Where Angels Fear to Tread...

I’m not an economist (which likely is obvious to many who read my comments), but my 6 undergraduate hours of economics may put me a bit ahead of some who comment on social media. I’m reminded of the saying, “Fools rush in…”

I will begin by setting the record straight: I am not a socialist, nor do I advocate socialism. I believe, in theory, that free market capitalism offers the most equitable opportunity for the greatest number of persons and families to earn a comfortable living, by which I mean secure and comfortable shelter, applicable seasonal clothing, a healthy diet, safe transportation, exercise and recreation, education[1], and health care. The operative words here are “in theory.”

In the first place there are no free markets except in theory. While I am not an economist, I am an historian, and throughout history, some human entity always has controlled, or at least administered (read: manipulated), every market.

In the second place, every human system is vulnerable to corruption and mismanagement. Systems fail because people fail and don’t adapt those systems to changing situations. But, it’s not the system, but people, who adapt or fail to adapt a given system to its context.

To my limited knowledge, except in isolated situations, socialism has never manifested a sustained effectiveness. Its failure is not because it is socialism; rather, it fails because the wrong people administer it in the wrong way.

This begs the question of whether socialism would work effectively if administered with integrity. We may never know, because it may never happen, except perhaps in isolated situations as referenced above.

The same can be said of communism. It has failed because it has been administered the wrong ways by the wrong people.

The same can be said about free market capitalism. American capitalism has failed repeatedly because it was administered in the wrong way by the wrong people. Each time it failed, those who control the market made necessary adaptations for recovery, and capitalism was re-started. The economy vacillates, depending on who or what party or consortium controls access to the market.

Paul H. Weaver was deep into the first generation of the neoconservative movement in the 1960s. He was a proponent of free market capitalism, and a strong defender of Corporate America. Then, as an executive for a major corporation, he gradually became disillusioned by corporate practices that did more harm than good—not only to the general economy of the nation, but to the corporation, itself!

In his exposé, The Suicidal Corporation[2], Weaver traces the historical development of the corporate movement, beginning with its emergence in the railroad industry during the post-Civil-War years. What he discovered in his research was that the corporation was developed, not as a way of competing within a free market, but of controlling the market and eliminating the competition.[3]

My point is this: before we can make the American systems of governance and economics work for everyone in the nation, we need to elect people of political integrity—both in government and in corporate leadership. Personal morality is good. I highly recommend it. I would love to see a national leader with both personal morality and effective leadership; but too often the two qualities seem mutually exclusive.

The political process becomes a logjam when advocacy for personal morality is subsumed into a campaign to legislate a specific (usually religious) code of morality, and when that campaign is more about enforcing that specific moral code than about governing. History has shown clearly: when religion controls government, or government controls religion, it’s bad for both. Personal morality is neither personal nor moral—nor does it fit any description of “religious liberty”—if it’s legislated.

Which brings me back to my opening point: I’m neither a socialist nor and advocate of socialism. I affirm the dictum, “That government is best that governs least.” Our Constitution creates our government, and in its preamble defines the arena within which that government fulfills its purpose.

The Constitution was written by people who had suffered the heavy hand of despotism, and in response wrote what they hoped would safeguard The United States from similar oppression. The government they constituted is limited in power, responsive to needs, and responsible to the populace.

I do not advocate governmental control of anything. Will Rogers said, “There are people in government who shouldn’t be allowed to play with matches.” Well, there are people in corporate leadership who cannot be trusted in a totally free market; in fact, who are the reason there are no free markets in reality.

The government is responsible to the whole citizenry, as well as to business; therefore, I believe the government should set reasonable and equitable boundaries beyond which no business may venture (else they disturb the delicate balance required to sustain truly “free” markets), but within which all are free to compete.

That’s how it looks through the Flawed Glass that is my world view.

Together in the Walk,

Jim

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[1] Education is an issue to itself. I acknowledge that people need and deserve the kind of guidance that will maximize their innate abilities, not only for their own benefit, but also for the benefit of society. A democratic nation or republic profits from an educated citizenry. America reached its highest levels of productivity and prosperity when its average educational level was it its highest. So, I am a strong advocate for public education.

