Wage Ratios: highlight the under-valuing of the low paid
Submitted by Bill Kerry, The Equality Trust
Quite a few people have commented to the HPC so far on the subject of wage ratios. The Equality Trust and our sister campaign, One Society, will be doing everything we can to promote wage ratios as a key way forward on tackling inequality in alliance with other initiatives such as the HPC.
Wage ratio campaigning also needs to go hand in hand with calls for greater Economic Democracy and an ethical consumer movement that actively favours “narrow gap” employers. Together, these initiatives have the capacity to galvanise people into a social movement that could see real pressure build for an internal reduction in inequality from within all sectors of the economy. As we head into the 21st century this is likely to be far more popular and fertile territory for progressives than the old-fashioned (and much resisted) external fix using tax and spend.
Specifically, where wage ratios are discussed, we note that the traditional formulation of the argument is to concentrate on how many times more the highest paid people are paid compared to the lowest paid.
This really should be inverted and we should talk of how much employers are valuing the lowest paid as a fraction of the highest paid.
The traditional formulation allows the defenders of inequality to go on about “attracting talent” and “paying market rate” – it plays into the cold, current, economics-led narrative which props up all the false self-serving justifications that allow inequality to endure (see Danny Dorling’s Injustice book for far more on this).
The inverted formulation forces the anti-egalitarians to say what they actualy believe – namely, that certain people really are worth 200 (or whatever?) times less than another person – a much more uncomfortable place to be and one that exposes their essential lack of concern for others. It also pulls the argument back to one of human purpose – ie: that the economy should be there to serve human beings and not, as is currently the case, the other way round.
December 7th, 2010 at 11:04 am
“…calls for greater Economic Democracy and an ethical consumer movement that actively favours “narrow gap” employers”
Ii t is not possible to have economic “democracy”, or an ethical consumer movement, within a monetary paradigm.
Income inequality, can be lessened and thereby the degree to which the unethical monetary paradigm is severely damaging the quality of life of the debt slaves can also be lessened.
But the ultimate outcome of any real equality movement, would be the abolition of the monetary system in favour of a currency-less cybernated system of resource governance.
The Resource Based Economy
December 7th, 2010 at 11:36 am
This provides a good way forward for the lessening of inequality. Having grand radical ideas and principles is all very well, but there isn’t a climate for sudden change. To make changes in small steps by encouragement will work better.
December 7th, 2010 at 11:55 am
I welcome this idea. It will be interesting to see how far it can progress. But we shouldn’t underestimate what we’re up against. This link is to a fairly long essay, but if you think this subject is important, you owe it to yourself to take 15 minutes to read it …
http://www.truth-out.org/bill-moyers-money-fights-hard-and-it-fights-dirty64766
December 7th, 2010 at 12:07 pm
I completely agree with this shift in focus. All too often those struggling in society are overlooked, this change of discourse will literally place such people at the centre of any discussion.
December 7th, 2010 at 1:53 pm
I agree there should be more emphasis on people on low pay rather than high pay. Companies always say ‘we have to pay top wages to get top people’ so they are saying that people on low wages are low people, worth so much less.
I don’t think these people at the ‘top’ are the best people, just greedy and ruthless. What about low paid care workers. It seems to me they do a far more important job than a city banker
December 7th, 2010 at 1:58 pm
Greater income equality is psychologically better for most people, it frees people from the treadmill of chasing money and status and means we can debate what really matter. Issues such as a good quality of life, a decent environment, doing work which benefits the world in the wider and true sense of the word. These are the issues that matter.
