Ken, Dave
You’re quiet correct that capitalism is not the answer, but of course neither is socialism. Why not integrate the two to the point where they become Profit Making Direct Distributism? Thirdness has always been the signature of Wisdom and Oneness the signature of Grace. In fact I’m working on a book I’m going to call The Cosmic Code that posits that ultimate reality is contained in the following formula:

[ (A x Z) <–> G/C ] read thusly:

a fully integrated duality within an integrative trinity-unity-conscious oneness where A is a temporal reality, Z is its actual or potential opposite reality, x is the sign for a thorough integration and G/C is the integrative state of Grace Consciousness or substitute G Grace for K kensho/satori, O atonement/Oneness or S samadhi

An integrated duality within an integrative Trinity of course is mirrored all over nature, mathematics, psychology, spirituality and logic when one is attentive to it. For instance:

[ ( 3 + 5) = 8 ] Fibonacci sequence

[ (Thesis x Antithesis) <–> Synthesis ] Hegelian Dialectic

[ (Trunk x Branches) <–> Roots ] Tree

[ (Land x Sea) <–> Sky ]  Earth

[ (Body x Mind) <–> Consciousness ]  Unitary Being

[ (Profit x Sharing) <–> Monetary Gifting ]  New Monetary Paradigm

[ (Capitalism x Socialism) <–> Profit Making Direct Distributism ]  New Integrative Ideology

[ Hypothesis <–>(Dualistic process of comparison of datums) ] Scientific Method

[ (Reality x Opposite or Different Reality) <–> Greater Reality ] The Process of Wisdom

DT:  I thought the problem was that Capitalism and Socialism are the same type, so that at either extreme (as Belloc already saw in 1911) government by large and therefore ill-informed corporations is (in the critical respect of not looking at the facts on the ground) no different from centralised state government. Distributism was about doing your own thing as far as possible so you can see and learn from what you are doing, not who gets the money.

Me:  Capitalism and Socialism ARE alike in that they are ultimately tyrannous…unless you integrate their separate truths while simultaneously deleting their separate or mutual untruths under a greater zeitgeist/ethic than mere power or profit, i.e. the natural philosophical concept of grace/graciousness. Re economics and money systems….that’s why the new paradigm is Monetary Gifting…because Gifts/Gifting is an aspect of grace and the integrative combination of only the truths, workabilities, applicabilities and highest ethical considerations within Capitalism and Socialism. And that fits into The Cosmic Code which is a TOE.

KZ:  I really don’t like the term ontology. In my view it’s just a philosopher’s device to hide things from we ordinary people. But if you like, we’ll begin with ontology. Human ontology consists of two elements – relationships and performances. Humans for with relationships with other humans and nonhumans as well. They are required to perform – to do something – in these relationships. Combined with human imagination, these are the sources of everything – societies, cultures, religions, and of course money. Money is then best described as a performance. And performances always do something. That something is the result of the relationships in which the performances are made. Most of the relationships in which money was part of the performances relate to trading and valuing, according to the history we know. Money is thus always set up in terms of what humans want, what humans need, and what humans can do. Money is useful humans. Otherwise, they would never have invented it. And there many types of money. Depending on the needs of the situations and the humans involved. There you have it. And no “big” words from philosophers needed.

Me:  Ken,

The reason we don’t consciously comprehend paradigms whether old or new has more to do with the fact that we tend to love problems much more than solutions. This is born mostly out of the mostly unconscious fear that if we solve problems then we’ll lose much of the purpose/purposes that prevent us from being terminally bored. Of course there are a zillion worthwhile purposes available to us as well as the wonder and mind blowing conscious experience of a guzillion things in our immediate environment, things one has looked at and immediately abstracted for the last 30-40 years instead of actually directly perceiving it, so there is actually no dearth of purposes or conscious experiences at all.

This is not to belittle philosophy, theorizing, abstraction etc. just the realization that they are undoubtedly the thing that most inhibits us from consciously experiencing things as well as the meanings and purposes behind words. Integrating abstraction and direct conscious looking/experience is in fact the route to paradigm perception because paradigm perception is the process of finding the single philosophical concept that re-defines/re-creates an entire new pattern. In other words its simultaneously a reductionist and wholistic mental process the latter of which is sharpened and honed by dropping the obsessive inner chatter of the former.

