It's not the economy, Stupid; it's economics

Econology Part 1a: It's not the economy, Stupid; it's economics

Why have wages been stagnant for decades? Why is income inequality so high? Why is the wealth gap so enormous? Why have all the economic gains of the last ‘recovery’ essentially all gone to the top 1%? How did eighty people end controlling half of the world’s wealth? Why is the economy not working for workers? Why is it that persons of influence fail to speak of the major failings of our economy much less fix them?

Modern economies are designed by economists/politicians/policy makers who had been trained into a particular mindset by the prevailing economic orthodoxy… the problem with the economy is not the economy, it’s economics.

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An economy is ‘the wealth and resources of a country or region, esp. in terms of the production and consumption of goods and services; a particular system or stage of an economy: a free-market economy | the less-developed economies.’ Economics is the social science which studies the formation and operations of economies. Wikipedia calls economics ‘the social science that studies economic activity to gain an understanding of the processes that govern the production, distribution and consumption of goods and services in an economy.’ Neither definition conveys the role of the economy and economics in our everyday lives…

So let’s try something else - let’s try a thought exercise: imagine back to the time of hunter-gatherers. In those days, economic activity consisted of trading or exchanging goods that were not immediately needed by the seller but needed by the buyer, extra game for a handful of berries, a spare animal hide for excess firewood. Similar exchanges in today’s economies involve many additional intermediate players (producer, supplier, distributor, seller…) and economic advances (specialization, debt, currency, employment, corporations…). But for all the complexity of modern exchanges, the function and purpose of trade remains unchanged: exchange of surplus production to promote the mutual survival and well-being of all participants.

And this establishes two critical concepts of economics. First is the functional element; if economies exist to support survival and well-being of its participants, then economics becomes the study of economies to benefit its participants. [The implications of this alone are far ranging and completely rearranges the priorities of any economy. Offensive weaponry becomes economically dubious; environmental sustainability/protection is a must - human well-being  depends on the environment; and then there is health care and pharmaceuticals...]

The second relates to scope: economics has precedence over all human achievement meaning that economically determined distribution of surplus production is what enables human achievement (art, science, culture, technology…). Surplus food freed the inventors of the wheel from hunting and gathering to make prototype wheels. Farmers who produce more than they consumed freed artists and thinkers from farm labor to make art and innovate. Social and cultural institutions (religion, state, arts, recreation, etc.) are all products of surplus production (contrary to Margaret Thatcher’s ‘There is no such thing as society: there are individual men and women, and there are families.’).

The role of economics in public policy is second to none. Economic policy arguably has a greater impact on the daily lives of every person on the planet than all the cutting edge research in all the sciences combined. This being the case, the highest and most rigorous standard of theoretic and applied economics should be used to determine policies which effects the lives of everyone within its sphere. But contrary to its classification as a ‘social science’, economics fails to provide valid ‘social’ and ‘science’ policy advice.

Economist have long disregarded the ‘social’ aspect of their field and often neglect to connect their work to the common good. On the ‘science’ side, researchers have yet to determine the First Principles of Economics. Contrast Economics to the natural sciences with their established foundational principles: Physics has the General theory of Relativity, Quantum theory, String Theory and the Theory of Everything. Chemistry has the Atomic Theory. Medicine has the Germ Theory of [infectious] Disease and biology has the Theory of Evolution. Though some economists may claim there are no guiding principles in economics, two common features of economies argue against that. That (1) economies cannot be destroyed (the collapse of nations and empires -modern examples are Somalia and the British Empire- do not eliminate commerce or trade) and (2) economies cannot be repressed (even in the most straightened of circumstances where capital and goods are in short supply; infrastructure is nonexistent and social structure best described as absent -such as refugee camps- trade commences and economies develop) suggests that geopolitically determined economic systems are not essential for functional commerce or the growth of economies. If anything, they support the idea that economies are self-organizing, self-sustaining entities directed by rules which have yet to be determined.

Considering that all surplus production (meaning all production not immediately consumed by producers for their immediate survival) falls into the realm of Economics, the two branches of economics, macro and micro are inadequate. It’s equivalent to the economy as an ecosystem and the only research tools available were narrow vision telescopes. Scientists could only see individual interactions out of context with their environment. Those who study social insects (bees, ants and termites) would report on the wonders and advantages of a communal economy (Marxian macro economists) and researchers who study predators would advocate that owners of capital should reap all surplus production (capitalist macro economists). Meanwhile, micro economists are busy dissecting and cataloguing all the parts of an insect colony or particular predator or prey species (one queen, many workers…; two wings, two feet, one heart…), thinking because the whole is an aggregate of parts, the parts explain the whole.

This type of reductionist tunnel vision economics has justified decades and sometimes centuries long national attempts to institute capitalist or communist economic systems. By the criteria of economies - self-organizing and self-sustaining entities to promote well-being of workers - both capitalism and communism are spectacular failures. The need for government intervention to recover from the Great Depression and Great Recession proves capitalism is neither self-organizing nor self-sustaining and the dearth of living wage jobs bodes ill for worker well-being. The failure of communism to provide for the well-being of workers lead to the collapse of the Eastern Bloc nations including the Soviet Union. It has lead China to adopt numerous capitalistic practices; Cuba to ration food; and resulted in North Korean famines severe enough to affect the stature of their population. In both communist and capitalist economies, the route to economic decline follow a similar pattern: concentration of the power to mold the economy. This was by designed in communist nations through their central planning committees. The process was a little more subtle and protracted in western democracies where capitalists secured their hooks on the major political parties by carefully cultivating their dependence on private campaign funds. Regardless of the means, in both economic systems, capital and power eventually fell into the control of a small select group of brokers to the detriment of everyone else.

When economies no longer meet the needs of workers and stopgap rejiggering has proven ineffective, reform is essential. The global economy is under threat from a multitude of ecological catastrophes, man made industrial accidents and all levels of human misery and unrest. To properly institute a self-organizing and self-sustaining economy capable of resolving these issues requires a far greater understanding of economic principles than is currently available. Economists need to develop an interdisciplinary holistic systems science approach with the aim of evolving stable economies which synchronize production and environmental/ecological productivity with the needs and desires of workers, in other words, circular economies.

The risk of ignoring the systemic problems of modern economies is extraordinarily high. Modern day work is not merely a metaphor for hunting-gathering, it is modern day hunting-gathering. When the economy does not provide sufficient opportunity for workers to support themselves, they risk economic disengagement leading to declining economic output, political apathy and political unrest. In the long term, current economic policies puts the planet on course to massive wildlife extinction and ecological disaster.

Econology Part 1b: The depth and breadth of economies
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I have/had a number of qualms about writing/posting this screed as I am obviously not an economist  nor do I have the background to offer a proper critique of economics (unlike some who are more qualified). But I haven’t seen the patterns and connections described here written about or discussed in the outlets I follow. And just as a doctor would not treat systemic infections by bloodletting, public policy should not institute an austerity program in the face of an economic downturn in the absence of true knowledge and understanding. We, the people of the economy, have the right to demand an economy that works for us, not an economy that barely permits us to work…