THINK AND ACT LOCALLY

My friend Ioannes posted an article at his website this morning entitled "Too Big to Fail". It's a reprint of an article posted by Dr. Jerry Pournelle at Chaos Manner. I replied at Ioannes' website with a rather lengthy bit of rambling that I'm reposting here. Since I went to all the trouble of writing it I figure I might as well use it.

I'm sorry for getting all geeky here but I've been thinking about this subject quite a bit. I believe that the only way out of the economic mess the world finds itself in today is to restore the "Mom and Pop" economy that has served us so well over the last 400 years or so. Mega businesses serve the ends of their owners, society be damned. These "too big to fails" really are and that cannot be allowed to stand. Not that they can't fail or that they shouldn't but because of their size their failure will take the rest of the economy down with them. They have become too efficient and too powerful.

A healthy economy requires competition and only small business can supply it. We need some regulation, but not the kind being considered in Congress today. It will be influenced by the "too big to fails" and will be designed to concentrate even more power in their hands. We need "just enough" regulation to break the stranglehold these mega companies have on the economy. A little "trust busting", if you will.

Since we can't rely on our compromised government we must take matters into our own hands. We have to start shopping and spending money locally, supporting the small businesses in our communities, even if the cost is slightly higher. That money stays in the community, creating wealth for all, not just for some far removed corporate giant. The local business owner has a stake in the community. He'll make decisions with the community in mind because a healthy community helps him. To a small business owner, his company means more than just profit at the expense of all else. His company is part of him and a reflection of his character. He cares what people think of him and his business so he'll generally do what's right.

The times are changing; they're returning back to a simpler way of life. Our future is in our communities, not in the world economy. To preserve our freedom and our way of life we must begin to think and act locally.

Thomas Jefferson would be so proud.

What we need is just "enough" regulation.

Pournelle is right. Let's take Walmart as an example. The efficiency that Walmart brings to the table is a good thing for the economy as a whole. It forces other less efficient businesses to become more efficient to survive, benefiting everyone. However, if Walmart is so efficient that at some point it dominates the marketplace, destroying all it's competition then the free market ceases to exist and Walmart can call the tune.

I relate this to human free will. While we have free will we do not have the freedom to do evil. To say that we do is to distort the whole concept of good and bad, right and wrong. We would deny the existence of evil and begin to believe, along with our friend Machiavelli, and the Marxists in our government, that the ends justify the means.

Most proponents of the free market do just that. Profit is the goal and any means of achieving it is deemed fair. "It's not personal, just business." Winning has become the highest sacrament in their religion of competition, relegating sportsmanship to the dustbin.

In this respect competition has to be treated as a right (I know, it's easy to bandy that word around) with fair play its corresponding responsibility. When rights are divorced from responsibility they become burdens on someone. They no longer work to benefit the individual and the whole but instead become of benefit to the individual alone. And strangely, or maybe not, the one benefiting from the right then will try to deny that same right to others. This is because it has ceased to be a right, which is a spiritual gift with no limit on it's availability and has become a privilege, which like any other commodity can be controlled by the people in power.

This is why the market needs just "enough" regulation. Efficiency is good; hyper efficiency will destroy it.

You're the engineer so correct me where I'm wrong because I'm doing this from memory. The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that all processes start with as much power as they will have and then begin to deteriorate. Without the addition of some source of power they will eventually cease to exist. Further, if my memory serves me, there is an addendum to this law that states that all systems will find the most efficient way to exhaust their power.

This applies to the free market. When one company become so efficient that it destroys all competition then it will lead to a rapid end of the free market. On the other hand, if additional energy is added to the system through the creation of new business that sparks healthy competition; it becomes less efficient but that very inefficiency works to prolong the life of the system as a whole.

What big companies and most proponents of free market capitalism just don't understand (or just don't care about) is that their application of efficiency and winner take all capitalism is destroying the very free market they claim to believe in.

The small business represents the energy needed to sustain the system. Without it, the mega companies will not survive because the market will not survive.

So the amount of regulation the market needs is just enough to insure that no one company can dominate; that new competition has room to start and expand. Without water the garden will die. Without real competition of the sort that welcomes others to take risk, the free market will die, too.

AMERICA USED TO BE IN COLOR

"The Missouri Senate has given first-round approval to a wide-ranging bill affecting county and local governments.

The measure includes numerous provisions on issues that have arisen only in some parts of Missouri. One section, proposed by a senator from Columbia, would allow surrounding Boone County to establish a curfew for people younger than 17. Another section would let counties build jails outside the county seat.

The bill also gives some communities permission to levy or increase taxes on hotel and motel guests.

Senators endorsed the bill Wednesday after considering roughly two dozen amendments. Final approval in the Senate would move the measure to the House."

KOAM TV

This is almost a man bites dog story. In an age when government, in particular Washington, seems intent on moving power away from the people it warms my heart to see Missouri doing just the opposite. The closer government is to the people the more likely it is that it will govern well. It's actually surprising that the issues mentioned above couldn't be addressed at the local level without having to change a state law. None of these issues should have ever risen beyond a city or county level. (I would guess that these laws are vestiges of the War Between the States when the Federal Government invaded my state and needed to control local resistance. Boone County was right in the middle of this.)

This allows for competition between cities and counties. Let the people decide what amount of government they want in their lives. If local laws become too onerous people will leave for other less restrictive places. But, if the amount of government is "just right" people will flock to a city or county for the perceived benefits.

This is the way our country was designed to function. That's why the states are sovereign political entities. Competition between states and even between the counties within them create growth and innovation. The homogenized, one size fits all behemoth that Washington has been working to create since the wrong side lost in 1865 has had just the opposite effect.

When I was a kid Route 66 was the road we took when we went somewhere. It was the closest thing to a sideshow at the carnival you could find on four wheels. Every town and county was different. Quirky is the only way to describe it. Weird billboards, bizarre buildings, dancing chickens and people that were real characters were the mainstay. Every time we went somewhere I knew adventure lurked around each twist in the road. The entire highway, which was really nothing more than a ribbon of two lane county highways stitched together to form a path across the country, was a testimony to free market entrepreneurism. That's because the businesses along the way didn't have the whole panoply of alphabet soup agencies from a foreign government approving their every decision. To the extent there was any control at all it came from the town or county these businesses resided in; and it was in the best interest of these local governments to see that these businesses flourished.

Traveling by car lets you get a feel for the places you move through in a way that nothing else can. When I was a kid we traveled through a country of individuals working to achieve a dream. Now, when I travel, I drive down an interstate, efficient to be sure, but bland and gray. Each exit has the full complement of McDonalds and Cracker Barrels, one no different than the next. I'm not traveling through Missouri, Phelps County or Rolla anymore; just America, a one size fits all, everything boiled down to the lowest possible denominator kind of place. All is done in the name of corporate efficiency; every hamburger shaped the exact same way for shipping convenience and prepared in a factory environment by slack jawed automatons so that the taste and texture never varies. And not a dancing chicken to be found.

We've lost our soul here in the USA; and our will to live. As we changed from a Republic to an oligarchy the color drained from our faces as we took on the sorry countenance of sheep being led to the slaughter. We have been convinced that hope lies in a good job at a gray corporation and that the reward is a bigger TV and new car. We no longer believe that hope lies in God and our reward here on earth is freedom. No, we've happily traded our real reward for security; we've trade the carnival ride exuberance of risk for the placid congeniality of safety.

But this is a lie. When we rely on others for our safety we can never be safe. Life is not a safe undertaking and no one can make it so. Americans used to embrace the danger; and the adventure. And I used to see that passion along Route 66, when I was a kid and TV's were black and white but America still had color.