In the Beginning…

Humans were hunter gatherers, and having been in the wilderness with nothing to eat before, let me tell you:  on the whole, hunting and gathering sucks.

Big time.

Especially if you’re alone.

Humans (being the clever beings we are) learned very early on that the best way to ensure our survival as a species was to cooperate.

Without opening a big debate with the religious fundy branch of the Republican party, we took a queue from our primate ancestors, who ALSO worked cooperatively, and kept on with that trend, and suddenly, the whole hunting and gathering thing didn’t suck quite so bad.

By cooperating on the hunt, we could bring down bigger game.  By bringing down bigger game, we could feed lots of people, and all get something to eat.

But some of our ancestors weren’t all that adept at hunting, so we began adopting a primitive form of specialization.

Can’t hunt?  Fine, stay home and make spears.  We’ll bring you some food when we return.

Sick?  That’s okay…we value your past (and potential future) contributions to the tribe…we’ll bring you back some meat.

Looking after Ugg Junior?  Okay, we’ll bring you and the kid some food too.

*Gasp*!

Our hunter-gatherer ancestors were commies!  Socialists, at the very least!  See how far back the vast left-wing conspiracy goes?!  All the way back to the friggin’ Stone Age!  They must be stopped!

At this point, there was no concept of “land ownership,” and there was no need for it.

The land didn’t provide any of the bounty (at least not directly….true, all things draw their sustenance from the land, so inasmuch as that was as true then as it is now, the land provided the bounty indirectly, but not at all in the same way it would later), and whatever was killed was generally eaten straightaway, so there wasn’t really much need to establish laws or rituals regarding ownership of property (there may have been, in those prehistoric times, occasional squabbles over a fresh kill, but based on what we know of population density back then, it is reasonable to assume that this would have been the exception, rather than the rule).

All that to say that although life was brutish and short, there was plenty, and working cooperatively, the human race more or less got by.

Then at some point, some bright and enterprising human decided to start planting stuff in the ground.  Tending those crops, domesticating animals, and so forth.

All of these activities require a centralized (static) location, and that means that our relationship with the land had to change.

Where there had been largely amorphous “territorial ranges,” now, we needed strictly codified borders and well defined controls.

Granted, our earliest iterations of this probably didn’t go much beyond, “Me control land up to tree beside stream.  You stay away,” but the echoes of those earliest efforts are still with us today in the form of property rights.

Of course, back in the day, your claim to property was only as good as the strength of your spear arm.  If someone was strong enough to kill you, then they were entitled to your stuff.  Your land, chickens, crops…whatever.

Control is a curious thing.  Scarcity has always been with us, even when not readily apparent.  If I own a thing, you cannot.

Early on (hunter gatherer times), ownership was an immediate, de facto state.  I killed this deer.  I am eating this deer and you are not.  Therefore, my ownership of the deer is established, and that’s that.  Since we didn’t have refrigerators back in the day, ownership of most things was immediate and personal.

My spear.  I am carrying it.

My meat.  I am eating it.

But an agrarian society must, by definition, operate somewhat differently.  Because there’s an undeniable time requirement involved (plant crops, keep the bugs at bay, harvest, store the excess, etc.)  In order to work, an agrarian society has to take that condition of immediacy, and apply it not only in the here and now (My land.  I own it.  My house.  It is on the land that I own.) and extrapolate/extend it to all points into the future, forever and ever, amen.  Here again, our inherently cooperative natures helped us in this regard.  Here’s how:

Because your ability to exert your property rights was only as good as the strength of your spear arm, your chances were better at maintaining your claim if you could get a few of your buddies to help you.  They help you maintain your control over the land as far as your eye can survey, and you give them a little piece of the action.

As the warriors…as the men with spears, trained in battle, it was easy to exert undo influence over other, lesser, weaker members of the tribe.  Hey…you were the one taking all the risks, keeping the other folks who lived on the land “safe,” so those ingrates should give you some acknowledgement.

They should…oh, I dunno…give you a portion of their kill, their crops…whatever.  A bronze-age protection racket.  Might makes right, and all that.

