Seeds of Capital: Mueller send half the answer

["John Gelles" <jjgelles@xxxxxxxx>]

	Charles Mueller's desire to see a brave new world where
	people who were previously poor become "affluent middle
	-class owners of their own productive property" is laudable,
	reasonable, and fundamental to the goals of Keynesian and
	non-totalitarian heterodox theory.

	He tells but half the story. In a monetary system of
	production, when you own productive property you may
	still be dependent on a free market to meet your essential
	needs. You may have a fine glue factory, but you can't
	eat glue for long.

	The whole PKT enterprise is dedicated to both full
	employment and a rising minimum standard of living.

	Anti-monopoly law runs along a parallel line: If we
	are to have full employment, there must be room for
	self employment, else you create a totalitarian order
	that Mueller describes so well. One to be avoided
	totally.

	Still, from Marx we have a gem that also parallels
	PKT goals and practice -- the exquisite picture of
	where it all must end, especially if you concentrate
	on the needs of children (a universal recurring
	category of citizens born in the USA, born on
	planet earth, every hour of every day.):

		"To each according to his need
		From each according to his ability."
	
	So the issue, when viewed in whole and not half,
	is to make possible that "affluent middle-class of
	owners of their own productive property", and to
	prevent their return to an impoverished class of
	owners of no more than the shirt on their back --
	torn at that.

	The way to make capitalism work -- (for contrary
	to Mueller, it does not work by magic or just
	because someone has a monopoly in the business
	of the anti-monopoly police who manage to smother
	every monopolist before he's out of the crib) -- is
	to transform the "from each according to his
	ability" into something akin to lend lease whenever
	money runs out in a customer base whose needs
	satisfaction is a public good.

	If Mueller would study the IEA system of
	accomplishing this, or the SCE or BSE systems,
	he might understand the limits of anti-monopoly
	thinking at a time when Standard Oil is coming
	back together and it isn't a bad thing in my book.

	(IEA= Individual Estate Account. SCE=Soft
	Currency Economics. BSE=Buffer Stock
	Employment)

	When America was mired in depression, it
	invented lend lease. Weapons for war, (which
	work for this scheme no better than weapons
	for peace,) were shipped to the markets where
	needed against lend lease terms in the absence
	of cash or realistic credit. The depression
	instantly ended.

		Although more products were
	sold to its own Armed Forces than to its allies,
	the lend lease scheme was a financial tool, like
	fiat money; and what it established was a way
	to put a monetary system of production into
	play by avoiding inflation and deflation, and
	having a goal in mind. The goal then was
	survival of civilization. A possible goal now
	was well put by Marx --

		"To each according to his need
		From each according to his ability."

	     John Gelles       jjgelles@xxxxxxxx
		http://www.1944.org