KZ:  Craig, you recognize, of course that debt is a distinction made up by humans.

Me:  Debt is an idea, a concept, a paradigm. These are all things that human beings create…..and make real. Debt ONLY is the current monetary and economic paradigm. Economics and money systems, society, mankind…requires a new paradigm and as new paradigms are always oppositional in some respects to the old paradigm as well as an inversion of the greatest problem of the old paradigm, Relatively Abundant Monetary Gifting is the new paradigm. Debt is burden, relatively abundant money and purchasing power is its opposite. The rate of flow of total costs and so prices in technologically advanced economies always exceeds the rate of flow of total individual incomes simultaneously produced. It’s the most basic disequilibrating reality. That scarcity ratio must be inverted. And that’s what the policies and others that I have suggested here create.

Beyond those things my point is simply that a paradigm, an actual and new paradigm, is a change of concept that applies in all respects to the body of knowledge it is applied to. Once you’ve cognited on that vision, and that’s what really seeing a paradigm is, a vision, a validly applicable vision….then it’s just a straightforward rational process of policy alignment and all of the leading reforms/reformers can then unite and work together to get the paradigm implemented But you have to see it….before it makes sense to you. It’s very difficult to scientifically, reductionistically and/or iconoclastically realize a new paradigm. You realize it much more swiftly if you utilize vision and the other tools of Wisdom.

KZ:  Craig and James, let’s bring this to the level of the participants and users of economies. And get away from theories. Economies are supposed to function to provide the framework for everyone to obtain the resources and services needed for a good quality of life. Or, at least one that allows good chances for survival. Money and markets are devices that can be used to accomplish these goals…..

Me:  KZ, re: your jan. 2 6:43 post

I’m the one here who has been posting about paradigms, philosophy AND specific policies all of which align with each other. My contention is that while research, theorizing and philosophizing is all well and good, the new monetary and economic paradigm which enables economists to clarify, focus and unite their various reforms….is right before their eyes and all they have to do in order to move forward….is cognite on that fact.

I’ve shown that the insights and separate policy suggestions of all of the major heterodox theories align (albeit incompletely) with the new paradigm of Abundant Systemic Monetary Gifting and given insight about the significance of the point of retail sale and then suggested specific policies that would implement that paradigm throughout the entirety of the economy in a way that would benefit virtually all commercial agents, all individuals and the system as a whole.

So what’s the next actual step? After LBJ defeated Goldwater in the ’64 election Lewis Powell wrote what has become known as The Powell Memo which began the process of conservative economic ideology being woven into the social and political systems. We need to begin “The Craig Paradigm Memo” with an integrative mass socio-economic and political movement targeted at large constituencies like students, the small to medium sized business community and for that matter every individual that shows them how the two main policies of a universal dividend and a 50% discount/rebate at the point of retail sale will benefit them and the entire system….like no other policies crafted by either party has every benefited them before. And how with relatively simple regulation will not only prevent inflation, but beneficially implement price deflation into profit making systems.

Everything adapts to a new paradigm. The primacy of the old paradigm is dead! Long live the primacy of the new paradigm!

Every business model has a retail product, that is except Finance which is actually post retail sale and hence anti-economic. That is why Finance as in money creation itself must become a government/public utility. In a monetary economy like we have money is the essence of power, and after over 5000 years of the money creation power being problematic….it’s way past due for the paradigm change that is now necessary.

Now, government control of money creation must also obey the new paradigm in order to avoid its own problematic relationship with power. As the new paradigm is Monetary Gifting that means that there will be no charge for money’s creation or distribution. Government is not an economic institution and so monetary gain is not relevant. And as politics/government is about power which monetary or otherwise has always been problematic it must obey both the new monetary paradigm of Gifting as well as the new zeitgeist/ethic from which both the new monetary and governmental paradigms are derivatives namely Grace as in Benevolent power.

Everyone here is assuming any increase in purchasing power MUST come from employment which would result in a consequent increase in costs and so prices by enterprise. However, if it came from a monetary authority other than Private banks, was a gift and that gifting was peculiarly and strategically implemented at the terminal summation of all costs and so total prices for every item or service in the economy…..hmmmm, paradigm change and its numerous “knock on” benefits for virtually all agents.