And then, if you were one of the warriors, and you got used to having your whims catered to, OF COURSE you’d want to arrange it such that the status quo was maintained.  One easy way to do this was to have some kids and get them to help you.  They inherit your position, and eventually your stuff (land, title, etc), and just like that,  hereditary succession is born and now we’re only a half step away from the Divine right of kings.  Mix in a little old time religion, and the stage is set for maintaining the status quo.  The earliest Conservatives.

An Economic Primer

We’ll flash forward some more, passing by the signing of the Magna Carta, as we’ve already spent some time looking in on that, and now, we’ll stop by the home of a remarkable and curious fellow by the name of Adam Smith.

Adam wrote a book, and this book is oft cited by Conservatives as being at the bedrock of their beliefs.

As we shall see, however, Adam’s book (called the “Wealth of Nations”), actually has very little to do with the kind of economic system that Conservatives seem to want to implement, but like baby Jesus, they do their level best to co-opt him for their own purposes.

Now, in the book, “The Wealth of Nations,” Adam outlines the framework for the “Free Market,” and according to this very wise man, a free market is made up of/needs (absolutely needs) four things, and those things are:

• Well-defined Property Rights:  Spanning back in time to a point not long after the signing of the Magna Carta, we have this (and it is applicable to the common man!)  So far, so good!  (we’ll dismiss the misuse of eminent domain laws by big business for now, though that’s a point we may want to bring up with the Conservatives eventually…while there are abuses, they are not (yet) rampant, so we’ll let it go for now).  Suffice it to say that for purposes of a well functioning, market-based economy, one of the most important things the federal government can do is to maintain and strictly enforce the rights of private property owners.  From this, the very basis of national defense and local law enforcement are born.  Whatever else they do, this must be one of their top priorities in order for a well functioning market economic system.

• All the producers in the market are local:  Sadly, this no longer applies.  We don’t have this, and we haven’t had it for quite some time.  No politician really, deeply understands the root causes and effects that this leads to, which is a pity, but we’ll get into all that in a little while, and specifically how the Conservative approach only serves to make matters worse.  The good news is that there’s a limit to the amount of damage that the mega-corps can do, and they’re well on their way to causing as much harm as they can do.  In their wake, there will be tremendous economic upheaval, and completely avoidable misery, if we were but allowed to a) hold these large companies responsible for their actions (good luck with that), or b) properly fund government programs to do the same, in the absence of the former.  Progressives would love to see either.  Conservatives don’t like the former because it would anger their base, and are ideologically opposed to the latter, so the obvious answer is to simply rely on “private charity” which lets large numbers of the displaced and disaffected starve, or live under bridges or in tent-cities, and apparently that’s all okay.  Anyway, after the dust settles, America will get back to her roots, and we’ll start to see a large surge in small companies again.  We already are, in fact.  Smaller firms (50 employees or less) make up the majority of job creation in this country.  I expect that trend will continue, but the mega corps are still out there, and they throw a huge monkey wrench into Adam Smith’s Free Market.  Without stringent regulation, it’s a game-ending monkey wrench (especially in light of the Chinese/India Currency shell game, where absolute economic advantage is allowed to destroy the comparative advantage that the free market depends on).

• The cost of all goods is clearly and easily understood:  This is a mixed bag.  In some cases (a trip to the local store), this is straightforward enough.  Pick up stuff.  Read price.  Add prices together.

  In other cases (a trip to the hospital), prices are completely obscured, and there’s absolutely no way of telling, guessing, or predicting how much a given trip to the hospital will run you (ie – a trip to the hospital isn’t like going to Jiffy Lube, where you know, courtesy of the sign out front, that an express oil change is $19.99.  A pity hospitals can’t/won’t do something similar.  How refreshing would it be to see a sign out front advertising an Appendectomy for $X!).

• And finally, the notion that there are no significant barriers to entry into the market.  This is true in a world comprised of drop shippers and farmer’s markets, but in the world of mega corps and factories that cost more than the GDP of many nations, it is very definitely not true.  Add in various technological interlocking dependencies, and when you study the roadmap, you realize just how far we have wandered off course.  What we have now has its roots in Adam Smith’s free market, and some echoes of it remain, but the game is now rigged, and only a fundamental overhaul of the system will change that.  The unfortunate thing is, the folks who have seen the greatest benefit FROM the rigged system now hold the keys to its reform, and because of that, said reform is unlikely (in the extreme) to ever occur.

