Regarding a post entitled Thought Experiment: Radical Abundance

Me:  Great post. However, everything you conjecture could be accomplished much more quickly with a directly distributive monetary system. Both private finance capitalism and re-distributive socialism are monetarily old paradigm. Integrate their particles of truth, highest workabilities and highest ethical consideration of the world’s major wisdom traditions and the thirdness greater oneness we all seek will emerge.

KZ:  Rob, major cultural shifts are dangerous and disruptive. Look at the number of wars and deaths related to relatively minor religious differences. Or, what seems minor looking from outside the wars. The industrial revolution has killed millions, displaced millions more, and changed cultures around the world. I know Trump feeds on disruption, but I’d prefer less, not more disruption right now. Maybe 20 little cultural changes, rather than a single big one.

Me:  Ken,
Correct, but when a new paradigm is recognized the change can be virtually instantaneous. Couple that with the viral capabilities of our communication technology today. Also, economics and the money system is not an abstract science like astronomy, cosmology or quantum physics. It effects virtually everyone everyday throughout the day.

Every historical paradigm change has occurred when a new tool and/or insight is discovered which confirms the concept of the new paradigm/pattern. That new discovery/insight is the monetary and economic paradigm changing power of the terminal ending point of retail sale and the temporal universe effects of the abundance creating power of a 50% Discount/Rebate monetary policy at that point.

KZ:  Craig, the core of any culture never changes quickly unless the culture is collapsing or has already collapsed. Unless people are desperate, that is. The institutions, concepts, language, etc. arising from the core may change quickly, but even that may take years. For example, the video game maker Atari began in 1972, grew to dominate video gaming in arcades in the 1980s, collapsed in the 1990s, and has been reborn after 2010. Besides nostalgia, Atari remains due to name recognition and association with important changes in western history. Humans are often reluctant to let go of the familiar, even when it’s dying. And that includes economic ways of life.

Me:  Paradigm changes don’t happen very often, but when they do they occur extremely quickly because they are a new concept and both a mental and an empirical/temporal change.

When that empirical/temporal change is itself empirically huge and obvious, is a complete inversion of temporal reality and immediately effects virtually everyone as do the various policies enumerated in my book, then the change is even quicker. Paradigm changes are also agreed upon very progressive events so virtually everything related and even tangentially related ALWAYS adapts to the new paradigm.

The culture as a whole may take some more time to fully adapt as the tangential benefits of a paradigm change in economics, finance and the money system may not become immediately apparent.

KZ:  Craig, in all honesty this kind of radical and accelerated change in the core structure of a sub-culture as important as the economy, would and should scare the hell out of anyone involved in any way in that sub-culture. It runs the risk of ripping that sub-culture (economy) apart. This could destroy the society. Even if the results of the change are what you suggest they will be, the economy and perhaps all of society will be in bedlam even before that is shown to be the case. This problem is particularly acute with economic life. Observe what a stray wrong word by a political figure, major banker, or Wall Street trader has created multiple times over just the last 10 years. Sometimes the pandemonium is debilitating in and of itself.

Me:  Oh c’mon Ken, stop being such a cassandra and so whiggish. Doubling and in some cases quadrupling every wage and salary earner’s purchasing power, democratizing economics like it has never been democratized before, saving profit making economic systems from itself, bringing a refined sense of ethics to the economy and money system for the first time in history, enabling the fast forwarding of sane ecological policies and yes, driving a stake through the heart of private for profit money creating and their problematic paradigm of Debt Only with the new paradigm of monetary gifting….these things are going to be a disaster?????

Indeed, for the latter above it will be a disaster, but the major structural bad actor and impediment to paradigm changes ALWAYS at the very least loses it monopoly dominance, primacy and power. Good riddance.

Nomadic tribal leaders and witch doctors? Virtually no more

The Catholic Church? The aspect of the natural philosophical concept of grace as in Directness ended its monopoly sacrament powers

Ptolemaic cosmology? No more.

Gutenberg Press? All those poor scribes and monks had to become gardeners and counselors instead

There’s no end to history and anecdotal human stupidities will always be with us, but paradigm changes are basically “All good” …and we aren’t in any way in a position to worry about some of the inevitable off gassing of confusion or disruption in economics and the money system when we may only have 15-20 years to address human climate change and ending private finance’s monopoly paradigm is the only way we’ll “get off the dime” in that direction.

KZ:  Craig, I’m neither a Casandra nor a Whig, in the conservative, middle-class sense. But I am careful when it comes to setting things in motion that cannot be controlled. Lots of socio-economic experiments have been set up with human communities. Most were small. Some were even useful. But the large ones nearly always failed, with adverse consequences. Take these examples of changes underway now. Same-sex marriage is widely accepted now. Yet, just 20 years ago it was widely rejected. The change has two sources. Millennials accept such marriage and have spread that acceptance widely. Also, with only a few exceptions most religions in the US accept same-sex marriage. How would this have turned out if 20 years ago, upon your advice laws were enacted making same-sex marriage equal to any other form of marriage? Considering a directly economic question, how much preparation would you suggest before ending or reducing by at least half copyright and patent protection? A year, two years, five years? At least two, I think.

Me:  You ARE apparently conservative and whiggish on the issue of the monetary, financial and economic paradigm. Your caution at a time of looming multiple crises that can only resolved by STARTING with that paradigm change betrays such. You are very erudite. It surprises me that you do not recognize the necessity of the urgency the issue requires.

