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Conference European Integration 21st Century Slavery: Ending It Before It Ends Us. Lew Lederman, QC Wilfrid Laurier University April 30 - May 1, 2010. BOTTOM LINE –. Release the Potential in People. (Corry & Hodgetts, Macgregor Dawson)
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Conference European Integration21st Century Slavery: Ending It Before It Ends Us Lew Lederman, QC Wilfrid Laurier University April 30 - May 1, 2010
BOTTOM LINE – • Release the Potential in People. (Corry & Hodgetts, Macgregor Dawson) • Step One: Treat People like People. Stop treating People like Things. • Step Two: Focus on Individuals • Step Three: Enhance the human ‘spark’. April 2010
TREATY OF ROME – • Increase standards of living. April 2010
EUROPEAN CONVENTION ON HUMAN RIGHTS – • Article 4: No one shall be held in slavery or servitude. April 2010
ECONOMICS – • EU has as big a population & GDP as USA. • Blocs – USA/Canada; EU; BRIC – Brazil, Russia, India, China • Comparative Advantage ? April 2010
EUROPEAN & EU TRACK RECORD – • Greek freedom v Persian despotism • Martin Luther • Slavery & Serfdom abolished (various times, various places). • Rationalism, Enlightenment • Copernius, Galileo, Newton, Goethe, Mozart, Beethoven (Ode to Joy) April 2010
EUROPEAN & EU TRACK RECORD – • Rousseau: Man born free but everywhere in chains • What is the Third Estate ? Everything. What does it have ? Nothing. • Declaration of the Rights of Man & The Citizen: Men born free & equal. • Rule of Law. • Recently: Took on Microsoft April 2010
RISKS TO FREEDOM • Large bureaucracies – diseconomies of scale • Business, professional, governmental • Corporations have no souls • Constrain, imprison the human spirit April 2010
CREATIVITY • Tell me where is Fancy bred ? In the heart or in the head ? • Imagination rooted in profound knowledge. (Maddox) • Individual, not group. • Human spirit triumphant. April 2010
INNOVATION • Applied Creativity • Free trade in ideas • Market place for thought April 2010
SHELLEY Power, like a desolating pestilence, Pollutes what e’re it touches; and obedience, Bane of all genius, virtue, freedom, truth, Makes slaves of men, and of the human frame, A mechanized automaton. April 2010
NIEBUHR [T]here is a great mystery in the fact that man, who is so created that he cannot fulfil his life except in his fellow men, and who has some consciousness of this law of love in his very nature, should nevertheless seek so persistently to make his fellowmen the tools of his desires and theobjects of his ambitions. [Underlining added] April 2010
ENABLERS • True Capitalism & Free Markets • Rule of Law & Liberal Democracy • Remember your Right Brain • Feed your Head (Jefferson Airplane) • Free Trade in Ideas, Marketplace for Thought • Human Spirit Triumphant (Ode to Joy) April 2010