Dear Tom:
I have read this quote several times. Not easy to grasp the essentials but
as I read it, the author is saying that the whole concept of wages for
labour is based on a fallacy - that it cannot be so!
The reason, as I grok it, is that the energy it takes to maintain a human
life exceeds the amount of productivity that a persons labour will produce.
The conclusion is that until we add in the externalities of the "free"
energy which is more or less equally distributed on the Earth's surface as a
fact, whether the life in question is a billionare or a panhandler, the
concept of wages for labour is a shell game.
Can I take this to mean that in a "true" economic system, a Basic Income of
the equivalent free energy is given to every human being? And following
from that any additional productivity can then be added to this monetized
Basic Income so that those who produce something recieve additional too
their Basic Income.
Rather than the current situation as basically advocated by the neo-con
mindset that if you don't work, you starve. In other words he is saying no
one starves because everyone gets their share and some reduced amount who
chose to devote time to producing goods and services then get more.
In essence, then, this monetary payment for free energy would be added into
every product or service and that sum would be set aside to pay the Basic
Income? As I said, this is not easy to grasp in reality, though I like his
debunking of the current explanations.
Help me out Tom,
Thomas Lunde
GETTING SOMETHING FOR NOTHING
"In the distribution to the public of the products of industry, the failure
of the present system is the direct result of the faulty premise upon which
it is based. This is: that somehow a man is able by his personal services to
render to society the equivalent of what he receives, from which it follows
that the distribution to each shall be in accordance with the services
rendered and that those who do not work must not eat. This is what our
propagandists call `the impossibility of getting something for nothing.'
"Aside from the fact that only by means of the sophistries of lawyers and
economists can it be explained how, on this basis, those who do nothing at
all frequently receive the largest shares of the national income, the simple
fact is that it is impossible for any man to contribute to the social system
the physical equivalent of what it costs that system to maintain him from
birth till death -- and the higher the physical standard of living the
greater is this discrepancy. This is because man is an engine operating
under the limitations of the same physical laws as any other engine. The
energy that it takes to operate him is several times as much as any amount
of work he can possibly perform. If, in addition to his food, he receives
also the products of modern industry, this is due to the fact that material
and energy resources happen to be available and, as compared with any
contribution he can make, constitute a free gift from heaven.
"Stated more specifically, it costs the social system on the North American
Continent the energy equivalent to nearly 10 tons of coal per year to
maintain one man at the average present standard of living, and no
contribution he can possibly make in terms of the energy conversion of his
individual effort will ever repay the social system the cost of his social
maintenance. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that a distributive
mechanism based upon so rank a fallacy should fail to distribute; the marvel
is that it has worked as well as it has.
"Since any human being, regardless of his personal contribution, is a social
dependent with respect to the energy resources upon which society operates,
and since every operation within a given society is effected at the cost of
a degradation of an available supply of energy, this energy degradation,
measured in appropriate physical units such as kilowatt-hours, constitutes
the common physical cost of all social operations. Since also the
energy-cost of maintaining a human being exceeds by a large amount his
ability to repay, we can abandon the fiction that what one is to receive is
in payment for what one has done, and recognize that what we are really
doing is utilizing the bounty that nature has provided us. Under these
circumstances we recognize that we all are getting something for nothing,
and the simplest way of effecting distribution is on a basis of equality,
especially so when it is considered that production can be set equal to the
limit of our capacity to consume, commensurate with adequate conservation of
our physical resources."
regards,
Tom Walker
http://www.vcn.bc.ca/timework/worksite.htm