Society could be so much better, not perfect, but so much better
December 7th, 2010 at 4:15 pm
I think that this approach is a good one and should translate, to some degree, into occupation of ‘the moral high ground’ on the issue of the wages gap. One approach I usually try to use when I get into discussion of the wages gap with others is about ‘normality’. I say that, among the developed nations, Britain (and the US and Portugal) is very unusual in having such a large wealth gap, and this has come about through a mixture of social attitudes and taxation policy. So any call for justification on this issue should be directed, not at those who want changes which would narrow the gap, but at those who try to defend the UK’s abnormal and eccentric position. There is virtually no evidence that our society gains more by opting for this eccentric inequality – and it is not an accident; we have opted for it – and plenty of evidence that it probably loses a lot. So those who defend our present structures are the ones who owe an explanation to the rest of UK society for their attitude. It is the defenders of the present inequality who should be on the defensive, not those who seek change to bring us more into line with the great majority of developed countries.
December 7th, 2010 at 6:06 pm
I have suggested in response to the previous submission – ‘Maximum pay sounds like a good idea’ the notion of pegging of wages of the highest to those of the lowest in any organisation, but I think the ceiling of the highest being 200 times the lowest is pushing it – after all who does 200 times the work of anyone else- or who has 200 times the responsibility etc etc. The important thing I think to bear in mind is that anyone who works full time ie 35 – 40 hours per week, no matter what job they have, should have a living wage – that is one where they can have decent housing and living standards, pay their bills and enjoy a life free from financial worry. The present min wage does not offer that, notwithstanding the fact that workers on min wages in the UK are actually taxed on their income, thus reducing it further.
December 7th, 2010 at 10:36 pm
Economic democracy is an idea whose time is right. Most importantly, this response identifies the importance of framing a problem in the correct manner: rather than putting the burden of proof on the low-paid to prove their worth, we should use a logic of value to make it incumbent on the wealthy to prove they deserve their high remuneration. It is a sad fact that should 75% of FTSE100 board members drop off the face of the planet tomorrow the world economy might, work better.
No economics textbook anywhere advocates for very high inequality, and policymakers should not be fooled into thinking that great economic thinkers have agitated for polarisation of wealth and income. Human purpose is exactly right: and economy is a means of distributing productive resources for the good of all concerned, not a vehicle for narrow interests. Market fundamentalists and neo-liberal economists have obscured this fact for too long: we need to refocus on this fact, and greater equality should be the first step along this path.
Bravo to everyone at The Equality Trust for producing this response.
December 8th, 2010 at 8:37 am
May I observe Bill Kerrys’ comments are quite distinguished with two great remarks:
One is to call for ‘Economic Democracy’ which I think is an inspired term; every bit as inspired as ‘Agrarian Renaissance.’
The second is the statement that the economy should serve human beings, and not, as is presently the case, the other way around.
Before the progressive move to agrarianism some 5000 odd years ago the economy did serve human beings who then lived in an ‘age of ecology’. Back then there were few things that folks could hoard and in many aspects of life, particularly in provisioning food by gathering and hunting, people had to obey laws laid down by the stark realities of their environment or ecology. The move to agriculture resulted in a seasonal surplus that had to be preserved and managed; those that rose to becoming guardians of the surplus became a controlling elite who could exercise controlling influence over lesser mortals. The principle remains alive today but expressed via the dominion of money.
Money is not ecologically sound.
Improvements and innovation concerned with the medium (or media) of exchange could direct the economy work more like an ecology.
Colin Tudge advocates we need to enter the ‘age of biology’. I see where he is coming from. What we need is a restoration of ‘the age of ecology’ in an economic sense, and that doesn’t mean a reversion to gathering and hunting, but it does mean we ought to cherish the real capitals that sustain us rather than slavishly worship ‘fools gold.’
May I also observe Bills comments are also distinguished for having received several comments and twelve high scoring votes within 48 hours.
December 8th, 2010 at 8:53 am
A commendable initiative and let’s hope that the powers-that-be actually take it seriously.
At the weekend I spoke to a local courier, who does deliveries for the biggest operator in the sector -(see last Friday’s Newsnight)-and I was shocked by his story : self-employed, no sick pay, no holiday pay, has to run his own car, pay for his own petrol and receives the princely sum of £1 per delivery.
This in 21 st century Britain; a disgrace. How many other people are forced to work in such dire conditions?
Neo-liberalism has gone far enough : we have rising inequality and a government which seems intent on exacerbating the divide under the guise of deficit reduction.