…Is at least two orders of magnitude of mental inclusion and applicability higher than theory.  Philosophy is the next step higher as it includes the ideas that are logically aligned and consistent with any theory, and a paradigm and its perception is above that in that it is the single unitary philosophical concept that would seamlessly apply to and deeply change every aspect of the body of knowledge/area of human endeavor it is applied to.

Monetary Gifting is the new economic and monetary paradigm.

RL:  When I was a young history professor my mentor told me, “stop reading, do some out of the window research,” meaning sit in your chair gazing out the window and think about the meaning of what you have read.

Me: Excellent suggestion!  What we need is leisure which is self determined attentive activity…NOT idleness, sloth etc.

Leisure collectively would get us a lot more things like art, innovation, in all likelihood scientific breakthrough, with a modicum of enablement and encouragement a chance at developing a culture of contemplation and a load of other positive human fruits that might help us express our actual species designation of homo sapiens, i.e. wise and discerning man…instead of the failed and enforced experiment of homo economicus.

And a paradigm change in the economic and monetary system could make leisure and its fruits a virtual fait accompli.

I1:  As a long-time business manager and consultant for architectural and engineering firms, one of my commissions had been to design a cost accounting and project budgeting system for A&Es. I had sat in one client’s main drafting room, gazing out the window and daydreaming about various approaches, all day long, day after day. Hadn’t yet written down a thing. Part of the daydreaming even involved reflecting on one of George Lucas’s movies, which gave me an idea about devising a system of predictive project budgeting that helped control costs and raise returns, and that is still in use.

Me:  Yes, or as Whitman wrote: “I loaf and invite my soul.”

S7:  A curious thing. The stories we tell about ‘loafing and souling’ are remarkably un-compelling to others. The essence is the experience. Which reminds me of John Keats’s ‘negative capability’ – what he surmised was the essence of the poet’s task, to enter into/absorb others’ experiences and open them up to others.

Me:  Yes, the internal conscious experience of fully comprehending a new paradigm as the new single concept that entirely fits within and yet transcends the current old paradigm’s primacy….is an “Ah ha!” cognitive experience, not just a data point, theory or even philosophy all of which are merely intellectual modes and methods that can leave one staring right at the new paradigm…but not fully comprehending its significance.

And not seeing that…is also a major reason why the various heterodox researchers do not seem to be able/willing to unite even with themselves…let alone unite under a genuine new paradigm…which again, is a tremendously clarifying, unitary and focusing “thing”.

I1:   Insights come from everywhere, huh!

Me:  Relatively small, fragmentary and incremental insights come from evidence and logic and science. Huge insights and progress come from new paradigm perception and then aligning policy with it. And historically that perception involves using integrative mental disciplines other than mere science and other reductionist methods. Why fight rapid progress or refuse to utilize history and those other methods?

MM:  I believe in the necessity and dignity of work, so long as it gets a minimum wage (the miniumum required to keep you alive based on notion of universal human rights. Everyone has a right to a living or minimum wage–enough so you can make to to work again tomorrow. All HuMans are equal but some are more equal than others—so some people get more than the minimum—they get the maximum, or the 1% percentile. . )

This debate occurs between advocates of a UBI and MMT people who want ‘a universal job guarantee’ . MMT people feel strongly about poverty, but dont believe people should just get free stuff–you should work like MMT people do –eg give a speech at a conference. Few people are competent to do that, so instead the guaranteed jobs might instead be working on the plantations owned by MMT’ers. They’ll prasie you too–benevolant masters.

Me:  Constructive purpose is the human necessity. Work for pay AKA employment is a very small subset of possible such purposes. MMT has the mechanics of money creation correct, but its stance on employment still resides largely within the current paradigm of Debt Only. This is evidenced by some of its advocates’ disparaging of a UBI/universal dividend. Of course their advocacy of a job guarantee could easily fit within the new paradigm of Monetary Gifting, but rejection of the direct gift of UBI/UD betrays that they haven’t fully crossed over into visualizing the new paradigm.

