Vitality and Human Capital

“Evening in Karl Johan Street,” Edvard Munch, 1892

It is sometimes said that money is a form of energy, but it may be more appropriate to suggest that money is a symbol of vitality, or life energy.  In theory, this is the “means of production” that Karl Marx said defines capitalism.

“Capitalism” has become a sinister term in some circles, but I wonder if the term has been commandeered not by the individuals who provide the vital force that keeps “the economy” functional, but by the aggregators of human capital under institutional umbrellas.

Some claim Adam Smith, who wrote The Wealth of Nations in 1776, is the “father of modern capitalism,” but Smith never mentions the word “capitalism” in his book.  He refers a lot to “capital” and to “stocks,” without defining either term.  For a lay reader, The Wealth of Nations is tedious reading, and it comes across as a tax collector’s bible.  Smith states up front that “the late war,” which he never pinpoints, but is probably the Seven-Years War (the French and Indian War in North America) was exceedingly expensive, and the UK went into a lot of debt to pay for it.  The Wealth of Nations, which supposedly supported “free trade” also supported military protection of UK commercial interests in foreign ports and foreign trade, because it was easier to tax.  “The colonies” were great sources of raw materials, and because Britain had a monopoly on trade with its colonies, it and British investors could buy tobacco and lumber, for instance, and sell at a huge profit.  Smith tells us that growing tobacco in France was illegal, because it was too hard to tax domestic products.

Another striking feature of Smith’s book was that it was so cold-blooded regarding the value of labor.  Labor should be paid enough to raise four children, because statistically, two die before reaching majority, and the parents need to replace themselves. Rents should be as high as the tenant can afford.  Farmers are lazy because they do a variety of different things, whereas factory workers do the same thing all day and are more efficient.  He refers to the “idle” without defining them, but when he says the “idle” will spend gold to buy exotic birds and fish from remote lands, where bank-issued currency is not accepted, it becomes clear that the “idle” are rich rather than poor, and possibly associated with the court and the aristocracy.   He also noted government jobs are greatly coveted, because of the security and “perks” they provide.

It is therefore not surprising that Smith’s book was so popular that its author was appointed Customs Commissioner of Edinburgh after it was published.

When Karl Marx defined “capitalism,” as the “ownership” of the “means of production,” he didn’t specify what the “means of production” was.  It was assumed to be the machines or the land from which salable items were produced.  But nothing is produced without human effort, which leads to the idea that the “means” is the human labor itself.   “Ownership” thereof is either explicit, as in slavery, or implied, as in employment by the aggregator of human capital under a larger umbrella.

The intrinsic value of human capital has never been fully appreciated.  Both Ayn Rand and Milton Friedman mentioned human capital, but neither took the idea far enough to assert that only individuals can be “capitalists” in the purest sense of the word.  Human beings, by their individual efforts provide the means, through the application of their vitality, to produce commercial goods.  This is what translates into money, the tangible result of the applied effort.

This may sound like a petty point, but it has far-reaching ramifications.  In the United States, it is said that all taxes ultimately fall on the individual.  This means that the individual in this country is supporting taxes imposed by federal, state, county, and sometimes city governments, and is expected to obey laws enacted by all four levels of government.

The system is a hierarchical, patriarchal one of “government over the people” that was set up intentionally by an elite group of landowners, lawyers, businessmen, bankers, and other conspirators who met in secret, locked in a room in Philadelphia for three months, drafted the US Constitution, and by-passed state legislatures to have it ratified by special assemblies.  Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, who are considered among the “founding fathers,” were both out of the country at the time.  Thomas Jefferson was appointed Secretary of State and approved by the Senate without his knowledge or consent.

