Negative Reciprocity

I was walking past the world trade center the other day. It's monolithic black and chrome lettering and fountains and beauty in the middle of Denver.

It occurred to me how baffling it is that people don't realize that negative reciprocity not only exists, but is soundly understood by, well, anyone who wished to study it.

Economics can be described by several different systems. Some of them are called "reciprocal" and some of them are not. While it is nice to think, "anytime people trade, both get richer and the world gets richer therefore!" that is awfully unrealistic.

The simple concept of profit is, really, the opposite of that. We cannot have a concept such as Profit and not realize that someone is not becoming richer. Someone is getting a lot more rich than someone else. Our economic system is, by definition, a Negative Reciprocity system. By design, there are winners and losers. There are those who profit and those who are taken advantage of. It is designed so that everyone tries to get the most possible profit from every transaction as possible. Not for their own well being, not so that they can stay alive, make other trades, and keep the system going. But so that they can get more than their trading buddy.

That is profit. That is negative reciprocity. That is the system we have.

And that does, actually, mean that people get screwed. Sorry.

Adam Smith's model trade where both profit is defined as a "Reciprocal" economic system. Which is usually exemplified by bartering. Usually. In this system, both trade for what they need, both benefit. No one comes out with "more" than the other person, per se.

We Are The 47% (And so are You)

I was a little tired this morning; almost slept in so long that I didn't have work... but I got up, hurriedly ate breakfast, and got out the door. But between stepping out of my bed and stepping out of my home, I read the big graphic on the front of the newspaper:

"I know some believe government should take from some to give to the others. ...I think that's an entirely foreign concept." read the quote in the Denver Post. Attributed to that famously wealthy tax-exempt presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

I couldn't help but smile and laugh. That's my reaction to a lot of life. I shook my head, of course it is a foreign concept!

Robin Hood was not an American. Prince John was not the phony king of Boston. Yet both of these archetypes took money from one type of person to give it (or "redistribute" it) to some other type of person. Robin Hood (strictly speaking not "government") took from the fabulously over-wealthy and gave it to the suffering poor. Prince John created the suffering poor by hoarding all the wealth in the nation...

I cannot help but be struck by the modern parallel. Robin Hood is a good parable for our modern world. And perhaps France would not have had their bloodshed in the 1790s if they had paid more attention to the Robin Hood myth.... Or maybe that's just my own fanciful thinking.

It may be a foreign concept, but 'wealth redistribution' (as loaded and veritably anti-understood as the term is) has as much application in America as it has everywhere. It has application everywhere. Every when, even. With exception to tiny, family-size societies--where everyone knows everyone else more intimately than most people know their children--there has been a government which manages things such as "wealth"

That is what a government is For!

When I read stories in the newspaper and listen to the antics of our people ("I love our country!" cries the patriot "It's the government I can't stand!" ...?), I wonder.  "What the hell do people thing Government Is?"

What is it? Is government just some strange sports game we play every two years or so like the Olympics? Is it a nuisance? Should we have one at all...? Perhaps not, if we can't even remember what it is there for.

Anyone?

The answer I always thought is that government is there to manage. It is there to keep people acting as a family even though we do not know each other. Even though we don't have any closer relation to each other than we fit within the imaginary boarders of our country. It is for banding us together to face common obstacles, to give our common point, to help us utilize the power of our own being in the face of a global population exceeding 7 billion now.

Next challenge question: Is there a Government in the History of the World that hasn't done some redistributing? I challenge anyone to find one. Wealth Redistribution is NOT about stealing from the wealthy, it is about responsibility. No one lives and works in a vacuum. No one is alone. No one is entirely self-made.

No one.

We need each other no matter how much anyone seems to think they are better off alone. The sad thing is that so many of the people you depend on in your life are very far away and most of them you will never meet. But they have helped make a world you and I can survive in. We are not alone. Give thanks and be a little humble. And all those comments that float around about businessmen not building alone are only mean that. The United States of America isn't old enough to have come up with redistribution, so, yes, technically it is a "foreign concept." One could argue that it is an alien concept.... for what religion on earth doesn't charge people with giving and sharing. All those wonderful lessons from Kindergarten.

And once again, we must remember The L Curve.

....I could go on, but I would arrive at ranting stage and no one would want to continue reading what I have to say. But every argument tends to circle back on each other, so I'm sure I'll talk more about it again.

Probably tomorrow.

The Nuu-Chah-Nulth Potlatch

Once upon a time, on the West coast of Vancouver Island, long before it was called Vancouver Island, the Nuu-Chah-Nulth people fished the Pacific Ocean. Fresh salt-water air was a fact of their lives. Skipping the waves in small boats was common as they searched the sea all summer long for the best places to get fish.

Every year, there were those people who didn't find enough fish for their families. And others who had so much food they could not have eaten it in a dozen life-times. Such is the way for life on the changing Ocean. It isn't the same from one year to the next.

So, they would have a potlatch ceremony.

The Potlatch was an undisguised re-distribution of all the wealth in the culture. In return, the best givers would get the best status. Everyone gave and gave and gave! Shared everything they had! That was the whole point. No one quibbled about it. No one said, "why should someone else take my fish! I'm just a better fisherman!" Because it would be stupid to let the rich stay so rich. Wealth, (when you don't codify it into a dollar) spoils! You cannot just hoard it for ever and ever and ever and ever for no particular reason. It is better to share it so your neighbors don't starve and haunt you sound next year.

...Hm. Maybe we'd be better off if we made our money out of mackerel....