Needed: Higher Returns to Time Use

In order to confront issues regarding inequality, consumption potential is an important consideration. However, income adjustments which "chase" consumption needs and wants, are inadequate compared to an approach which gains higher returns for time use - both individually and in aggregate. Why should this matter? It is too easy for present day consumption imbalance to destroy wealth. One might be frugal and a careful planner over the course of a lifetime, yet still end up financially "undone" by unavoidable medical bills.

Healthcare as an aggregate supply factor, has distorted time use in many areas of life.The same healthcare service needs which can tangle family budgets, are now the same as those which tangle government budgets, particularly in the U.S. And yet the heaviest components of today's debt loads are built on artificial scarcities. How might populations gain the ability to produce more of their vital consumption goals?

As Scott Sumner recently indicated, economics is all about consumption. Even though consumption factors are trickier to quantify than income, they are more important in the context of meeting ongoing needs. Services respond to time use differently than other forms of production, because service product is uniquely dependent on time, place and circumstance to give useful results. What's more, individualized services are possible when people coordinate for time availability on the part of the group in question. Because individuals have the same amount of time availability, higher returns to time use are possible where arbitrage seeks to utilize group capacity.

One strategy of higher returns to time use would be to break down services specialization into more precise components, manageable by a wide range of local skill levels. For instance, many years of education have been required for the education of physicians. But today, automation, technology gains and digital assistance can assist in coordinating knowledge factors throughout local community.

What's more, there is a wealth of knowledge and information available that healthcare institutions have not been able to directly utilize. All these factors could allow individuals to participate in ongoing local training and education, and they would always have the option of taking on responsibilities for health related needs. None of this is like "becoming a doctor"or even a nurse for that matter. The response of every individual to concepts regarding healing and wholeness, is as wide as the capacity of life itself. Only spend an hour in quality second hand bookstores, which specialize in non fiction by comprehensive subject listings. In such an environment, it becomes easy to visualize the possibilities of skills arbitrage.

The right to produce is closely connected with the right to heal. Both involve the right to meaningfully explore in ways that one can suggest measures for others to take into consideration. No one needs to play god, and everyone has the chance to corroborate what others already seek. Given the wealth of material already available in this regard - let alone the capacity of natural curiosity and human desire to problem solve - bringing these abilities back to the average individual could go a long way to bring higher returns to time use. In the process, a higher trust society than anyone has now, would once again become possible.

Better coordination for knowledge use is the high hanging fruit which could return populations to prosperity. As Timothy Taylor said regarding the long term government budget scenario:

...the current spending patterns of the U.S. government are starting to crowd out everything except health care, Social Security and interest payments.

This fact alone, could well convince governments to allow their citizens to take on knowledge use systems projects which also have the future potential to tend to healthcare needs. In the process, citizens could provide many other useful benefits which make it possible to channel fiscal efforts into direct monetary efforts at local levels. Not only would there be higher returns to time use, there were be a way to generate new economic activity which is less debt ridden, and more capable of generating real wealth.