Harry,
Having thrashed the previous topic enough for now, let's have a look at the
last item you threw onto the agenda. I'll skip to the bottom of your posting.
(KH) As to your second assumption ("Man's desires are unlimited.") I don't
think this is universal either. But this needs a lot more discussion and
I've written enough for now!
[HP] The interesting thing about unlimited desires is that if it is true
then there cannot be any unemployment. If all of us worked 24 hours a day
we couldn't satisfy our unlimited desires. Yet, there is unemployment and
much of the time and effort of modern economists is spent trying to find
jobs for people who are unemployed.
So, we keep them in school until adulthood, we try to get them to retire
early, we fill up the military with young men and women -- anything to get
them out of the labor force. The question becomes "how can we sop up the
unemployed"?
I prefer Henry George's question. He said, Why are people looking for
jobs? Why aren't jobs looking for people?
Well?
Let's walk down the River Avon half a mile from here (calling in along the
way at the "Jolly Sailor" for a swift pint). Pretty soon at this time of
the year we'll come across a swan sitting demurely on her nest only three
or four yards from the path. We've no need to keep my dog on her lead
because, if she approaches the swan too closely, the latter will rise up in
the most frightening way and attack the dog -- and us, too, if we linger
too long!
An excellent example of the mother's protectiveness of her cygnets. And the
male's, too. He'll be paddling about on the river nearby but keeping his
eye on proceedings in case he's needed. By this time, two old men will be
hurtling along the path as fast as their doddering limbs can carry them
towards the next pub, the "Bird in Hand" (actually on the river bank 'cos
it used to be an old water mill).
But let's make the same walk in September. This time we see the most
tremendous fight going on between swans. Two swans, it would seem, are
attacking four or five others. As we look on this amazing scene then both
of us -- long being experts on almost everything -- suddenly realize that
the fight is all about the two parents driving their almost full-grown
youngsters away from their territory. We can see, from the expressions of
their faces (!), that the younger swans are puzzled about all this because
they keep on trying to return to their former patch. After all, there's
plenty of food in the river. Isn't there? But the ex-parents don't think
so -- and they lunge forward with another attack.
It's all in the genes. It's not quite the same with us. We usually pair up,
like the swans, but we also live in small groups containing, maybe, three
or four mothers. At least we've evolved in this way for millions of years.
If the living is precarious, and if a mother in our group has twins then
she'll smother one them at birth. After all, she'll not be able to forage
about for enough food for her to produce enough milk for two nor have the
energy for the daily trek as the group moves on.
She, nor the other adults, don't drive the almost fully-grown youngsters
away from the group. Certainly not the males. They'll let the daughters
depart to pair up with young males in other groups. But the group still
needs the young males to help against encroachment or attack by other
groups, or protect against predators or catch the necessary protein that
all of them, particularly the expectant mothers, need.
But the fully adult males, with their already well-defined status positions
and leadership don't wholeheartedly welcome the young males into their
inner sanctum of power. Without causing injuries (which would weaken the
group as a whole) the new adults have to fight their way in all sorts of
ways that we all recognize in the modern world of politics, establishing
their status slots and every now and again succeeding in overthrowing the
leader. In turn they'll hang onto their positions for as long as possible.
That's one part of the answer. It's in our genes. Leaders will fight wars
to maintain their power. Trade union groups will fight for as high wages as
possible while not caring at all for the unemployed outside their fold.
Professional people will erect all sorts of cunning credential barriers to
control the entry of too many young people into their high-paid jobs.
The other part of the answer can be put over more briefly. We are now
living in a more specialized, increasingly automated, world. The essentials
of our economic system can be carried out by only a minority of the
population. Unlike former times when hunter-gatherers need 100% of their
adults to work, or agricultural times when 90% needed to work, or early
industrial times when 80% needed to work we are now heading fast to a
situation where only a minority have the skills and specializations needed
to run the show in any advanced country. The rest are either retired, or
are ill, or who pretend they are ill in order to receive state welfare
benefits, or who have dropped out of education or who carry out a multitude
of other jobs which are mainly those of servicing all the other
non-essential people.
What's more, among the "essential" people, the main economic decisions are
being taken by an international elite in every specialization. I call this
the new "meta-class". It's really only an extension of the former
professional middle-classes within industrialized countries. But now, their
primary loyalties are to themselves, to the particular network of their own
specialization, rather than to their birth countries.
All this is a highly generalized picture and leaves a lot of loose ends.
But the simple genetically-shaped status differentiations within the
hunter-gatherer groups has now become stretched out on a world-wide basis.
All the above answers Henry George's questions. It's been a twin product
of genes on the one hand and increasing specialization and automation on
the other. The really interesting -- and perhaps fateful -- question to be
asked is one which is almost totally neglected in the advanced world. Why
are the parents of the advanced countries not replenishing themselves. Why
is the total fertility rate (which should be slightly more than 2 per
female adult) has been fast approaching 1 in all advanced countries in the
last few decades -- in both booms and busts.
The present-day huge problems of a vastly over-populated world is serious
enough and there'll be all sorts of gigantic social problems. But what
about the suicidal trend of the populations of the advanced countries?
Never mind the question being seldom asked, nobody has the answer to it. Or
will the meta-class decide in one way or another that they are finding life
interesting enough and enjoyable enough to make sure that they, in one way
or another (naturally, or with some technical assistance), will survive
even if the rest go hang?
Keith
Keith Hudson, Saltford, England
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