An Imagined Reality

Folk who know me know that I'm feelin' the Bern.  I've had some good conversations with friends who definitely don't feel the same and some have raised interesting critiques of Bernie Sanders.  One friend said that Bernie should not be president because he simply doesn't understand how the world works.  I disagreed and responded that perhaps it is not that he doesn't understand how the world works but instead he is offering a different paradigm as to how it should or could work.

Recently I read a really fascinating book called Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind.  Of all of the ideas in the book, the one that really caught my imagination is that everything works because of our unique ability to imagine a paradigm and then agree upon it.  Those imagined realities enable large groups of humans to work together, to trade with one another, to form societies.  Basically the author, Yuval Noah Harari, says that there is nothing in human society that does not depend upon those imagined realities upon which we have agreed to agree.  And those imagined realities can be changed.

I was thinking about one of those imagined realities the other day when an editorial in our local paper complained that the problems with the dollar began when its value was cut off from anything real - i.e. gold.  But, the value of gold is also tied to nothing "real."  The book uses gold as an illustration of imagined realities.  While the metal does have some iteresting properties, there is no reason beyond a cultural agreement that it should hold any more value than some other metal, many of which are significantly more useful.  Ineed, when the Spaniards arrived in the new world, searching for gold,  the native people were confused.  Gold is pretty, they thought, but too soft for any important uses.  They imagined much lower value for that soft yellow metal.

Back to Bernie... there is no reason beyond the fact that we have all imagined the world as it is that it should remain that way.  We have decided that some people should be incredibly wealthy while others struggle and even die from want.  We have decided that a freakishly tall, athletic man should make tons of money for entertaining us with incredible feats that we cannot accomplish while the one who picks our food, bent over in the hot sun in a field day after day, struggles.  Why?  The list could go on.

Now Bernie is not calling for crazy changes.  Indeed, many of the changes he envisioned are already part of the imagined reality in much of the world but it is a different reality than the one we've adopted together in the US at this point.  That is why he is revolutionary.  That is why he challenges the powers that be.  That is why I'm feelin' the Bern.  I want to see a new paradigm and the one he is offering is a lot more like the one I believe that God imagines for us than the one we currently have.

An Economic Problem

I listened to most of the Republican debate last night and I have to wonder what universe they're living in... for that matter, a similar question can be raised with the Dems.

Again and again, I heard how they were going to rebuild a growth economy that would provide good, well paying jobs for Americans.  Regardless of how I feel about their tactics, the truth is I don't think that is a possibility right now.

Let's imagine the very best possible outcomes... a bunch of these big multi-national companies decide to come back to the US and build big modern factories... The fact is that those factories will hire some folk, but not nearly the number that a similar factory would have hired 50 years ago.  Automation is the word.  Robots and computers would be doing the work that Tom, Bill, John, Jean, and Sally did in the 50's.  Bob might still have a job making sure things are going well but the productivity of the individual worker is way higher which basically means that fewer flesh and blood employees are needed to produce even more goods.  As time goes on, there will likely be fewer of these jobs in the factories with more and more of the work becoming automated.  Even if those few workers did get higher pay (which in today's economy they do not), because of increased productivity, the lions share of income goes up the ladder to those who own the capital.  Labor doesn't count as capital and besides, there are scores of folk who would love to leave the fast food job for a chance at a position that pays closer to a living wage.  Of course we still need folk to design and program the robots... but those aren't blue collar jobs that pay well.

We could use serious work on infrastructure which does require skilled labor and just plain labor... but that requires bigger government and nobody is really talking about the kind of government commitment required to rebuild crumbling roads and bridges all across the country. 

Which leaves us service jobs which have grown.  The Obama presidency produced significantly more jobs that previous Republican administrations but the observation is correct, many are not jobs that provide a living wage.  The reality is that fewer of those service jobs will be needed in the near future.  Retail has rapidly shifted to the internet, putting scores of retail clerks out of jobs and moving those tasks to large distribution centers where much of the work can be automated and even that which is not requires radically fewer workers than your local Macys.  Think of it, there is no real reason that McDonalds really needs more than one or two people.  Virtually everything done at a fast food restaurant could be automated.  You could punch your order into a ouch screen, swipe your card, and wait for a series of computerized robots to provide you with a custom made burger without the possibility that someone overlooked your order or put extra pickles on when you had clearly stated none.  It won't be long until it is less expensive for a new franchise to do just that vs. hiring  real people who make mistakes, get sick, and get weekly paychecks.

