Catch 23

[John Gelles <jjgelles@xxxxxxxx>]

         Dear Bernie,

         Thank you for your kind private message in which you
         reiterate your original public message to PKT, i.e.,
         that within the domain of political economy there are
         alternatives to downsizing and currently felt adverse
         trends in blue collar and mid-level and below white
         collar standards of living and conditions of work:
         That real problems of business and workers ought to
         be faced in their political and economic dimensions.
         That there are ways and means to supplement commercial
         investment with government investment; and that the
         latter can and ought to democratize economic
         independence along Jeffersonian lines.

         You identify opposition on the part of established
         academic, business and government authority, to any
         radical shift in the power to make economic decsions,
         (such as those that would raise wages or add cost to
         protect us all from environmental degradation), away
         from those accustomed to make such decisions and toward
         ordinary workers and people whose interests have not
         been given due weight up to now.

         In this notion, I believe, you join your intuition to
         that of most of the writers I observe on PKT. They all
         seem to echo a belief that it is not mere lack of
         smarts that keeps money tight and men "in line"; it is
         willfull determination by those in power to keep on top
         at all costs, following the model of dominant males
         among wild horses and gorillas in the mist.

         I suppose human sibling rivalry is not much different
         from animal contests for male dominance. I think the
         former rivalry is a good model for the observed reluc-
         tance by the power structure to treat equity as a
         fundamental objective of government.

         Nevertheless, I think there is a large intellectual
         component to our failure to "optimize" the private
         enterprise system to benefit those at the top. Yes,
	 "at the top". By my intuitive lights, successful
         people have the most to gain from reform and the most
         to lose by staying with unscientific money and under-
         employed countrymen.

         Although modern economics was built on recognition
         of the potential for mass production that specialized
         labor presented, it has not yet taken full account
         of the potential of automation and robotics to end
         scarcity.  But unless, early on, every child is culti-
         vated, the end of the need for common labor will signal
         the beginning of real anarchy.

         In all events, national and international anarchy for
         the moment have the whip hand. The market is just one
         more place for it to rule.  Compelling all players to
         respect environmental and social costs, by implementing
         a bill of economic rights suitably protected from legal-
         ism with built in arbitration of disputes, is the path
         I believe you would take -- if we could spell it out in
         common language valid for bankers, accountants, engin-
         eers and salesmen.

         For the moment we are impeded because the only thing
         that works is money -- not argumentation. And money
         doesn't work either, that's what the argument is all
         about. I believe we have found Catch 23.

              John Gelles