|
|
Musings Report 2017:23 6-10-17 Is Poverty Truly Unsolvable, Or Is It Simply Too Convenient?
You are receiving this email because you are one of the 500+ subscribers/major contributors to www.oftwominds.com.
For those who are new to the Musings reports: they are basically a glimpse into my notebook, the unfiltered swamp where I organize future themes, sort through the dozens of stories and links submitted by readers, refine my own research and start connecting dots which appear later in the blog or in my books. As always, I hope the Musings spark new appraisals and insights. Thank you for supporting the site and for inviting me into your circle of correspondents.
Is Poverty Truly Unsolvable, Or Is It Simply Too Convenient?
It's comforting to think that "the poor will always be with us," as this permanence of poverty lets us off the hook: it's unsolvable, we sigh, and so there's nothing to be done,
Actually, poverty--a structural lack of opportunity to gain knowledge and upward mobility via unfettered, unbiased access to markets and paid work--is entirely solvable, via a digital infrastructure with five inter-connected systems-—a digital currency, a digital marketplace, a community organization structure, a wallet/banking function and an oversight system to root out fraud, collusion, etc.
Together, these systems form CLIME--the community labor-integrated money economy I describe in my book "A Radically Beneficial World."
From time to time I get emails from various corners of the world asking if there is any implementation of CLIME in existence, and I have to reply, no, there isn't. Usually I say something about the investment required to program and test the software that makes the five component function together--a massive undertaking, but one well within the billion-dollar budgets of wealthy foundations or even individuals.
Maybe there are super-wealthy individuals, family trusts and foundations who would pounce on CLIME if they only heard about it; or perhaps such a system is just too different from all the usual (and ineffective) anti-poverty programs the wealthy currently fund.
But there's another, darker possibility: the wealthy have no real interest in solving poverty, for poverty is extremely convenient for them.
Should CLIME (or some variant of it) actually be implemented, the wealthy do-gooders would lose their power and their do-gooder identity and role in the world; they would become superfluous.
The entire anti-poverty industry (a.k.a. poverty pimps) would collapse, and this would be very inconvenient for all the wealthy folks who signal their vast moral superiority with their donations and participation in ineffective anti-poverty programs.
Poverty also serves the political and financial interests of the wealthy ruling class. Impoverished people have few options, and so they are politically malleable or marginalized; as long as they're poor, their views don't count, or they can be bought off with a thin scattering of money.
Poor people mired in entrenched poverty don't rise up to become competitors of the wealthy, another exceedingly convenient benefit of structural poverty.
Deprived of economically productive knowledge and capital, with limited access to legal ownership of the means of production, land and markets for their labor and products/ services, the wealthy can retain the neocolonial model I have often described in the blog: the poor "consume" the credit, goods and services provided by the cartels/monopolies of the wealthy, and are so busy surviving they have no time, capital or ability to become economic or political threats to the Powers That Be.
Poverty is solvable, but it will take some wealthy individual or entity to go against their own class interests to fund an integrated solution like CLIME.
A good place to start is to note the profitable convenience of poverty to the ruling classes, and undermine the wealthy do-gooders' claims of moral superiority in funding programs that don't just fail to solve poverty--they actively maintain it.
Alternatively, a group of hungry programmers driven to change the world might arise to code the entire CLIME system without any present-day compensation. Stranger things have happened.
Summary of the Blog This Past Week
Debt Has No Consequences? Color Me Skeptical 6/8/17
The False Promise of Infrastructure Spending 6/6/17
The Path to Inflation: "Helicopter Money" 6/5/17
Best Thing That Happened To Me This Week
Solved an Internet wifi problem that I thought I'd fixed with a new modem recommended by Comcast/Xfinity--wrong, they didn't explain that this model has built-in wifi which conflicts with any external router plugged into the modem... finally figured that out and bought a single-use modem as the fix. Arrgghh....
Market Musings: Oil
The master commodity, oil, has been noodling around in a rough channel between $42 and $65 for the better part of a year.
Oil is still in this channel, but if we draw a triangle/wedge connecting higher lows and resistance around $65, we note oil has broken out of the wedge to the downside--not a positive development for oil Bulls.
MACD is slipping dangerously close to the neutral line: below this line, bad things tend to happen. Stochastics are also weak.
Oil has tended to fall off a cliff below $40; stabs down toward $40 over the past year have been brief, but the deteriorating technicals suggest a break below $40 could trigger a move much lower if the dip isn't erased in a matter of days.
From Left Field
Finland's basic income experiment is already lowering stress levels — and it's only 4 months old
The Real Reason Zuckerberg Supports A Universal Basic Income-- self-interest...
Why the universal wage is a non-starter--the practical view...
JPMorgan: "Large Parts Of Society Are Not Seeing Any Growth In Income And Job Opportunities At All"--no surprise here...
Podcast: Taking a Systems Approach to Designing the New Economy (via Ron G.)
Rising Seas May Wipe Out These Jersey Towns, but They're Still Rated AAA (via Joel M.)
What know-it-alls don’t know, or the illusion of competence
America’s Cars Are Suddenly Getting Faster and More Efficient--huge increases in horsepower across the entire spectrum...
How Late-Night Comedy Fueled the Rise of Trump: Sneering hosts have alienated conservatives and made liberals smug.
author George Lakoff says, ‘Don’t underestimate Trump’ -- Lakoff is known for his work in linguistics...
He sells potato peelers and became a millionaire (via John F.)
Automated Payment Transaction (APT) tax (via Chad D.) -- this makes way too much sense to ever be considered seriously....
How bitcoin works (via Maoxian)
"If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable." Seneca the Younger
Thanks for reading--
charles |
|
|
|
|
|
