Economic renewal
From Sustain
Today’s form of capitalism is coming towards the end of its useful economic life. Capitalism containing only a tiny number of capitalists could never be a stable system. We should be readied with an improved alternative.
The barriers standing in the way of my preceding proposals could be politely described as challenging – the established power brokers will not yield their positions easily. Fortunately, in the West we still live in democracies that, despite their many flaws, leave the door of opportunity ajar. The platform on which we can establish a sustainable society will only be possible with complete economic renewal – we will need to wipe clean centuries of entrenched disparities in wealth and power.
Tax reform and consumption management could go some way to ensuring that wealth amassed in an individual lifetime cannot be excessively entropised. Economic renewal also demands a critical curtailment of our ability to gift wealth onto others at the end of, or during, that lifetime. If we abolish inheritance, the entire economic edifice can be refreshed, washing away our ancestral, ingrained inequality (and allowing correction of the many associated deep, damaging distortions). Personal property would henceforth more closely equate with genuine desert.
Progressively over a few generations, the huge swathes of capital locked in the families of an ever narrowing elite can be redirected and managed by new institutions not too dissimilar to today's pension funds. Such funds would be distinct in the more complex array of rounded objectives they would require of their investments and the meritocratic influence of the people whose funds they invest.
Over mere decades, control over land, finance, utilities – over all of our resources and sources of power – can be wrested from the sticky hands of a dominant minority. Ownership can pass from a partial few to a plurality, allowing the fundamental drive of capitalism to evolve from individual profit to broader communal benefit. The bold changes required for sustainability that currently appear unattainable would be rendered eminently achievable – including the mandatory restructure of our means of exchange.
Many of the successful attributes of market capitalism could thus be retained and nurtured. Today’s selfish capitalism could be transformed into a new participatory capitalism, a people’s capitalism. The desire to provide for our offspring is a powerfully wired instinct. Comprehensive restrictions on inheritance would face huge resistance (as indicated by minor national tinkering) even though reforms would greatly benefit the majority. Our innate responsibility to our offspring needs to be broadened to the next generation and extended to the generations beyond.
This mechanism of economic renewal dangles the tantalising possibilities of a comprehensive redraft of our prevailing system. My personal take upon the reforms required may seem extreme, set against our present reality. Given a clean slate and the target of the Maxim, I believe a genuinely impartial intellectual consensus would arrive at conclusions that would mark a similar level of departure from the conventional wisdom.
Even if we achieved the mechanics of economic renewal, the continued success of any new system would remain utterly dependent upon the input of the individual, we each need to act as responsible professionals - Professional ethics.
