Ergecological Practices

 

The issue which strikes my fancy is production. People who produce nothing must, in the end, starve. It is still true in this world that nothing comes from nothing. I think that much is obvious.

Beyond that simple recognition everything gets complicated, even complex, very quickly. The fact that relatively few of this planet's people (as a fraction of the total population) are actually starving must mean that someone is producing something, and that most people are getting enough of whatever is produced. Within that gross parameter, many different arrangements are possible. Although possible, one of the arrangements that is not visible is an approximately equal division of the goods produced. In fact, at almost every scale, possibly excepting those living together under the same roof (a household), the remarkable fact of this world is the variation of access to production. There are rich and poor. This fact is most obvious at the International level, which divides into the First, Second and Third Worlds. (Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the "Second World" has been generally neglected in discourse, but it still exists.) But the greatest discrepancy is between what the United States creates and what it consumes.

There is an on-going imbalance of the United States with respect to the rest of the world. Residents of the United States are the recipients of goods and services, on the average things they cannot afford. Americans are buying on credit, which is reflected in increasing personal and business debt, the ballooning Federal debt, and the trade deficit. All those debts are interrelated, because they enable people to acquire things out of future income. Until the bill is paid, someone has to put up the cash or effort required to provide the thing, and that someone is the rest of the world. In observing the gross imbalances of haves and have-nots, the difference between the United States and the rest of the world is the most blatant. The differences between the rich and poor within the United States are also vast and more exaggerated than anywhere else.

According to Conservatives, the American market economy is a model for the rest of the world. Yet that bragging is not sustained by many present-day facts. For example, the central  European economies, Germany and France, are running trade surpluses, as are most Asian economies. While unemployment is higher in Europe than the United States, it is also true that the European unemployed are actually better off than Americans in the same predicament. Despite the panoply of benefits French workers receive, including a month-long vacation and 35 hour week, France is not going broke, contrary to the predictions (wishes?) of U.S. capitalists. It is true, however, that the trade surpluses are created by sales to Americans. Europeans and Asians are putting up the money which enables and subsidizes cash-poor Americans. In effect, most Americans are on International Welfare. The American cognoscenti are aware of all this, but a population mired in insularity has no idea what is going on.

How can such a lopsided system continue? Why do foreigners give up their savings to pay for products "sold" to such consumers?

I believe the answer has to do with military power. The United States bullies the rest of the world, so foreigners go along. I think that, because that has been the pattern of every other Empire in History. Whoever is Numero Uno makes offers that cannot be refused; i.e., the Hegemon demands tribute. The Europeans have been under the thumb of the United States since World War II, and are only now beginning to wrest their freedom from Washington. (An unexpected consequence of the Conquest of Iraq has been the loosening of American control over Europe and Japan.) The Japanese are in a transition period, as they are increasingly drawn into the Chinese orbit. To the extent that the Japanese are still pro-American, it is on account of their ancient, perpetual struggle with China. The United States has been able to exact tribute from the First World, and get away with exploiting the Third World as well, because of its near monopoly on global force. No one, except Al Qaeda, is willing to challenge a power that spends more on its military than the next 26 military powers combined. Something like 60% of everything devoted to military power is expended by the United States, which encourages awe or fear or respect. Nonetheless, the limits of American power are becoming obvious to everyone as a result of the impasse in the Middle East. That in itself weakens the Pax Americanus and, eventually, the economic position of the United States.

I give the foregoing explanation of the on-going huge trade and other deficits, because neither mom and pop nor corporate businesses service deadbeats for long. On the other hand, most businesses will pay protection money indefinitely until someone gets rid of the gangsters.

It wouldn't be like this, if, on a global basis, there was some reasonable exchange of goods and services. It probably isn't necessary for each regional economy to be "self-sufficient" in the early American sense of that term; i.e., producing everything a society needs. Still it is necessary on some larger scale that the population be self-sufficient, because that is required to survive on this Earth. If Americans do not produce goods and services such as oil, food, clothing or housing for the world, they do need to produce what others need. That is because the essential nature of the bargain made among all of the world's people is 'do this for me as I do that for you.' Trade is all about the division of labor. In the best of all possible worlds, tasks are assigned to those most competent and efficient in carrying them out, which benefits everyone. But, if a population does little or nothing that others want, it is sooner or later faced with want unless it is otherwise self-sufficient.

Americans have not given up the frontier days sort of thinking, the attitude of rugged individualism, the assumption of total self-sufficiency. So, they shuck off their increasing dependency on foreign manufactures. They aren't interested in others, so they do not find out what they might do to meet their needs.

Making a connection with The Other is the first step in solving America's gigantic economic problems. That step requires putting aside Empire and becoming part of the rest of the world.