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Me:  Fully consciously conceiving and perceiving the wholeness, significance and comprehensiveness of the pattern that is a paradigm requires a mental discipline inclusive of, but epistemologically larger than science. The reason for this? A paradigm is a new conscious realization within oneself. It’s not just a different idea alone, (novelty) a new slant on old ideas/the old paradigm (reform) a new organization of factors (theory) or even a new organization of ideas (philosophy). It is not just science applied, which routinely has become a mental discipline that not only does not include consciousness….but rejects it.

Thus it has become a stumbling block, not the otherwise useful tool that has enabled a great deal of temporal, but now only temporal progress….especially when in the present case in economics and money systems, a new paradigm….the essential component of which is a new conscious personal realization….has become necessary.

Wisdom and its tools is the necessary mental discipline to remedy science’s shortcomings all the while including science’s tools as well. The insights of the world’s major wisdom traditions and their disciplines/techniques were the science and scientists of their day. An excellent example of this is the zen Buddhist tool of giving the new/overly glib novitiate a koan which is a question that the rational mind cannot resolve…..and yet intensively meditated upon often results in a new insight of wholeness, oneness/significance and comprehensiveness…in other words the definition and all of the essential component parts of a paradigm…including personal consciousness.

Science since approximately the 14th century has increasingly dominated consciousness and set before us great productivity and insight into the physical universe only…..or so orthodox science assumes.

Science can once again become Wisdom and instead of being a stumbling block to it,  enable paradigm perception at a time when it is absolutely necessary….for further progress.

JK:  One of the things I think you’re missing, Craig, is the fact that a household’s purchasing power is not automatically increased if/when it acquires a certain quantity of money.

It may, but it may not. It depends on if the increase in possessed money ends up improving that household’s ranking within the hierarchy of all household’s disposable dollars/pounds/euros.

This is because purchasing power in market economies is not determined by how much money you have; it is determined by how much money you have compared to everyone else.

See my comment above which begins, “Hmm…” for an elaboration of this very important point.

Me:  Purchasing power is actually determined at the point of retail sale….for everyone. Why? Because that is where all costs and so prices are terminally summed (except perhaps in a few basically non-relevant and/or easily remediable instances). This is the single stable datum of the micro-economy and if the monetary policy of a 50% discount/rebate were implemented at that point…everyone’s purchasing power would be doubled….it’s that simple and elegant….like all paradigm changes and their very expression are. Paradigms are the singular stable datums within the flux of complexity.

JK:  Au contraire…

If, for example, a country’s monetary policy was to simply “print up” and distribute a doubling of every income earner’s gross salary, do you believe that such an initiative would double every earner’s purchasing power?

In an economy that is already experiencing full-employment, such an initiative would not increase anyone’spurchasing power. This, because there would be no increase in the actual goods and services that people would be able to buy.

Not being able to buy any more real stuff (because the economy is already producing as much as it can) means no improvement in actual purchasing power is possible, no matter how many dollars/pounds/euros you throw at them.

Now if a single individual were to see her disposable income doubled by a gift from the government, then yes, her actual purchasing power would increase dramatically because her ranking within the hierarchy of all disposable incomes would have increased dramatically.

She would then be able to outbid the many who did not get the same income boost that she got, for some of the luxury items she wants to buy, but could not afford previously.

But if everyone gets the same gift, then none of them is going to see an improvement in their purchasing power relative to each other. It’s really a very important, albeit subtle, point that you appear not to be fully aware of.

I haven’t read all of your arguments, but I get the impression that you have mostly “explained away” the very real phenomenon of inflation, and do not acknowledge the very real effects it has on actual purchasing power in economies that use fiat money.

Something to think about…

Me:  The policy I described is not a doubling of individual income/money but rather, due to it being a discount of 50% at retail sale which again is the terminal summing of costs/prices as well as the terminal end of the economic process where production becomes consumption it would automatically double every consumer’s purchasing power….not their nominal amount of money. You are missing the significance of the reciprocality of the discount/rebate as well as the place and time of the policy’s implementation. The above policy would do what most consider impossible, that is integrating price deflation painlessly and beneficially into profit making economic systems. It is actually an integration of Keynesian and Austrian economic intentions. Curiously I’ve presented this policy and that fact many times to both Keynesians and Austrians and virtually none of them seems to get it. They miss/refuse to look at the where and why of the policy’s implementation. That’s the power of orthodoxy to blind and to prevent one from even looking.