The Conservative Love-In With Big Business

To hear Conservatives tell it, corporations are these warm, fuzzy entities just trying to get along in life, kind-hearted and often misunderstood that always have America’s (and their employees’) best interests in heart.

What these same Conservatives seem to forget, or ignore, or perhaps even to never have known, is that there was a time when there were absolutely NO laws on the books governing the behavior of corporations.

Back during that time (think, “East India Company”) corporations ran utterly amok, trampling over any and everything they needed to in the name of profit.  NOTHING was sacred, and nothing was disallowed.

It was only after literally decades of the worst kind of abuses imaginable that the first efforts to reign in the power of corporations were made, or, to put it another way:

It was not some left wing plot to destroy big business that put child labor laws on the books, it was the fact that some company decided it was okay to work six year old children to death in sweat shops that ensured those laws were created.

It was not a vast conspiracy that put pollution and environmental protection laws on the books, it was the fact that corporations polluted indiscriminately, and caused vast amounts of environmental damage until finally, something had to be done.

There are literally thousands of examples, and yet, Conservatives still insist and stand by the idea that corporations are simply gentle giants.  Forces for good.

The truth is that if left to its own devices, the free market would (and has) torn itself to pieces.  Unfortunately, the human cost of the destruction it leaves in its wake is all too real, and not worth the price that the masses have to pay.  Of course, the captains of industry don’t agree, they are the ones reaping the benefits of all the misery, and as such, they are too biased to trust their opinions (this is the same reason that police officers are pulled from cases where they are too closely involved with the victims…they can’t be relied upon to give unbiased testimony on the matter later).

I’ll bring two quotes to your attention (well, one quote, and one urban legend of a quote).

The first (the urban legend) is attributed to Albert Einstein:  “Compound interest is the most powerful force in the Universe.”

And the second, from Mayer Amshel Rothschild, “Give me control of a nation’s money supply, and I care not who makes its laws.”

These two quotes succinctly describe why Conservatism as a philosophy will never die.  The power of compound interest (this takes us back to the Republican desire to eliminate estate taxes), and the power inherent of controlling a nation’s money supply.  Those things have supplanted rule by the people as the driving forces of the nation, and threaten to undo us utterly as a nation…make us into the slaves that most of our ancestors once were, and there, at the forefront, leading the charge into that future, you’ll find the Conservatives.

The “Real Americans.”

Uh huh.

IMPORTANT NOTE:  I am not saying that I don’t approve of Capitalism as a form of economic organization!  On the contrary, I readily acknowledge Capitalism’s supremacy as a means of organizing resources and raising global standards of living.  That said, even a novice to the school of economics cannot fail to see that Capitalism too, has its shortcomings and failings, and the best way to proceed in the face of those shortcomings is to regulate and reign in.

The framers of the constitution understood that a militia must be well regulated.  They understood that point well enough that it actually made it into our constitution as an amendment.  The reasoning behind it is simple:  We couldn’t just have armed gangs of men running around imposing their will on others, and the founding fathers well understood the dangers of organized groups of men with guns.

Had they been exposed to what capitalism has become (which is markedly different from the method of economic organization that Adam Smith wrote about), and the abuses that today’s mega-corporations are prone to, they would have mad a similar amendment regarding the regulation of organized groups of men with vast economic clout (many of today’s mega corps have balance sheets that rival, and often exceed those of nation-states).  I do not make this statement or supposition lightly.  Our founding fathers were learned men.  Cautious, prudent men, and the economic power wielded by companies today is orders of magnitude greater than any gun ever conceived.  Therefore, it only makes sense to protect ourselves at least as much from the machinations of men who have more wealth and power than most medieval kings as we do from roving bands of men with guns.  There’s really no valid argument that can be made against it, and one would be right to question the motives of any individual who would argue against such controls and regulations (a deeper look into such an individual will almost invariably reveal that they are either a) one of the wealthy and powerful who do not wish to see their power constrained, or b) in the employ of one of the aforementioned wealthy, or subject to the influence of them).