Alexander Hamilton, who was an ideological protégé of Adam Smith and a British subject, was New York’s only standing delegate to what became known as the Constitutional Convention.  Suffice to say that he had a heavy hand in the drafting, forming strong alliances with George Washington and James Madison, and was probably instrumental in insuring certain provisions, including federal control of all “economic narrows,” such as roads, waterways, the postal service, coastlines, money, patents and copyrights.  Ultimately, the Constitution is an economic document that assumes all taxpayers are federal government property.  Undoubtedly, Hamilton made sure the federal government could assume debt, because as Treasury Secretary later, he pushed through the first tariff, the Hamilton Tariff Act of 1789, and the whiskey tax in 1791.  The whiskey tax was in advance of his creating the first US central bank.  Stock shares in this bank and the Bank of New York, which Hamilton had previously started, were among the first stocks traded in what would become the New York Stock Exchange.

So all the hype US citizens and taxpayers have been sold all these years about “freedom” and “democracy,” and “capitalism” and all the noble values people assume the “founders” intended, are the result of masterful marketing, a talent now well developed by New York’s Madison Avenue.  The bottom line is the US is and always has been an economic machine in the tradition of British imperialism.

So this “government-over-the-people” mentality has been carefully cultivated over the US’ 245 year history, based on this implicit notion that everyone must work to support “the economy,” which is an amalgamation of the federal bureaucracy in Washington DC, Wall Street, the bankers—and of course the military– but it is a perverse, upside down system that is now collapsing from its own weight.

The undervalued human capital that has been conscripted and seduced into this arrangement is catching on, resentful and angry at the betrayal of those whose version of “protection” translates into higher and more painful costs and increasing restriction of individual freedom.  The hoi polloi are not “rising up,” as the revolutionaries might wish.  Instead, they are “beaten down,” giving up, flunking out, doing drugs, both legal and illegal, going bankrupt, committing suicide in shockingly increasing rates, getting sick and tired of the stresses and strains in living in such a “wealthy” society.

While the nation and world are increasingly “de-vitalized” by the expectations and hoops that the “ruling class” have set for them, the human capital that churns the wheel is getting crushed under it.

The idea of  “capitalism” has been twisted and perverted into its opposite by those who would enslave the “human capital,” the vital life forces that provide not only the “means” of production but are also the purchasers of the goods produced.

The healthiest and most vital people may or may not have money, but they excel at self-determination because they only answer to the wealth between their ears.   These are the “capitalists” we can respect and emulate.

 

 

Wealth of Nations Synopsis

Adam Smith’s landmark book, Wealth of Nations, published in 1776, is a 500-plus page treatise on economics, oft cited bur rarely read, except by economists and masochists like me.  If you can overlook Smith’s sing-song style, his tediousness, repetition, generalizations, vague and archaic terminology, and inconsistent reasoning, the book is worth reading, especially as a social history.  It is important to recognize that Smith writes as a spokesman for the monarchy and the wealthy stock holders, landowners, and mercantilists who made the book an immediate hit and won him a position as Commissioner of Customs in Edinburgh, Scotland.  His “commercial society” has enshrined him as the “first modern economist,” or “father of modern capitalism.”

A confluence of factors contributed to the conditions of Smith’s time.  The “industrial revolution” began in Britain with the invention of the steam engine in 1712, first used for pumping water out of coal mines.  Other inventions quickly followed, eventually leading to the growth and dominance of the British Empire, through manufacture, trade, and colonization. Another feature of 1700’s Britain involved war and military conquest.  As an island nation, with England, Scotland, and Wales united as the United Kingdom, or “Great Britain,” in 1707, it developed its sea power and had established dominance in the seas and in trading routes by the time Smith wrote Wealth of Nations.  Competition with other powers brought war and its heavy costs.

Wealth of Nations refers repeatedly to the “late war,” which presumably was the Seven Years’ War, fought between 1756 and 1763.  One of the book’s primary aims appears to be exploring the various modes of taxation the king could use to pay debts from that war.

Meanwhile, the industrial revolution was bringing a rapid shift in social and cultural dynamics, as Great Britain went from predominantly agrarian, rural society to one of urban and industrial predominance.  The textile industry was probably the first to be affected in a major way, with the invention of the spinning jenny–“jenny” is a nickname for “engine”–by Englishman James Hargreaves in 1764.

The iron industry also underwent fast transformation, and with it, the transportation industry.  Communication and banking adapted accordingly.