Many of the most poorly paid workers in this country are those on whom we most rely : care workers; retail workers; call centre workers; front line staff in Post Offices, local and central government offices and many others.
Executive pay is racing away, while many of the most poorly paid are confronted with the prospect of benefit reductions and/or redundancy.
The minimum wage, should, in my opinion, be raised to match the level recently recommended in the Rowntree Trust report.
No-one needs to earn £11 million pounds per annum; many many people need to earn far more than £5.83 per hour.
December 8th, 2010 at 6:13 pm
Fiat currency has been created to be a vehicle for totalitarian division and control. Fiat currency is nothing more than a ponzi fraud. Monetaryism leads to debt enslavement, planned obsolescence, cyclical consumption, waste and toxic production methods and so on, and so forth.
Economic democracy is a fallacy. I am all for income equality as baby steps toward abolishing the rigged market casino gulag, run by klepocrats and suicide banksters.
But the truth is the resources of this earth are the common heritage of its people, and a psychopathic system of resource governance leads to hoarding and differential advantage.
December 9th, 2010 at 6:04 pm
oops !
…without their kids becoming indebted to £9000 pa
December 10th, 2010 at 5:19 pm
We seem to live in a business culture where those at the top can pay themselves what they like and pay those at the bottom what they can get away with. The ‘getting away with’ depends on large part on a lack of visibility, so all measures that highlight the disparity are to be welcomed.
December 12th, 2010 at 3:31 pm
[...] TET submission here. One Society submission [...]
February 8th, 2011 at 1:45 am
I must start by stating my full support for this bill. I work for just above minimum wage, but, due to the current financial situation, on reduced hours. This of course is a common position around the country at the moment – especially in the third sector in which I work.
After reading the fantastic comments already made on this matter, I would say that I find agreement with many of the previous statements made. I would just like to add that it may be a good idea to also consider the comparative number of low wage workers to the highly paid ones.
Now too, considering that we in the Uk are very much a service based industry, with ever falling levels of manufacturing and also the skilled staff for those industries, this means that the majority of people in the higher positions on the top wages are not the highly skilled industrialists or visionaries of our nation’s history, but in fact are merely people who are often starting from a position of generally higher social class and inherent wealth. Their positions “running” our service and support businesses are more often than not a case of pure networking and contacts – establishing connections with similarly paid and positioned people – while the actual maintenance of those links, development of business and provision of services are then left to the significantly lower paid and less valued staff below (often after a web of reasonably well off middle management who do little but act as a filter from above while being involved in the actual work as little as they can get away with.)
I would propose that this state of affairs – with it’s pyramadic structure representing simultaneously the proportions of work done, perceived societal value of that work, and also levels of pay in our businesses – are all things which the commission should bear in mind when dealing with this matter. I must stress however that value on merit of skill set – something which is horrifically unbalanced and also needs redress. (eg. The skills of overworked and badly paid carers and health professionals versus those of self styled business or IT consultants)
I would like to finish off with a comment about the well meant idealism that has been formerly mentioned. To be able to accomplish a non monetary exchange economic system of any sort, it would primarily require the system to be adopted globally and all in one go – else it could not be possible in todays linked economy. Perhaps if we become a global socio-politically harmonised unit – maybe something akin to the eu on a world scale – then it would not only be possible, but also economically preferable. I would like to think this may even occur someday – but it won’t be any time soon. Also remember that money is also currently a basic resourse: bought and sold just as the pharmaceuticals and foodstuffs also so unequally distributed on this world.
February 8th, 2011 at 2:04 am
One last comment: a monetary system is not corrupt, unequal or evil as proposed by a number of people, even here. It is merely a method of exchange used to represent comparative value of goods or services. All of the negative aspects ascribed to money are actually the result of a deep imbalance in perceived exchangable value brought on by a supply and demand market economic, a longstanding over-valuing of material and luxury goods, and a drive for that which has created both – a history thus far governed by the powerful and greedy hunger for profit. Thus the issue is in the system of exchange. What precisely is exchanged – money or direct resource – is actually immaterial.
