How I saved the world with one simple explanation

Philosophy Forums Society, Government, and Economics
1

This is a topic I have been thinking about for a while and think I am
ready to explore it.

There are very, very few issues that have one cause or one factor in it.
So when we explore simple systems such as a bicycle, we can spot
when something breaks down because it is a relatively simple system.
You have pedals, wheels, spokes, chain, brakes and ball bearings.
However we even here, in this simple system, sometimes have a hard time pinning down
what may be wrong if something breaks. Now everything, everything in the universe is part
of a system in one way or another. There are no such thing as isolated parts, or something that
exist separately from everything else. Sometimes the connection may be hard to find, but it
is there, connecting everything to everything, one way or another.
At its heart, systems are problems solving entities. Look about your room or where
you are reading this, everything you see exists because it was created to solve a problem.
The exercise bike was created to allow people to exercise in their home, the stove was
created to allow people to safely cook their meals, the refrigerator was created to keep food cold,
each created to solve a problem. Even evolution is at its heart, a problem solving device.
Your eyes exist to solve a problem as with your ears and your feet and your heart.
With simple systems such as a bike, you can fix one aspect without impacting the other
parts of the bike, so for example you can replace a chain with impacting the other parts of
the bike without too much effort. But as the system gets more complicated, you are less able
to fix the system (solve the problem) without impacting the system. Take a problem we currently
have such as unemployment. With a system as far ranging as ours, you cannot FIX unemployment
without impacting many other areas of the system. So one solution of solving unemployment
must take into account as many areas of the system as it possibly can. So we can look at
immigration and we see the right wing solution which is basically build a wall and prevent anyone
from coming into the country. but this solution is a failure for the simple reason, it impacts one
small area and ignores the wider system around immigration. We cannot solve the immigration problem,
(problem solving again) without a look at the wider system. A solution that only builds a wall
solves nothing because the problem is wider than just building a wall. You want a solution
that tackles the problem in a greater context, a larger part of the system. So you want to
tackle the problems with a multi system wide solution. You cannot just pass laws and you cannot
just build walls but you must create a solution whereas you help stabilize countries that are so bad
that people want to leave that country but you must do this within context of having a clear policy
or laws within the U.S. One argument against illegal immigrants is they take jobs away from americans
and use up resources better used for americans. Which leads us to unemployment in america,
so every case such as immigrants leads us to another problem, this is the connection I am talking
about. There is no one solution solves one problem because each problem is connected to another
problem which is connected to another problem. Solving problems requires connective solutions
to a multitude of problems. We are using small system solutions to large system problems.
It will fail. Solutions that only address a part of the problem will not solve that problem because
it is interconnected to other problems. so when conservatives tell us that the solution to
our problems is rejecting the federal government and returning to a small state solution,
that is a path to failure because the small state solution can only deal with a small aspect
of a problem which extends beyond the small state. Solving welfare with a small state solution
fails because unemployment is a problem which extends even beyond the national state.
Unemployment is a large scale, world wide problem and requires a large scale world wide solution,
not a small scale, statewide solution. This is why conservatives who harken back to small scale,
solutions that might have worked when the system was much, much smaller, are doomed to failure.
Those who claim the federal government is part of the problem fail to understand the depth of the
real problem which is the size of the system. The only, the ONLY possible means to solving large scale
world wide problems is government on a large scale. You cannot solve the problem of, say pollution,
with a city wide or even statewide solution because pollution, the creation of pollution spans
countries even hemisphere’s, so one state such a maine cannot solve pollution by itself which
tells us the conservatives solution for solving problems that is returning policy to a smaller
entity will fail. It cannot succeed because large scale problems require large scale solutions which
encompass as much of the system as can be included into the solution.
To say we can solve unemployment with changes in the law ignores the basic facts of how
systems are integrated and connected. A one size fits all solution cannot succeed because
it cannot impact the entire network of integrated systems which is why conservatives solutions
have failed and will continue to fail which one of the reasons for the failure of conservative presidents
such a raygun, bush sr, and bush jr. and why future conservative presidents will fail.

