ECONOMIC FIX
November 10, 2008
I have a feeling (and a very strong one) that the upcoming economic fix being put together by the newly-elected administration is not going to be a real fix. It is simply not going to be adequate. It will in effect be a band aid, and will itself require a fixing of its own. Why? Because a real fix is going to require an adjustment in a totally different location. I'm talking about the human mind, or in this case perhaps I should say heart.
All economies currently in operation on the entire planet have at least one thing in common: they operate on the basis of some sort of exchange medium. It's called money. What is money? To begin with, it's an abstraction. There really is no such thing as money any more than there are lines on the map. Now it is true that even though there really are no literal markings on the map, we nonetheless find such an abstraction very useful. The same may be said of money. Although it lacks an actual existence, we still find its usefulness impossible to live without.
So much for the abstraction intro, which, on the surface doesn't seem useful even to mention (but it really is as we will soon see). Now let's get to the real nitty gritty. In the same way that the abstraction we know as lines-on-the-map does not really exist but yet serves as a highly functional convenience, the abstraction we call money serves us in the very same way. In a nutshell, money provides us with a convenient organizing factor for accessing resources. That in essence is what we do with money, we access resources with it. And the more we have of it, the more resources we can access. If you have five dollars in your pocket, you can buy some food; if you have ten dollars you can buy (access) even more food. If you had a hundred dollars, you could access lunch for the entire office.
Food is a resource. Well, actually, that's not quite right. The land on which the food is grown is the resource, in fact the primary resource in all economies. The labor used to grow (and prepare) the food is also a resource. It is even argued that a human being's ability to think creatively is a resource. This is easily demonstrated by the fact that we pay (with money) certain human beings for their expertise if needed, which is a way of saying that we access that expertise with money.
But there arises—always—a considerable problem with the practice of using money to access resources. It seems inevitable that some will end up with more of it than others (in many cases much more), and they will always find (it seems) ways to justify such lopsided possession. They might say that they studied hard for many years in school, or that they worked very diligently to build their business, or that they were born with a particular talent (like the ability to run fast, or throw a ball or catch a ball or hit a ball and on and on), or that they were just plain lucky (because they won the lottery or something).
However true all of these excuses might be they are nonetheless irrelevant. Why? Because the resources that are being accessed with the hard work, skill, talent or just plain luck, do not belong to those who seek such access. The resources, you see, do not belong to anyone, making all economic systems nothing but contrivances. An economic system is a mental construct (an abstraction), one designed to organize the way in which resources are allocated, used, doled out, shared or whatever. That is in fact all that an economic system really is, despite all the gobbledygook that is heaped upon us whenever one of those economists tries to explain what is happening with the economy and what we must do in order to fix it.
An economic system is nothing but a way of accessing (and using and doling out) resources, and all of them use the same tool to accomplish their purpose: money.
The change of heart that I spoke of at the very beginning concerns this most fundamental, and highly favored (perhaps even cherished), concept, the use of money to manipulate resources.
The upcoming economic fix, however effective it may at first appear, will eventually fail and require yet another fixing. It will keep on happening this way as long as we continue to rely on the abstraction that we call money as the primary tool of our system.
We need a new tool.
I recommend credit, and only credit, not the current form of it, with its tacit implication of debt inexorably associated with it. I recommend credit without debt.
How could this be? you ask (in a voice that is nigh screeching). If everyone were given credit, with no expectation of ever re-paying it, how could the economy work at all?
It's actually very simple. The credit would be tied to resources, of which there are plenty, even with a population of over 6-billion. There are enough physical resources to feed, clothe and house everyone on the planet. The only thing keeping it from happening is a matter of the heart, the human heart. It is a clear case of the spirit being willing but the flesh being weak, only in reverse. In this case, the flesh (physical resources) is ready, willing and able, but the spirit (the current human mindset) is weak.
The present human animal is far too self centered to embrace such a system. We yet hear them speak of sharing their labors with those who do not work as hard as they do, especially among the Republican ilk. We hear of motivation and incentive and the lack thereof if people were granted what they needed without having to work for it. This is nothing but myopic.
Those who do not choose to labor as others might choose—in every case—have their own preferences with respect to work. It is inconceivable that a person would choose to simply sit in the proverbial rocking chair and watch the world go by if they were able to get around and be active.
What is happening is that our current economic system is too restrictive (if not downright prejudicial, and I do not mean with respect to race). Everyone wants to do something. Economic systems based upon money are far too limited with respect to work choices. To offer an analogy, it is as if you were to enter a room in which everyone was sitting around tables playing Monopoly. You are then told that you have to play if you want to eat and have a bed to sleep on and some personal space. You are told that this is the only way that you can ever have these things. But something inside of you is repulsed by this. You have no desire to play Monopoly.
But that doesn't mean that you have no desire to do anything! Maybe you want to play Scrabble, or poker, or Life, or Parcheesi. Maybe you want to make up your own game. And here is an element to the analogy that I have not yet mentioned. You did not enter the room voluntarily. Your were taken to the room by someone else.
This simple analogy paints a picture of what has been going on in the world for centuries. A successful professional passes by a homeless person and scoffs (even if only inwardly) and comments to himself that such a person could certainly improve their circumstances if they only applied themselves. What the hypothetical professional is really saying is that the homeless person should go somewhere and get a job. What that is suggesting (and this he really does not want to say out loud) is that the homeless person should offer his time and energy to yet another successful person so that that successful soul will improve his own fortunes even more, because we all know that that other successful person will only pay the homeless one what he is required to pay him, per the terms of the state's minimum-wage law. The homeless one might be willing to play the other successful person's game, the one at which he (the other successful person) has become quite skillful, but that in effect is all that he (the homeless one) would be doing, playing someone else's game. Maybe he doesn't want to play someone else's game. Should he be punished for this? Why?
It requires a true change of heart (or headset) to see that this is a scenario that should not be allowed to take place. But in the cold hard world of capitalism, the so-called free marketplace, the one that we send young men and women off to foreign battlefields to protect, it is selfishly ignored. Why? Because those who succeed in that corporate game want it that way. There is no reason other than one based upon pure desire. In the same way (i.e., in the same spirit) that a parent will defend their child even if that child were to commit murder, successful types will defend the methods that they used to acquire their success. Ethics be damned. Ethics is a matter for theocrats. And the governments in place will always defend the successful types, because said governments are usually always made up of them. How many poor people do you know who are currently serving in any of the state legislatures? Or in the House of Representatives?