May 15th, 2011 at 9:46 pm
The fault in reasoning here is that bringing the top down is an effective measure for bringing the bottom up. This looks to me as if the corporate situation will easily follow the educational model in the UK. This, for anybody wondering, is that by lowering standards (like the A-Level) for exams and university, everybody will become more educated. This is not the case, instead, the value of the system drops and education is outsourced to countries like the US.
And similarly to the pay argument, it is also the US and Europe who then get the jobs of formerly British taxpaying companies and executives.
May 31st, 2011 at 6:32 am
I’d like to pick up on a comment by Daniel Bland without wanting to single out Daniel for criticism. His comment, .. ..
.. “What precisely is exchanged – money or direct resource – is actually immaterial”, ..
..typifies and summarizes an unquestioning belief of the majority that money constitutes a value neutral medium of exchange. The belief borders upon faith because most of us are directed to that view without ever giving second thought for the attributes of money, how it is created, who creates it, what happens when it is created, and above all how it circulates. Without regard for those questions and their answers any discussion of money, or fiat currency, is always going to be less than objective.
This weeks New Scientist (28 May 2011, No. 2814, p31) carries one short and highly succinct letter from Arthur McGiven:
“BBC environment analyst Roger Harabins’ plan to publicly compare the reliability of weather forecasts (7 May, p28) is to be applauded. Next, could someone do something similar for economic forecasts?”
Above it, and provoked by an article upon technological complexity, Roland Porath concludes a letter thus:
“We never had more than a limited control over the world. What we have plenty of is the illusion of it.”
Okay, if you can keep those thoughts in the air for a moment permit me introduce you to an integrated theory of evolution, something I have been working on for a while. It is not grand, not scary, but it lends substance to the general but mystical suspicion we each of us have sometimes that that things don’t happen for no reason, and that in some mystical way seemingly unconnected events are in some way connected. Douglas Adams, author of ‘The Hitch-hikers Guide To The Galaxy’, empathised with this mystical trait we have when he included reference to ‘the great interconnectedness of things’.
To introduce you to the notion of a integrated theory of evolution I and you might find it easier if I do so in the way of a surrogate yet comparable circumstance. Consider computing. Thirty years or so ago computers were huge and temperamental machines that filled sizeable and air conditioned basements, sometimes in purpose-built buildings. Nowadays greater power, functionality, and reliability sits in a ‘Blackberry’ inconspicuously slipped into a jacket pocket. Evolution in computing has been explosive. Moreover, one technology that computing makes possible, web-based connectivity and social media, is having a profound effect politically in parts of the world presently and has resulted in mobilisation of revolutionary tendencies to oust those undemocratic regimes. The evolution of a technology has resulted in web based phenomena that is not the cause of Libyans dissatisfaction but it may be a component resulting in a trigger point for action.
Really though, It was my intention to to talk in terms of computer programming languages. Computer geeks talk in terms of a language hierarchy, or ‘pyramid’ to conceptualise the relationship of computer code an language.
Computers work off the ability to crunch and process binary code, essentially strings of noughts and ones that mean little to us, In order to direct a computer to do something useful we interact with it in terms that have logic and syntax that the noughts and ones lack. Thirty plus years ago engineering and maths students were introduced to the logic of computing with input media such as punched cards and languages such as FORTRAN IV. Learning FORTRAN was a challenge, as learning anything new is, but it had an elegance that suited the task and ability grew with exposure and experience. FORTRAN, meaningful to an initiated user, is/was meaningless to the chip(s) that do the data crunching. Pre-progammed into the computer were interpretative languages that translate human instructions written in FORTRAN into strings of noughts and ones that the chip can process. This is a simple hierarchy or pyramid. Binary code at the bottom, FORTRAN at the top, and interpretive scripts sandwiched in between. In the mid-eighties, when boxes like the Commodore 64 of Sinclair Spectrum introduced the rudiments of computing into peoples homes some users became fascinated. They may have learned BASIC, a language at the top of the pyramid, or they may have experimented with hexadecimal code (hex), assembly language or machine code that sit in the intermediary layers.
