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| Smart Ass Stuff. |
People talk about capitalism as a cure for our problems. That wouldn't be a bad thing if our capitalism was coupled with strong ethical values.
Unfortunately, the ethics of value have been looked at as merely suggestions, rather than prescriptions for behavior.
Most people in the US today seem have one very simple "ethic" that they seem to apply consistently. That is, "If I can get away with it, then I should do it." This ethic is what has caused most of our deep-seated economic problems.
Companies exist, not to produce products and service, but to produce money. When the money becomes the object, when the product becomes secondary, the idea of Capitalism starts to fall apart. If you read the tabloids about our politicians and celebrities, you can see that this ethic is taught from the very top. When we see politicians, actors, clergyman, police, lawyers acting on the "what I can get away with" principle, everyone else gets the message that its okay. So long as you can get away with it.
Any system, legal, economic, or otherwise is an artificial construct. By that I mean they are a product of thought - not of nature. Because of this, there is nothing in nature that will force these constructs to cohere. The form is created by observing certain rules. If you stop obeying the rules, then the form starts to crumble.
Consider that a strong business ethic is the glue that holds a system together. When the necessary rules are not applied, the system will collapse. It gets eroded from the inside, as by a swarm of termites. It may look well on the outside, or be improved on the surface by a coat of paint, but the internal damage is comprehensive and continuing.
In a truly capitalist system, money would be used, not as a staple part of our consumption, but as a backup measure for emergencies.
You build your home, and your business. If it flourishes, you enjoy more wealth. If it does not, you still have property and structure from which to create a living. Notice that I did not say "earn" a living. I said CREATE, and that is an important distinction. By CREATE I mean that you use your home, and whatever property you have to create wealth in the form of food, goods, shelter, and the other things that you need to subsist.
If you have neighbors, and they have goods that you want or need, the only thing that should compel them to share with you is their own pleasure in the act of sharing. They may set a monetary or other trade value on their goods as well, if the pleasure motive is not enough. I say may, because no one human should ever expect, or demand that another human simply give them something based on a perceived need. "Because I need it" is not a reason to take something from someone else against their will.
In a truly capitalist system, you would be entitled unquestionably to keep everything you produce, or to trade it for things that other people produce. If you have a crop or other product that is seasonal, you might use money as a means to accept payment from someone for goods which they cannot trade other goods for. The money is only a fair trade when its value is a constant, a quantifiable reliable currency. If the value fluctuates, then it is not a fair vehicle or trade.
When a cash system becomes unreliable in this way, the ethical thing is to stop accepting it, and move to some other barter value.
Money as we use it now is an enemy of true capitalism. When the value of a dollar changes from minute to minute, when today the dollar you give me will buy a loaf of bread, and tomorrow it will only buy me one slice of bread, then the dollar has failed as a useful tool of commerce. When paper currency was first instituted, the bills were not intended to stand alone. On request, you could purchase an equivalent amount of gold. You could redeem your gold and silver certificates. Who recently has tried to do this with the US government? There are private gold traders, but even gold is not a reliable standard anymore. Its value fluctuates too, so though it may be more reliable than a dollar as currency, it is still imperfect. Our current government has no goods whatsoever, in fact, to back up its currency. They may give you dollars in exchange for your labor, goods, crops, but that cash has no guarantee of value behind it. You give something real and solid. In return you get a mere promise, an abstraction. If that promise was as good as the paper it is written on, then it would be a fair trade. But if you work for a solid year producing a crop, and you sell that crop for what is taken to be enough money to prepare your fields and to live on in comfort for the next year, until the new crop comes in, but two months later the value of the currency has fallen so far that you cannot accomplish that goal, then your trade was an unfair one.
Most of us right now just shrug, and move on, not questioning the unfairness of this, Nor do most of us raise any eyebrows when taxation on those dollars continues to rise.
I would submit that paper currency and coinage as a system of economics is broken. The breaking factor is what I've mentioned already. We need to have a currency to which we can truly apply the term "cold, hard cash." A dollar should always be a dollar. A currencies value should be an absolute quantity.
How do we get back to this? One way might be to commit ourselves to becoming more self sufficient, and to barter more for goods, rather than using money.
One of the reasons that we worry so much our economy is because in the process of making itself the standard of trade, our money culture has also made us reliant on a central infrastructure which most of us, at present, are helpless without. If the trucks stop rolling to Arizona, then we starve, or die of thirst. If you walk around any of the neighborhoods in Sierra Vista, you will see that only a few people have vegetable gardens. Many less have any kind of livestock on their land. All our water comes from a central source, very few townsfolk have wells or water-collection facilities on their properties. Many people live in apartments, which further isolate them from the possibility of self sufficiency. Most of us here are also heavily reliant upon electricity, though we also for the most part get that from a central facility, even though Solar energy is one of Arizona's greatest untapped resources. We drive cars everywhere. None of the neighborhoods in Sierra Vista is close to a shopping, or other service facility. And since most people here refuse to walk, unless it is for pleasure on one of the hiking trails, cars are omnipresent, an only a few of them utilize the aforementioned solar power to drive their vehicles. There may be a few fully electric vehicles in Sierra Vista, but so far to date, I have not seen one. So not only do we rely on stores for our food, the grid for electricity, and water, we also rely on the gas stations for fuel.
Additionally, there does not appear to be any true industry here - and by that I mean factories or businesses who produce real, physical goods for trade, not just providing services. All service jobs are jobs that create only dependence further dependence on an infrastructure. As such, and particularly in a desert town like Sierra Vista where life without that infrastructure is largely unimaginable to us, is not a good thing.
The first step to breaking this circle of dependency is to learn about the environment, learn how to exploit it for our own benefit. If nothing else, people need to learn how to produce a high percentage of their food from their own property. I knew people who lived in Boston on very small properties who could subsist during the summers entirely on what they grew in their small gardens. Why is it that in Sierra Vista, where a substantial number of homeowners live on lots in excess of a quarter acre, don't produce even an iota of their own food? Its one thing to live in a large, densely populated city and not produce food - but in a place like Sierra Vista, where land is plentiful, the only excuse is laziness. Even those who are wealthy monetarily would benefit from making a percentage of their land productive. Why don't we do it?
I think the Republicans are very right on one idea, at least. Less government is better government.
We really should cut back on government programs everywhere, while beginning programs locally and commercially to teach people how to live locally and self-reliantly. Classes in small plot agriculture, animal husbandry and so forth should be a vital and integral part of education, as should trade ethics classes. Notice I didn't say "business ethics". I said trade ethics. Fact is, one shouldn't need to be in business in order to live in comfort. At least for now, I'm going to make a clear division between trade, and business.
Once we have pared services back significantly, we need to see what works on its own, and what doesn't. Its only in observing where things start to break down where we can see what public programs are really necessary, and which are luxuries.
Consider this: in the modern United States, a family can own the clear title on their property, and even subsist entirely on food and goods they consume themselves, but because of government taxation, they still need to earn money in order to keep their property. Property taxes are an evil better left for another entry perhaps.
I must reinforce both to myself and to anyone who might read this that I am woolgathering. I'm not espousing any belief. I'm trying things on for size. A theory is just a theory.
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