Yet somehow, every time I sit down to write, I can’t come up with anything that’s not half-baked, worthless, or irrelevant. For a time, I thought my problem was lack of knowledge. Perhaps by observing more, by reading more, by increasing my understanding of how the world work, I could begin to really understand the economy.

But I’m not getting it. Things don’t make any more sense now than then. And the more varied economic points of view I read, the more confused I become. Here’s an incomplete list, plus the attendant problems:

Socialists – More government – of the right sort!

So… how do we control it?

Communalists/Ecofeminists – Local Government, and don’t call it that!

Bigger groups always absorb smaller ones.

Neo-Anarchists/Socialists – The government is an evil conspiracy!

And you’re suggesting… what? Anarchy? Really?

Mainstream Liberals – Tax and Spend!

Where’s it coming from? Also, see the next one…

Mainstream Feminists (I’m only talking about economic policy here) – Tax and Spend on the right things!

Who determines that? And how to remove the capitalists without destabilizing everything?

Neo-Conservatives – Spend w/out taxing!

How on earth is that even possible?

Real Conservatives – Status Quo…!

Yes, these people still exist.

Libertarians – Smaller Government! (I still call myself this, by the way.)

What are we going to replace the government with? Private enterprise? My left ear…

All of these groups do have some good ideas. They are all right about some things, even if some are more delusional than others. But none of them really have the answer – not in a way that can be proven, or even truly understood.

But I think I’ve finally decided on the problem (partly inspired by this post): It’s pretty obvious. The world is a powercracy. You can gain an advantage with any of the following:

Capital (In some places)
Intelligence (of the right sort)
Class/Race/Gender/other privilege factors
Physical/Athletic Ability

On the whole, the people who have these things insist on exploiting those who don’t. And no amount of government regulation, philanthropy, or education of the oppressed can change that.

Because the trouble with capitalism is the capitalists.

The trouble with socialism and commualism is the demagogues. (Not lazy people, as some like to say!)

The trouble with anarchy is violence.

And so on. Even if you could somehow remove the capital, the privilege will remain. If some miracle could remove that, the economic intelligence and physical differences remain. Unless you clone all identical people, you can’t get rid of it! (You can’t really regulate it out, either – so long as most people are trying to oppress, regulation just gives those in the government more power, most of whom are also potential oppressors, and so it continues) Some people are simply better at taking advantage than others. That’s the root cause of power, and unless those people decide to stop using their advantage, the world will continue as it is. Unfair, favoring the few.

Here’s what it boils down to: If you’re consuming more than you’re producing, if you’re exploiting more than you’re exploited, you are part of the problem. Not part of the solution. ‘Economics’ doesn’t matter. All that counts is individual influence.

Thus, worrying about ‘money’ is completely pointless.

From an economic point of view, all we need now is a way to correctly measure one’s influence. (And a way to convince the exploiters to stop – but that’s a different subject)

For last week, most of the economic talk has been about either the pending auto industry bailout, or Obama’s purposed new stimulus plan. (And the fact that we are now ‘officially’ in a recession, but that’s not a policy question.) Everybody has their own opinion on these two plans. Most of the liberals say that the auto industry bailout is just the same thing that was done for the financial industry, except that the auto industry counts as ‘main street’, so now, it’s okay. The stimulus plan is supposed to have the same effect as the tax refund – increase spending, and get the economy ‘moving’. The difference? It’s supposed to be better, because the states will have more control of the money. The conservative answer to all of this? “Where’s the money going to come from.”

They’re all wrong.

Yes, I realize I simplified in the above paragraph. But here are the problems with the above plans:

The auto bailout: Cars are wasteful and horrible. The use immense amounts of resources to manufacture. They pollute the environment. They use huge amounts of energy. An electric car, which is at least not polluting directly (there is, of course, coal and nuclear pollution!) likely uses more energy than a gasoline car! Americans buy cars far more often than we need too – leading to even more waste. And cars kill a tremendous number of people during operation! We don’t need more cars. That money would be much better spent in finding way to help people avoid needing cars, not to prop up a mismanaged industry. Find some other way to help the auto employees.

Of course, we needed the wall street bailout even less than we needed this one, but two wrongs don’t make a right.

Economic Bailout. We don’t need to spend more! Spending is what got us into this mess to begin with. Americans consume more per capita than any other country, and that is:

1. Unfair and exploitive, and

2. Impossible to sustain without resorting to force, to keep the other countries giving us stuff for free.

What we need is to consume less, and keep the percentage of the population who consumes a disproportionate amount of value from doing so. More spending is not the answer!

I wish that, instead of the Democratic and Republican parties being the two major parties, that the Libertarian and Green parties were the major parties. I think that they would balance each other out nicely.

Here’s what the Libertarian Party has right:

1. Small government. The smaller, the better.
2. Economic theory. supply and demand really does work out. Debt is a bad thing.
3. Military isolation. We have absolutely no business playing world policeman.

And the Green Party?

1. Social policy. The government exist the serve the people – and especially those who are being exploited.
2. Economic practice. Those with power (capital), abuse that power, and all the free markets in the universe can’t stop that.
3. General foreign policy. Fair trade. The idea that the world does not revolve around the US.

I think it would be a great improvement if the power were to shift to those two parties, rather than the present state.