Today the talk is all about ‘apps’ or applications. ‘Apps’ give users access to great functionality on digital devices and upon many mobile devices. 20 years of progress has completely revolutionised computing and its possibilities and it in turn is directing social (and perhaps even political) evolution. The emphasis now is that users can forget about code and concentrate on function and purpose. There has been an explosion in computing power and memory, and an explosion in evolved programming languages that make so much more possible. If it comforts you to know, none of the modern languages, Perl, Python, C#, mean zip to me either. But the language pyramid still exists and if anything it has grown taller. The functionality of an application requires process and translation of tasks concurrently within languages occupying several layers in the pyramid. Today I can do in seconds on an app, say a spreadsheet, something that would have required an hour or more of coding in FORTRAN and never have to think about code at all.
Since the beginning of time events in the universe have followed certain ‘code(s)’. Since the big bang the universe has been evolving in a way that must obey the universal laws of physics. It resulted in an incomprehensible release of energy and matter that evolved into a universe of countless galaxies and innumerable stars. The very simplest chemical elements were forged and transformed in the hearts of stars. Moreover, heavier elements further up the periodic table were only created by the death of stars of appropriate size.We’re largely made of the most universally ubiquitous elements like, hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, and a rarer one ‘oxygen’ but we are dependent upon many elements further up the periodic table. The stuff we’re made of is only possible by evolution in the universe that includes the death of stars. Planetary systems, like the one that exists around our very own star, the Sun, are the result of the debris ejected when stars die.
We’re so lucky. Our own planet orbits our Sun in the ‘goldilocks’ zone. It makes life on Earth possible. Miraculously life ‘landed’ upon Earth. Since amino acids have been found in meteorites it is not inconceivable that the origins of life did actually ‘land’ upon Earth, though we will never actually know, because the origins of life will not be detectable in the fossil record. Nonetheless, we know that life did diversify, and we know that a beautiful biosphere evolved from next to nothing. We owe our existence to many things, but we owe it in the main to the proliferation of cyanobacteria – photosynthesising bacteria that can harness the suns energy and convert it and nutrients into basic ‘biomass’ that gets converted via a hierarchy, or pyramid, of more complex species into more complex species such as us, who seem to occupy the slot at the top. Cyanobacter, to my mind, are to life and ecology what noughts and ones are to computing. We don’t often have regard for them, but we could not get by without them. For all the complexity and hierarchy in computing, computing itself is not possible without the ability to crunch the most basic currency, binary code. Life is not possible without the ability to crunch, recycle, and accumulate the most basic currencies of natures economy which are energy and nutrients and these in turn are not possible without the life of a star, our Sun, and the passing of other long dead stars.
Since the beginning of life, evolution of the natural world has followed natures immutable laws. Ecologies are economies dealing in energy and nutrients. Diversification is possible and sustainable because no single species can monopolise either of those two currencies. The system is built upon the ability to accumulate ‘wealth’. Energy (from the Sun) is captured and combined with nutrients to add to the growing balance of ‘biomass’. Biomass is the ‘wealth’ that is being accumulated. All living things must die. In death the nutrients in the biomass are made available to other living things. Nature actively discourages hoarding of the currencies (energy and nutrients) that make life possible, instead it insists that these currencies shall be constantly recycled so that the system can be both accumulative and adaptive. The balance and evolution of ecologies is as much about mutuality as it is about ‘the survival of the fittest’ (competition).
Without great pains we have established two great strata or layers that make up the conceptual ‘pyramid’ that illuminates the integrated nature and theory of evolution. From the beginning of time universal laws of physics have prevailed and determined outcomes in universal evolution; that’s the founding layer. A planetary system evolved off the back of a weak force called gravity. Upon one of those planets something called life evolved. Then, still obeying universal laws of physics, life itself grew into ecology(ies) based upon a natural economy that must follow immutable laws of nature that establishes a second conceptual layer. Events and outcomes in our world are determined by the immutability and universality of these two hierarchical sets of rules. Every living thing on Earth must abide by them and is constrained by them. Even us.
