A
COMMON UNDERSTANDING
INTRODUCTION :
Deciphering the Struggle explains, in foundational terms,
our interactions within a collective society and the perceived need for
government. The following presents to the reader a “College Level” understanding
of why competition, inequality, and social strife, NATURALLY exist. This body of
work is to be our starting point for critically thinking about our American
System of Government and all government in general.
Time/Energy:
By definition, for this purpose:
1.
TIME - is a “nonspatial continuum that is
measured in terms of events which succeed one another from past through present
to future.”
2.
ENERGY – is, for lack of a better definition,
“the capacity to do work.” Energy, specifically Human Energy, is well served by
this definition in the context of understanding the political
(and economic) interactions of
individuals, though the definition is somewhat lacking.
Firstly, this presentation posits that the real currency we
deal in is not money – nor resources, nor services, for that matter… The real
currency is Time/Energy. To
further define the concept beyond the above, Time is an individually finite
resource which we are all constantly trying to conserve while growing what we
have been already allotted. Energy, in applying the first law of Thermodynamics,
can neither be created nor destroyed; only stored or transferred, and therefore
demands constant action and vigilance in acquiring, keeping, and trading this
commodity. In short,
We spend our Time trading in Energy.
To you and I, the amount of time we have been allotted
(at least on this plane of conscious
reality) is that of our lifespan.
In other words: “The portion of the infinite linear span of time that you
and I are consciously aware of and/or participating within.”
From conception to death; this is our allotted time. Additionally, in the
process of living, you and I must acquire, maintain, and expend energy. From
conception to death we are a product of energy. As such, as stated, “We spend
our time trading in energy.”
The Axioms:
In context, as we further our understanding of why we
have Government (and its perceived
necessity), we must include the following facts:
1.
Rational individuals have a will to live.
And,
2.
Rational individuals strive to better
their quality of life – or, at least, to maintain the quality of life they have
already obtained. And,
3.
We, collectively, are a species that
shares the exact same fundamental governing characteristic of all other species:
The individual drive to procreate for the perpetuation of the species.
[Axioms 1 & 2 primarily govern our “Economic Policies”,
while 3 primarily governs our “Social Policies”]
Axiom number one, inherent in all rational human beings, is
the individual’s “will to live”. In order to do so, there are base, specific,
needs – not “wants,” but physiological,
metabolic, needs – which must be met in sufficient quantities, to fulfill
this common goal. Without exception, these are:
1.
Air
2.
Water
3.
Food/Nutrition, and,
4.
Protection from the effects of nature
(e.g. extreme cold, heat, unsanitary
conditions, hostile competition), including the need to sleep.
The second axiom listed is tied to the first. It is where
one’s attention turns from merely living, to living well. It is where our needs
evolve to “wants”. Both the needs and the wants, in the perceived environment of
“finite (or scarce) quantities”,
breed economic competition between individuals.
Governments are created due to this
competition.
Though not included in the Axioms above, it can be stated
that Freedom is a desire of
all rational individuals. The problem with including this as an axiom is the
paradoxical “truth” that (within a
collective society) rational individuals, also, choose “law and order” over
no law or order. Law and order, by
their very definition, inhibit one’s freedom – thus, the paradox.
Human beings (and animals in
general) do not possess the internal ability to survive without – at the
very least – the base necessities noted above. As such, those essential
resources are variables of
which one needs to constantly acquire and/or maintain. The “maintained
resources” are better known as “property.” Law and order allow a set of
common standards (or policies –
note the Policy Process below) for determining who, what, when, where, and
how one acquires and keeps their property
(or “resources”).
In this fashion, strong “property rights” become the goal of rational
individuals as much as freedom.
POLITIC &
GOVERNMENT:
Different from one another, but universally tied together,
politics and government are identified as follows:
1.
POLITICS- Is the process of (re)allocating
scarce resources.
2.
GOVERNMENT- Is the institutions and officials
that carryout
politics on a local,
state, or national level.
Individuals, acting through authoritative institutions,
carry out the process of determining where the society’s controlled resources
are to be directed. Those resources
include food, water, and shelter, as well as a myriad of other finite things
deemed to be of use and/or value.
