2. Everybody Knows

Everybody Knows
Bob Komives

::

In 1990 and 1991, when the United States of America lead other countries in a war to evict the forces of Iraq from Kuwait, many advocates of balanced national budgets knew it was time to abandon that principle in order to wage war. I heard nobody ask, "If debt for war is good, can debt for peace and public welfare be bad?"

A war rages in the Middle East
—costly by measures more important than money.
We so readily
suspend our fantasy of a balanced budget
so that we may fight a harsh war,
only to again impose our fantasy,
with harsh futility,
during brief interludes of peace.

Oh, the insidious fantasy!
Never apologize for expenditures
if they do not exceed taxes.
That is, if government recalls from us
at least as much money as it spends,
it can boast:
" We ruined the country
and much of the rest of the biosphere,
but we never ran an unbalanced budget."
Let us remember
that war is the age-old medicine
to counter peacetime fantasies.
For failing to make good investments in peace
we are as likely as ever
to
fall
into
internal and external
conflict
that will lead us again to war.

from: A War Rages

Things are not as they should be. The cold-war dichotomy between communism and capitalism has blurred. It should now be easier to study the complementary relationships between socialism and marketplace, and between peace and investment. Yet, in the years since the war in Kuwait such discussions seem less frequent, or, at least, less noticed.

Also in 1991, leaders in the United States of America were in a panic over their failing banks. Those who had long advocated smaller, decentralized government were sure it was time for larger, more centralized banks. They now have them. I see irony in this past and problems in this future.

One panic replaces another. In 1996 everybody knew that the big problem in the USA was budget balancing --provided we increase military expenditures and decrease both our taxes on the wealthy and our assistance to the poor. In early 1998 the problem seemed to be what to do with a projected budget surplus if we do not wage war with Iraq. Yesterday and today everybody knows that, when convenient, national taxes must balance expenses.

Once upon a time, everybody knew
the earth is flat.
Common sense confirmed it.
Common politicians ratified it.
The best scientists of the day spoke doubts.
Since everybody knew,
nobody listened.

from: Everybody Knew

:: Bob Komives, Fort Collins © 2006 :: Plum Local IV :: 2. Everybody Knows ::
With attribution these words may be freely shared, but permission
is required if quoted in an item for sale or rent

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

35. To Suggest a Framework

To Suggest a Framework
Bob Komives
::

What I have worked
is just forgotten.
What I have wrought
is but forgot.

Ought To The Participle

I end Part I suggesting that we might re-subdivide the science of economics. In the first Plum Local, I saw a need for a new name to cover an expanded economics -perhaps, "biosphere economics" or "world economics." Change in name, however, is less important than change in substance. The substantial changes I describe rely on distinctions between abundance and scarcity, between centers and edges. Here, I propose a framework to accommodate these distinctions. I propose to unite similar areas of study within economics and to help economics connect itself with the rest of science through a redefined macroeconomics.

Macroeconomics covers the broad scope of economics, its important connections with the rest of science, and the interrelationships among the centers and edges of microeconomics. It describes the work by nature and humankind that creates wealth. It describes the general rules of abundance and economic development. Some traditional macro and microeconomics belongs here, as does economic history. For the most part it is a new economic umbrella synthesized from other parts of science.

Microeconomics describes the work of wealth distribution and maintenance. It describes the special rules of scarcity. Microeconomics can be divided into two parts:

• Central Economics covers socialism, law, tradition, treaty, peaceful cooperation, money, stock issues, internal borrowing, corruption, and like subjects. Most of traditional macroeconomics belongs here, together with studies that have not traditionally fallen under economics.

• Edge Economics covers marketplace, trade, war, peaceful isolation, external borrowing, thievery, and like subjects. Most of traditional microeconomics belongs here, together with work from other social sciences.