Kropotkin

2

This is a lot of straw-man arguments to support one giant straw-man. Like some sort of straw-man-man. Cool image though. (Right now I’m picturing a straw golem made of straw golems… Towering over a town, as the wizard inside (who looks strangely like Nicolas Cage) screams, “Kill them, kill them all! HAHAHAHAHA” I think I’ve got an adventure to go write now…)

I agree fixing one “simple” part does not automatically fix all of the parts.

Often though, the only way to deal with problems is to break them down, and deal with them one at a time. We cannot move a mountain by attempting to move the whole mountain at once. If we move one grain of sand at a time, work hard, and steady, we can build great things, even a mountain. “There are no magic solutions, at least none that I know of. Common sense, common decency, work and honesty are about all I can come up with. These things are not fancy or new or politically correct. But they have a better track record than much that we are doing today.” - Thomas Sowell

That is my argument against your “simple explanation.”

The rest of the individual arguments that you smash together would take time, and is covered better in other threads.

3

To continue my post, to say Rome fell because of one reason is to ignore the
entire system. Rome fell because of several reasons, some of which have been
explored such as Gibbon in the decline who believed christianity played a major
role in the fall of Rome (and it did but how much is much debated but
will be never be solved) and Rome after a disastrous roughly 120 years from
about 180 bc to about 300 bc was able to recover somewhat because
of changes made by emperors such as constantine which basically
created solutions to such problems as having such a widespread empire and
how to rule such an empire. Constantine adapted, changed with the times and
extended Rome for another 150 years or so. But he didn’t just make changes
piecemeal but he adapted, changed the whole system to fit the current situation that
Rome found itself in. There is never one such change which can be enough to solve
such a complex system such as Rome. Diamond believed that Rome fell (in part) because
of both internal and external reasons. Diamond is of the opinion that Civilizations fall
for mostly eight reasons and overpopulation contributes to seven of those reasons.
Keeping this in mind, we can see how overpopulation has certainly contributed to
our myriad of issues. From pollution to feeding everyone to climate to exhausting
resources, all of which overpopulation seems to be a major contributor, so we
must look at overpopulation as a problem and what solutions can we find?
The chinese response failed to work because it tackled only one aspect of
overpopulation whereas a true means to solving the problem would have covered
several aspects of overpopulation. So you use education and birth control and abortion
to help limit overpopulation. I am a big fan of Malthus and I fear that coming soon
our overextending will lead to famines and plagues that will reduce our present population.
At that point, (I would guess within a hundred years we will see a dramatic reduction of
people on earth for various reasons) we must then work very hard to see to it that we
keep the population down world wide. We have seen this reduction of population
becoming a positive thing for example as the end of the middle ages from 1300 to roughly
1450 there was a series of plagues that dramatically reduced Europe’s population but that
reduction lead to the changes that allowed Europe to go from the middle ages to
the renaissance so even in such a terrible event as the black plague civilization,
Europe was able to advance. We could see such an equally devastating event create
a new renaissance or a new age. We cannot depend on or hope that something similar
will occur to us, but we must be proactive in creating changes that will ensure
such a fate doesn’t occur to us. But this leads me to a point and that is the right
wing claims of being pro life (despite very strong evidence to the contrary) cannot
lead us to making changes that are needed. WE have to identify the problem and
find solutions that solve the problem regardless of attempts of the right wing to derail
solutions because of misguided ideologies such as allegiance to church doctrine (religious ideology)
and failed ideologies as capitalism. It is not about the ideologies but is about finding solutions
to problems which threaten us. adherence to Ideologies threaten to derail finding solutions
to our serious problems such as overpopulation. solutions that we need, need to come from
relative solutions, not absolute solutions. Or to say another way, Democrats relativism is better
suited to solve modern day problems than conservatives absolutism. Why, because adaptation
which is needed comes from finding solution regardless of the ideology whereas conservatives
believes the ideology comes before the solution or anything else for that matter. The strict adherence
to ideologies, which is what conservatives want, will lead us to make the wrong choices or worse
not even choose a course of action which would help us survive the coming times.

