Update

Started a new job last week. Haven't really started doing what I was hired to do (mostly been reading/watching/studying some of what I'll be using) but, hey, at least I'm employed now! And I should be doing some interesting stuff.

That means I have a lot less free time now, but that's okay. In celebration (and for my birthday) I bought a couple of books, and my brother gave me one as a birthday gift - The Enlightened Capitalists, which covers a topic I was very interested in. It discusses why and how some attempts to combine making money with doing good failed. It's something I'd like to believe is possible, but it's always worth finding out why/how previous attempts didn't work out.

Also picked up a book called The Regency Years, which is interesting. Has more parallels to today then I really expected, tbh. I picked it up for a couple of reasons... first, because we generally look at history in isolation (i.e. the Constitution, the Civil War, etc) and don't get a sense for all the massive number of events going on concurrently. Like the old canard about how samurai and cowboys existed around the same time. The second reason? Well... regency romance is a genre, probably because Jane Austen and Georgette Heyer wrote for that time period, and I wanted to know more about it.

Not sure how much reading I'll be doing right now, but I've enjoyed what I've gotten through so far.

The Enlightened Capitalists has been thought provoking, especially as it touches on the desire for control. It talked about how Carnegie originally was an Enlightened Capitalist, before reading something-or-other that made him think his ability to manage resources showed he shouldn't be (i.e. better to have the profits in his hands than to pay his people more, and then he got involved with union busting and using the Pinkerton agency and whatnot, only to later turn around and get into philanthropy.)

It's like... I'm *mostly* a capitalist. I don't believe in central planning, at least. Nobody can predict what goods and services will be needed ahead of time, and the market does a better job of it. (I also can see the point in rewarding people for highly desired and rare skills, like managing large organizations. It's just that I think there are limits, and when we're talking about record profits and falling wages, the specific situation requires something different. Or, well... I'd really rather people were wise enough to choose to do something different, but if they're all going to be stupid enough to ignore that then they'll get the unrest that anyone could predict, and on their own heads be it.)

I talked before about how people don't just roll over and die for lack of access to needed resources, but there are tons of stories already about people who need insulin - or other medical care - already doing that. Dying, that is. Like the rather depressing Twitter conversation where someone asked what event radicalized you against the US healthcare system.

I can see the need to invest money in research and development, to get new and better treatment. Sure. But if that's what's going on then I really don't expect to hear reports about massive profits. (Though, to be fair, since I always try to look for arguments disproving my biases, the profits may not be as massive as we think. Still, people are dying because their health care - if they have it - doesn't cover enough of the costs.)

I wonder sometimes, well. Retirement plans that give workers stock in the company they work for ought to give workers some sense of ownership/profit for making their company a success. Assuming they get that option in the first place. But when you reap the results decades down the road, and the stock price is affected by all sorts of other parts of the business, and maybe some idiot CEO comes along and destroys the value of the stock you own, the end result is that most workers don't really feel like they benefit from any such profit their company makes.

I dunno. It seems to me that there's more than one way to organize a system. Like, why make ourselves think inside the existing box? It's not just capitalism or socialism. Heck, much of Europe used to be feudal, and people back then would have a hard time imagining the world we live in today.

But before going further into that I probably ought to discuss something else... and that probably ought to be a separate post.

Utopia Hypothetical, Cont.

I didn't try to answer my question last night because I wanted any actual readers to have the space to think about it themselves. 

If we ever did reach my proposed hypothetical situation, I can image a couple of immediate consequences - inflation would rise, and more jobs would be automated.

Of course, that still leaves a whole slew of questions.  Like - how much would inflation rise?  And for which items?  Would it lead to everyone ending up exactly where they are now, or is there some limit it would reach.

That is,  demand would rise and prices rise, but there's sort of an upper limit in some cases.  Like consumable goods - one person can only consume so much, so even if everyone who wanted to could afford to buy as much as they want it the demand would eventually level off.  And how many cars would someone really want/need, anyway?  Some economic equilibrium would be reached, just at a higher price than it currently is.  And demand would fall for goods that would be considered inferior, so more people would be buying Mercedes or Porches and less would be buying the more mediocre car-makers.  Meaning a boom time for high end manufacturers, while low end manufacturers would either go out of business or move into the high end market.

Businesses would automate the hell out of things, since there'd be few people willing to work the lower status jobs. 

