When I
capriciously chose my subjects at University I didn’t realise I was setting myself
up to become a revolutionary economist, though for the next fifty years I’d stay
reticent about my constant breakthroughs.
I studied Economics as well as English and Social Anthropology because
it seemed a business-related sort of thing for an arty chap to balance his
credentials with. No real thought. But English showed me that good writers do
all sorts of strange things with words and stories. Social Anthropology demonstrated that people
base their whole lives around wildly different and even misguided beliefs. Thus, though Economics was hideously
ill-taught, insofaras I understood it at all I understood it subliminally
through the filters of the two sharper subjects.
Now, there are
no laws of economics, just convenient, temporary and often strange myths. And the thing is: the financial and
commercial world doesn’t have to be the way it is. You can use economics to a fruitful end. There’s no scientific reason why it should always
be construed to the advantage of a few selfish people. And the terminology of economics and commerce
need not be reinvented frequently for complexity’s sake.
Just now everyone
is saying that something or other is “unacceptable”, by which they mean morally
wrong, but it’s deemed unfeasible to make changes this particular year because
of opinion polls. But what is morally
right? In fact, there’s only one game in
the town: limiting climate change and the associated devastation of our species,
along with that of all the other creatures – and all environments. Everything we do should be directed towards stemming
this ruin.
Some courses of
action are obvious, like cutting down on plastics – so let’s do it. Others are equally obvious, but ignored. Huge ships cross oceans carrying items from
one place to another, sometimes the same type of thing going each way (eg cars),
sometimes things that undercut in price perfectly adequate things we once made
ourselves (eg clothes), sometimes things we’re replacing long before we need to
(cars, electronics, furniture, clothes); sometimes things we don’t need at all (well,
take your pick); sometimes it’s food out of season; sometimes – oh, you get the
idea. The solution is obvious, though
the means of applying it tricky: a massive tax on all fuel and at all ports. Quite consistent with free trade, or any
other creed, except greed. And lots of
revenue to spare for health and care and museums – and more jobs created.
The markets are hugely
and fatally distorted not only because we punters are irremediably irrational
and comprehensively ill-informed and utterly lazy. No, they’re distorted – nay, dominated – by
gamblers in the stock markets and by “sophisticated” economic instruments the
original purposes of which are long gone.
With will that could be changed instantly by the long-ago-suggested wee levy
on every transaction, the profit from which to go to undeveloped countries.
Money need not
be spent on mass-produced consumer products.
A car will last 600,000 miles, if suitably maintained (the extra garagists
boosting employment), a well-made fridge fifty years, a smartphone ten (sans
fallow aps). Less landfill and leaching
into the oceans. Meanwhile, indulging in
the arts isn’t usually harmful.
Last but not
least, but almost impossible to accomplish (as trying to replicate our flawed
selves by having children is the instinct that keeps us hoping), we need to
tackle overpopulation. Really
tackle. Other species, whether they be the
dinosaurs of yore, rats, half the non-indigenous creatures anywhere (but most
obviously in Australia) and even lemmings, never cottoned on, so why should
we? Because we’re wiser? The solution is to make
universal one-child families, the alternatives (which will probably happen)
being brutality towards desperate and enterprising migrants, catastrophic
famines, pandemics, wars. We’ve known this
for some time but as the danger grows so we deny it the more loudly, often won’t
allow it even to be spoken of, especially in those lands where the immediate
danger is greatest.
All best brought in slowly as big
changes are hard to accommodate without hurt and more wastage – but no time for
that.
