Our friend, Gregory Mocsary asked me to explain why capitalism produces poverty.
Let me start by asking if we agree that poverty exists?
And, if a reasonable definition of poverty is that condition when an human being's needs are not met.
Not necessarily wants and dreams but needs.
I've listed, from the Four Needs essay (in the papers' section at www.interestfreemoney.org) what those four need sets are:
Two 'Selfish Need' sets:
1) Clean air and water and a sufficiency of nutricious, varied food, and,
2) Appropriate, warm clothing and shelter.
And two 'Social Need' sets:
3) Our 'Intimacy Needs': Love, Sex, Romance, Friendship. And,
4) A constructive activity.
The two terms, 'Selfish Needs' and 'Social Needs' warrant a few comments before we move on.
First, I use the term 'Selfish Needs' to denote the physical needs to sustain 'the self': the individual body in wihich the individual resides.
It is a challenging term, but one that bears the point which will follow after a note on the other term, 'Social Needs'.
Clearly, our 'Intimacy Needs' are social, but the 'Constructive Needs' at first sight, doesn't appear to be, necessarily, 'Social'. I suggest, however, that all Activities, be they Constructive or Destructive, are Social in that they all occur in a context that is, inherently, environmental and, that, that environment, again inherently, contains other individual humans and other individual life forms (to say nothing of The Creator present within The Creation, if we are to include matters religious and spiritual).
Now, to add that linking comment: at first sight, and if we glance at Maslow's Hierarchical Theory of Needs (or of Motivations, as sometimes so-termed), it might be thought that we 'need' to be Selfish (in order to survive) *before* we are social. I suggest not so.
To survive, or better yet, to be fully human, we must have all our needs met, or, to repeat, we live in poverty. 'And are that poverty', to repeat the observation of others.
So, since 'No-one loves a selfish git', we *all* must willfully, put our Social-selves as more important than our Selfish-selves.
And, hence, my abhorrence of, and repudiation of, capitalism.
Now, all the analytical-above collapses into two actual observations: first, as the evidence in 'The Spirit Level' unequivocally demonstrates, our needs are only met when we live in a state of economic equality: specifically, income equality.
Secondly, that, as above, all Wellness is Socially-produced: our needs are met in society, in other words, 'All Wealth is created socially', as is All Ill-th (see the science of epidemiology, upon which 'The Spirit Level' is based, for the truth of that: Spanish Flu, War, the Ecocide, SARS, Foot-and-Mouth Disease, Corona Virus, Crime, Child Sexual Abuse, Poverty, etc, etc).
So, to round this out, one diagram from 'The Spirit Level'.
This shows that human economic activity, or 'Wealth Production', even if measured only crudely by Gross Domestic Product, must occur for Human Needs to be met: foid must be grown or gathered, shelter must be built and furnished and so on.
But, once a sufficient amount to human activity ('Wealth Creation') occurs, more activity contributes nothing to human well-being (as this diagram shows). Rather, it adds only to ill-th: to the generation of ecological pollution (as we already observe) and to the paramount anti-social ill-th, economic inequality: specifically, income inequality.
Hence the plan for wellness: the plan for true Co-operative Socialism.
Or, put plainly, Socialism.
So, Gregory, the present economic system, capitalism produces ill-th, including poverty *for us all*.
As Robert Owen, 'The Father of Co-operation', observed and demonstrated practically, even if paternally, at New Lanark: man's condition is created for him. The task is for man to create his condition by him.
Or us.
Co-operatively!
Socially!
Let me start by asking if we agree that poverty exists?
And, if a reasonable definition of poverty is that condition when an human being's needs are not met.
Not necessarily wants and dreams but needs.
I've listed, from the Four Needs essay (in the papers' section at www.interestfreemoney.org) what those four need sets are:
Two 'Selfish Need' sets:
1) Clean air and water and a sufficiency of nutricious, varied food, and,
2) Appropriate, warm clothing and shelter.
And two 'Social Need' sets:
3) Our 'Intimacy Needs': Love, Sex, Romance, Friendship. And,
4) A constructive activity.
The two terms, 'Selfish Needs' and 'Social Needs' warrant a few comments before we move on.
First, I use the term 'Selfish Needs' to denote the physical needs to sustain 'the self': the individual body in wihich the individual resides.
It is a challenging term, but one that bears the point which will follow after a note on the other term, 'Social Needs'.
Clearly, our 'Intimacy Needs' are social, but the 'Constructive Needs' at first sight, doesn't appear to be, necessarily, 'Social'. I suggest, however, that all Activities, be they Constructive or Destructive, are Social in that they all occur in a context that is, inherently, environmental and, that, that environment, again inherently, contains other individual humans and other individual life forms (to say nothing of The Creator present within The Creation, if we are to include matters religious and spiritual).
Now, to add that linking comment: at first sight, and if we glance at Maslow's Hierarchical Theory of Needs (or of Motivations, as sometimes so-termed), it might be thought that we 'need' to be Selfish (in order to survive) *before* we are social. I suggest not so.
To survive, or better yet, to be fully human, we must have all our needs met, or, to repeat, we live in poverty. 'And are that poverty', to repeat the observation of others.
So, since 'No-one loves a selfish git', we *all* must willfully, put our Social-selves as more important than our Selfish-selves.
And, hence, my abhorrence of, and repudiation of, capitalism.
Now, all the analytical-above collapses into two actual observations: first, as the evidence in 'The Spirit Level' unequivocally demonstrates, our needs are only met when we live in a state of economic equality: specifically, income equality.
Secondly, that, as above, all Wellness is Socially-produced: our needs are met in society, in other words, 'All Wealth is created socially', as is All Ill-th (see the science of epidemiology, upon which 'The Spirit Level' is based, for the truth of that: Spanish Flu, War, the Ecocide, SARS, Foot-and-Mouth Disease, Corona Virus, Crime, Child Sexual Abuse, Poverty, etc, etc).
So, to round this out, one diagram from 'The Spirit Level'.
This shows that human economic activity, or 'Wealth Production', even if measured only crudely by Gross Domestic Product, must occur for Human Needs to be met: foid must be grown or gathered, shelter must be built and furnished and so on.
But, once a sufficient amount to human activity ('Wealth Creation') occurs, more activity contributes nothing to human well-being (as this diagram shows). Rather, it adds only to ill-th: to the generation of ecological pollution (as we already observe) and to the paramount anti-social ill-th, economic inequality: specifically, income inequality.
Hence the plan for wellness: the plan for true Co-operative Socialism.
Or, put plainly, Socialism.
So, Gregory, the present economic system, capitalism produces ill-th, including poverty *for us all*.
As Robert Owen, 'The Father of Co-operation', observed and demonstrated practically, even if paternally, at New Lanark: man's condition is created for him. The task is for man to create his condition by him.
Or us.
Co-operatively!
Socially!
No comments:
Post a Comment