War and marketplace are moral near-opposites. However, both belong under edge economics because they try to bring wealth across the friction of the edge between groups. A treaty does the same, however a treaty usually belongs under central economics because it can form the core of a new group. It is the center of a higher level communal system.

Corruption and thievery are moral kin. But corruption is central while thievery is edge. In corruption, a small group at the center of a larger group finds its communal way to subvert the larger communal wealth ethic. In thievery, an individual or group imports wealth snatched from others.

Socialism and marketplace fall in different divisions of microeconomics, not because they are rivals, but because they solve different problems in the way hub and rim of a bicycle wheel solve different problems.

I prefer this framework, but I believe that names and frameworks can be both problem and solution. I seek a framework that works better, but we should avoid excess concentration on the classification of fields of study. After all, subdivisions are artificial; there is only one science. We need only make sure that economics be an integral part.

I trim my beard;
you notice my hair.
You cut your hair;
I ask, "since when the beard?"
On sight of a dirty bath,
together we throw out the baby.
My,
what able eyes for change
and lame brains for attribution
have you and I, sir,
and Little Red Ridinghood.

You and I, Sir

:: Bob Komives, Fort Collins © 2006 :: Plum Local IV :: 35. To Suggest a Framework ::
With attribution these words may be freely shared, but permission
is required if quoted in an item for sale or rent

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

38. There Are New People In Upper Forest.

There Are New People In Upper Forest.
Bob Komives
::

I return to a diagram I used earlier to portray wealth development in the biosphere. Our biosphere is the largest organization of life, sitting astride part of the inanimate universe, isolated from any other biospheres that might exist. Energy flows into the biosphere; or, better, the biosphere invades the inanimate universe and captures energy. Organisms within the biosphere distribute and recirculate the energy among themselves, thus sustaining and expanding the biosphere. Energy eventually flows or is cast back into the energy streams of the inanimate universe as biospheric waste products.



The biosphere is an organism. It's components are sub-organisms. However unruly we seem, we components organize by rules known to the biosphere. We may participate actively or passively in our organization; we may participate in ignorance or with knowledge; but we participate. Fate is uncertain. Biosphere may expand its share of universal energy or it may collapse into poverty or death --so too, our species. The process is essentially imperfect, allowing disorganization, reorganization, flawed reproduction, new forms and levels of organization. Such is the biosphere and its economic development as portrayed in the diagram.



Now instead of seeing the diagram as the biosphere at work in an inanimate universe, I will change scales and describe it as a developing culture in a place called Upper Forest. A pioneer family enters a well developed forest ecosystem whose energy (- - -) flows from plant to animal and back, ever mixed with new inanimate energy from the sun. Used energy flows either into the inanimate atmosphere or into a neighboring ecosystem.

Upper Forest is a complex organism, containing millions of sub-organisms operating at hundreds of levels. Yet from the viewpoint of the pioneer family, Uppermost G, none of the wealth of the forest is human wealth until the family enters the forest to harvest its resources. The Uppermost G's remove trees, feed piglets, extract food and materials, build structures, and leave waste to rot or otherwise reënter the forest ecosystem.

The Uppermost G's are reasonably successful. Children are born. They increase consumption but eventually increase the family's capacity to capture and use the wealth of the forest. However, the G population expands even faster, because the Uppermost G's welcome another family of relatives, the Nextmost G's, who quickly take up the same lifestyle. An ever-more organized community forms as, over time, the Thirdmost, Fourthmost, and Bottommost G's move into farm the Upper Forest.

Some of the older children of these families see an opportunity to deepen this simple community and change from farming generalists to horse-and-buggy transportation specialists. Ever dependent on the farming output to pay them, they are proud to be the C'people who take goods and passengers to and from market and around the community. Eventually, others see the opportunity for leather working. The O'ers begin to craft useful goods from the hides of farm and wild animals harvested by the G's and C's and trade the products back to the G's and C's for food and transportation. Two O'ers and two C'people developed such a close working relationship that they formed the C-O Transport and Leather company.