Because industrialization necessitated large capital investments, business ownership shifted from individuals to groups, including partnerships and corporations.  The banking industry grew by leaps and bounds after the Bank of England was first chartered in 1694.  The London Stock Exchange boomed after the Seven Years’ War.  The government became increasingly dependent on it to finance wars.

Like many of his contemporaries, including Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, and George Washington, he was fascinated by machinery and its commercial potential.

In the first pages of Wealth, Smith presents the plan for the book, summarizing that the real wealth of a nation comes down to the “annual produce of the land and labor of the society.”

He then distinguishes between towns and agriculture and glorifies machines for facilitating division of labor, thus efficiency and productivity.  He uses pin-making as an example, with speed of production due to division of labor the only criterion.

Smith claims farmers are lazy, because as one-man operations, they waste time changing tasks, whereas a group of men in a “workhouse,” each doing one small task repeatedly, are able to produce much more in the same time period.

He says “Cochin-china” is one of several Asian countries that have sea access as well as extensive canals inland, but most of their trade is internal.  He wonders why they have not sought to trade outside their own countries.

Wealth emphasizes the enduring value of labor, despite the fluctuations in metal money.  The discovery of gold and silver in the Americas caused a glut in Europe that reduced the value to a third of what it was before.  A man can only do so much labor, but that labor holds its value through all the ups and downs of markets.

Wealth gives a multiplicity of examples of how labor costs rise and fall in relation to cities versus rural, or demand—such as North America, where labor was in great demand and food relatively inexpensive—and how much a laborer must be paid to sustain himself and children to replace him.  Since 50% of children die before reaching adulthood, says Smith, we need to calculate the cost of feeding four children in every family.  Smith acknowledges that all the laws favor the employers, should the laborers strike for higher wages.

While he presses the point that nothing happens without labor, Smith is happy to squeeze the laborer into a bare subsistence wage, better to keep him working hard to make ends meet.

He cites numerous examples of relationships between labor and stocks. New land, like the colonies, attracted lots of stock capital because it was cheap, full of natural resources, and soil was rich.

Early on “corporations” restricted competition, with the king’s (or queen’s) support.  Smith says 5^th of Elizabeth formalized the “Statute of Apprenticeship” that restricted practice of craft or trade to those who had apprenticed seven years.  Church wardens, mandated by the king to provide for the poor in their parishes, did everything possible to keep the poor from moving in.

Corn was the major food crop in Europe.  Smith says tobacco grows well enough in parts of Europe, but it is illegal because it’s too hard to tax individual farmers, so tobacco is imported from (primarily) Virginia and Maryland, warehoused, and resold at profit.  Sugar is in great demand, and is very expensive, imported from Caribbean colonies.  In “Cochin-china” sugar is no more expensive than ordinary food crops and is cultivated alongside them and apparently not exported much.

Labor and landlords benefit from policies that also serve the public.  Stockholders, however, are loud, moneyed, and invested in reducing competition, so they generally work against the public good.

Smith explains how money is not the same as circulating capital.  It is the “wheel” of the economic engine but has no intrinsic value.  A coin is not used up when it is exchanged for goods or services, so the same coin, each time it changes hands, buys its face value for the purchaser, who gets his coin’s “worth” in product.

He also writes about the banks, primarily of Scotland, that used paper money promissory notes in excess of gold deposits for lending.  80% paper to 20% backup.  Merchants could also get lines of credit, so were encouraged to accept that bank’s paper in trade, to promote it to friends and associates, and to spend it.  However, paper was no good in foreign countries, so gold was exported to import foreign products.

“No equal capital puts into motion a greater quantity of productive labor than that of the farmer,” says Smith.  Also, farms stay put, like retail shops, and can’t be outsourced.

He discusses how the American trade is financed by merchants in Great Britain.  He uses the example of hogsheads of tobacco from Virginia and Maryland as commodity money that is bought in excess by England and resold in other places.

But the “great commerce of every civilized society” is between country and town.  In fact, the home trade, by far the most important, was considered subsidiary to foreign trade, based on Man’s book, England’s Treasure in Foreign Trade.  Smith says the mercantile system works in many ways against the enrichment of the country.  It selectively encourages exportation and discourages importation.