Kropotkin

4

There is a very nifty little ‘proof’ why this problem of unemployment can not be fixed. It is based on a simple, yet obvious economic fact. The rate of unemployment in the United States at any one time usually ranges between 5% and 10% of the labor force. The prime rate of interest pretty well reflects this under normal circumstances. The implication being, is, that there is correlation between unearned and earned income. There need to be unemployed to have the economy pay interest. During hyper-inflation, the differential between supply and demand is great, and fewer people are buying more products. In deflationary times, the opposite is true, more people are buying less products. There is variability here, where if more people are buying,
prices are less, therefore prices and value fall, including true value indicators like gold. What happens then, is that the capital accumulation falls in real terms and risk managed portfolios rise. As with all risk, the end point is a recession, with more unemployment.

 Employment is a measure of the degree of gross value of capitalization, and either over or under employment is an indication of an imbalance.  

  During normal economic cycles, corresponding interest and unemployment rates correlate. How does this work?  Full employment means the affordability index rises, the along withy interest rates, thereby raising cost of living indexes., which in turn will factor out a lot of consumers making minimum wage.  What happens next, is that supply will go up and demand  lowers, followed by oversupply and lack of demand.  Lowering prices, will result (short term) decreased profits, and that results in people loosing their jobs. 

 The healthy thing for a relatively constant rate of return, insuring a stable capitalization, is to have a slack.  This slack is a percentage of unemployment, which insures against neither a sudden heat up of the economy, nor a sudden drop.  Unemployment is an insurance against an economy overheating, causing short or long term instability.

The current imbalance between levels of very low interest and relatively high unemployment relates to the instability of the supply demand curve, and although normalization is occurring,  yet the very low interest and soft unemployment show little interest(literally) in buying. Investors are keeping their money in more productive yet riskier investments, whereas conservative capital is being held back forthright, and new employment is drudging along at a slow rate.  This is a silent recession, and until they raise interest rates, to a respectable level, affording a normal 5% unemployment, things will be unbalanced.

Another hypothetical, If labor can be placed alongside or converted into the supply side of equation, oversupply  of that product, will tend to decrease wages and again effect profitibility.

 To anyone who may counter to this observation being tenuous, the fact that remains, there are hidden connections to the economy, as Kropotkin points out, and this is one, not often looked at.  Social programs, as the one recently proposed by Obama, reminiscent to a lot of other do good programs of the past like the great society under Lyndon Johnson, or the CETA program under Carter, and a host of others, they are short term politically motivated efforts to lift up constituents' morale, especially nearing the end of a party's domination.  They were all myopic efforts to disregard basic economic  facts.
5

excellent economic analysis however leads to the question,
how do we reduce unemployment? If we accept your analysis (and there is no reason to discount it)
then is permanent, high level unemployment to be expected? This leads to a wide
ranging and very ugly future whereas the permanently unemployed having no
stake in society because they are basically disenfranchised from society will have
no reason to accept status quo and begin the road to revolution just as
has happened in in France in 1789 and Russia in 1917. Permanent unemployment
is just the ticket to create the conditions for revolution. We need to find a solution
for unemployment or risk a grave future.

Kropotkin

6

I agree with You, however i can think of no magic pill, which will eliminate essential economic dynamics. In the future, where , as it has been suggested, with the progressive use of more robotics in production, there will be not only an epistemological,ontological , psychological long term regression, but probably an urgent need to re-write the basic formative equations of economic theory. This may involve re-evaluation (literally revaluation of currency) and drastic actions of price control. Another very dramatic, albeit unintended effect of all this , would be hyperinflation, which would enable the federal government to meet it’s debt obligations by paying back only a percentage on the dollar. If nothing is done, then there looms on the landscape a probable dire chain of events, where war could become the only possible way out.