So much work can be centralized.  More and more Universities are moving to online classes where a video of a professor who died a decade ago can continue to  "educate" students while, yes, computers can grade the papers.  Surgeons can use robots across the globe to perform surgeries and my insurance is rewarding customers who use online physicians.  Multi-site churches use star preachers and show the sermon on a big screen while volunteer musicians lead the worship.  One of our local wine tasting rooms has a bank of spigots on a wall with a touch pad, a description of each wine, and a card reader.  When you arrive, you receive a card with a computer chip to use at the pouring stations.  You then choose the wine you want to taste, slide your card, push the size of the taste, and hold your glass under the spigot where you receive exactly the pour you ordered.  At the end of your tastings you hand the card to the one person (not really required) who places the card in another reader that then tells you your bill... which as likely as not, you pay with a debit card swiped through another card reader.  The few places where real people are required - wait staff at a high end restaurant, a real pourer at the wine tasting room, artisan crafts, personal care givers for the elderly, etc.  - are luxuries.  We simply need fewer people to do more work... and as the technology improves, we will need fewer yet. There simply are not and will not be enough jobs out there.   And some of the work that does require real people, such as music, art, literature, is becoming devalued by the current means of distribution (digital via the internet) and those folk are less able to make a living at their work.

What all of that adds up to is that the current direction of our economy does not bode well for those without significant capital in the short term and for just about anyone in the long term (owning an automated factory doesn't do much for your bank account if there is no customer base to purchase your goods).

It really does feel to me as if we're headed to a choice between a future that looks like Star Trek The Next Generation where people spend their time doing things that bring meaning to their lives or a world like Blade Runner or The Hunger Games where the vast majority of folk live in dangerous and depressing places, just on the edge while a few reap whatever rewards there might be and live behind walls in gated, protected areas.

Now, I'll get a bit political... those who argue for smaller government push us towards a world like the latter.  That is certainly the world their current patron saint - Ayn Rand - would have advocate (think of the places in the world with "small government" like Somalia and tell me you'd really rather live there).  Even the more left leaning, worker centered views of some Democrats like Bernie Sanders just holds off that new world for a few short years.  As a society we will have to make decisions and a radical rethink of the way our economy needs to be shaped is necessary if we want to avoid that future.

what is success

When we visited England some years back, thoughtful folk were concerned about some changes they were seeing in their society. Being "on the dole" was a common experience. Jobs were not always easy to find and many people ended up on public assistance at one time or another. For working class people, it was seen as a part of life. Then, US television began to change the image. A person without a job wasn't in that situation because of social forces, they were there because they were lazy. And new tension began to rise and people began to see themselves and one another in very dysfunctional ways.

The reality is that even in the US economy we need to have a certain number of people unemployed for the system to work as it is designed to work. If nobody is looking for a job, productivity goes down, wages go up, and workers' demands increase. But we still bame people for fulfilling a role that we require somebody to fulfill!

this wonderful talk on Ted by Alain de Botton helps us to think a little more about the way we see one another and the way we see ourselves as we look for a kinder and gentler view of success...

Tea Parties?

I've been watching them and have a number of observations and puzzlements and fears.

My observations - reading comments of the participants, nobody seems quite clear what they're protesting. There are lots of concerns about taxes going up... but nobody has raised any taxes at this point. There are complaints about the government spending too much but no other suggestions for how to address the current situation other than tax cuts, which of course, got us where we are. And there is anger about helping out those who are poor or in trouble because it is obviously always their fault. And lots of poor logic... tax cuts do not cause investment in business. They cause profit taking. Higher taxes cause investment because by investing in infrastructure, you avoid the taxes.

As for redistribution of wealth... that is clearly a Biblical idea (see Acts 4 & Leviticus 25) and that is precisely was tax systems do - redistribute wealth. They only question is where and how. Sometimes it is direct and active, other times it is less direct but the result is always the same, capital moves. Under the Reagan philosophy which has held sway since 1980, wealth migrated upwards with the expectation that it would trickle down. Well, it did migrate up as wealth has become more concentrated and the gap between the wealthiest folk and the poorest folk in the US approaches that of any developing country, but it didn't trickle down.

puzzlement: Where were these folk when Bush was building record deficits? Many were saying that if you disagreed with Bush policies you were tantamount to a traitor. So why now are they marching? Do they really not understand the implications of doing nothing to help the economy? Do they not see the connection between tax cuts, a system that encouraged greed, and our struggling economy? And what in the world does any of this have to do with the Boston Tea Party? Or Thomas Paine?

It makes me afraid. In large degree the protests seem to be about fear. People are afraid of the future and feel insecure. Those are not unrealistic fears for many folk. The problem is that right wing media and politicians are feeding on that fear and deepening the polarization of our country. They are fanning the fears so that they move from rational concern to irrational terror. They are offering no solutions. They are not talking. They certainly are not listening to any other viewpoints. It is all about building up a political base who are blinded with rage and shaped by fear that is both rational and irrational and using them to gain power. That makes me worry about the future of my country.