This is number 1 in a series of articles which summarize proposed reforms

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          The economic crisis of 2008-09 devastated the lives of millions of people around the world. It was an unnecessary disaster caused by the greed and incompetence of Wall Street. Its immediate damage is clear, but its long-term damage is the deferral of the greatest opportunity in human history: After thousands of years of folly and violence, the way to a world of peace and plenty was tested and available.
          Before the crisis, China and India, took hundreds of millions out of poverty. These formerly colonized and exploited countries have no economic motivation to couple their rising economic power with rising military power. They want to copy the European Union that, after five centuries of local killing and colonization of the world, is demonstrating how to displace violence with economic cooperation.
          The second force that provides this opportunity is the economic system needed by Information Age industries. The leading work culture of our time depends on the cognitive power of their people based on the full development of each in an environment of trust and cooperation. This economically determined morality causes a dramatic change in the work culture: Whereas the Industrial Revolution demeaned the manual laborer; the Information Age celebrates the knowledge worker.
          Eighteenth-century Enlightenment minds identified the way to peace and plenty and expected that America would lead the world. Two impediments, however, deferred the opportunity : 1) Persistent European wars forced America into a military-industrial complex to survive. 2) Educators failed to equip citizens with practical understanding of economic matters, many even ridiculed “democratic capitalism” as an oxymoron. Finance capitalism was free to dominate the economy. 
          In response to this educational need, the “Introduction to Democratic Capitalism” on our web site www.democratic-capitalism.com makes available a working knowledge of democratized capitalism. You will find brief discussion of the thoughts of Smith, Kant, Marx, Mill, and others. The full text of Democratic Capitalism: The Way to a World of Peace and Plenty, other books, essays, and DVDs, offer additional study opportunities. The educational community is invited to improve this curriculum and pursue the research that is the responsibility of those who educate citizens about economic life. 
          The evidence is growing that an ideal world is no longer a utopian dream but a pragmatic opportunity. The movement of millions of people from desperate poverty to freedom and comfort is evident in the comparative results of three 20th century visionaries: Lee Kuan Yew, Deng Xiaoping, and Mikhail Gorbachev. Beginning in 1965, Lee Kuan Yew, by introducing economic freedom to his nation, led Singapore from an average per-capita income of a few hundred dollars a year to the world’s fourth-highest, $30,000. In China, Deng Xiaoping in 1979 copied this economic freedom to produce an economic growth rate of 9% over the next thirty years, and a sevenfold improvement in average income. In contrast, after Mikhail Gorbachev gave priority in 1990 to glasnot (a democratic ideology), but not to perestroika ( structural changes needed to support economic freedom), Russia suffered the worst asset stripping in modern history, and the condition of ordinary Russian citizens went backwards for a decade. 
          Both Deng in Beijing and Gorbachev in Moscow had consulted with Lee about the Singapore experience, but only Deng understood the management of change, and the structural support needed from government. Deng rejected ideology, commenting that he did not care whether the cat was white or black as long as it could catch mice. Russia listened to professors and too many American finance capitalists who had little understanding of management of change; consequently, their prescription of economic “shock therapy” resulted in too much shock and not enough therapy. 
          After the inevitable failure of centrally planned communism, America did not recognize its new role in the world as the leader towards economic common purpose. Instead, it ignored the end of imperialism and used the military power left over from the Cold War to try to impose democracy instead of encouraging economic freedom. Democratic elections, however, do not provide food, clothing, shelter, education, and good health care, but economic freedom does. 
At the same time that America was taking the wrong role in the world, the ideologues of the liberalization of capital markets were deregulating and eventually wrecking the economy. The power-adoring Neocons did not realize that imperialism was over; the ultra-capitalists ignored the inherent instabilities in finance capitalism. 
          Realization of the ideal depends on reform of the economic system, and America’s changing its role in the world from imperialist to cooperative team player. The world will then be positioned to move towards the ideal for these special reasons:

          When enough citizens understand that economic freedom can eliminate material scarcity, that economic common purpose can unite people and stop the violence, and that the inherent morality of democratic capitalism can elevate society, the ideal will become reality.