 We are at a crossroads, and the current administrations policy is to print ever more money.

But in answer to Your question, if all the above is successfully managed or even protracted to a future time , as is being attempted now, the basic problem of how to deal with unemployment rages on and again referring to Your tie in ’ of the immigration problem is relevant here.

 I do not think it is seen by Washington as a problem at all, in fact it is the solution.  The trade free zones are actually good for  the economy, because it sends a counter message to everyone, hey look at these people they are willing to work for x dollars, while you guys have been pampered to believe someone owes you union wages or even an accepted standard of living.  

 Immigration is managable, but no one really wants to manage it, because it directly effects employment, and interest, and supply curves or whatever need not be ever manipulated , since immigration is more basic and immediately effective.  

 Finally, nothing will ever be done, even absent an economic revision, since third world environments of50 % unemployment recreated here will not cause any total economic chaos, since it's the psychology of contrast that matters.  As long as the dynamics remain put  and interest across the board can be sustained, at the the 5-7% range, a healthy economy may been equalized by higher figures if the total unaccounted numbers of undocumented aliens is factored in. Economic theory, along with everything else deals with total possible entropy, by transforming into an unaccounted virtual economy. The use of game theory here is relevant.
7

Peter Kropotkin: excellent economic analysis however leads to the question,
how do we reduce unemployment? If we accept your analysis (and there is no reason to discount it)
then is permanent, high level unemployment to be expected? This leads to a wide
ranging and very ugly future whereas the permanently unemployed having no
stake in society because they are basically disenfranchised from society will have
no reason to accept status quo and begin the road to revolution just as
has happened in in France in 1789 and Russia in 1917. Permanent unemployment
is just the ticket to create the conditions for revolution. We need to find a solution
for unemployment or risk a grave future"

O: I agree with You, however i can think of no magic pill, which will eliminate essential economic dynamics. In the future, where , as it has been suggested, with the progressive use of more robotics in production, there will be not only an epistemological,ontological , psychological long term recession, but probably an urgent need to re-write the basic formative equations of economic theory. This may involve re-evaluation (literally revaluation of currency) and drastic actions of price control. Another very dramatic, albeit unintended effect of all this , would be hyperinflation, which would enable the federal government to meet it’s debt obligations by paying back only a percentage on the dollar. If nothing is done, then there looms on the landscape a probable dire chain of events, where war could become the only possible way out.

 We are at a crossroads, and the current administrations policy is to print ever more money."

K: to go from last to first, we are at a crossroads and politicans always act for the benefit of someone,
so who benefits from printing more money? I suspect but really can’t prove that the printing of the money
stems from the severe income inequality that exists right now. We need X amount of dollars flowing
to allow the economy to work, too much and problems, too little and problems, what I suspect is
because the wealthy has so much money banked away (in many different forms and places)
that there is not enough money in the system to function and to compensate for this,
the printing press must work overtime to cover the money now hidden away. The economic balance which
is very delicate is being harmed by income inequality. Like I say, can’t prove but suspect.
I pretty much agree with the rest of what you stated. A do over may be the only recourse at some
point and war is a pretty common place to create a do over.

Kropotkin

8

They are printing trillions of dollars of money basically because the US spends trillions more than it can pay out for the cost of running this country. This does insure capital accumulations, never mind the fear of those holders of capital of possible loss of value. Why are they keeping interest rates low? Because run away inflation will deflate the value of capital more, then any increase in currency holdings make things look more rosy. Because precious metals are the thing here of REAL VALUE, not even real estate has proved safe.
But inflation is what we need in order to re arrange balance of payments, especially to the large holders of US debt, mostly China, Japan. But China would not like this, because it would effect their markets, and capitol and currency holdings.

And there emerges the biggest problem in relation to this, the growing leeriness over China’s increasing importance. We are far in to deep, so we continue to borrow, print, borrow, print.
And we can not devalue the dollar for the above reasons. So it has become a catch 22, and there seems no way out, only postpone the day of reckoning. And that, is a very grey area indeed, withy the only possible scenario, that the newly emerging New World Order, headed by the world bank, at some future date, when we all become citizens of the corporate world, things will equalize. That is the only and most entertained vision, that one part of this world, will not let the other part down, because it can afford to do so.