However, by some quirk of fate, the worlds most ubiquitous and successful ape experienced some relief from some of the constraints arising from the immutable rules governing natures economy. To really capture your imagination here I ought to recount in full ‘the tale of the sparking mad professor’ who was demonstrating the use of the simplest stone tools and ‘sparked’ a whole new possibility for palaeoanthropologists to consider, but I am conscious of being verbose. Nonetheless the sparking mad professor may have illuminated an indeterminate point in time, the order of a million or more years ago perhaps, when hominins (human ancestors) could have been empowered by the acquired ability to make fire at will. Humans are creatures whose evolutionary trajectory owes particular direction off the back of an evolutionary relationship with its diet, and off the back of evolving ability to exploit greater range of foods, to provision it and to process it ready for eating. Tools almost certainly began with the organic, ie twigs, sticks, and leaves. But the earliest durable tools were simple stone tools. The professor demonstrated graphically that sharp napped stone flints that could be used as surrogate incisors so that a creature evolved for a mostly vegetarian diet, with the dentistry to match could, in time of need, adapt to exploit meat from an animal carcass. He used a flatter palm size stone as a meat mallet to tenderise the meat to make it far easier for our imperfect molars to chew. He also sent sparks flying in the process. Consistent in the trajectory of human evolution are incremental ‘improvements’ in the energetics and nutrigenics of the evolving relationship we have with our diet, and simple tools and technology played their part. Now such tools and technologies have evolved great diversity and complexity and continue to play their part. Tools and technology act as a ‘selective pressure’ influencing the evolution of human society. While the universal laws of physics and the immutable laws of nature are selective pressures that are not of mans own making, acquired tolls an technologies are.
Before the acquired ability to make fire at will humans were constrained by a natural energy economy. But the ability to make fire at will was a partial departure from such a constraint. Supplementing a natural energy economy with the ability to harness heat reduced constraints and afforded new possibilities. Cooking improves the energetics of the diet. Today the supplementary energy economy that is the back bone of the activities of our monetary economy threatens our future for the lack of its sustainability. The human supplementary energy economy is a huge selective pressure responsible for the trajectory shaping modern human society. Now with ‘peak oil’ and concern for greenhouse gases there is concern that an aspect of that trajectory is not such a good one. Why does humankind struggle to avert that aspect of the trajectory?
It is because one of humankind’s tools and technologies keeps us courting a course towards disaster. Which tool is it? It is money. Money is an imperfect tool.
Money takes the things we need, things that nature provides in relative abundance and which we are exceedingly proficient in provisioning by acquired ability, technology and a huge supplementary energy economy, and produces scarcity. It does this not by making the things themselves scarce, but instead because at times the the medium of exchange, ‘money’, becomes scarce for some people and renders access to the things people most need difficult. Hunter-gatherers, remote indigenous peoples still living traditional subsistence existence can meet their needs with three to four hours of enterprising activity per day with time left over for educating their children, playing, socialising, fripperies and carting for their elderly. Economic democracy comes naturally to them. Money makes us hugely competitive, far more consumptive, and far more productive that humanity really need be. Money gives rise to fictional markets – goods and services that reward those who propagate them financially, but that do great harm to those who fall for them or victim to them. Think tobacco and alcohol, narcotics, fraud, theft, casino capitalism gambling on international currency exchange rates.
