The perfect society ... and ours

      The perfect society could be defined as one in which every person  lives freely, with  their best  possibilites ultimately realized to the full.  It is more usual in human society for the wealthiest to  be free to realize their potential while the remainder  have limited time and freedom.  Many of these still find the right opportunity, and do well in work that brings out their talents and gives them much satisfaction.  But many others lose, or never even know they had,  great possibilties within  them. They are bound to work at others behest, in circumstance far from ideal, often for long hours, at a return that is marginal once the unavoidable costs of being in that situation are met.  And, if we  accept the study data, the mere fact of, and awareness of  the wealth disparity and social gap by the less fortunate,  badly affects their biology and psychology -  let alone their access to health care or (expensive) legal rights.

         But very few seriously expect anything better, believing society has to be the way it is. The writer for example, grew up with a warm acceptance of  the western style capitalist approach.  There seemed enough opportunity if you wanted to work hard.  People didn't worry about an ideal society,  but about what goodies to buy,  what house to prefer, what hobby or scheme should one pursue, what style of work should one aim for, what was the latest popular tune, or what film was on, what was everybody else up to, and who likes who, and why am I misunderstood,-  and a thousand  things that keeps one's mind from  questions of economic justice.   There were people in trouble or poor,  but that of course, was their fault ... wasn't it?
    One accepted  influence and great wealth,  clearly unable to be earned by ordinary useful direct service to others, being  in the hands of  a small group, because one's own life could proceed reasonably easily whatever they did.  It was only later that one realised one had been personally lucky  and had worked through a lucky time in the history of the country ... and that usually  many  are struggling or poverty stricken - even in the  countries with the greatest natural resources.
           Fortunately for the wealthy, the great mass of people in the middle of the range are  kept well enough endowed by the continual build up of knowledge and technological advance (and consequent gradual increase in living standards)  to support the status quo.    Such also  have a possibility of greater wealth if they strive and succeed above their  fellows,  and therefore accept the system and  frown on complainers.  The sentiment is that everyone should just put their shoulder to the wheel and it will all work out.
         But it will  do so largely  for those who are at least average or better in  position on the economic scale.  Much below that, and  people discover the general economic advance has increased the cost of  access to  location and opportunity by as much as they may have gained.  The once bonus of a second income in a family becomes a necessity.  The tendency is, as  in older populous countries, to a sub-class that must  permanently rent homes  and frequently require welfare.
      The real  problem with normal capitalism is that it  nearly  works out well - if it was a clear disaster it would be changed.    It is by far, the most likely path of the future.  The privileged and stratified society,  continuing  indefinitely in one form or other,  probably  with some assistance to the poorest as a matter of conscience.

         There is a string of cliches people believe in which justify all this;-  the need for 'stability',  the need for 'investment',   for  'free enterprise', for 'competition' and the 'free market', for  'efficiency gains', .. how many more versions of these do you want?       While there is  truth behind these cliches,  they leave out the unspoken assumption:-  Free enterprise- as it is ,  where the enterprise is mostly available to the few.      Competition  .. with  the top people and companies, not so much efficient in competition, as able to monopolise  the best opportunities, resources and scarce locations for  such efforts. ..etc , and so on,  and on.
        Faith in the status quo  makes it very difficult to suggest an alternative.   I imagine that  if the main, or middle, group  of people were ever to realise just how much better their lives could be,  then  things might change ... but I just can't see it happening .    You would have to demonstrate conclusively, at a time when people were  emotionally  stirred up and wanting relief and change,  that they could be better off, be rid of  the limits put on individual talent,   have a real chance in their own enterprise,  be rid of the restricting burden of the worst slogging work - (or of  having none at all and becoming an outcast at the bottom of the heap).   You would have to overcome a whole sea of  preconceived notions about the way things must be.   No, I can't see it.

        There have been idealists of many shades wanting to make society more fair.   The general population too,  may go through periods of disquiet when they cannot avoid the realisation that some people are being hit very unfairly -  especially in some time of world  economic hiccup or change.    It can be quite fashionable to be more socially conscious.
           So we get attempts to correct things a little.   But there is a fundamental mistake made - correction is attempted  by interference and control.   The worst example being the communist experiment.  Criticising the results of power and  wealth being in the hands of the few   they decided to throw out that group of people, and substitute committees of the supposedly common people to run the whole system in a centralized way.   Well, I suppose it worked in the sense that they no longer had 'capitalists', and even the lowest  of society were  looked  after  -  but otherwise, what a nightmare of control and inefficiency.   Could one honestly say that the people were free to realize their maximum potential?

