Goddess TINA

Folks, my sister's book, "Bazaars, Conversations and Freedom" is finally available in the US. Consider ordering it TODAY via Amazon. Her timing couldn't be better with our continuing global financial crisis. The book is full of interviews with people who are seeing things differently. They are not assuming that "There Is No Alternative" (TINA) as Margaret Thatcher was frequently quoted as saying. Frankly, TINA thinking is as dated as thinking the world is flat (before the NEW "World Is Flat" by Thomas Friedman came out).

Here is an old article my sister wrote in 2001 that is still very relevant. She also covers this phenomenon and story in her book - order it today! :) (Yes, I'm shameless about promoting my sister).

The Market as God
The striving for alternatives is nascent in the current clamour against the dominant free-market form of globalisation, writes Rajni Bakshi

May 2001 - "God and markets are not usually thought about together. Yet here is a proposition that links the two. "The market is a good that has been turned into a god - and that is a problem," says David Jenkins, retired Bishop of Durham in the United Kingdom. Jenkins is one of those rare souls who stand at the core of the establishment and yet manage to challenge it sharply from within. Through the 1980s he was famous for criticising the then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher for her economic and social policies. He was intellectually intrigued and morally bothered by what he came to think of as the "Goddess TINA". For, Thatcher never tired of pronouncing that "You cannot buck the markets. There Is No Alternative (TINA)."

Over the last decade, the power of "Goddess TINA" appears to have become even more entrenched. The currently dominant model of globalisation is rooted in the principles of free market. Yet, today, there is also a global chorus of voices arguing that the rule of the market, as it is currently defined, is socially and morally unacceptable. As Jenkins says: "If we can make the market our servant, then the possibilities are immense ... but the present form of market flourishes largely at other people's expense."

The search for alternatives includes a wide range of people from all walks of life in countries across the world. For example, David Jenkins recently led an intensive exercise in exploring the question "Market: Master or Servant?", at Schumacher College. This College is an International Centre for Ecological Studies, located near Totnes in Devon, U.K. Its three week courses cover vital contemporary issues, are led by some of most innovative thinkers of our times and attended by a wide variety of people."