Saturday, January 23, 2021

Economic Integration Could Help Unify Us

After all the post election chaos, finally some relief with a change of command in Washington. Still, I know this respite could be brief, and it hardly signifies a return to normalcy. As things stand, too many budgetary issues are coming to the fore, and recent decades of structural shifts have yet to be addressed. So while Biden is a calming presence (for some of us), he's in charge of a government which is ill prepared to meet the expectations of its citizens. Unfortunately, Biden's hopes for greater unity are mostly wishful thinking - at least for now. 

For that matter - as some noted regarding the heightened inauguration security - this was no peaceful transfer of power in an ordinary sense. It may be that political unity remains out of reach, until societies become more serious about economic integration for all citizens. Importantly, what's at stake in all this, isn't about continuous cycles of additional monetary redistribution. Rather, a broader framing for market orientation is called for - one which would ultimately make less monetary redistribution necessary in the first place. 

How to think about more concise forms of economic integration? For one, such strategies would focus on the economic potential of all human capital, regardless of formal educational levels. Once a wider range of time based mutual assistance becomes horizontally aligned, skilled services would no longer be limited to urban settings and limited budgetary directives. If we can establish applied knowledge networks in communities of all kinds, aggregate time value would become a more dynamic part of our economic destinies. If we truly believe in the power of free markets, then why not give ourselves greater ability to define useful time based consumption, in line with what others hope to provide. 

More viable platforms in human potential, could increase the supply and demand of useful economic time for all citizens. Eventually, the mutual reliance of shared time would lead to greater interdependence, thereby giving people new opportunities to trust one another and become civilized again. 

Only recall how the civil societies of recent centuries, were established through a more complete representation of specific resources. Toward this end, why not make time use potential as economically viable as other forms of commodity wealth. The resource representation which our tradable sectors made possible, led to extensive societal coordination, cohesion and voluntary cooperation. Let's hope that our non tradable sectors can now take a page from these earlier positive examples. Should we refuse to put additional and unnecessary burdens on resources that are already scarce, perhaps we have a chance to reduce the "uncivil wars" of our times.

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