Two Worlds --
One Real and One Economic
Information Brief Number 79 • 1995
At this time in our history, the human species is finding it
ever more difficult to maintain some degree of synchronization between the
two worlds in which we try to live -- the world of physical reality and the
world of economic rationalization. On the one hand, humankind lives in, and
is dependent on, life support systems in their real physical world, while,
on the other hand, insisting on controlling a lifestyle and physical operations
within the limitations and restrictions of a man-made world of economic superstition.
In that real world of matter and energy, a world which is governed by natural
law, people have lived for millions of years. They have discovered methods
to grow their food more efficiently and to produce the products they need,
first by hand, then, far more efficiently with technology. This is a dependable
world in which the sun rises each morning and the earth makes one trip around
the sun each year. It's a world in which technology is designed to operate
in accordance with natural law, and be operated according to its design. This
method worked so well that, by the year 1920, the United States had the ability
to produce enough to supply every North American citizen with everything they
needed.
Since 1920, the U.S. population has increased from 106 million to 263 million,
or by 2.5 times. At the same time, the energy to power the technology has
increased from 453 million horsepower to 34 billion, an increase of 74.8 times.
If there is any excuse for 38 million Americans, including one-fifth of all
children, to be living in poverty today it can only be the result of human
stupidity. It certainly is not the fault of our technology or the real world
in which we live.
THEN WHERE IS THE FAULT?
Where could it be except in this mythical economic world that people have
inflicted upon themselves? This economic world was started by humans themselves
when they devised the "Barter System" several thousands of years
ago. Since then, this Barter System has "grown" haphazardly into
the present highly complex, unwieldly, economic dictatorship. It is a system
of trade, or commerce, based on commodity values which are determined by their
relative scarcity and desirability. And to expedite the trade, debt tokens,
or money, have been devised. It's an economic system "designed"
in the distant past which rewards the greedy and is instrumental in the destruction
of the physical environment. It's an economic system based on beliefs, opinions
and superstitions, that cannot, by any possible combination of its parts,
be made efficient enough to match the ability of the technological mechanism
to produce. It's an economic system that cannot supply North Americans with
enough to keep millions of them out of poverty, and certainly cannot afford
to clean up the environmental mess it has made.
