In a sense, this
posting might be considered a trifle redundant.
That of a few days ago covered the agenda of the World Economic Forum
currently meeting in the resort town of Davos, Switzerland. Briefly, the discussions center on two issues
in the struggle to find a viable solution to the growing problem of
poverty. These are, one, how to create
jobs, and, two, how to train people to fill those jobs.
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| "You are getting sleepy ... you need full employment..." |
Sounds simple,
right? Given that the real way to fight
poverty is to make people productive, and the way to be productive is to have a
job, then — obviously — the way to lift people out of poverty is to find them
jobs. The whole of Keynesian economics
is based on the assumption that the only way to have adequate income is to have
employment. If you want to eliminate
poverty, your goal is full employment.
Oddly enough,
full employment is the goal of both the capitalists and the socialists, except
for a few socialist sects like social credit.
Social credit, the brainchild of Major C.H. Douglas, is one of the few
schools of economic thought that acknowledges the productiveness of
technology. True, social credit theory
embodies some serious flaws otherwise, but it got at least one thing right.
 |
| "All hail the wage system, the only way to get income. . ." |
Consistent with
the focus on human labor as the sole factor of production, at least for the
vast majority who own no capital, both the capitalists and socialists insist
that a wage system job is the goal, while redistribution on the basis of need
is an expedient. The difference is in
how the capitalists and the socialists view the expedient.
To the
socialists, redistribution is a fundamental human right, perhaps the only real
right. Whether or not someone
contributes to production, he or she must receive what is needed for a decent
life. People should, of course, work for
what they get, but they have an absolute right to receive what they need,
regardless.
To the
capitalists, redistribution is a matter of prudence, an act of charity. It is a moral, but not a legal duty. Such charity may be necessary at times, but
the goal must always be to put someone to work in a wage system job.
 |
| "And on the ninth day, God created employment" (Book of Jobs) |
Ironically, both
the capitalists and the socialists are right . . . sort of, in a limited and
very distorted fashion. Both groups have
a lot to learn. The socialists need to
learn that what people have an absolute right to is not the results of
production, but the means to become productive.
What the capitalists need to learn is that having an absolute right is meaningless
if only a few people have the means to exercise it.
So — why is the
capitalist solution to global poverty off base?
Why aren’t job creation and job training sufficient to establish and
maintain a stable economic order? Won’t
that make people productive?
Job creation and
job training are not merely insufficient as a solution to the problem. They are egregiously counterproductive.
That’s because
human labor is not the sole factor of production, whether or not enhanced by
land or technology. Land and technology
are also productive, and productive in the same way — “that which is true is as
true, and is true in the same way, as everything else that is true.”
Thus, if a thing
is productive, it is productive as that term is meant with respect to human
labor, and is productive in the same way as human labor. The owner of land or technology is therefore
as productive, and productive in the same way, as the owner of labor.
There is only one
difference between owning labor and owning capital. Still, given the natural right of private
property, it is not a legal difference.
The difference is
that human labor cannot be separated or alienated from the human being. (What human labor produces can, of course, be
so separated; it’s called “slavery.”) External
possessions, on the other hand — such as land and technology — can be separated
from human beings. The problem of
poverty in the modern world is not one of not enough jobs employing human
labor, but of not enough ownership of capital.
That’s because as
technology advances, it displaces human labor from production. This would be a good thing, as Hilaire Belloc
pointed out over a century ago, if everybody owned that technology.
But they don’t. The socialists try to solve this problem by
abolishing private ownership of capital.
The capitalists try to justify the problem by insisting that
concentrated ownership of capital is necessary to finance new capital, and that
new capital is necessary because it creates jobs!
And the
capitalists are 100% wrong.
We’ll take a look
at why on Monday . . . after the World Economic Forum concludes its business
tomorrow and issues its recommendations to create jobs and train people to fill
them.
#30#