Let’s address two corruptions. Corruptions that leave unresolved (effectively putting an end to) myriad worthy social reforms.

We need to start at the beginning, not at all the retrograde outcomes obviously surrounding this moment in history.

So, we have capitalism and communism. Both are coercive political systems working to channel the nation’s net wealth, not equally to all individuals, but to a privileged elite at the top of the tree. That’s the first corruption. Paradoxically, both regimes claim to be working for their citizens and for political freedom.

The capitalist/communist bifurcation works particularly well to hide the underlying corruption of both regimes: the misappropriation of wealth. Some would call it ‘divide and rule’.

There’s another way? Of course. We begin to acknowledge the natural distribution of wealth; between individually earned and publicly generated wealth. As top capitalists and communists devise tax regimes to serve themselves, not their people, it is they who grab much of the publicly generated wealth/surplus product. If sundry others, like bank and fund managers and “mum and dad” speculators in the West also grab a few crumbs for a while, that’s OK, too. That assists to provide the numbers to underpin this financial fraud.

But if this were really true, wouldn’t the political parties deal with it? No; that’s the second corruption. We need to understand that communist parties and so-called democratic parties in the West subscribe to the system delivering the social surplus, sometimes called ‘economic rent’, to their privileged financial supporters.

We might have better political outcomes under a system of ‘sortition‘, which would abolish the corruption of political parties, but that’s a long way off, too.

So, onward we travail, towards the upcoming financial depression, sans sortition and sans VIMMLBUTT.

…. TO AID AND ABET RENT-SEEKERS

How’s your daily living going? Are you managing, or are you feeling the financial heat?

Economics is about the people’s, and the the country’s, daily living, but economists have convinced us that we don’t know enough about how we should manage our affairs: so they’ll do it for us. They even have us apologising for not being an economist:

“I’m not an economist, but I think we could ….”

“No, shaddap! You’re not an economist! We know better than you that the economy is just like a household and the federal government can’t spend more than it has taxes, if it’s not to owe money.”

“But I don’t think that’s correct. Unlike my household, Australia has its own currency, and it can spend it productively without borrowing, and any public deficit generates a surplus within the private sector. There, I’m not an economist, and I may have taught you something!”

“Shaddap! You’re not an economist!”

People are trying hard to manage their daily living, with very limited success. Perhaps there’s a reason? Perhaps economists have it wrong? Perhaps that’s why we’re splitting into antagonist left and right factions?

Perhaps there’s a middle way? Perhaps there’s common ground?

h/t Stephen Hoskins

Maybe Jeff did need to stand on his head to make correct decisions?

Grandkids’ heads