The Not Last Word

Madame M:

We must always be careful not to conflate capitalism and democracy. One is an economic system, and one is a political system. Although they often go together, they are not synonymous.

We have rarely seen totalitarian systems, although we have often seen authoritarian systems. Right now, China is a (fairly heavy) authoritarian political system with a (mostly) capitalist economic system. It used to be totalitarian though.

But even “merely” authoritarian systems rarely invent and innovate very well. Those things flourish when there is a free and open exchange of ideas and information, and when the individuals can reap and keep the fruits of their labors. Agreement between us there!

Yes, a great deal of the problem of our government is it is far too big, far too much a choking drag on the economy. But part of it is that the real owners of the country have refused to pay for it, ironically often when they have campaigned hard for its increase in size (Defense or one of the big three entitlements that they benefit from in some way or another, or even just some subsidy of some sort). Those owners have evaded the taxes, and so the money has not flowed in to pay for the government, leading to massive borrowing that has led us to becoming dramatically weaker—and dramatically more vulnerable to the desires of foreign creditors.

So, those who are anti-tax are not really starving the monster all that well, because it is borrowing our life blood by the back door to keep going. And those it keeps going are often directly or indirectly those who refused to pay for it in the first place. They have their corrupt cake, and we say we won’t pay for it, but then they borrow the money with all our names on the promissory notes (and many of those notes are now held by those who don’t necessarily hold America in highest regard). Either way this mess gets served up, we fund our own destruction. It’s just that with deficit spending, it can be hidden (and delayed) for a bit.

We have sewn too often unneeded complexity into our systems, seeking to cover every eventuality of the pitifully flawed human condition. Instead we have only created a dizzying miasma of nearly unworkable laws, rules, regulations, directives, etc. If we merely had GUIDELINES instead for most of that, our system would be far less untenable—and human creativity and ingenuity would be unleashed, not to mention a great deal more satisfaction and accomplishment. When things seem needlessly complex and maddening to comply with, we breed not only discontent and disrespect for law, but we breed disconnection. More on that in a new post!

You tossing the babies out with the bathwaters: does this mean you think human endeavor so flawed that any attempt to remedy the shortcomings in the capitalist system are doomed to create untenable side effects? Addressing Social Security, one of those three you would do away with entirely: Social Security has certainly transmogrified out of its original intent. It was meant to be one of the three legs of the retirement years stool (and not even the most important leg!). Through a combination of misperception among the public, short-sightedness and immediate gratification focus among workers (propelled along by their increasing wage stagnation), and greed and excessive competition-mania from employers, it morphed. The other two stools became deficient, often in the extreme. Add in greatly increased life expectancy, and we then have a painfully “unmanageable” problem on our hands because we can’t stay focused. For all three of the big entitlements, we might say they were noble attempts to correct challenges, especially given the wealth of the society at the time, but have gone awry.

And we lose sight of what keeps us sustainable. Spending exhaustive resources on the elderly, who have the highest demand and least productivity, while we spend next to nothing on the young, who have the greatest future potential, only starves the productive to our deep detriment. That is only all too apparent to too many of the young. And breeds more disconnection (despair and apathy) in them at a time when this society desperately needs the young to be all connected and all invested. Instead we get a runaway trainwreck-in-waiting where all we get done about it is lay more track.

Department of Education? Yes, probably another noble idea gone awry and needing discarding. Abolishing the IRS? Explain more what you mean. The government, of whatever size, is always going to need revenue collectors—that is as old as civilization. So expound if you would!

As for the Federal Reserve, I assume you mean rein in its extended powers (beyond that of a national bank). Or do you mean abolishment completely? And if so, does that mean no financial monitoring or regulating of the sort it does? Or are you merely aghast at its ability to create phantom money and exercise other powers without the people’s representatives having much weigh in?

Permit me to pause here in admiration at your paragraph on the donkey and elephant masks. Brilliant!

There is much more that can be said on these topics, but as perhaps we should set this pot on the backburner for now, I will suspend for the interim further meandering in this vein. A new post in a few days on a new topic or topics!