23. We Tax Ourselves When We Play Our Roles.

We Tax Ourselves When We Play Our Roles
Bob Komives
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We cooperate; we compete. In both modes we exhibit freedom. At least, that is a view we can choose. In another view, we just play our inherited roles. "Role playing," "role differentiation," these are terms frequently heard among social scientists. They are also better and more general terms for what we and our economists call "taxation."

Role playing (1) distributes wealth among individuals, and (2) creates wealth when the roles are mutually beneficial. Number one is well understood by both charitable and exploitive people, by our tax collectors, and by other species--the more I get from you, the better off I am. Attribute number two is at the frontier of our understanding of macroeconomics.

During the dawn of life separate organisms that were accidentally different accidentally contributed to each other's chances for survival. Some produced offspring that had a tendency to organize themselves to reënact the ritual. As they did, role playing became part of the biosphere; taxation became part of the biosphere.

Each particle of DNA, each species, each individual, each group depends upon and is depended upon by other elements of the biosphere. Each taxes others and is taxed in turn within an intricately organized web of roles. On occasion, the quantity of life traumatically decreased. Despite such setbacks, life incorporated an increasing portion of universal energy into itself and into its complex support systems. As life grew, so did the complexity of the roles played by the organs and organisms that sustained it. Had we been there, at some point the complexity would have become too much for our great brains to comprehend. We would have to develop concepts of freedom, intention, randomness, in our attempt to understand cause-and-effect in what we saw. We would find words for cooperation and competition. In some order (perhaps simultaneously) science, pseudoscience, religion, and philosophy would follow.

As life flourished, new roles emerged, old roles changed. Through its organized role playing the biosphere learned not only how to prevent a net loss of biological energy (absent great trauma), but also how to capture more energy. In terms of biosphere economics, wealth steadily increased. While some species lost all wealth and became extinct, humankind prospered. Human economic history, when read from a distance, records changing patterns of roles that were adequate to keep us around and increase our wealth.

Role playing works because it distributes resources among individuals to the benefit of the group. An infant needs nurture, so it taxes its family to supply energy and skills to survive. Given survival, the infant can go on to contribute to the welfare of the family and to help produce another generation. Our tendency to nurture others lets us help individuals become scholars, artists, scientists and administrators. It causes us to make an effort to preserve life and opportunities for less fortunate people even when we seem to loose wealth in the process. We harvest and create food, education and security. Then we tax ourselves. We cooperate and compete so that we distribute these products and services among us. History is too full of examples of exploitation and persecution. We live with the guilt that comes with our unfortunately large margin for error. Nevertheless, so far, we tend to tax ourselves well enough to survive and occasionally flourish.

:: Bob Komives, Fort Collins © 2006 :: Plum Local IV :: 23. We Tax Ourselves When We Play Our Roles ::
With attribution these words may be freely shared, but permission
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