      Then there are the milder socialists.  They don't even want to change the real economic system at all.  They tend  to  set up large bureaucracies to administer to the needs of the poor.  With good  intentions they attempt to relieve the wealthy of their wealth to redistribute to those deemed 'worthy' of assistance.  The only problem is they have to ignore as best they can,  that the economic system they need  to rob for the sake of the poor,  will  itself  be handicapped in the process -  so that ultimately the burden tends to fall on those just outside the target areas of assistance.
         They can have an unpleasant tendency as well to  blame the poor for their poverty,  expecting them to be keen to work at jobs which the elite themselves would never consider except in desperation for a short while.     Such socialists  are (perhaps wisely for their tenure in power)  not attacking the cause but trying for a surface patch-up.  Compulsory re-education and work schemes  ...  anything but actually create permanent truly equal economic opportunity in the basic structure of the economy.
         The latest exponents of socialism,   (who would be better described as  guilt-ridden capitalists )  suffer from the delusion that  they can make the economy 'efficient' through what are called 'user pays' and 'market'  principles - and therefore provide more wealth, and more easily employ or aid the poor.    They are wrong.     The supposed efficiencies tend to evapourate in raised costs of opportunity,  and in profit extracted through ownership alone,  while  more  costs are  loaded onto the worst positioned members of society - and therefore the aid required is greater.   ( accept that they contrive not to give it wherever  possible )
        Which does not mean that the socialist is not a good deal better person than this critic!   They are at least trying.   If they are lucky  they will find, as the economy improves due to time and growth of skills and technology, that they are praised as if their ideas had actually done something useful.

         If some government is of the 'right' or ' market driven' approach, the time  improvements will likewise be used to justify  greater ruthlessness.   In this country, ( New Zealand) just such a ruthless experiment in rigourous 'user pays' philosophy has made many people critical of the increased gap between rich and poor,  the loss of community spirit, and the way many companies and individuals ( must)  act with  a conditioned ruthlessness.
       But no one looks outside the system for a real cure, they want some mere adjustment or fine tuning.  They have not realised that the rationalist, user pays approach,  has simply layed bare what has been there all the time.   All the results they do not like when they see them clearly, spring in fact,  directly from the  very concepts  they do approve of.

        The wonder is that despite all that, people do not lose hope.  They struggle and make worthwhile lives, and grow, and act with  humanity and warmth.  In all walks of life you see amazing people, either improving their situation, or making relationships at work and home that overcome the limits thrust upon them.  If there ever were to be a change in the basis of society it would come when that  human spirit grows so that it will tolerate nothing less than the best for everyone.   For a perfect society is not just a matter of technical arrangements, but of the life of the human spirit ... of a whole culture and way of thinking.

            Purely for the interest of anyone who approves of that  spirit, I wish to describe  a way that a perfect society might be formed.   It is just a very simplified version of an idea that has been around a long time,  and been studied in various groups.    It will never be a reality as far as I can see.

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A   FOOLISH    FABLE

        There was once a  very large island.  There was a good climate and abundant growth everywhere.  There were primitive humans living there, each  group or family living  fairly much where they wanted.  With such abundant food and wild resources there was no shortage or restriction.   Each could  go out and forage or hunt where ever  they liked and what they received in return was governed largely by their skill and the amount of effort put in.   If one had  a clever idea about  how to  hunt better he received the benefit.   He then passed  it on to others, and all were better off.

    Then disaster.  The climate changed radically. The land became  nearly useless. People were forced into competition  for access to the best land.  And guess what ? In the general desperation,  the strongest individuals and groups  got to use the best land.   The weaker were forced to the marginal areas.   The return for their efforts was no longer equal.  They merely subsisted  how ever hard they worked.  Cleverness  helped, but less than it would have.

     First principle.   People in  society do not, and can not,  receive equal reward for their effort as long as they  have not equal access to fundamental  resources.

        However there was another more enlightened island,  where a similar thing occurred. As the usable land shrunk they came  together in a great meeting and said  "Let us be civilized about this.  There will be no brute force and casting out  of the weak. We are enlightened and noble savages.  Let us invent money and buy our land. Let us have private property, let us have laws and lawyers, and keep everything in order that there be no strife".    And so they did.     And lo, there was no strife.   With great decorum and nobility the strongest became wealthiest. .... .. and in short order had bought the best resources, and the weakest  were very orderly,  and legally  helpless outcasts on the margins , and etc...

Second principle ...  laws, property rights , civilization and money, don't alter the first principle a great deal!

