It seems to me that the very concept we have of money is broken, whether it's symbolized by paper or by metal, whether its symbols are manufactured by nation-states or land-lords or corporations. It behaves in ways we don't allow any other technology to do.
I mean, what would people say if, once 90% of a population had cars, half of them wouldn't start?
How about school grades? What if when more than 4/5 of the people in a class knew the material, the curriculum suddenly changed so that there wasn't too much knowledge?
But money is also a technology and it does work this way. If everyone had enough money, prices would go up until some of them didn't. And we tolerate this. We celebrate this!
Money is a tool. It's a technology we created to serve us. And now is the time to ask whether the kind of money we currently have is the best tool for the job of managing the economy we currently have. Money is a means, not an end. Is it doing its job?
It doesn't seem like it to me.
Thursday, June 7, 2012
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
TANSTALG
I suspect that there is a minimum level of restrictions and prohibitions that emerge as a function of human social behavior. This level will be maintained regardless of the status of the "official" government, though there can always be more of these controls than necessary.
When I imagine putting a thousand people on a tropical island, I don't expect those people to form some sort of coconut-fueled libertopia, even if they are all libertarians. The first thing that will happen, is that they will figure out who's in charge.
The same thing happens in basically all societies. "Government" is not so much a thing as a process, and it will happen whenever people get together. Governing each other seems to be a typical, natural, unavoidable behavior of domesticated primates.
So, what will govern - a constitutional state that at least pays lip service to human rights, or a privately owned entity that doesn't?
A society consisting of nothing but sovereign rugged individualists who interact peacefully via free contracting is a nice idea but, like communism, it isn't realistic given how humans actually behave.
There Ain't No Such Thing As Limited Government.
When I imagine putting a thousand people on a tropical island, I don't expect those people to form some sort of coconut-fueled libertopia, even if they are all libertarians. The first thing that will happen, is that they will figure out who's in charge.
The same thing happens in basically all societies. "Government" is not so much a thing as a process, and it will happen whenever people get together. Governing each other seems to be a typical, natural, unavoidable behavior of domesticated primates.
So, what will govern - a constitutional state that at least pays lip service to human rights, or a privately owned entity that doesn't?
A society consisting of nothing but sovereign rugged individualists who interact peacefully via free contracting is a nice idea but, like communism, it isn't realistic given how humans actually behave.
There Ain't No Such Thing As Limited Government.
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