes on the rich,” the public responds favorably, Luntz cautioned. But  ”if you talk about government taking the money from hardworking Americans, the public says no. Taxing, the public will say yes.”

Video talk.

(Source: azspot)

First, your habits are incredibly powerful. When you are in an environment that supports a habit, you end up carrying out that habit without thinking. If you are interested in habit change, then, you need to become aware of your environment to help stop yourself from behaving mindlessly.

Second, habits are specific to the actions you take. An easy way to help yourself change habits is to find a way to block the actions you normally perform. Just switching hands was enough to get people who eat popcorn regularly to eat less of the stale popcorn.

(Source: azspot)