Michael Moore, creator and host of the popular television show TV Nation, found a place in the media spotlight because of his compelling 1989 film documentary Roger and Me, a tragicomic video chronicle of the plight of the General Motors "company" town of Flint, Michigan. The GM plant in Flint employed much of the town, so when the company, despite record profits, decided to relocate the plant to the low-wage country of Mexico, many of the workers in the town lost their jobs, causing the city to hit economic rock bottom. Michael's up-close footage revealed the tragedies, ironies, and contradictions that befell the impoverished residents. One female resident, for example, raised and sold rabbits, and in her attempt to bring in as much income as possible, either nurtured the animals to sell as pets, or killed them to sell as meat.

As illustrated in the film, 20th Century economic activity has become increasingly global, and increasingly preoccupied with the twin questions of profit and competition; these concerns comprise the animus for the continuing global pattern of corporate downsizing. In fact, the dominant question in the United States now concerns itself with how the nation can compete effectively in the global marketplace.

However, there must be a moral component to the economic activity of our nation. Accordingly, our field of inquiry must span a wider area, and other questions must be asked.

The current global economic system is predicated on competition. As long as there is competition, there will be winners; but there will also be losers, and some of the time it will be us-the United States. With regard to certain industries, it already is us, as Roger and Me demonstrates. For example, American automobile workers, as well as those in industries that depend on a healthy automobile-industry, such as the rubber, plastic, and steel industries, have been hit with a hard double-whammy over the last fifteen years. These large and varied groups of workers were initially battered as a result of decreased American car sales, starting in the mid-to-late 1970's, in the face of arguably superior Japanese product. These workers then took a permanent hit as U.S. corporations shipped their formerly good-paying jobs to the low-wage meccas of Mexico and Asia. The Mexican workers in Moore's film who replaced the workers of Flint earned seventy cents an hour.

Even when the U.S. wins, however, as it currently does in pharmaceuticals and microchips, areas where it is an industry leader, one or more other nations may lose, and suffer the consequences. Capital, money, and other resources are targeted to the nation that is "winning" in a given industry, while plants close and workers lose their jobs in the nation that is "losing" in that industry. This is especially true in times of economic slowdown or reverse, when economic actors experience their highest degree of risk aversion, withdrawing from all but the most apparently secure of their existing economic activities, and initiating new economic activity, if at all, only when perceived as similarly secure; all this, regardless of financial sector and global or national locale. Patriotism and fidelity to nation are clearly subordinate to financial safety and profit protection.

Reduced levels of economic activity in the losing nations has pernicious consequences for workers in those nations. Owning classes, however, usually manage to maintain their own income. In the United States, for example, witness the decline in real wages since 1973; your paycheck buys you almost 20% less today than it did twenty-two years ago. Incomes for the top one-tenth of one percent of families, however, have significantly increased. Also witness the strong growth of industries catering to persons of low-income, such as second-mortgage companies, check-cashing outlets, pawnshops--the number of which has doubled in the last ten years--and furniture and appliance rent-to-own centers, whose number has almost quadrupled in the last ten years or so.

Generally, capitalism has moved society forward, counting among its achievements broad and deep advancement in technique and technology. It has provided a substantial general prosperity, staggering personal wealth for some individuals, and, in the best of cases, a place on its coattails for democracy. However, economists of every stripe also recognize the undulations characteristic of for-profit, market-based production. In the years after World War II the productive capacity of our world advanced sufficiently to provide easy, large-scale production of goods and services, and the denizens of the Western nations enjoyed a fantastic increase in their standard of living. At that point, it became unnecessary to suffer through the stop-and-go, hole-ridden way of providing for the needs and wants of people, characteristic of market-based production. Only now that maintenance of those living standards has become problematic, have we realized the exclusive and ephemeral character of those mid-century economic gains. They may never occur again, and if they do, they will likely fade, again.

