Democracies Need Services Decentralization

How can democracies be expected to function properly, when voting processes prove inadequate for the partitioning of resource use among different populations and cultures? When commodity, income and asset flows are not set up well for services and societal welfare, nations struggle to maintain not only democratic representation, but common accord among their own citizens. Perhaps we have been voting for the wrong outcomes, in too many instances. Services need voter representation, participation and economic diversity at local levels, instead of patronizing "one size fits all" national dictates.

Better targeted votes for time arbitrage and resource utilization would go much further, than today's political battles over a service marketplace which is slowly being "reined in" from special interest demands. However, before realistic services markets become a possibility, a better understanding of time use capacity alongside resource potential, must be a part of the equation. Where special interests primarily benefit from skimming off the best skills capacity available, communities could instead benefit from tapping into the skills capacity of all local citizens.

Time aggregate capacity is particularly important in monetary terms: money always needs representation with time use for citizens to remain actively engaged in the marketplace. Presently, central banks have strayed from this representation, as no one in power has been willing to address resource rigidities which leave service formations in the hands of special interests. Aggregate spending capacity was shorted, in order to shore up the assets which provide flows for services on special interest terms. While this made a partial degree of sense for monetary stabilization, the lower economic trajectory left too many in its wake who were economically left behind.

Democracies start to break down over time, when distribution processes no longer follow the shifting nature of resource capacities as accurately reflected in monetary aggregates. The current breakdown can especially be seen in the safety net of the U.S., which is now largely construed to either protect the marketplace needs of older citizens, or else fuel the hopes (or is that babysit?) young citizens in waiting.

While there's nothing wrong with a young/old safety net approach, the problem is that not enough citizens of (normally expected) working age are now represented. This holds true in producer and consumer contexts: both of which are needed for regular contributory flows to healthcare for the elderly and the ongoing direction of the young. In tax based terms, U.S. citizens are expected to contribute to society through the course of one's lifetime - income or no.

Unfortunately, we are kidding ourselves if we think automation might mean "no jobs necessary" and people will miraculously "get off the hook" for their contribution to lifetime services distribution flows - especially re the needs of the young and old. Few other aspects of overall "costs of living" are more substantial than this.

Taxation realities can occasionally be missed by some conservatives. After all, the substantial demands of property taxation for schools is still present, if and when one's income is not being directly taxed. Even when we are not homeowners, property tax expectations are built into the costs of rent, otherwise no landlord would make the profit necessary to be able to seek tenants in the first place.

A simple minded person such as myself, observing the needless confusion of redistribution structure, just wants to cut to the chase. An elderly person, or perhaps an unemployed baby boomer who might have contemplated "skating" to retirement", may no longer have the monetary flows necessary for those school property taxes. Paying said taxes could well mean nothing left to survive on, especially if roommates in one's home are not an option. Let such individuals be responsible for their share of community assistance to the young as long as they are able, so they can stay in their home. Make skills capacity more liquid in lieu of money, especially when money comes up short, for crying out loud. People are not "capable" of doing so? That's only because education has made it this way. Change education.

When individuals do not understand how the use of money relates to time, resources, assets and the commodities we use, redistribution discrepancies can bring the whole process to a standstill. As a result, democracies are squandered on the grounds of the misleading information that public officials are wont to press on the public when they have insufficient incentive to think straight. What public official wants anyone to understand what aggregate spending capacity is all about, if some special interest might get shorted, were a nominal target adopted? As a result, democracies are lost by the theft of our time, and yet it need not be this way. Of time, Seneca wrote:

We were entrusted by nature with the ownership of this single thing, so fleeting and slippery that anyone who will can oust us from possession.

This is why I believe it is so important for everyone to understand the relationship of money to the use of time and the access to resources we actually have. Because until we do, governments, finance and other interests will find it to their benefit to separate us from the value of our time at every turn, in order to enrich themselves. Evil? No, it's just what people naturally do, when part of the process of responsibility is taken from those who don't seem "smart enough" to take part in the greater needs of society.