When and where a paradigm change is called for urgency is the keynote. The monetary paradigm hasn’t changed in the entire history of human civilization. Reform is inadequate. Piecemeal measures cannot resolve longstanding problems held in place most strongly by the mindset of the old/current paradigm. I am neither naive nor lacking in knowledge, especially in the integrative mindset which enables me to think and perceive on the paradigmatic level. With one emphasis I repeat the final paragraph of my last post:

There’s no end to history and anecdotal human stupidities will always be with us, but paradigm changes are BASICALLY “All good” …and we aren’t in any way in a position to worry about some of the inevitable off gassing of confusion or disruption in economics and the money system when we may only have 15-20 years to address human climate change and ending private finance’s monopoly paradigm is the only way we’ll “get off the dime” in that direction.

KZ:  Craig, I don’t disagree that the west faces many problems. Pundits, prophets, and mystics offering histories and solutions for all these problems are not only a dime a dozen, but number in the thousands. Which of these “all insights” hope-filled paths are we to follow? I prefer being careful over being right, eventually after years of pain and grief from the ten, or more wrong choices before the right one.

 

Me:  Ken,  I suggest choosing the one which is the most inclusive of only the relevant and true data and observations. Virtually all of us here agree that the heterodox theorists like Steve Keen, Michael Hudson and Lars Syll here with the approach of MMT are parts of the puzzle. The only thing lacking in their approach is the all inclusive study of the paradigm. That is the supra-cultural approach in the area of human endeavor to which the paradigm applies. In order to understand a paradigm it is essential to define it first. It is a single concept that fits seamlessly within and creates an entirely new pattern. In order to perceive that definition one must practice integrative thinking of the opposites of singularity and plurality/pattern. As I have continually posted here paradigm perception and the wisdom process both being the integrative process itself are completely analogous.

I see Abundantly Direct and Reciprocal Monetary Gifting at the point of retail sale to be the new paradigm concept and policy because it resolves both monetary scarcity and price and asset inflation. It is nothing if not productive of systemic and individual economic democracy. Its effects are empirically and mathematically verifiable. It is simple but transformational EXACTLY like the definition of a new paradigm above and like every other historical paradigm change has been. When someone comes up with a more beneficial and resolving concept I’ll get on their bandwagon.

Take the all inclusive truth perceiving and integrating approach of the paradigm. That’s actually all I’ve ever advocated for….because it takes only the truths, highest workabilities, most relevant applicabilities and highest ethical considerations of apparently opposing perspectives.

KZ:  Craig, there is no “most inclusive of only the relevant and true data and observations.” That is beyond our understanding or capabilities. Perhaps your proposal will give good results, perhaps not. I know you believe it will. Only practical application will give us the answer to this question.

Me:  In the first place I disagree. The wisdom process is precisely of that nature, and that’s why it is defined and valued as the deeper knowledge that it is. That doesn’t mean that I said that the new paradigm was the end of history for economics or anything like that. In fact I mentioned in this very thread that there is no end to history. So I was not using that phrase in any universal sense like you misinterpreted it to be.

My proposal WILL give good results because of its nature (gifting), because it DOES IMMEDIATELY double every employed person’s purchasing power. That can be confirmed by yourself if you actually look at the temporal universe effects of the 50% Discount/Rebate policy. If a person goes and purchases $100 of groceries (or any other purchase of whatever price) and only pays $50 for the groceries that yesterday cost them $100 their available income HAS BEEN DOUBLED has it not???

It WILL integrate beneficial price deflation into profit making economic systems because garden variety “monetary” inflation is NEVER/HAS NEVER BEEN more than a smallish single digit percentage and hyper-inflations never occur except after several prior disastrous circumstances have occurred including and finally a privately controlled central bank leverages up speculators in order for them to short the currency and that is what kicks hyperinflations in. Consult Steven Zarlenga’s excellent research on this process in his book The Lost Science of Money. ppgs 575-588.

Wisdom is always the best integration of philosophy and policy.
It is thus by definition the ultimate in both thought and practicality.

KZ:  Craig, I accept that you honestly believe what you write. But that does not make it so.

Gift economies are not new in the world. Neither are cultures that emphasize guidance via wisdom. For example, many American Indian tribes combine the two. But these don’t always go along as expected or desired. For example, in working with a number of the tribes since the 1970s, I’ve witnessed (ethnographically speaking) dozens of feuds between tribal members over the size and reciprocity of gifts and what they saw as the failure of tribal councils to settle the problems. Though troubled by these events tribal members do not favor ending either their gift economies or tribal councils. There’s an old joke on reservations. Rifle shots on Saturday night are two families settling such a dispute. No one dies (at least never heard of anyone dying) but there are lots of missing ears, fingers, and hair partings. Humans have never invented a culture that is successful most of the time; let alone all the time. We’re always “working out the kinks.” This is the best we’ve ever been able to accomplish. Perhaps Sapiens will get better at fixing itself with time. At few thousand years should be a good start in that direction.

Me:  “I accept that you honestly believe what you write. But that does not make it so.”

Sorry, but this is the (oft unconscious and I’m sure well meaning) trick of those laboring under the current paradigm for inquiry, namely science only. It is science that has the epistemological problem NOT wisdom which can and does rigorously include science in its calculus.

I’m virtually the only one here integratively proposing BOTH a new philosophy and new policies implemented at a newly considered point and time that will obviously have direct, mathematical and empirically verifiable benefits for all agents individual and commercial.

You’re not telling me anything I don’t already know when you say, We’re always “working out the kinks.” There is no end to history, but paradigm changes are stepping stones that only go progressively forward….especially if and when the individuals in the culture are informed and infused with the increasing consciousness that can result from understanding/experiencing the insights to be found in any of the world’s major wisdom traditions.

Economics is dead, long live Wisdomics-Gracenomics, which includes and completes all of the valid heterodox insights so often espoused here.