        Strangely enough, there was a third island.  Here the savages were truly noble. They had followed in the foosteps of the second and were dismayed at what was happening. They had a second meeting and said  " Shock horror! We are going to be socialists  here."   Some wanted to hold all the land in common and have a big committee to tell everyone else when they would work and how.  But this did not go down very well. Not at all.

          So then they thought to make everyone  give a percentage of what they gathered or produced to run the community and help the less well off.  "We will call it income tax" they said.  Outrage and refusal  from the owners..  " We are being penalised out of existence,"  they cried.  "We have sweated and strained to earn this wealth .. it is ours by right."
 "And,"  added  some of the wealthier land owners, seeing  a chance to reinforce their position,  " did we not pay full well for the privilege of this land, surely we deserve a greater reward from our efforts?    How dare you suggest we pay tax!"
And another cried, " It is worse than that.   I worked very hard for my reward, while I've seen  my next door neighbour, just lying about.  Why should I have to pay more tax than him? "
        A peasant from the poorer land gave a bitter laugh. "You think you have worked!" he exclaimed. "On my land I have had to work around the clock all  year  to earn my wealth.  And they want to tax me the same as you. Ha!"
    Then a clever and wealthy land owner remarked. " I have for some time been acting nobly in employing some of you  poorer people  and I will not be able to do so if you insist on this tax.   You will have to grant me an exemption."
        Some of the poorer land owners  looked coldly upon this man, thinking in their  hearts that this amounted to blackmail, and was only possible because of the advantage in ownership that he had.
 The truth was that no one could win in such a situation.   If they used income tax someone had to be wronged.   Growing controversy followed, then conflict, in which the island was decimated.
      The few survivors did quite well though, with all the land they needed.

        Alas, more of a moral here.  Once people get it into their heads and hearts that they have an absolute property right to resources,  they  see any increased productivity as belonging to them also.  And  yet they  quite rightly feel they are being robbed when they work harder only to pay more tax.    And resource ownership they will take as something to be defended to the death - (especially when they live where such absolute right must be purchased ! )

        Anyway, time passed, and the survivors multiplied and thrived as the climate became better again.  (  this saves me having  yet  another island)   Only they were lucky enough to remember how it had gone wrong before.
They concluded  that an individual must receive the full reward of their work.  They still believed that the resources really belonged to everyone,  or there would inevitably be great  disparity and hardship, but  they decided it was wrong to tax higher those who worked harder.  And wrong  to try  and control their lives. A puzzle indeed.

        Well, that left only one solution.  They would make a  law that the land belonged to everyone in principle,  and that all who used it, would pay  tax only on the value of the resource they owned and occupied exclusively.  The person would then be pretty much left to do what ever they wanted - within the limit of not harming others, or future benefits.
           This meant that  if a person worked harder he  kept all the excess as his reward ( for that came from his efforts not the worth of his resource and was thus not subject to tax ) .    If he was slack he had trouble paying the due worth  and had to sell the land  to somone else, or learn to live on a great deal less.    Since there was only so much of the best land and resources, the others  were compelled to live in poorer areas or on smaller sites,  but were  saved by the lower land tax they paid.

     And it was interesting as time went on, how the island developed. First of all, the best land tended to be divided into  smaller areas or shared in partnerships. There came towns and villages and roads and teachers and tradesmen.  And it turned out that the way people could work together more efficiently in close quarters,  made nearly everyone want to go there to share in the benefits.   And the old disparity threatened to arise within the confines of the city.     But wise heads prevailed   ( otherwise I will have to go through a great saga with many islands!)  and the tax was continued in the same way.

       Of course, the companies and individuals  who owned the best locations or  strategic land within these  new and  expensive towns,  received greatest benefit from  the interactions of the inhabitants.  Being in the right place at the right time you could say.
         It was true as well, that just by being there they forced everyone else onto less productive places.    Forced others also to make and use roads - which after all, they  would not have needed to do as much  if  they could have occupied the better,  more central  locations  themselves.    And the same discrepancy of imposed costs of travel and communication was true between the farmers who lived close to the markets on expensive land and those who were  far away on the poorer land.
(And the same was true when for purposes of this story they suddenly invented power lines, and telephone networks, and internet links of dubious quality.)