[2] Touchstone Books, 1988.

[3] On pages 110-111, et. al.

The Maelstrom

There’s an old saying: “Any system will work for you if you’ll work the system.” There’s another saying, credited by many to Mahatma Gandhi: “Beware of the illusion that you can create a system so nearly perfect that nobody has to be good.”

Western culture has been in love with “systems” since the emergence of the Greek city states; yet, system after system has gone down the drain. In every case, it was not the system that failed; rather, it was human ethics and morality that failed.

Take the myth of “free market economics” for example. Free markets don’t exist except in theory and in text books. Eventually, some person or entity will control any unregulated market and will make it work for its own benefit. Too frequently such selective benefit is obtained through unethical—and often illegal—means. Almost always, some segment of society becomes ultra-rich, while another segment becomes disadvantaged (economic survival of the fittest). Then, some segment of society (usually some structure of governance) responds with a sub-system (regulation) that will level the playing field and give everybody an equal shot at success. When that happens, even the illusion of “free market” disappears.

Essentially, our choice is not whether the market is controlled but, rather, who will control it: the players on the field, or some (theoretically) objective regulatory body. Obviously, since there always will be at least one fox in the hen house, the players on the field can’t be trusted. Enter that regulatory structure to police the market. The problem here is, there’s no guarantee that the participants in the regulatory body are trustworthy either. The big players in the market can buy enough regulators that they continue to accrue benefit, to the disadvantage of the rest of the market. So much for “free market” theory.

The problem with trusting systems is that systems always are administered by humans, and humanity is broken. “Beware the illusion that you can create a system so nearly perfect that nobody has to be good.”

Soviet Communism didn’t fail. Human corruption and lust for power broke it. Socialism doesn’t fail. It is dragged down by the same manifestations of human brokenness. Democracy and free enterprise, the fair-haired love children of 18^th century American idealism, are no more. In their place is a corrupt, capitalistic oligarchy. “Beware the illusion that you can create a system so nearly perfect that nobody has to be good.”

Systems cannot succeed or fail, because they have no life of their own. They have no inherent value. They are tools. Nothing more. They can be used for the common good or they can be misused to create an ideological or economic dictatorship.

As another example, take the American system of jurisprudence, so much at the forefront of American awareness of late. It is being dragged into the maelstrom, not by some flaw in its design, but because humans are unwilling to allow it to fulfill its designed role in the checks and balances of the tripartite government created by the genius of our American founders. Instead, our system of jurisprudence is being ravaged to satisfy a jingoistic obsession to guarantee the dominance of one ideology over all others.

Democracy thrives on lively debate, and nothing has been more destructive of democracy and the American experiment than the effort to shut down all but one perspective. It’s one thing for the partisan pendulum to swing from one side to the other. That’s what happens in a healthy democracy. But, when one party controls all levels of government, it becomes possible for that party essentially to shut down the voting process through gerrymandering and through disenfranchising a significant population (basically, people of color in the current example) by enacting laws to prevent “voter fraud” (which is an extremely minute problem. The reality is that voter fraud efforts generally end up disenfranchising more legitimate voters than preventing fraudulent voters.) At that point, the polling booth is a farce, and government “of the people, by the people, and for the people” no longer exists. “Beware of the illusion that you can create a system so nearly perfect that nobody has to be good.”

The free exchange of ideas is the lifeblood of democracy, and access to the polls is the heart that pumps that lifeblood. America is spiraling into the aforementioned ideological dictatorship. 

A pastor friend recently posted on Facebook: "We need conservative Republicans, liberal Democrats, and everything in between. We are better together... but not if we demean one another and aren’t listening to one another."

So, while Democrats and Republicans square off and point accusing fingers at each other, a large measure of the fault lies with another element, namely the non-voter, including the pouting, “Bernie-or-bust” boycott of the polls. Not voting is not a protest; it’s a surrender. 

“Any system will work for you if you’ll work the system.” And when you don’t work the system, you surrender to those who do. 

Please vote on November 6 (or whenever your area is holding the mid-term elections this year).

That’s the way I see it through the flawed glass that is my world view.

Together in the Walk,

Jim