He says it is a mistake to politically favor exports over imports.  Restraints on imports consist of high duties and absolute prohibitions.  Exports were encouraged by “drawbacks” (tax relief), “bounties (subsidies), advantageous treaties, and the establishment of colonies.  Smith is down on bounties.  He specifically mentions corn, because it, to him, is the commodity by which the price of everything else is measured.

He claims restraints on importation and prohibitions may be good for the home manufacturers but not for the population or the economy as a whole.  The famous “invisible hand” comes up on page 300, in which Smith mentions the folly of “statesmen” who try to control private enterprise.  He says the market will determine what is needed without government help.

Merchants and manufacturers derive the most benefit from monopolies, says he, whereas farmers and populace derive little and undoubtedly lose by them.  Corn merchants benefit more from subsidies than corn farmers.

The notion of “balance of trade” is “absurd,” and he enumerates reasons.  Smith also states that it is silly for nations to try to improve their wealth at the expense of other nations.  This leads to hostilities rather than friendly exchanges.

Smith asserts again that all wealth comes from the land, with farmers the most productive workers and everyone else subsidiary.  Those who bring raw materials to more useable form, like wool manufacturers, do not add as much value as the farmer does by cultivating the land.

Smith cites the duties of the sovereign.  He claims the sovereign does not have the duty or right to regulate commerce.  At the same time, he says the king’s first duty is to protect the country from other governments.

He makes the case for a standing army and says this is the only way the sovereign can maintain peace and order.  Now “civilized” societies can conquer “barbarous” societies, which don’t have the advantage of gun power.  He believes, therefore, that gun power equals civilization.

Smith mentions highways, bridges, navigable canals, coinage, and the post office as public institutions that facilitate commerce.  Post offices everywhere, he says, are valuable revenue sources for the government, with steady and immediate cash flow and low maintenance costs.

Obviously, a glaring inconsistency in Smith’s premise is between his views on free trade and his belief in the importance of a standing army.  Here we have our pseudo proponent of free trade justifying forts and garrisons in foreign countries to protect merchants’ stores.  Where these countries do not allow forts, it has been necessary to send ambassadors.  Smith believes most ambassadorships were created to protect trade.

He goes into “regulated companies,” which are open to anyone with the money, willing to submit to the rules, and trading his own stock at his own risk.  These are opposed to “joint stock” companies, which sound like publically traded companies today.  Pooled resources and pooled profits.  He says only four types of joint stock companies seem valid.  He cites:  1. The banking industry; 2. Fire and sea-risk insurance companies; 3. Canal or navigable channel companies; and 4. Those bringing water by pipe or otherwise to a great city.  He notes the Bank of England doesn’t have exclusive privilege, except that no other bank in England can employ more than six people, and the Bank of England lends to the sovereign.

The last hundred pages of the book are devoted to taxes and other potential sources of revenue for the commonwealth or sovereign.

He floats the concept of a central bank, calling it a “public bank to support public credit, and upon particular emergencies to advance to government the whole produce of a tax, to the amount, perhaps, of several millions, a year or two before it comes in.”

Smith asserts the king should be wealthier than anyone, with grand style and pomp to support his “dignity.”

He distinguishes between direct and indirect taxes, saying the former, as on land, are easily assessed.  Tax on interest or money is difficult to calculate without extraordinary “inquisition” into every man’s private circumstances and “would be a source of such continual and endless vexation as no people could support.”

“There is no art which one government sooner learns of another, than that of draining money from the pockets of the people.”

Wages on the “inferior classes of workmen” are regulated by demand for labor and the price of provisions.  As taxes on labor go up, wages must go up more, to cover the additional tax.  Manufacturers can pass these costs on to the consumer, but farmers’ landlords must absorb them.  This leads to a decrease in the demand for labor.  “Absurd and destructive as such taxes are, however, they take place in many countries.”

