If you have ever spent time trying to work out a suitable birthday present for someone who is relatively wealthy it becomes apparent that most people have most of what they want. In a developed and relatively equal society most of the demands of most of the population are accounted for. They have what they want. For someone who seeks to earn money this is a problem because there is little to supply them with that they do not already have. There are certain things that people regularly buy such as food and to earn money a new entrant would need to be cheaper or more efficient than existing suppliers. But overall it is hard to break into the market because demand is a lump and people avoid spending money if they can.
Even rich people are pretty frugal with their money. Of course there are the exceptions of the 'playboy prince' and the female equivalent but overall rich people don't spend a proportionately greater amount of their wealth than the poor.
Monday 16 June 2014
Tuesday 3 June 2014
There are four ways to make a living
As far as I am aware (and please correct me if I am wrong) there are only four different ways to make a living and survive.
I'll get the easy one out of the way and begin by discussing communism. Communism is the ideology whereby there is no private property and everything is owned by the state. This means that only the state can feed you and only the state is able to be productive in the economic sense. Communism is widely recognised as being unworkable (an unworkable utopia) not least because so many lives have been lost in its implementation. It has a staggering history of failure.
If people think they might be able to make communism work where it has in the past failed then I suggest they should try to do so on their own in a small group and when people see how well it works they will copy the techniques themselves. There is no reason to involve the state in any future experiments in communism.
Having discussed communism it seems only natural to turn to what is considered by many to be its axiomatic opposite: capitalism. Again, most people are familiar with capitalism and how it works (most of us have devoted some of our thinking lives to working out how to get 'rich'). Capitalism has its problems... we know that some people who have very few in-demand skills will find it hard to prosper on their own in a capitalist system. We also know that as technology increases it will become increasingly difficult for typical people to sell their labour because labour costs will have been driven down.
I want to mention here that we might consider there to be two different types of capitalism, namely 'safe' capitalism and 'risky' capitalism. By safe capitalism I mean the safe job where you turn up for work and each working day is much like the last. Whilst you may have skills the skills are not too advanced. So this would be the proverbial burger-flipping or shelf-stacking. (Interesting to note as an aside that both of these types of labour, burger-flipping and shelf-stacking, are becoming increasingly complex and skilled work.)
More complicated and skilled work would be the kind for which the participant would generally become famous to a greater or lesser degree as a result of their activity. So this would be cultural stars such as singers or actors. Sports stars. Entrepreneurs and people who have been able to make a lot of money on the stock market. This type of capitalism is risky and might not earn anything for long periods prior to their success but when they eventually do make it big they will do very well.
In our capitalist careers we will generally need to consider both types of work, both the risky and the not-so-risky.
The third means by which we might be able to make a living is to have our own land which we use to grow crops and raise livestock. If we have our own land and a farm then it is possible (at least theoretically) to live in a self-sufficient way without having to buy produce from outside. We might barter some of our goods with a neighbour but we don't need money in the same way that most people need money. This would be a very drastic change in lifestyle for most people and at this point in history is almost an academic concept only. But as time goes forward and farming technology gets better this might become increasingly viable for large numbers of people.
Finally it might be possible for the government to introduce a scheme similar to the Universal Basic Income which has been suggested by some theorists. This would be a stipulated quantity of money given to everyone (every adult) regardless of their circumstances. Clearly if we have a fiat currency which the government can print this UBI would be much easier to implement because even if the government is unable to raise sufficient taxes the sum could still be paid.
The immediate thought would be that if everyone can live without working then there would be no one to provide the goods and services. This would be an interesting test of the claim made by some market-evangelists that they are not motivated at work by money alone. I suspect that many people do enjoy their free-market work irrespective of the profit element so perhaps people even with enough money to survive indefinitely would still go out and earn a living. Of course the UBI would not pay for luxuries so there would always be the incentive to earn that little bit extra which suggests this system might be possible.
In the face of increasing technology which is replacing workers it seems almost cruel on the part of the government not to consider some kind of universal income.
I'll get the easy one out of the way and begin by discussing communism. Communism is the ideology whereby there is no private property and everything is owned by the state. This means that only the state can feed you and only the state is able to be productive in the economic sense. Communism is widely recognised as being unworkable (an unworkable utopia) not least because so many lives have been lost in its implementation. It has a staggering history of failure.
If people think they might be able to make communism work where it has in the past failed then I suggest they should try to do so on their own in a small group and when people see how well it works they will copy the techniques themselves. There is no reason to involve the state in any future experiments in communism.
Having discussed communism it seems only natural to turn to what is considered by many to be its axiomatic opposite: capitalism. Again, most people are familiar with capitalism and how it works (most of us have devoted some of our thinking lives to working out how to get 'rich'). Capitalism has its problems... we know that some people who have very few in-demand skills will find it hard to prosper on their own in a capitalist system. We also know that as technology increases it will become increasingly difficult for typical people to sell their labour because labour costs will have been driven down.
I want to mention here that we might consider there to be two different types of capitalism, namely 'safe' capitalism and 'risky' capitalism. By safe capitalism I mean the safe job where you turn up for work and each working day is much like the last. Whilst you may have skills the skills are not too advanced. So this would be the proverbial burger-flipping or shelf-stacking. (Interesting to note as an aside that both of these types of labour, burger-flipping and shelf-stacking, are becoming increasingly complex and skilled work.)
More complicated and skilled work would be the kind for which the participant would generally become famous to a greater or lesser degree as a result of their activity. So this would be cultural stars such as singers or actors. Sports stars. Entrepreneurs and people who have been able to make a lot of money on the stock market. This type of capitalism is risky and might not earn anything for long periods prior to their success but when they eventually do make it big they will do very well.
In our capitalist careers we will generally need to consider both types of work, both the risky and the not-so-risky.
The third means by which we might be able to make a living is to have our own land which we use to grow crops and raise livestock. If we have our own land and a farm then it is possible (at least theoretically) to live in a self-sufficient way without having to buy produce from outside. We might barter some of our goods with a neighbour but we don't need money in the same way that most people need money. This would be a very drastic change in lifestyle for most people and at this point in history is almost an academic concept only. But as time goes forward and farming technology gets better this might become increasingly viable for large numbers of people.
Finally it might be possible for the government to introduce a scheme similar to the Universal Basic Income which has been suggested by some theorists. This would be a stipulated quantity of money given to everyone (every adult) regardless of their circumstances. Clearly if we have a fiat currency which the government can print this UBI would be much easier to implement because even if the government is unable to raise sufficient taxes the sum could still be paid.
The immediate thought would be that if everyone can live without working then there would be no one to provide the goods and services. This would be an interesting test of the claim made by some market-evangelists that they are not motivated at work by money alone. I suspect that many people do enjoy their free-market work irrespective of the profit element so perhaps people even with enough money to survive indefinitely would still go out and earn a living. Of course the UBI would not pay for luxuries so there would always be the incentive to earn that little bit extra which suggests this system might be possible.
In the face of increasing technology which is replacing workers it seems almost cruel on the part of the government not to consider some kind of universal income.
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