I think what social progressives are implying in this regard, is that society will align themselves to changing circumstance, and all the unemployed will find ways to reconstruct a global village, specifically motivating unemployed, homeless people, to re-make their life's structure, by re-establishing severed connections to their families.  The re-urbanization which is taking place in many cities, they point out, is a sign that people have receded from the suburbanite, ever keen on escaping 'inner constraints of  big city life.  A kind of reversal of the urban sprawl.
9

The wealthy becoming wealthier is very factual, and long before i blogged an article predicting Bill Gates to become a trillionaire in a generation, i thought that this would be an absolute limit to capital accumulation. I still think that this is a very dangerous limit, not from the point of view of economic theory, because after all these mega rich are incredibly innovative and altruistically creative in their generosity, but the combination of dismal employment and the ever widening gap from the truly wealthy, will create a psychologically unsustainable atmosphere, where something will need to give.

10

There are no simple systems when it comes to humans.
You start with a bicycle as if that is a simple system, yet when you ride one, even one perfectly maintained, you simply cannot ever predict when the chain will come off.
The human brain contains more complexity than you have the power to imagine. WHen you bring two persons together the possible outcomes do not just double. Not only do human systems include human interaction, hormones, emotions ad nauseam, but are affected by weather, environment and a range of unpredictable events.
The choins of human complex systems are always falling off, and always at the wrong time.

11

The fact is the U.S is bankrupt. We have more debt and liability then is our ability
to pay such debt and liability. This is the basic hidden fact which probably drives all other
factors. We have no way to pay off this debt and that has everyone very frighten
(at least those who know and understand this fact) The U.S goes down and
we take everyone with us, everyone. A depression that makes the 1930’s seem like a picnic.
So the politicians rearrange the deck chairs in hopes of staving off hitting the iceberg, but
we have already hit the iceberg, and we have begun to list a bit. As for the what you describe correctly
as reversal of urban sprawl, I agree. This is lead by liberals because we are not held hostage by
age old, out of date ideologies. the key is balance, finding the correct balance in the world.
Republicans are interest not in balance but in wealth and power which creates imbalance in the world.
We must forsake the vested interest which proclaims economics as the only factor to understand,
(just as smith and Marx’s say it is, which suggest capitalism and Marxism are just two sides of the same coin)
but we must focus on the overarching point which is the society and how is it to survive.

Kropotkin

12

There is no :correct" balance as the scales an the weights are changing faster than political change. THe chain keeps falling off and no one can predict when.
Republicans are very interested in balance their aim is to continually dip the scales in their own direction. They rely on ideologues like Eric the pipe to follow their propaganda and willing choose to vote agains their own interests.
THis wealth polarisation if a natural consequence of capitalism and leads to its own destruction.
More rich get richer; the poor get poorer and loose political power, loose a decent education, take themselves out of the electoral system; sometimes through ignorance but mainly because there is no one to represent them; demand lowers; wages drop; more unemployed; less demand; less production as fewer people can afford the goods; less production; less demand.
The trend is for the rich to pay lower wages, and maximise their profits. They out-source, throwing million out of work at home, and this means the price of things has to go down. When it reaches the minimum based on the high relative costs of resources, and still find they cannot sell the goods the factories close.
Foreclosures happen.
What stops the spiral of polarisation? Left wing politics which invests in the infrastructure, and people, making them more employable in higher skilled jobs; providing the roads for goods to travel on, and the regulations by which services can be safely brought where they are needed. Taxing the rich to get them to pay for the social programs that they rely on for a healthy and educated workforce.
Sady the whole time the rightards are in control of the media and wreak damage on common sense.

13

Go get them tiger saving the world!

Nah, this thread doesn’t strike me of arrogance at all.

Not in the slightest.