Smith goes into government jobs, which are much sought after, because they are highly paid and carry perquisites (perks).  Taxes on luxuries do not raise the price of other commodities, but those on necessities do, so should not be taxed. He mentions alcohol taxes as by far the most productive.

Excise taxes are generally on home goods destined for home markets and imposed on only certain items of the most general use. Excise laws discourage smuggling more effectively than customs laws.

He acknowledges that poor people, because there are more of them, consume the most, not only in quantity, but in value.

He mentions that war has required even the most frugal republics to contract great debts to maintain independence.  He says it is incorrect to assume money lent to government increases capital, because it is generally wasted, and that money would otherwise be spent on productive labor.  Also, foreigners often buy in.

“When national debts have once been accumulated to a certain degree, there is scarce, I believe, a single instance of their having been fairly and completely paid.”

Wealth ends rather abruptly on the subject of public debt, saying that when it exceeds taxpayers’ ability to pay with reasonable measures, government uses unreasonable measures, such as issuing interest-free bonds for immediate expenses, or interest-only bonds that are never intended to be repaid.  He says this has “enfeebled” multiple governments.

When governments reach the point where they can’t pay the debt, they either inflate the currency or declare bankruptcy.  He says the latter is more honest, but says the entire system of debt-backed government is “pernicious.”

My take is the tradition of monarchs and overlords has led to societies in which unearned wealth is glorified and held in high esteem.  The most highly respected and emulated are those who have done the least to acquire what they have, in general terms. The very idea, The Wealth of Nations, presumes the nations own the individuals who live within their borders.

 

 

 

Ambling Through “People’s History,” Part 2

April 15, 2017

Seven years ago this month, I was still reading A Peoples History of the United States,  by Howard Zinn, 2003 edition.  This is the second in a series of posts about this book, facts and my thoughts on them.  I blogged about the first 40 pages on March 7, 2017 (“Zinn on First Americans”).

Friday, April 2, 2010—I read 30 pages of  A People’s History of the United States  Now we’re into slavery from a Lincoln point of view, more or less, hinting but not stating what “freedom” meant to hoards of blacks who had no place to go and no skills except farm work, picking cotton but not selling it.

Sunday, April 4, 2010—People’s History horrifies me, as did Open Veins of Latin America.  I wonder why I persist in reading that stuff.  Am I merely looking for what’s wrong, following the trail I find so counter-productive in others?

I think I’m trying to understand how people can be so easily deceived into violating their own common sense and good judgment, on individual and mass levels, even when claiming the opposite.

My desire to trust, to give people the benefit of the doubt, has betrayed me more than anything else.  As a result, I have become the victim of numerous desperate people who believed they were saving themselves by sacrificing me.

This “die so that I may live” attitude is the fundamental betrayal of Christianity and perhaps underscores the strange notion that there is nobility in martyrdom.

I don’t see popes going to war, nor kings, nor presidents and members of Congress.  Thus the hypocrisy of the death by proxy stance that Christianity has become.

I have an idea.  Let’s create hell on earth so people will want to die.  That should solve the overpopulation problem.

Wednesday, April 7, 2010—We’re now into “The Other Civil War” chapter, page 237, about the strikes in the North in the 1830’s and beyond—long before the war on the South began.

Zinn annoys me because he focuses on the injustices and riots themselves, blaming the “capitalists,” the “rich,” and the “landowners,” without giving a good account of their methods.  The Robber Barons did a better job of showing how the railroad interests used government to further their ends.  In fact, Zinn’s history seems to worsen class divide by pandering to the disenfranchised and showing no effective retaliation other than violence, labor unions, and strikes.  He lets the government off the hook by virtually ignoring it, except in the most superficial way.

Thursday, April 17, 2010—I read about 12 pages of People’s History..  All about labor strikes during the mid-to-late 1800s.  A bad depression in 1893 due to boatloads of immigrants brought to lower the price of labor while native-born laborers couldn’t afford to feed their families.   Over and over the federal government and state militia came in to break up strikes, and the Supreme Court and lower courts cemented the rights of corporations over individuals in the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, the Interstate Commerce Commission, and other tactics that proved who the federal government really works for.