Paradigms are incredibly powerful, but there is still no end to history or to the other intentionedness/anti-social intentions of some so a new paradigm still requires real time regulation as well, but once people begin to see the obvious benefits of the new paradigm there’s no going back to the old. That has always been the case historically with new paradigms.

Sorry, I don’t actually see any significance in “purchasing power relative to each other” except perhaps in the case of the distribution of an equal universal dividend to everyone 18 years of age and older which is another policy that aligns with the new paradigm of monetary gifting. In that case a very wealthy individual’s purchasing power would not be increased nearly as much as a middle class individual’s income. But I don’t consider that significant either. It’s like the line from Max Ehrmann’s Desiderata: “Do not compare yourself to others you may become vain or bitter.”

JK:  I’m trying to understand the flow of money under your plan, Craig.

Am I correct in assuming that it is the government which will be sending money gifts to corporations and other businesses, to allow them to cover their costs and intended profits, while at the same time reducing sale prices by 50%?

If so, let’s consider some of the immediate effects.

Are you able see that giving business owners money to reduce their prices by 50% generates the same money flow as simply giving consumers enough money to cover half of the cost of all of their purchases? Show me the receipt, I’ll send a check for half of what you spent.

If a consumer normally spends all of his income, this gift from the government will cut the cost of all of his normal purchases in half. So if his income does not change, he will find himself in possession of an additional amount of money that is equal to half of his normal take home pay.

He could spend this or save it, but the bottom line is that as a result of the government’s gifting program, all those who spend most of their paychecks from week to week will have gotten a big chunk of money from the government that is equivalent to a 50% increase in his disposable income.

Normally, when businesses see that their buyers have all gotten huge chunks of money to spend, they will quite naturally raise their prices as high as they can, to absorb as much of those extra dollars out there as they can.

Would your gifting program include a law which forbids businesses from raising their prices whenever they think they can get a higher price? The “purchasing power” is there. Why shouldn’t they raise their prices if consumers are willing to pay them (because they can afford to)?

Whether you realize it or not, the end result is going to be a dramatic increase in inflation, unless you enact “price controls” which would be the government’s method of setting prices (if for no other reason than to limit the increasing amount of money that they’d have to shell out once prices started to go up.

Simply lowering the initial price by 50% does not in any way eliminate the incentive that businesses have to thereafter raise prices as high as they can, to absorb all of the extra dollars that are out there, if people are willing to pay them (and they would, cuz they’ve got the money to do so)

Hmm….

Me:  A monetary authority will reciprocate the gift the retailer gave to the consumer which means there’s actually no more money involved than if the consumer actually had that much money to spend. As Steve Keen says capitalist economies are demand constrained. So lets un-constrain them.

You’re quite right that businesses before retail sale could raise their prices, but as I think I mentioned before they probably couldn’t raise them much more than a few percentage points. Purchasing agents aren’t stupid after all, competition still is in play in the micro-economy and collusion by multiple agents of course is in restraint of trade. Policies and regulations could also be applied that would re-inforce and are aligned with Gifting that would encourage the valid micro-economic virtue of competition and cost cutting like taxing any price increase that could not be rigorously justified as due to valid and honest cost increases by like 100-150%. You could also incentivize competition by corporations that kept their prices the same or even lowered them by Gifting them 1% of their net monthly profits. And if a business was recalcitrant despite all of the “knock-on” benefits to them from these policies (which will follow) then you could just not allow them to participate in the discount/rebate policy…and that would of course mean bye-bye business.

Just hire someone like Bill Black Inc. to do forensic accounting on those enterprises who despite these policies that create a free flowing prosperous economy for all agents, due to an adequate universal dividend makes immediately redundant and eliminate-able any transfer taxes that both employers and employees pay. It could also probably quite quickly do the same for social security taxes which could be fazed out with a sufficient and continually rising universal dividend as innovation and AI erode aggregate demand. For that matter who needs much or any capital gains taxation (except for the recalcitrants and anti-social enterprises who aren’t satisfied with all of these benefits)? Re-distributive taxation is so old paradigm. But brutally effective sin taxation aligns not only with Gifting but also with the new zeitgeist/ethic of the natural philosophical concept of sovereignly powerful but benevolent grace/graciousness which in turn reflects the individual’s
highest mental potentiality. Integrity matters. As above, so below, as with the person, so with the system. And when inevitably human frailty or flaw occurs…economic rationality and justice.

