In 1970, a professor told his class that the computer revolution would be greater than the Industrial Revolution. He was right. The computer revolution is part of massive scientific changes accelerated by World War II. The world has changed rapidly.

It’s hard to give meaning to what is happening; we do yet grasp the full implications of what we are seeing. We struggle to orient ourselves in a chaotic swirl of changes. We attack each other over our differences about parts of a whole that we do not fully understand. Being clear about our values might help us set goals to calm the chaos.

Our Declaration of Independence declares that all people are endowed with certain inalienable rights by their creator. This revolutionary statement constitutes a core social value. However, we have not demonstrated that value in our actions. In a 1967 speech at Riverside Church in New York City, Dr. Martin Luther King said:

“We as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a ‘thing-oriented’ society to a ‘person-oriented’ society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism and militarism are incapable of being conquered. … A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies.”

As the economist Rashi Fein has pointed out, people live in a society, not an economy. Capitalism is an efficient and effective economic system, but today, this system is out of balance and does not adequately serve social needs.

Fair trade laws need to ensure real competition. Every corporation needs to contribute to the well-being of society. Wage equity must be improved so working people can at least minimally meet their basic needs for food, housing and health care. The science of climate change requires changes to how and what we produce and nurture. Fixing the economy requires taming the power of lobbyists and campaign contributions. Economic systems need to enable people to meet needs so basic as to be rights. Economic decisions should reflect social goals.

Access to health care is a human right. A robust public health system would promote healthy behaviors and help prevent disease. Access to mental health and substance abuse care would reduce the suffering of those who misuse substances and reduce the pain these disorders cost friends, families and communities. If every woman had easy access to prenatal care, outcomes for mothers and babies would be improved. A system for follow-up educational and supportive visits for new families has been shown to decrease child abuse.

When private insurance plans have payments and deductibles so high that people have no money left over to seek care, and when MaineCare reimburses so little that providers do not chose to see patients, that is not access to care. Society has made the choice to not have universal access to care or a strong public health system. If we calculate the full costs of this choice, we would see it has high monetary and social costs.

In this election year, we need to identify our values. Our problems have no quick fixes, but a start is to recognize that our present economic functioning is not geared to meet the goals of a person-oriented society. Value-based goals direct us through chaos to achieve economic equity and through that access to health care, housing, decreased violence, protecting our planet and ending war. By seeking policies that honor the dignity and worth of all individuals, we can have a chance of survival.

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