Friday, September 28, 2018

Notes on Initial Wealth as Aligned Reciprocity

Do governments still share important roles with private enterprise for wealth creation? Much depends on how any government chooses to engage at an economic level, and also the realities of its already existing budgetary obligations. Governments in general are too often confused with "being in charge" of wealth creation, in part because of fortuitous circumstance in the past when they were able to provide useful framing and support for infrastructure and capital investment. Otherwise, governments tend to become more prone to detracting from initial wealth generation, once their economies become more complex and services oriented.

It's no longer a simple matter to determine whether governments have the ability to support initial wealth which actually contributes to general equilibrium gains. Plus, the zero sum framing of today's political circumstance in the U.S., is a clue just how many policy makers have given up on growing the pie, and are now determined to stabilize it instead through excessive fiscal support. Is it still possible to grow the economy in areas important to all citizens, without resorting to fiscal policy and higher taxes? It may be that doing so, would include recognizing how services wealth could be generated at the outset, via aligned reciprocity.

Better means of resource alignment for time based services, is equally important in terms of aggregate productivity. We have all but forgotten how to make meaningful use of resource capacity which doesn't require subsidies or new debt loads. Since debt is no longer a reasonable proposition for lower income levels, why not allow these groups to lead the way, in the creation of time based services via aligned reciprocity. Imagine new services from the now marginalized as new wealth, instead of societal burdens. If we allowed this possibility, perhaps, just perhaps, we would no longer have to be bombarded in every election cycle with TV commercial rhetoric that someone doesn't deserve our vote because they believe in "big government". Seriously? Is that the best commercial anyone could come up with this time? Given the recent fiscal excess in Washington, who exactly doesn't believe in big government?

Ultimately, governments are not going to be able to give us something they don't have, and no amount of taxes will give them what they end up needing most, once too much economic skills value in aggregate has been demolished. When governments place hard limits on who gets to exercise useful skills, no one can expect more of those skills to miraculously appear in the marketplace as Baby Boomers retire, regardless of whether someone gets the okay to print money like there's no tomorrow. There's too much wishful thinking all around that no one ever has to directly reciprocate for anything, that somehow, some way, everyone's services demands will magically be met.

I'm sorry but that's just not going to happen. It's time to build new organizational forms of services capacity which provide useful and practical platforms for people as they actually are, instead of the level of perfection too many institutions currently demand. Let's create platforms which reflect the ways people are realistically able to relate to others so as to assist them, whatever the circumstance. Let's do so in ways which generate new wealth, instead of simply snatching away more wealth from too many hapless individuals and institutions which never experience reciprocation.

P.S. I ended up cutting this post a bit short when it started to turn into a rant. Perhaps two recent links will help to explain my moodiness, apologies to all.

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