"...Some of the words used may seem to be excessively polemical (aggressive attack on or refutation of the opinions or principles of others). ~
"Now and Some Day??" ... by Gerry Hiles Preamble.
During
my youth - and for quite a while thereafter - like a lot of people I
believed that I could help to change the world for the better.
I
cut my economics/sociological teeth on Marx and fairly briefly imagined
that full-blown "socialism" was the way to go, but the contradictions
were too great to ignore and during my late twenties I discovered J K
Galbraith and, to this day (at 62), I still regard it as something of a
tragedy that he never became "mainstream" and that, instead,
monetarism/"economic rationalism" overwhelmed all forms of economic
thinking which embodied strands of a "social conscience", in fact
including Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations", despite monetarists' claims
to heritage from classical economics ... but who could seriously
imagine that Adam Smith would have approved of Reagonomics and
Thatcherism, for instance, let alone the Bushonomics of raging
indebtedness and the profligate printing and/or electronic creation of
dollars, euros, etc. out of thin air?
In any case: I no longer
believe that I (or anyone who retains some form of social conscience -
involving the commonweal of course) can make any difference in the here
and now of a world which has gone crazy in pursuit of material gain -
at the expense of social and individual well-being - as mediated
through some fiat currency, whether it be USDs, euros, or any other
form of exchange.
Global banking and innumerable other
institutions are too entrenched for anyone in opposition to have any
effect in the short term, but maybe it is worth recording one's
reflections on things as they are now because, some time in the future,
people might have actually learned from history. (Hopefully before too
long.)
So I will continue to write what I have on my mind, if maybe mainly for myself and however many kindred spirits.
Whatever:
No
reasonably informed person could deny that, now, the world is facing
serious problems in many contexts and I intend an overview of my
opinions on what is fundamentally wrong and, via references to Plato
for instance, what might be done far better by some future generation
than has so far been done over the millennia, during which numerous
civilizations have come and gone; invariably, it seems, having
destroyed the resources which enabled their rise, e.g. the ruination of
N Africa by the Romans, with Libya having once been "the bread basket".
The only difference, today, is the scale of destruction; including of
the means of exchange which enables us locally, or globally, to provide
for ourselves in the complex ways determined by us being animals which
lack talons (or the digestive system of a ruminant), fur, fleetness of
foot, or any other attribute which allows other animals to live simpler
and sometimes solitary lives.
We must necessarily live in groups
and, even if some forms of competition are advantageous, we must
primarily cooperate (or perish) but still have some division of labor
(because no one can do everything and "social Darwinism" is nonsense)
in order to feed ourselves, provide clothing (and shelter) and give us
protection from a world which we are actually poorly adapted to live in
... but for the 'compensations' for our physical deficits, which are
"enhanced intelligence", coupled with enhanced language capacities.
Thus
we have those 'blessings" ... or else curses, because intelligence can
be misapplied into developing weapons of mass destruction, for
instance, and language can be used to generate ideologies - both
secular and ostensibly inspired by some deity - which create and
perpetuate conflicts which any other animal would have long-since
forgotten about .. well I have been around other animals for all of my
life - dogs, cats, pigs, sheep, cattle, chickens and more - and none of
them ever "pass-on" antagonisms from one generation to the next, albeit
that, as individuals, they don't forget their own bad experiences, nor
pleasant ones of course.
We humans, on the other hand, are
well-capable of perpetuating old conflicts and, perhaps worse,
inventing all kinds of nonsense which are believed to be true, whether
supposedly inspired by some deity, or avowedly secular, but believed in
no less religiously, e.g. the whacko belief that increasing the cost of
money (via interest-rate hikes) somehow reduces inflation, whereas
plain common sense dictates that, for example, when businesses borrow
money and it costs more to do so, then they must increase prices, or go
out of business, and when mortgage repayments go up then householders
will at least try to get wage increases ... also to compensate for
other rising prices (and it is socially damaging for governments to
suppress wage increases, at least minimum wages, because encroaching
poverty causes a variety of social ills ... and surely I do not need to
expand on that?).
