Looking Closer At More Causes of Current Economic Inequality
Mitchell's context-specific points echo my own systemic conclusion.
Historically, any improvements in productivity only freed distributed populations to explore even more distributed innovations.
(No one person domesticated crops, circumnavigated the globe, created nuclear power or sent people to the moon. Persistent teamwork did. And that return-on-coordination always completely swamps all other returns. There's no competition.)
Traditionally, we accepted all productivity improvements and just immediately set our sights higher - or at least that's what we used to do. Now our biggest failure seems to be a failure to set worthy challenges for ourselves. Face it. We're bored, and resorting to hoarding existing assets instead of going after bigger and insanely greater assets.
In social species, more distributed innovations just allow us to immediately set bigger/better/leaner aggregate goals & achievements. Why aren't we doing that?
As aggregate production steadily rises, it's amazing that we're again seeing the rise of unprecedented personal hoarding.
Ye Olde Analogy is generals hoarding all the advanced weapons from the distributed soldiers, and still thinking that they are securely protected by a functioning army. History has always shown that to be a losing strategy, and one long past pointless.
A social species either distributes all available tools, teachings & responsibilities ASAP ... or it wastes it's greatest leverage, unused.
2 comments:
"In social species, more distributed innovations just allow us to immediately set bigger/better/leaner aggregate goals & achievements. Why aren't we doing that?"
Excessive individualism characteristic of capitalism prevents us from acting in species interest. Only governments acting for public purpose have the wider interest — general welfare — as an objective and also have the means to accomplish it.
Owners of wealth and private capital are unwilling or unable to undertake the needful or innovative unless the risk weighted return justifies the investment.
Now it is simpler and surer to to engage in rent-seeking rather than productive investment.
Moreover, much of what is needed has to do with public utility, public good, and social welfare, which is not properly the domain of capitalism anyway, and capitalists are not interested in pursuing this avenue unless significant rent can be extracted.
What's the remedy? Social democracy, which puts people and the environment in first place, in front of money and machines.
What does it take for a culture to simply leverage its aggregate self?
And in the process just explore aggregate options as fast as they appear?
Another Gandhi? Another Alexander the Great Killer?
Or another FDR? We should be so lucky.
So how do we make ourselves lucky? We're back to needing methods .... as well as consensus challenges to go after.
Methods drive results, and goals drive methods.
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