The process of carrying out the determination of “who gets
what” (a less gaudy, way of defining
Politics), follows the same –
universal – 5 steps in order, no matter the size or structure of the
government responsible for carrying out the process. The Policy Process
is broken down as follows:
The Steps of the Political Process:
1.
Build Policy (by identifying an issue or need
necessitating resource allocation)
2.
Formulate (consider the impact, resources,
recipients/providers in creating allocation plan)
3.
Adopt (solidify the policy of who, what, when,
where, and how, regarding specific allocation)
4.
Implement (carryout the policy as adopted)
5.
Evaluate (review the effectiveness of the policy
in terms of addressing the need identified)
Different structures of governments
(e.g. Dictatorships, Military Juntas,
Monarchies, Constitutional Republics, et al) may carry out the five steps
with differing parameters, but if it is a “Government” then it carries out those
exact 5 steps, in that exact order, without exception.
Given that governments are empowered to determine who gets
water, or food, or shelter – which are
quintessential to living – one might grasp why controlling
(if possible) one’s government is a
dire objective – Fore if one lacks
control of their access to food, water, and shelter, then one is never truly in
control of their life.
With these Axioms in mind, in the context of Politics and
Government, consider the following familiar historical position of American
Governance:
… We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that
they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among
these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit
of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted
among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That
whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the
Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government,
laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form,
as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. …
Within the Declaration of Independence’s “Declaration of
Why Government’s Exist” (which
establishes the premise as to limits and powers of our American governments),
Thomas Jefferson’s inclusion of “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness”
are reflective both of the Axioms above and the quasi-axiom of Freedom.
Broken down, as already stated, the individual’s allotment
of time is synonymous to their lifespan, or, “Life”.
As previously noted, Axiom 1 addresses the common “will to live”
(or to retain one’s life), and,
therefore, establishes the need for a structured government that allows access
and acquisition of the identified base resources
(or property) necessary to live.
The quasi-axiom of Freedom (or “Liberty”)
is also identified as a desired trait to be protected by government. As for the
“Pursuit of Happiness”,
Axiom number two covers the “pursuit” to make better
(or to maintain) one’s quality of
life. In other words, the “quality” of one’s life is the measurement of one’s
“happiness”.
To Jefferson and the Founding Fathers (and
inherently adopted as a foundational fact of American Governance),
Governments are created
(and allowed) by individuals,
specifically, to protect the individual’s “Life and Liberty – especially the
Liberty to Pursue Happiness”, which
in inherent in all humans the minute they are conceived.
Back to Time/Energy:
To the collective, time is infinite.
To the individual, time is fleeting.
In the end, time governs all.
The section above pertaining to “Politics and Government”
generally limits itself to the resources in the context of Maslow’s base needs
(from Abraham Maslow’s 1943 scholarly
work – identified in the Axiom’s section prior, as Air, water… etc).
Most, if not all, Political Scientists adhere to these common underlying
parameters to establishing/perpetuating governments to carry out the role of
mitigating the competitions of man for those base needs.
Relatively common in Political Science instruction is the
equating of the symbol “$”to those base resources and other perceivably “finite”
goods and services. $ doesn’t equal money, $ equals the potential trade for
resources. In other words, a dollar bill
– the physical rectangular piece of intricately inked cotton/linen/paper – is,
as an object, no more valuable or usable than a common sheet of copy paper…
maybe less so, however, it could be traded for something that is valuable. In
other words, we do not value a dollar bill for its “utility value”
(what one can do with the dollar) but
its “intrinsic value” (what one perceives
they can trade, or buy, with the dollar). Today, our U.S. currency is “Fiat”
currency. Fiat currency has value because the government says
(given that one has faith in what the
government declares) it has value.
Understanding these connections and distinctions are necessary in
competently forming policies regarding maximum/minimum wage laws, taxes,
resource allocation, and the like, and deciphering the true necessity for such
policies.
To reiterate, rather than thinking of money as valuable, or
even money representing resources, a better, normative, understanding of the
“true currency” for which individuals compete, is
to equate “$” as “Human
Energy”. And, along with
Human Energy, one must always remember that we are all, individually, bound by a
finite amount of Time. OR:
“How much time and energy one must exert
to provide the goods or services for trade.”