So staying with this issue of interest-rates
as a prime example of quack economics and mismanagement: clearly if
rates are hiked to 15-20% (as during the 80s) then a recession can be
induced and deflation can occur in the short term, but at colossal
social/personal cost, e.g. the destruction of small farmers and rural
communities as when, in the US and Australia, families broke up and
suicides happened because of foreclosures. And something I argued
strongly at the time - to absolutely no effect - is that interest
comprises effective "private taxation" on the less well-off and wealth
transfer to the already rich who lend money ... as opposed to fiscal
policies which, if properly managed by a competent government, help
spread the wealth of a nation equitably and evens-out the good and bad
times. (Not to be confused with radical redistribution and a quest for
never-possible "equality".)
The fact that Keynesian-types of
policies have not worked has little to do with faulty ideas, but nearly
everything to do with incompetent governments which, for instance, have
not set-aside the monetary results of the good years, but instead have
splurged and, e.g. in the case of monies supposed to have been set
aside for pensions, governments have raided "the bank" and rendered
these and other forms of social security bankrupt.
It is no
small matter to have failed to understand the very fundamental point
that money/a currency is "the lifeblood of a nation" and indispensable
- no matter what form it takes - for people to exchange what they
produce with each other, i.e. coming back to my earlier point that we
have complex needs and when it is obvious that a spud farmer is not
going to want to exchange his ton of spuds for a whole cow; when a
furniture-maker is not going to want to exchange a table he has made
for a dinner service (if he already has one) and so on. Some kind of
"abstraction" must be contrived. And this is elementary of course, if
often forgotten amidst the deluge of theories and financial
commentaries.
I am omitting discussion of reserve banks, the
markets, fiat currencies, etc. partly because others do a far better
job than I could and partly because all these and more are "after the
event", i.e. after decades, centuries and indeed millennia of
incompetent, ignorant and corrupt governments which have seldom tended
to the commonwealth and which have mostly done much to destroy it.
(And I will shortly honor my promise to relate what I am saying to
Plato ... and so illustrate why I can write of millennia of useless, at
best, pseudo-governance.)
Meanwhile:
It does not matter what form a means of exchange takes on.
It
can be gold, silver, cleft pieces of wood, paper, or whatever else can
(in some way) not be counterfeited and can inspire faith as a reliable
and stable representative for the goods and services which humans
produce, whether strictly needful or just 'wanted' for no particular
reason.
It is a fallacy that a "return to the gold standard"
(for paper money) would stabilize things, because it has not worked in
the past ... not even having gold coinage in circulation, because
corrupt governments WILL shave bits off coinage, or alloy the metal
with other metals. The basic problem is bad governance. (Gold as an
investment is a separate matter.)
There is nothing at all wrong
with paper money, if viewed as a kind of certificate that you or I have
produced some goods or services ... and if we had the kind of
governance which restricted the issuance of paper and/or electronic
means of exchange, e.g. by taxing and in other ways eliminating both
excess liquidity and impossible demands on limited resources. (The LSE
"pump model" for a national economy comprises a good analogy for the
circulation of money.)
What is necessary is people in government
who really see the "big picture" ... these days being such concerns as
global warming, peak oil and such facts as that the war against Iraq
and pre-emptive nuclear strikes against Iran are NOT an answer to the
continuance of any kind of life on our finite planet. (Cooperate - with
other nations - or perish in the competitive quest for dwindling
resources, as is happening with the US and other off-shoots of the
original British Empire, whilst Russia, China, other Asian nations and
South American countries make alliances, whether or not just pragmatic
... but at least they are not at war with anyone!!)
But as for
ourselves, in what can loosely be called "the West", instead of anyone
even marginally cooperative and rational, we have Dubya in the US, the
bLiar in the UK, little Johnny coward in Australia and sundry other
incompetent, ignorant and corrupt leaders/governments around the world,
supported by thousands of other politicians.
How did they get
there? Well partly by brute force of one kind or another, but
essentially because of "democracy", at least since the end of feudal
times during which barons and kings fought each other for land, power
and possessions.
"Democracy"??
That has to be one of the
most abused and poorly understood words/concepts in the English
language (and any other language in which it appears in some form).
I sincerely, genuinely and honestly, wonder whether or not people have gotten it, we're at WAR. And not just "over there". Nope, it's right here, in the goold ole USA.
Culturally and economically. The ancient class split that India experienced is now on our own doorstep.
What do we expect when the Rothchild family owns more than 50% of the planet and all its wealth and then we have our very own home grown Rockefeller family who owns a minimum of 25% of the planet and all its wealth.
Posted by: Roberta Kelly | Wednesday, December 07, 2005 at 08:54 PM