Hello all.
Over this past week end I heard a public radio discussion that included
some ideas that relate to this thread.
The First part....
The discussion was about the Boom/Bust cycle and related a short history
of the Great Depression of the 1930's, and the effects of WWII on
families. The main points were that 25% of the US workforce was
un-employed in the 1930's and many took to "the road" and were unable to
maintain any sort of family life, and left many women on their own raising
families. World war II, while bringing economic recovery, still left
families separated from each other.
Now aside from the assumptions about job security that are being
discussed, the other forms of security (family based) seem to have been
seriously compromized by the great depression and world war II. Many of
the "sky is the limit" assumptions of the baby boom generation seem to
have been born out of the un-realistic conditions of the 50's, as most of
you have been describing, but now the family foundations and other devices
that had given socioty stability dissapeered.
The Second part...
Then I began to wonder... What else is going on? It seems that there is
something even more basic (and systemic) going on beside all we've
discussed.
What is the real source of social stability?
People seem to have absolute need for only a few things. a short list
would be:
- Food, a place to occupy (or live), clothing, things to do, social
interaction....
So what causes all the real disastor when we have an economic down turn,
and why do we always have to be in growth mode just to keep alive?
There seems to be little stability in nature. Weather cycles are not
consistent-one year there is an optimum growth condition for one item, and
not for others. This year our gardens yeild lots of berries, and the root
crops are fine, but due to an over abundance of slugs, we have no lettuce.
On the other hand our ducks are getting fat from all the thousands of
slugs we've hand picked off our gardens-so egg production is good.
If we were an agrarian socioty, there seems to be a natural rise and fall
in what you can produce just due to the weather.
So what causes people to lose their homes?
I think it's the government and the assumption that stability is normal,
which permits us to make assumptions about how we think about "the space
we occupy". By taxing land, we create a requirement for that land to
produce money (or someone occupying that space to produce money). We
think-that if there is no money-the person occupying it is a deadbeat, and
we turn them out on the street, not recognizing that there is an economic
rise and fall that is natural, and by not permitting a method for people
to have some space to occupy and ride the waves of economic growth and
regression.
In the 30's there were a lot of honest, and hard working people reduced to
the status of "tramps" because there was no space on the planet for them
to occupy. Now-everything we have is under such a heavy production
demand, that the simple idea of having a home (a place to be) is
considered a dream, and any whisper of a downturn has disastorous
consequences.
I believe it's how we think that got us into trouble. I think we should
NOT tax land. People need to be able to own what they own-so they have
the ability to ride the waves of economic growth and resession.
True-we in the United States will need to find some other source for
funding education. (land taxes commonly fund schools) but by threatening
a fundamental need (a place to be) we really put an artificial weight on
our production systems, and then things like baby boomers not being able
to climb the corporate ladder just add to the agravation.
I'm sure there are other systemic forces at work here, but the idea that
we tax land, and in the US, increase those taxes when ever improvements
are made to the land or worse-to the neigbors land-a tactic that allows
the corporation next door to buy out the little strawberry farmer because
he can't continue to support the rising tax load inflicted on him/her by
the co-location to the big guy. Then we complain because corporations
gobble up prime farm land and lush productive places become concrete
jungles, well it all seems too weird to me.
People need a space to be. The subtle changes in some stock market should
not disposess me of a place to sleep at night or force me into some wild
struggle with my neigbors because he's had good fortune and can build
himself a deck or a swimming pool, and I cannot.
Any way, Ben Comptons Theory sounds good to me, but I think there are some
even more basic systemic "things" at work, and I think it starts where
most of our problems start... in the "how we think" area.
On Mon, 22 Jul 1996, Ben Compton wrote:
> Precisely. . .and many grew up with the idea that job security was a natural
> condition. However history does not bear this out. Before the industrial age,
> it was common for people to be self-employed, or to work as families on their
> farms or as merchants. The industrial age brought with it a sense of security.
> . .it was easier to get a job for a large business and get paid an hourly wage
> than it was to be your own boss and make the rubber hit the road.
> etc...
Later...
Michael Erickson
sysengr@atc.boeing.com
--Michael Erickson <sysengr@atc.boeing.com>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>