Consequently, as we stand a mere four years away from the year 2000, hoping for a better world whether by design or some unseen alchemy, the global system shows itself fully in need of a greater ethic of cooperation between all elements of society: people of all classes, governments, and corporations. This thesis occurs against the sober backdrop of millions upon millions of humans suffering around the globe, from every manner of ill, malady, or condition; or conflict, injustice, or oppression. This suffering can be material, physical, psychological, emotional, spiritual, or a combination, including, for example, the 40,000 children who die each day from hunger and hunger-related maladies.

The vision of a society rooted in economic and personal cooperation forms an impressive and longstanding body of political and philosophical thought, and has been formulated and refined by some of the most brilliant and moral minds in history. Those who either formally advocate such a mode of social organization, or who embrace its basic spirit span an impressive range of minds and personalities, ranging from Leo Tolstoy to Erich Fromm, from Dr. Martin Luther King to Pyotr Kropotkin, from Antonio Gramsci to the Dalai Lama, from Albert Einstein to Jean-Paul Sartre', from actor Ed Asner to Jesus Christ, from Golda Meir to Noam Chomsky, and from the Israeli Kibbutzniks to Nelson Mandela.

A stronger ethic of cooperation in the global economy would ameliorate, or end, the harsh reality of winning at the expense of another nation or people. What would remain, simply, is the human family itself on the one hand, individuals finally facing each other genuinely and honestly, and on the other hand, a system of technology and resource that is abundant, robust, and rich, and eminently capable of providing humane and decent lives for each of us. The idea of cooperation, and the discussion it can engender, represents a formula and a starting point for human existence that is consonant with the strong and moral vision of man put forth through history by the great teachers.

As we approach the 21st Century, technology plays an increasingly widespread and profound economic and social role--particularly digital technology. This fact makes a complete, rigorous, and multi-dimensional discussion of the relationship between technology, markets, and people timely and appropriate. We note the ancient historical relationship between philosophy and science, further suggesting that the precocious child science and its sibling brother technology, far from possessing temperament sufficient to warrant their unfettered and unrequited activity or expansion, continue to require the steady, guiding hand of father philosophy, which is to say, they continue to require a deep, considered, and continuing exploration and reflection by every citizen.

The relationship between philosophy and technology indeed cuts across the ages, to the Ancients. During the times of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, philosopher and scientist were one. Thinkers would gaze at the night sky and posit it's origins, but those same men might also construct a sky chart to map the positions of the stars and orbs they had seen, using mathematics to solve these and other problems. Today, we come full circle as the popular and scientific imaginations are captured by books like Quantum Healing, based on ancient Indian scripts, and The Tao of Physics, which links physical science and mysticism.

All technologies, old and new, are fair game as we review and consider the role of technology in modern life and culture. Discussion in this Forum can and should include subjects like these: nanotechnology, artificial life, robotics, automation, wireless computing, virtual reality, air-traffic control systems, genetic manipulation, and media and art-related technologies such as computer-generated special effects. We should also notably consider "helping" technologies such as brain-actuated computer control for the limb-challenged disabled, as well as various surgical and pharmaceutical technologies.

It is interesting and important to note that while there is a range of differing technologies on our horizon that are important, dramatic, sometimes frightening, and even occasionally revolutionary, it is usually computer technology that undergirds each of them in one way or another. Many or most of them would not be possible without dependence on various digital technologies as a tool of initial creation or later support, or both. Such is the ubiquity and import of the digital bit and what has flowed from it.

Among our fundamental tasks is a critical exploration of all aspects of the practical, theoretical, and philosophical relationships between technologies, markets, and people. These relationships may be considered and discussed from the standpoint of the entire historical timeline; of course, the modern era might be of the most immediate practical relevance, and the most important in the general history of technology. In discussion of the future of these relationships, given our focus here on general exploration of the political idea of the cooperative society, in contradistinction to our present-day competitive one, we must examine the unfolding and use of technology as it might occur within the context of such a cooperative global society, as well as its status, now. This, to the primary end of the dramatically better fulfillment of the needs of humankind. Indeed, technology can play a critical, even decisive, role in creating and maintaining a more just and promising social order.

