For
some Americans political economic philosophical development stopped
with Adam Smith while others regard it as a naturally evolving system
requiring no control save that of an invisible hand. It goes without
saying that replacing human reason for political and economic design
with natural evolution theory is unreasonable. Neither might
scientists discover a political-economic philosophy in nature
suitable for human beings capable of replacing human reason as if the
populous were trees that might be planted in nice neat rows in a
forest.
Adam
Smith’s treatise on what became known as capitalism; The Wealth of
nations, is nearly 225 years old capitalism requires reform to halt
its evolution into the oppressive elitist state equivalent to the
British royal monopolistic government that Smith that a theory of
liberal capitalism was antipathetic too. The concentration of wealth
and corporate political power have developed sharply following the
end of the Cold War in December 1989.
One
might look to the Reagan era both for its brilliancy in working to
end the nuclear arms race and Cold War simultaneously with a
disposable political-economic philosophy product known as supply-side
economics. That temporal philosophy allowed deficit spending to
develop military and corporate sectors simultaneously, yet added vast
public debt and cuts to public social service spending. That
satisfied Ayn Rand enthusiasts that developed as an
anti-communist/socialist pro-business guide for people enjoying a
profit and ever desirous of lower taxes. A generation have followed
the irrational Reagan policies that worked with a divine poetic
aesthetic for ending the Cold War that should never have been
transformed into a permanent federal policy. Political philosophical
economic ideas seem to have died at that time as well. It is a
dysfunctional paradigm.
Theorists
about capital and monopoly such as Von Mises believed that capitalism
would evolve to just a couple of corporations owning most everything
in quasi-monopoly. Plainly that isn’t good. The strength of
capitalism and democracy are in pluralism rather than in monolithic
concentrated political and economic power.
The
tax rate before the Reagan administration was more or less fair and
had existed since WW II creating generations of steady economic
growth. It is true that self-employed individuals with fewer than
five employees should pay no more than 20% income tax, however vast
tax cuts for the rich unbalancing a vast realm of competition and
public democratic self-determination balances have turned capitalism
too far toward an elite class of networked economic plutocrats
equivalent to the royal monopolists against which Adam Smith’s
revolutionary political manifesto revolted.
Foreign
aid and ecospheric conservation and restoration policy are also
contingent upon the state of the U.S. economy so far as the U.S.
contribution goes. The United States will not, within corporatist
guide criteria, pursue or fulfill foreign development of ecospheric
restoration policies that are counter to prevailing U.S. domestic
economic practices. If the United States fails to develop and lead
the world with entirely green, sustainable ecospheric and business
policies within a democratic criterion it will not provide such
policies to poorer nations abroad. International agreements that arty
to force from the top down particular national economic practices for
the United States are unAmerican and onerous so far as to be received
and used poorly for interference with existing national economic
methods.
The
U.S. government is too happy to give foreign military aid or loans
for purchases of U.S. military manufactures because it supports the
U.S. military manufacturing sector. If the U.S. economic sector
produced a super-abundance of sustainable, low cost affordable energy
production, storage and lighting products it would be too happy to
provide those to poor foreign nations too (if U.S. infrastructure
content also had high-efficiency, low-entropy characteristics).
During
the Cold War era U.S. solders served in a defensive role to defend
Europe and the reset of the world from communist aggression. They
were more toward the defensive dove side rather than hawks. It is
ironic that the most hawkish act followed the end of the Cold War
when the Democratic Clinton administration finessed away from the
baby weak former Soviet Union the integral, historic Russian candy of
the Crimea and Ukraine. That act provoked long range schism with
returning Russia to post
The
Democratic Party have supported a mutts-without-borders immigration
policy that provides cheap labor for a hosting nation while letting
the top decile concentrate wealth and corporate power. So long as the
rich receive tax cuts and women are promoted in a corporatist
government new world order they rest content with masses of
relocating poor and foreign disorder. Mexico is a great nation
physically and easily could be upgraded with new technology to a
status that requires no foreign economic volkerwanderung for better
wages.
Capitalism
can be reformed by passing laws that prevent the over-accumulation of
wealth by a tiny minority of Americans. Presently fewer than 10 % of
the people receive more than half of the national economic income
just as they did in 1929 before the stock market crash. Further tax
cuts would send the national income far beyond the tipping point that
is actually at 35%. Taxation that keeps the top 10% from controlling
more than 35% of U.S. income was the way it was until the Reagan
administration (following WWII reforms) when thereafter federal
budgeters lost their minds.
Reforming
national tax policy today requires more than setting the tax rate on
the top ten percent to 75%. It requires reducing the period for
exclusive patents to five years. After five years anyone could
manufacture a patented product paying ten per cent of profit to the
inventor as a royalty.
The
nation also needs to assure that everyone of all income levels can
afford a patent and not need to be rich to defend one. There should
be a national minimum income of one-quarter the average wage
available to any unemployed American. Public higher education should
be free to all citizens. People should be free to be the best they
can be and to pursue higher and abstract goals with the concerns of
venality socially such as assault the poor and broke. It would have a
salutary effect of reducing crime, gangsterism and poor health as
well as the futility of lost time in pursuit of dead end goals.
National
health care can be accomplished for low cost through expansion of
existing poor people's clinics and VA Hospitals to provide free
walk-in health care for the nation’s poor. Working Americans
earning too much for walk-in coverage could take out very low
interest health care loans from the federal government for blue moon
medical emergencies that would be repayable on favorable terms even
after and emergency procedure. It makes little sense for the U.S.
Government to subsidize millions of Obamacare policies in effect
paying for nothing that is used instead of something material and
real. If one out of five Americans needed food subsidies from the
U.S. Government, why should the government pay an insurance company
for food insurance for all Americans at a higher cost than direct
providing of food to those that actually need it?
Obamacare
has a kind of mad cow disease economic effect creating space-holes in
federal economics that are ill affordable considering the U.S. public
debt is about 20 trillion dollars in 2017. Quite likely medical
insurance costs for everyone that shouldn’t need government
financial or direct medical support could be reduced by reducing
patent exclusivity to five years-non-renewable, with 10% royalties
from everyone producing a formerly exclusively patent protected
product thereafter. Generic drugs and widely produced medical
instrumental technological items would drop in price.
Capitalism
can be reformed into a more modern form that creates more opportunity
for more people while being more ecospherically adaptive, responsible
and simultaneously competitive in a positive sense of stimulating
invention and rewarding intelligence for creative and efficient
design.
Capital
reform could limit the number of corporations individual could own
shares in to prevent networking corporations with ad hoc monopoly
through boardrooms that prevent and control competition. No
individual should own shares of more than three corporations.
Progressive
taxation on the most rich would stop development of plutocracy and
redirect funds into infrastructure, debt repayment and ecospheric
restoration.
It
would be a good idea to limit the size of any corporation to 100,000
employees again to prevent monopolistic developments and to stimulate
intelligence, competition and creative design. Federal policies
should create tax advantages and incentives for low entropy added
manufacturing procedures that are ecospherically synergistic and
restorative.