           So the owners of the best ( or largest)  locations  found themselves once again paying for the infrastructure, at a higher rate than others,  yet were still able to keep all the reward that came to them by their effort above that base amount .   You could say  that the benefit they received from  the commnunity working  together appeared as the market value of where they occupied, and by paying a proportionate amount back to the community,  exact justice and fairness was served.   If the developing areas chanced to move elsewhere, the respective market values shifted and the due  tax became fair on the new basis.
        Of course it was  difficult to find cheap labour.   Everyone was able to be so dammed  independent that  you just about had to make them a partner to help in some large enterprise that needed a lot of people.      However they were fortunate that  they were spared the cost of an army of accountants and tax investigators checking their every deed   ... for they hardly needed accountants and lawyers at all.
        The inhabitants each received the due reward of their efforts in service of others needs,  and were encouraged to great heights of productivity and inventiveness in many  cases.    The presence of so many people working together at their best, instead of  in forced labour of another's choosing, bore fruit many times over in the interplay of ideas and work skills.
        Of course those in trouble and sickness needed aid at public expense, as did many of  the elderly.   There were wealthier and poorer people, but not very much so. There were hard workers and those who were happy with little, or who prefered time to 'stand and stare'.  Creative people were able to blossom as much as could  be hoped,  and  all in all,  everybody  thought to live happily and productively ever after.

            However, there came a brief time of threat when yet another identical island  turned out to exist, which had followed the path of the normal 'privileged' version of  capitalism,  and tried to compete with  our perfect island in production.    Strangely enough,  it turned out that overall this new privileged island was less efficient (except in a few mass manufactured  items where employees were forced to work for next to nothing).
         The 'perfect' island  not only had a better, freer interplay of ideas, it had less overheads to production.   This was  because the costs of making something, or providing a service,  were reduced largely to meeting the return for  effort put in.  ( Of course they had as well, long ago become able to use the credit of the community savings to replace the onerous usuary of loans and 'investment' - which are yet another hidden way the exercise of privilege can be maintained ! )

     They had the tax on their land resource of course,   but on the privileged island  the same amount had to be  paid as well -- except that there it went as rent and opportunity cost, distributed  to people whose only claim was ownership - without contributing any useful production in return.   Also,  large amounts of 'capital' were tied up in  competing for ownership ( or gambling  on the expectation of  same in a ridiculous invention called a 'share market' )
  Then, on top of that, their industry  had  to pay  income tax.
 In short, the privileged island  effectively had two sets of 'taxes'  ( one public and one private)  and could not compete.

So  all in all,  everybody  on the perfect island continued to  live more or less happily and productively ever after.

                    A very foolish fable indeed.

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         Foolish  summary for emphasis ...
Wherever people live together in communities, they tend to concentrate for the advantages it brings in  productive efficiencies and social interaction, and  the space itself (location or land) acquires a rental value for it's use,  which value is dependent on the community working and producing around that space.
 If some company owned much of  the land under a city it would, by such rent, acquire vast wealth for ever  - without, if it so chose,  having to raise a finger to contribute to that community.    If this rent goes to private hands as normal,  then other additional taxes must fall on all the productive efforts in the area.  
(In some countries a small amount is retrieved via income or land tax, but usually not enough to alter the situation.  Worse, where local 'rates' are based on land or capital value its often allowed as a tax exemption. Hence the privilege is enhanced and all others must in  fact pay more income tax. )  

        If instead, the land 'rent' is taken by the community ( whose combined efforts produced it) to pay for the community  infrastructure and future growth, there will be less cost overall to productive efforts of mind and body.

    So it is a matter of who really owns the land, and who created it's value.   In our western tradition, land belongs  to those who can pay for it,- not just to use  exclusively (which is necessary)  but complete with all benefits pertaining - including rental values.
    In practice, apart from obvious speculation in property,  this rental value and it's nature is mostly hidden.    It goes into the hands of the better off as part of the return on successful business or  ' investment' and shares - so that the essentially unproductive nature of 'ownership' is falsely linked in common thought to valuable economic growth.
            It is extraordinary to  look at the patterns of activity in a community and really see the hidden nature of this problem and how it affects the life of everyone.  How so many social problems are based on it.  How every other option under the sun will be tried but the one that matters.   How people face  difficulty, and complain about many different problems, both economically and in ordinary life without once connecting them with the simple unequal availability of resources through location.
             Then if you try to explain the matter there are many  ready objections.  There is a raft of ideas and cliches behind normal  capitalist thinking which seems to make the mind skip about,  avoiding the issue.   Or  perhaps people are like prisoners who have become so accustomed to the walls which restrict their  lives that they  cannot even see them anymore.

        So one has to be careful not to make too much of the matter, or  you can become very disgruntled.  Better to concentrate on the good side;- on the way people work and show goodwill and just get on with their lives despite their situations.

Which leads people of course, to just ignore the matter and approve of  the present system.
Well  I don't.   ( said very quietly! )
 

David  W  Lawrence. July 2000                         Link back to home ( index)  page