Zinn doesn’t say much about the Supreme Court, but it appears to be the great black hole in this whole US federal government farce.  Zinn only touches on the notion that it is composed of presidential appointees who are confirmed by Congress, thereby a mockery of the idea that the US is a republic.  But language distortion goes back a long way.  Even the 1800s sources Zinn quotes were discussing the conflict of labor vs. capital, referring to the overlord imperialists as “capitalists” unwilling to acknowledge human capital’s value.

Laborers never learned how to organize, except to fight, and this is why they failed.  Had they taken over the mills and factories and run them themselves, evicting the bosses, we may have written a different history.

Saturday, April 17, 2010—More violence.  Now the US in the late 1890s expands its imperialist empire, because all those machines that displaced all those workers are producing more goods than anyone needs or can afford.  So the US is forcing its way into other countries, like Japan and Cuba.  It’s justifying war, as in Cuba, supposedly to support revolutionaries against oppressive government, but also to protect American corporate interests that invested there.

Monday, April 19, 2010—Now, we’re into the Spanish-American War, in which the US used the Cuban revolution in 1898 or so to substitute the US Platt amendment for the Spanish rule.  It then used economic expansion to justify a bloody takeover of the Philippines, really bloody, in which American troops went on killing sprees wiping out entire towns, no one over ten years old spared.  And bragging about it, calling the Filipinos “niggers.”

McKinley was president at the time.  Of course he didn’t want war but felt it necessary to protect the Philippine timber and other resources from other countries and the Filipinos from themselves.

Wednesday, April 21, 2010—I read more People’s History, now up to page 363.  Late 1800s and early 1900s.  Strikes and more strikes, labor disputes, government stepping in at every turn to protect the corporations, the factories, murdering strikers, arresting leaders, making examples of them.  World War I was probably a diversionary tactic, to find an external enemy, because the internal mood was so belligerent.  No wonder people are afraid of the government.

But Zinn skips right over the Federal Reserve Act and income tax.  He subtly distorts the record by blaming Taft for the income tax and Wilson for the Federal Reserve Act, and only mentions these in a sentence or two in passing.

How strange, think I, that he would so easily bypass the vehicle by which the very workers he panders to were so completely disenfranchised.

People tell me Zinn is a “liberal.”  He seems to celebrate socialism, derived from Populism, but never defines any of it.  It’s clear “capitalism” was used in the vernacular in the 1800s to describe the industrialist imperialists, so demonization of the term began long ago.  The notion that human capital, like “qi” or life force in Oriental medicine, has been eliminated from the equation tells me this is why we are all are so debilitated now.

I can only do so much, I decided.  Many people have had a piece of the picture.  Zinn even quotes Helen Keller a time or two.  One of the heroines from my youth, she was social consciousness itself, a socialist at a time when socialism was needed, because it was synonymous with compassion.

Thursday, April 22, 2010—Peoples History shows how ruthless the GoverCorp attitude is.  People are right to be afraid.  Those who opposed the barbarians were glamorized, like Upton Sinclair, yet used to enable social reforms that played into GoverCorp’s hands.

On page 368 Zinn discusses World War I, the Espionage Act, which was used to jail and castigate people who opposed the war.  The Socialists didn’t, as a group, but notable Socialists like Jack London, Upton Sinclair, and Clarence Darrow, were soon converted.

Zinn’s history bats the ball back and forth like a tennis match but offers few insights into the causes.  The attitudes that have come down through time allow people to justify cruelty, violence, and bloodshed.

 

 

 

Freedom, Democracy, and Capitalism

Tuesday, March 21, 2017—I’m a proponent of free market capitalism, in that I believe in free things, especially if they can be exchanged for money that helps pay the bills.  Chicken feathers are free, sort of, if you don’t count the cost of feeding and housing the chickens.  Chickens molt on a regular basis, and if their feathers are clean, they can be used in a variety of ways.

I wore this hat, with a Speckles feather, on a “bad hair day” last week, getting smiles and compliments everywhere I went.  At first, I didn’t understand why these strangers were smiling.  Once I caught on, I bragged about how Speckles is alive and well, clean and healthy, and produced this feather of his own free will.