But what about the jobs that just can't be automated?  Like cherry picking.  Would there be enough incentive for someone to find a way to automate it?  Or would people decide that they want cherries enough to pay really high prices, so that cherry farmers can pay someone enough to convince them to harvest cherries?  Or will people who enjoy cherries decide to work, as a matter of pride and service (ensuring people can enjoy fresh fruit)?  And if so, would they decide to work for an hour, four hours, eight hours? 

What would this do for work schedules, and productivity, anyway?  I mean, if you didn't have to worry about making the money that comes from a 40 hr/workweek, why not work different hours? 

And if you don't actually need a salary, then maybe businesses would just pay some amount as more of a status marker (which it kind of already is, tbh) than anything anyone is expected to actually live off of.  Like, you could totally leave the place if you wanted to...but you stick around in the position you're in because you care about the work, and hope to build enough experience to move on to something better.  Not because you have to pay the  bills.

This hypothetical is so far out there that I have a hard time picturing it, but I do have some semi-educated guesses.  First - most people need some sort of purpose in their life, so you will still have people choosing to work (I'm sure some people wouldn't bother, but I have no idea how many.  I'd want a study of our current multi-millionaires to see how they wind up spending their time.  From what I can tell, most still seem to work somewhere, or attend board meetings, or volunteer philanthropically, or find something to keep them busy by choice even though they have absolutely no need for the income).

Capitalism seems based on fear, sometimes.  There are people who sincerely believe humans need to be motivated by their fear (of losing their homes, or starvation, or what-have-you) in order to get them to do the work needed.  Which is kind of BS, I think.  Or rather, it may be true for the sort of demeaning and menial tasks that people don't volunteer for...but if people were truly at a state where they're needs were met, where they weren't in danger of starvation or homelessness, I really don't think they'd decide to spend the rest of their lives hanging out on a beach.

I know that's kind of a common fantasy, but honestly?  After a week (or a month, or a year, depending on the person) most people would get bored.  Itchy.  Sure, some people might enjoy doing nothing else in their life...Every. Single. Day.  I can't imagine that the majority would, though. That fantasy only works because of the contrast to our current existence. 

So what can we guess would happen?  Inflation (which may or may not cause a problem, depending on how much and with what goods).  Automation (which is already happening).  People working by choice, in positions of their choice, and who are willing to speak up or move on if necessary because they're not in deathly fear of losing their jobs.  Some question about who would be willing to take on the dirty but necessary tasks that can't be automated.  The likelihood that people will work fewer hours, and devote more time to entertainment of one sort or another...

A boom in luxury goods, arts, and entertainment industries but a bust in businesses that compete for the low end/high volume markets.

Hmmm.  And probably a boom in the financial markets.  To the investors and money managers, since even though everyone should know how to manage their money there's a difference between knowing how to evaluate a wealth manager and knowing how to invest your money yourself. 

It's the sort of thing that seems utterly impossible, like there's some basic flaw that would make it unworkable.  But it'd sure as hell be a fun thing to try.

Odd Thoughts and Ramblings.

My post yesterday was originally going to be about something else.  Mostly about the challenges/criticisms of our system today.

That's vague, and broad, which is somewhat deliberate.  It's about more than just 'capitalism' or 'democracy'.  And, as someone who's not really a revolutionary, I don't want to sound like I'm totally against capitalism.  It's more...more that we segregate out these parts of our society and then wonder why people are unhappy.  Lonely.  Isolated.

So, first, the obligatory "capitalism isn't necessarily a bad thing" statements.  The gist of capitalism is the belief that people will work harder when they can see and keep the rewards for themselves.  This is somewhat in contrast with the old feudalistic system.  The feudal lord who took everything from the peasants constantly struggled to motivate his people (and it probably was 'his' people, though there have been feudal ladies.)  The ones who actually loosened up the obligations and let their people keep some of the surplus encouraged trade and growth.  Peasants might earn a little extra that they could sell, which they then turned around and used to buy desirable goods like cloth or pots and pans, or a cow or chickens or something that made their lives a little easier and in some ways helped create even more of a surplus.  So instead of having everything owned by a feudal lord who reaped all the rewards you had people who saw tangible results for themselves if they worked a bit harder.  Sort of a similar thing with privatization...the village commons only worked if everyone agreed on a process for ensuring there weren't too many herding animals grazing on the common ground.  Otherwise they overgraze, the pasture doesn't have enough food for the animals next year, and everyone starves.  But if you privatize it, then if someone decides to put too many animals in his yard then he's the only one who winds up starving.  Also, the financial system can be a good thing.  I kind of agree with the points made in The Ascent of Money.  Access to loans (for houses, school, or businesses) can be a good thing and we do need that.