Banks create money by lending it. In spontaneous creation in the form of loans credit balances and corresponding debit balances are created. The method of creation and the terms of engagement mean that the quotient of credit and the corresponding quotient of debt will move about the economy and change hands but they will never meet to self cancel. the quotient of credit balances is the ‘capital’ in ‘capitalism’. Capital agglomerates and accumulates into the hands of an elite minority simply because money and assets can be ‘hoarded’. The hoarding of capital results in inflation of asset class values that renders them unaffordable to anyone but the elite minority. And as people slavishly try to earn incomes and acquire capital to gain some security in the supply of the things they need so debt must be proliferated. Debt must be serviced, the principle and interest must be repaid in time, for anything less is default. It is, as has been stated a ponzi scheme that can only be supported by growth in the money supply which is actually growth in capital and growth in debt. There is a hugely asymmetric structure in the distribution of monetary wealth or debt throughout an economy that cannot be sustained indefinitely. The boom is illusory and only supported by exponential growth in the money supply. Slump is inevitable if banks cannot continue to fuel exponential growth in the money supply. Like ‘peak oil’, ‘peak money’ is a real and serious prospect. Great periodicity is evident in the distinctly human economy and wars have been fought over less. The periodicity in the cycle, say as defined from one postwar revival to the next, would seem to be the order of 80 to 100 years. The last time a systemic banking crisis indicated a structural crisis of this magnitude was in the 1930s. History recounts what happened next.
We live in times of great peril. Money gives us a great illusion of control while actually constituting a huge selective pressure that results in over-consumption of Earthly resources, ensures we are more enterprising that we need be, stops us addressing an out of control supplementary energy economy, and determines the kind of inequality and consequence that Wilkinson & Pickett report in ‘The Spirit Level’. Moreover, complications arising from collapse in the money-go-round that sit with the debt-trap result in conditions conducive to conflict. As it stands the term ‘economic democracy’ is not being put to use in a way that can release its full potential. It has far more potential. Money itself is not conducive to proliferation of ‘economic democracy’. What is needed are carefully crafted alternative media of exchange that do not render the things we actually need so scarce. We have so little control over our destiny because ‘money’, as prevails, is such an imperfect tool.
There you have it. Recognition and exposition that selective pressures are at work all around us influencing outcomes is the basis of an an integrated theory upon evolution which sees evolution in a hierarchical sense in which there is concurrency.
Our weather systems are based upon simple but enduring forces inherent in nature, like the power of the sun, gravity, moon phases, and the water cycle, that result in weather patterns of great diversity and complexity that resist meteorologists best efforts to predict. Weather forecasts are helpful but not always reliable. Arthur McGiven has picked up on the mood and sense that economic forecasts are less reliable than meteorological ones. This is not because the significant selective pressures are difficult to factor in. This is because few people stop to consider what selective pressures there are and fewer still consider that money itself may constitute a selective pressure directing outcome. The medium of exchange, most particularly the attributes assigned to it by the manner of creation and design, is hugely significant to the point, possibly, of causing world war.
In 1763 Linnaeus said, “Natures’ economy shall be the base for our own, for it is immutable, and ours is only secondary.” How right he was.
So far as I see it the pay divide, asymmetry in remuneration is simply a symptom in the extent of asymmetry in the divide between the quotient of capital and its corresponding quotient of debt.
Now that the moment of ‘peak money’ has passed the inherent injustice and unsatisfactory state of affairs that arises from this untenable degree of structural asymmetry will be revealed increasingly painfully until we figure it is a crisis arising from our own making, figure an imperfect tool is responsible, find a fix, or go to war and knock billions of capital values to pave the way for another postwar revival. What pathway and legacy would you like for your kids and grand-kids?
Anything less than a willingness to implement and work with a media of exchange more conducive to the promotion of economic democracy (small ‘e’, small ‘d’) is more window dressing adding levels of complication we could well do without.
Recommended;
- viewing: Money as Debt, Paul Grignon, YouTube
-Reading: The Future of Money, Bernard Lietaer
-Reading: Why Does E=mc2; And Why Does It Matter?, Cox & Forshaw
-Reading: The Quest For Food, Ivan Crowe.
-Avoidance: Any faith in economic forecasts that discount the selective pressure afforded upon society by money.
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February 22nd, 2012 at 11:39 am
journal économique…
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February 25th, 2012 at 10:29 pm
barbecue…
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