The Upper Forest human community has expanded its farming activity five-fold from the time that the first G'family established itself in the forest. However, community wealth has expanded more than five-fold. Due to the specializations of the C'people, O'ers, and C-O Co, much of what had gone directly to outside markets or had rotted quickly back into the forest stays in the community to enrich the lives of everyone from the Uppermost G's to the Bottommost O's. The Upper Forest Community sees that it has achieved significant economic development. These people might say their success comes from hard work. If Upper Forest Ecosystem had a voice it would likely protest. It did most of the work while the human residents just played around. As the impartial critic, I would try to calm the argument with, "So far so good. Whatever you all have done here together seems, for now, to have worked." Then, with a little diagrammatic cut-and-paste, I would point out that they are not alone.

Lower in the forest lies another community much like Upper Forest. Lower Forest inhabitants depend on Upper Forest because their river starts up there. Directly and indirectly the human community and ecosystem of Lower Forest depend on resources provided by Upper Forest. Even much of their valley soil has come over millennia from gradual erosion in the hills above. Waste products of Upper Forest community become energy inflow, wanted or unwanted, to Lower Forest.



Upper Forest community may for a while see the clearing of trees for agriculture on steep hills as economic development. Lower Forest community sees dramatic changes in the flows of water and sediment into their valley. Floods become more frequent. Siltation makes their irrigation structures and their potable water system unusable.

Lower Forest community may retaliate: close roads, take political action, resort to violence, or end the intercommunity trading that has been profitable to Upper Forest community. Perhaps both communities will find the wisdom to see that they interdepend. They are parts of a larger watershed community, a higher level organism. Each part sees economic development at the local community level and inward but should also see it from the local community outward to the watershed community.

:: Bob Komives, Fort Collins © 2006 :: Plum Local IV :: 38. There Are New People In Upper Forest. ::
With attribution these words may be freely shared, but permission
is required if quoted in an item for sale or rent

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

71. Let Us Find Balance.

Let Us Find Balance.
Bob Komives
::

There is a true rule of balance.

An organization,
biological or political,
tends to survive
if self-organized and self-taxed
to be productive and resilient.
It balances its budget
with the wealth
that productive organs return
from the energy spent
to create and maintain them.
So, yes,
a government cannot spend
what it does not have.
However, what it must have
is access to the wealth
in the organs of its economy.
It has such access
whenever it fixes a policy,
or passes a law,
or, even,
when it spends newly printed money.

Let us end monetary recall

and the fantasy that it is a tax
that balances our budgets.

Let us find balance

investing communally
in the growth of knowledge
within ourselves
within our biosphere.

Let us recycle the effort of the intelligent people

trapped in non-production
calculating
collecting
debating
and avoiding payments
under a futile system of monetary recall.

Again, let us remember

that war is the age-old medicine
to counter peacetime fantasies.

from: A War Rages

:: Bob Komives, Fort Collins © 2006 :: Plum Local IV :: 71. Let Us Find Balance. ::
With attribution these words may be freely shared, but permission
is required if quoted in an item for sale or rent

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

91. For Peace, Use Abundance.

For Peace, Use Abundance.
Bob Komives
::

War is age-old medicine
for peacetime economic myth.
It can spur us to do the unconventional.
If willing to abandon dreams of community,
we can again abandon fiscal conservatism
in order to wage war,
but the pay-offs and risks have changed.
High-tech, “conventional” war is deadly,
but, after all,
just conventional.
Whole-wax, nuclear war is more deadly,
but, after all,
just unthinkable.
If we will refuse to use war
to cure ills in the economics of scarcity,
we must learn to use abundance
to cure ills in the economics of peace.

||

:: Bob Komives, Fort Collins © 2006 :: Plum Local IV :: 91. For Peace, Use Abundance. ::
With attribution these words may be freely shared, but permission
is required if quoted in an item for sale or rent

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::