However.  (You knew that was coming).  However.  No system is an unmitigated good.  There are downsides, some of which are not as much of an issue if social norms account for them.

To go back to the issues with our modern society...these criticisms aren't new.  They aren't even necessarily outsider views.  Some of them are the same criticisms I've heard growing up in Catholic schools. i.e. It can be materialistic, overly focused on shallow and superficial things.  Any time I run into someone outside of the United States, I want to emphasize that the TV shows and movies everyone knows don't necessarily reflect what life is like for most Americans.  Part of why we like them so much is they show a world different from our own, after all.  The United States is still one of the most religious countries in the world, though that's declined a bit.  In 2003, 60% of Americans said religion was "very important" and 23% said it was "fairly important".  That's over 80% who thought it was important to one degree or another.  Sure, pop culture makes it seem like we're fairly secular, but that's more because of the separation of church and state and the understanding that talking about religion in a multi-cultural environment is likely to stir up bad feelings and create problems where you don't really want or need them.  That is, you don't need to go proselytizing to people at work or school, and if you try you're more likely to discover people feel very strongly about their own (different) faith and don't take kindly to you trying to convert them.  You probably have little to no idea what your co-workers believe, or whether they go to church on Sunday, or a synogogue on Saturday or not.  (Unless you must in order to accommodate someone's faith.  We had some Muslim employees we had to give a later lunch hour to during Ramadan, so they could eat after the sun set.)  What's sort of fascinating is that the jihadists who seem so horrified about America often have the same criticisms that our own Christians have about it.  Of course, some of the jihadists seem to see only the college campus atmosphere, which...well...colleges are often when young people break away from their upbringings and go a little crazy.  It's generally the most obvious part of college, but there are plenty of students who choose not to go that route...most campuses have churches that serve the college student community, tough though it is when so many of them leave after a few years.

Anyways.  I mentioned yesterday that happiness generally occurs when we feel socially connected and find some sort of meaning for ourselves.  And yet increasingly we live in a society where we're disconnected, isolated, and have a hard time finding a meaningful job. (and how meaningful is it to work at a McDonald's?  Or get a bad back picking items for shipping every day?  Especially when you know most of the benefits go to some overpaid CEO...and that companies seem to begrudge every extra penny they spend on the bulk of their personnel.)

We live in a society that seems impersonal.  Bureaucratic.  We're all just cogs in the machine, and the machine doesn't seem to care too much about you...if you're not there they'll just find another cog to fill the spot.

It's...dehumanizing.

And we know that it's not like that for others.  That for that 1% at the top, they're not bound by all the impersonal bureaucratic crap the rest of us are.  Warren Buffet, who is probably one of the best of the 1%, talked in his biography about how he went through a period of bad behavior.  Bad grades, stealing from Sears...he was a bit of a delinquent.  He was able to get past that and move on to the person he is today.  I think most of us know that a young black boy with a similar history would have ended up in juvie and graduated to prison.

I think part of the problem is that we pigeonhole these concepts.  Capitalism and business, for example, is a completely separate sphere from our religious and personal life.  So we get a hard-headed businessman who gets accolades for cutting costs, and they can go to church on Sunday and consider themselves a good Christian even if the end result is that wages don't rise and people are struggling to get by.  (I say that, I'm not entirely sure I like where that's going...as I don't really think businesses should  be charities.  I'll think more on it later.  Also, I was startled to realize how similar my comparison of a feudal lord is to our current business system.  After all, the employees whose wages haven't risen faster than inflation wind up with less and less of a surplus to use for other things.)

  

Too Much Truth

Why Young Americans Are Giving Up on Capitalism https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/06/16/why-young-americans-are-giving-up-on-capitalism/

Business,Big Oil, Society, Etc.

I have moved on to another book, though since it is 773 pages of rather dense reading material I am not sure how long it will take me to finish it.  It's called The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power. 

I picked it up because I've heard over and over again about how the war in  Iraq was over oil.  I was always rather skeptical of the claim, but I figured I ought to read up on the industry before deciding whether it's true or not.