If there’s one thing we’ve learned from the terminally economically orthodox and third rate populist intellect Trump, demagoging mere morality works. When everyone and all businesses obviously benefit from these new paradigm policies and integratively accomplish the best of the agendas of both the left and the right ….messing with them by the greedy and/or financially seditious would be fairly easy to identify and point the finger at, even if it takes a little initial thinking through. Helping the individual and participating enterprise is the key. Look at the partial reform of social security. 80 plus years of regressive railing hasn’t been able to repeal it. With the actual paradigm change policies of a universal dividend and a 50% retail discount/rebate….you’ll be able to quickly convert even the hardened conservative or libertarian theorist.

There are also well thought through rebuttals to all of the “old saws” that everyone always brings up like “everyone will become lazy etc. etc. etc.

A new paradigm transforms and broadens thinking.

Because it is monetary policy linked to the point where consumer price inflation is expressed….and because systemically there is such a chronic and incredibly large scarcity of individual income free to purchase anything that even with a doubling of it with the discount policy and giving individuals another $1000/mo. with the dividend, while it guarantees an approximation of a middle class lifestyle….still means you have to borrow to buy big ticket items.

And that ought to be sufficient proof that the system as presently comprised…obviously creates a much greater rate of flow of total costs than it simultaneously creates a rate of flow of individual incomes.

Every Past Civilization That Didn’t Crumble When It Had A Debt Crisis: Utilized a debt jubilee, i.e. a gift of money in order to momentarily avoid collapse

Keen: “a modern debt jubilee”, a one off policy of Monetary Gifting

MMT:  Sovereign governments can create money, not debt, and distribute/gift  it into the economy.

UBI:  A gift of money albeit generally via re-distributive taxation which makes it something other than an actual gift.

Social Crediters: They’ve held forth for Monetary Gifting for almost 100 years, but never advocated policy that would fully express and guarantee its implementation, mostly because they were hampered by the orthodoxy of DSGE. In fact they never made the paradigmatic connection which is proof that you can look at the truth and still never fully comprehend its power because you don’t keep integrating its aspects until you fully comprehend the concept behind even the paradigm…which is the natural philosophical concept of grace.

Me: I did the thinking, integrating and contemplating of as many of the aspects of grace as I needed until I recognized its complete philosophically aligned relevance as the single utterly applicable economic concept of Monetary Gifting and so the new paradigm. And then I innovated the Social Credit policies so that they became the very expression of that paradigm in a way that Social Crediters never did.   I Innovated them in a way that would make it virtually impossible for enterprise to reject or game such policies, where every agent benefited, the system attained true free flowingness, the best aspects of the agendas of both American Major political parties were accomplished and there were many more additional “knock on” socio-economic, political and psychological problems resolved as well.

Sorry cutting edge reformers but those are the facts.

Assad,

A brave and insightful declaration about the necessity of discovering a new paradigm, recognizing that mere science has become an obvious impediment to progress and linking religion (I would say Wisdom or spirituality) to finding the necessary paradigmatic breakthrough. I applaud you.

I reject the idea that a new paradigm is not possible in the social sciences as it just ends up being another orthodoxy that blunts thorough examination, but if you simply took finance/money which is merely accounting/calculus/mathematics which is a pure science and recognized that its current paradigm is the glaringly monopolistic concept of Debt ONLY…then you have the possibility of paradigm applicability anyway. Then all you have to do is recognize the signatures of paradigm perception/paradigm change, utilize the scientific method to decipher the new paradigm/concept which would thoroughly apply to the economy and then align it with policy.

Deciphering paradigm perception/paradigm changes is simultaneously a top down and decentralized process as a paradigm is a single concept that applies to an entire pattern.

…an integrative evolution not a revolution in economics and the money system. That will enable virtually all of the heat and lack of light of political issues to dissipate so that they indeed can integrate those very contentious but lesser issues as well. Discernment and Wisdom is recognizing truths, priorities and applicabilities….and then acting on them.