This is even a clearer, more foundational, mode of thinking about our
interactions in a collective society as living organisms, and government’s role
in the control, not of resources, but
of Time/Energy.
MIDPOINT
CLARIFICATIONS:
Simply by living one exerts energy. The fuel of the body –
its nutrients consumed – is denoted
as “calories”. Animals/humans metabolically turn what is consumed into calories,
and then burn those calories in the process of thinking, and moving, and
sleeping, and eating, and breathing, and WORKING.
As an example, a 200lb man will burn
2000 calories a day, simply by living. If that man doesn’t replace those
calories, he will no longer be a 200lb man, he will first lose weight. And, if
he fails to replace those calories in sufficient amounts regularly, he will
eventually die. In short, his lifespan will have been ended.
He will be out of Time.
To pull it all together:
1.
Energy is necessary to live.
2.
Energy in captured via consumption of resources.
3.
Living (and work) expends energy.
4.
Living, or lifespan, is one’s measurement of
time.
5.
Individuals seek to protect their lifespan/time.
6.
As such, Money/Currency ($) is best accepted as a
representation of Time & Energy.
Furthermore,
1.
Freedom is having control over ones Time &
Energy.
2.
Government policies directly impact the Time &
Energy of the governed.
3.
Individuals who do not control their government
do not have control of their Time & Energy.
4.
Therefore,
individuals who do not control their government are not truly free.
THE THIRD AXIOM:
The annuals of classic psychology are filled with Freudian
concepts of why animals do as they do. According to Sigmund Freud
(the famed Austrian Neurologist who died
in 1939) and others (including
Maslow), Sex is a physiological need –
not a “want” but a “need”. In other
words, Sex drives our actions as a base motivator, not unlike the quest for
nutrition/Energy. The difference, of course, is that one’s “Time” will not be
directly ended for lack of sex, as it would for lack of food or water.
Recall, “We,
collectively, are a species that shares the exact same fundamental governing
characteristic of all other species: The drive to procreate for the perpetuation
of the species.”
None of us knows, exactly, why we are here, what came
before, or what comes next. However, one thing is abundantly clear:
Life begets life.
One should assume that life – like space and time – is a
dimensional concept necessary for reality. Without slipping too far into the
realm of theoretical physics and/or philosophy, let us simply take as a truth
that life must exist. And, as such, the only true goal of living things,
collectively, is to perpetuate life. Therefore:
Rational “Societies” seek to
procreate.
This statement, as fact, is not without controversy. To
posit that “rational societies seek to procreate” may be construed to mean that
it is “irrational for individuals to NOT want to procreate.” One
must consider the statement in the context of individual motivations versus
collective motivations. However, current political controversies aside, this
axiom’s inclusion is necessary in fully understanding the difference between
liberal doctrine and conservative doctrine, and to round out the accepted role
of government in building both economic and social policy. And, in terms of
policy, the drive to procreate does foment competition and thereby adds content
to our goal of “deciphering the struggle.”
Regardless, and rightfully so in properly understanding the
human struggle, one must accept that sex
(the perpetuation of life) is as fundamental to our being as Life, Liberty,
and the Pursuit of Happiness. As such, governments are generally empowered to
protect this fundamental goal, which, in turn, gives us the foray into Social
Policy.
(To Be Continued)
CRITICAL THINKING ASSIGNMENT:
On a separate piece of paper,
1.)
Summarize the information you’ve been given thus far in your own words. Include
each of these following Sections: TIME/ENERGY, THE AXIOMS, POLITICS &
GOVERNMENT, BACK TO TIME/ENERGY, & THE THIRD AXIOM.
Title
your summaries with the “Section” titles and write
(in complete sentences/150 words or so)
what you believe are the base points of those sections beneath those titles.
2.)
Answer the following questions:
A. How much time do YOU have?
B. How much food, water, and sleep do YOU need?
C. What do you believe to be
the effects of accepting the “Third Axiom” upon one’s Political Leanings?
Title
your answers with the questions above, and write
(in complete sentences/100-200 words or
so) your answers below the titles.
Due next
class.