Discussion might also center on carefully selected science fiction, if compelling and relevant. The Star Trek family of television series, for example, four in number including the original series, might be pointed to, given the fact of its elevation to a global phenomenon in recent years, and its influence on the way large numbers of people view, interpret, understand, and relate to science and technology, and what the social and cultural topography of our future society may, or could, look like. Star Trek also addresses questions of racial and sometimes species harmony and cooperation, in addition to other human issues within a decidedly high-technology-based social environment.

For individuals exploring a cooperative, over a competitive paradigm of social organization, perhaps one of the most compelling elements of the Star Trek universe is the fictional fact that as of the 23rd Century, the epoch during which the events in the original series are set, all social problems on Earth are presented as solved. Exploration of this notion alone might be of interest to the participants of this Forum. Further, the motion picture "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home" reveals to us that in the fictional 23rd Century money is no longer used. Here again, a potential point of interest-a moneyless society where all the salient problems of humankind have been solved. What is the recipe?

Forum discussion must be constructive, productive, and positive. Though this does not exclude heated remarks, debate, or critical analysis, our intellectual stance must be one of critical examination, our moral stance one of love, cooperation, and support, for all, by all. Discussion and deconstruction must reflect a global perspective, as capitalism itself has now taken on a clearly multinational character.

Any new governance paradigm must remain based on the fullest forms of democracy; nothing other than decisionmaking by the whole of the people, actively and together will suffice. Indeed, as we know, this is what a cooperative society would bring to the table-the political freedoms we now enjoy, and the economic freedoms we presently do not enjoy. We, the people, with intellect engaged, heart fired, and ballot in hand, must bring the nation and the world along in any grand experiment.

Many persons maintain religious or spiritual beliefs. Let us remember that the spiritual quest and that for economic and social justice share many of the same goals, values, and ethics. Does a social environment shaped principally by buying and selling tend to objectify us, and chip away at our independence, character, or ability to love? Can we fully live out religious and spiritual values when the normal operation of the larger economy seems to continually militate against them, by the very character and detail of its operation?

As a body politic, a concerned and caring citizenry, and a nation that aspires to a genuine, critical, and open inquiry in all things, we must bravely exclude nothing in our search for answers. The quest to improve our lot remains too important a task to arbitrarily allow any conceptual or theoretical door to remain closed. Careful study and considered reflection by each citizen will facilitate a final assessment of the utility and efficacy of the element of "cooperation" in personal, national, and international affairs, which is to say, such reflection will help us determine whether cooperation can enhance, perhaps even transform, our existence as human beings.

As we enter the 21st century, we continue to suffer unnecessarily in means of life, spirit, and relationship with our brothers and sisters in the human family. A cooperative society is based, materially, on the needs and wants of people, and spiritually and emotionally on community and the love ethic. Yet, such a description bears little resemblance to our late 20th Century world. A quick survey of the direction of development of our national and global technology resources, and the priorities and value system they manifest, illustrates these gross imbalances. Some men and women live and sleep in futuristic space stations orbiting in space, while other men and women live and sleep in cardboard boxes under a bridge or in a recessed doorway. Billions of dollars are spent to develop new computers and microchips, while every month 20 million Americans go hungry, and 40, 000 children a day die of hunger-related maladies worldwide. It has been observed that, "Facts are stubborn things."

We, present day humankind, serve the machine. Yet the world's resources and technology must serve us, else justice, and the promise of who and what we are, and can be, goes begging. The premise and logic of cooperation is that our world today already possesses the technology, natural resources, skilled labor, unskilled labor, and plant and equipment to provide a decent and human means of life for every citizen.

Technology and technique are the vehicles herein-but the heart and soul of man must sit in the driver's seat, controlling the wheel.