Pictured here is the same hat with a Squire feather, while the producer stands on his soapbox.  The mason jar contains yellow roses brought by dinner guests and wisteria blooms from the vine I’m training to block summer sun through the window (also free).  The other jar holds saved feathers from previous molts.

My little enterprise, which will never go public, has already produced two sales, the first to my banker, who bought feathers scattered in a plastic sleeve protector.  The second was a trade of a small bag of Squire feathers for a large carafe of saki.  A few more feathers are on sale at a local consignment shop.

Squire tolerates, if he doesn’t necessarily like, going visiting in the cat carrier.  My banker and bank staff fell in love with him.  Speckles might like visiting, too, but so far hasn’t had the opportunity.

My version of capitalism makes use of the wealth between my ears to create value from things other people take for granted.  Those who buy their chickens plucked and cut into pieces can’t be expected to appreciate the beauty of the feathers—individually and collectively—until they see them in different contexts.

Those who disparage capitalism seem to refer to “corporate capitalism,” which exploits human capital to form a “corporate body” amalgam in economic slavery to the bottom line.  Here we have such monsters as “corporate welfare,” “supercapitalism,” the “global economy,” and eco-rape.  Corporate capitalism has a long history of emphasizing short-term profits over long-term costs.  Local, and now world-wide, environmental pollution, general vitality-depletion on the planet, and a world at war (or perpetually on the verge of it) are only a few of the long term costs generated by an industrial age gone bananas

And, by the way, the bananas, especially the popular Cavendish banana, are at risk, too.  I grow another variety of banana and had a bumper crop last year, despite two major hurricanes.  Another free market capitalist product, courtesy of freedom, democracy, and capitalism.

The following comments come from my journal, ten years ago this month:

POWER ABUSE
Friday, March 2, 2007 – People who are raised or trained by power abusers don’t learn how to use power wisely.  Entrenched power abuse, as in the military or medicine, is considered normal for those in the systems.  The greatest ambition of the low man on the totem pole is to go from masochist to sadist, where he imagines he will respect himself more than he respects his bosses.

FREEDOM  AND RESPONSIBILITY
Saturday, March 3, 2007 – Right makes might.  It isn’t the other way around.    Self-sufficiency breeds freedom.  Taking responsibility for one’s own choices requires the willingness to accept and deal with consequences.  Criminals are soon entrapped in their own crimes, even if others never see.  A guilty man lives with his guilt and must face it, eventually.  His guilt lurks in the shadows, waiting for opportunities to right the wrong.  He can choose to restore balance consciously before he re-establishes it unconsciously through fear.
Thus did Adam learn the hard way that he couldn’t hide from God or his own guilty conscience.

HUMAN CAPITAL
Saturday, March 3, 2007 – Human capital is the most undervalued capital of all.  The social engineering messages—through laws, conventions, politics, media, entertainment and advertising–exploit this presumed advantage to everyone’s detriment.  Productivity increases when people enjoy their work enough to create a pleasant work environment.  This should be leadership’s top priority.  Pressure to perform, to grind an endless supply of boring and more boring, saps creativity, initiative, and ultimately, the economy.
When people wake up and realize we all bleed the same red blood, and the best way to live is to let live, we will begin to recognize the value of using our minds to work for instead of against us.  There is no mystique to psychiatry except self-knowledge.  My  life is my creation and no one can live it but me.  The best way to live it is to love it, in its many-faceted faces.
There is plenty of work to be done.  We have too many unproductive people, who want nothing more than to be fitted to the right job for them, and to earn enough money to support basic necessities and a few amenities.  More important, people need to be appreciated as human beings with human dignity and allowed the time and space to enjoy the fruits of their labors.
Everyone has a role to play.  A society that appreciates its human capital appreciates in value.  By fitting the job to the individual, rather than the other way around, everyone wins at relatively little cost to others.
Human capital is the only viable capital.  All other capital is derived from human desire and effort.  Once we place our values where they truly belong, with each individual, we can have a truly free, capitalistic, democracy.