It starts with a history of the oil industry, Standard Oil, Rockefeller, the Rothschilds, etc.  It brings up mixed feelings for me, so I'm blogging to sort it all out.

First of all, what I'm bringing to the table.  I heard about the trust busters in American history.  How monopoly was bad and stifled competition.  (This wasn't about oil, specifically, but I knew there was an era of legislation aimed at monopolies.  Broke up the telephone industry, as well as Standard Oil.) 

Then, in some of my public policy classes, I heard the argument that monopolies weren't all that bad.  That trying to break them up may not be such a big deal.  Good or bad?  I'm not entirely sure, that's part of what I wanted to think about when reading this book.

I also bring my own prejudice in favor of nested hierarchies, i.e. I think the best form of organization is layered so that the lowest levels make the decisions appropriate to their level, but within a coordinated whole.  Decentralized to an extent, but not to the point that there's wasted effort and gaps.

I also know that uncertainty is painful, and systems to reduce uncertain are good.  Up to a point.  They can also become so rigid and limiting that it becomes harder for anyone to make change (like China around the time of Empress Cixi).  It's like you may reduce variation in order to prevent some of the worst downturns, but you also generally level things out so that nobody has as much of an upturn, either.  (And you can open yourself up to those 'Black Swans' of the financial crisis fame, where you reduce uncertainty 99% of the time, but that 1% is a total disaster.)

In short, I have some inclinations and frameworks for reading this, but my mind is not entirely made up on what's 'right' or 'wrong'.

So anyways.  I sympathized with Rockefeller's aims initially.  This whole crazy boom/bust cycle was insane, and inefficient.  People would find oil, rush to develop it, destroy the golden goose in the process, glut the market, then go out of business as they were unable to turn a profit.  I can see why that would be hell on anyone trying to build a business, and why Rockefeller would see to stabilize the industry.  I can even, kind of, see why he would fight so hard to create Standard Oil.

But at what point has he succeeded at the original goal (i.e. reducing the uncertainty and wild craziness in order to build a profitable business) and started fighting to control the entire market out of more selfish and greedy reasons?  Did Standard Oil really have to own 90% or more of the market in order to achieve his goal?  Didn't he get what he wanted when they had 65% of the market?

(These questions, btw, are less about oil and more about our modern complaints against big business, and the way it crowds out small and more local businesses.  And it ties in with the modern economy, where most of us are dependent on wages paid by others.  Less freedom to do our own thing.  Which makes it harder to speak with an independent voice.)

Then there is the question of tactics.  At what point did Standard Oil cross the line from a reasonable pursuit of profit, and into (for lack of a better term) bad sportsmanship.  In sports, you want to see teams play their best.  Want to see them win by giving it their all, playing well, and maybe catching a lucky break here and there.  You don't want to see a team win by cheating, by injuring other players when the referee isn't looking, or paying someone off to lose, or paying someone to break the leg of a competitor.  Then winning is no longer about who is the better team, it's about who is better at cheating.

In the same way, businesses sell a product.  And the company that can make the better widget, faster, and at a lower price is the company that is playing a good game.  The one that isn't making a better widget, but decides to flood the market with widgets because they know they can survive the profit loss and hope it will drive the competition out of business is not actually a better business.  It's not winning by making better widgets.  It's winning by manipulating the game in order to drive out competition. 

This was the rise of big business, where they had the big budget that allowed it to survive cutthroat competition.  (On a certain level, it reminds me of biological eco systems.  There was a void in the eco-system for large predators, and it got filled.  Yet just because we now had wolves in the business eco-system, doesn't mean we stopped having foxes and other smaller predators.  And perhaps it's not about good or bad so much as what makes for a healthy and viable system.)

All of this is even more interesting given the recent drop in oil prices, and Saudi Arabia's claim that they will not reduce production.  Essentially it's their bid to maintain market share, just like what I am reading about from over 100 years ago.

I don't have any real conclusions right now, I just wanted to get some of this out of my head.

Two more things.  First - it was kind of shocking to realize that 'Big Oil' got its start not with the combustion engine, but with the drive to get better illumination.  We use electric light bulbs everywhere now, and it's hard to imagine how valuable kerosene was before electricity.

Second - so far the history of Big Oil is pretty much capitalism at it's worst.