It’s time to announce one of the projects I’ve been working on over the last few weeks: The Indie Worker at http://theindieworker.com

The Indie Worker is a blog dedicated to the independent worker, and will include everything from inspirational quotes (from the likes of G.K. Chesterton and Seth Godin) to DIY tips, to small business advice.

The term “indie” has already been established for artists that are independent: indie film, indie music, etc. However, everyday laborers, white, brown, blue and pink collared, ought to be independent as well.

The problem I’ve been seeing in Distributist circles is we’ve been to academic: brilliant by standing still and reflecting. The Indie Worker is an attempt to make microcapitalism tangible by example, not theorizing.

All the modern distributists want to be like Chesterton, the mouthpiece, the romantic. We need more Belloc (practical direction) and Cobbett (explicit how-to) to re-energize the idea of small private property.

If you have a tumblr account (They are free) you can submit links, quotes, videos and more to the site as a contributor.

Come join the revolution!

photo credit: Art By Steve Johnson

In the interest of spreading the ideas behind Mcrocapitalism as far as possible, I’m posting the full text of the book here in this post.
If you want to read it offline, you can get the Kindle edition from Amazon or the PDF version here for $5.

The Choice Before Us

Let us begin with a story.

In Greek mythology, two monsters plagued a narrow strait through which Odysseus, hero of the Trojan War, had to pass on his way home. The two beasts forced him to make a terrible choice.

Scylla, a six-headed monster sat on one side of the channel, and Charybdis, the giant whirlpool was on the opposite side. Rather than risk his entire ship to the total destruction of Charybdis, Odysseus chose to sail a little closer to Scylla. Six of his men were devoured, but the rest were spared.

Two similar monsters continually threaten all human societies. They are called Socialism and Capitalism. Both victimize humanity and force governments two sway between one and the other, sacrificing the independence and freedom of all their citizens, or sacrificing a portion of the population to save the others.

The course between the two monsters, however, has always existed. Like the passage in the Greek seas, it predates even the monsters that give it notoriety. With the arrival of the beasts it was corrupted on either side into twisted, swirling oblivion and the incarnation of greedy hunger. Just as Greek captains sailed closer to one beast to avoid the other, governments recoil in fear from one beast and lead their countries, and their citizens, to the other doom.

Scylla, the hydra, represents the economic system known as Capitalism. In order to protect the individual, Capitalism seeks to protect private productive property by keeping it in the hands of citizens. However, it has no bounds by definition, and aided by advancements in technology that characterized the Industrial Revolution, it became a monster that reduced most citizens to
wage-slaves for the few, destroying their capital, and with it their freedom, independence, and security.

Charybdis, the whirlpool, represents the economic system known as Socialism. In order to protect the equality of individuals that is threatened by Capitalism, Socialism keeps the means of production in the hands of the State to be administered and re-distributed to the people according to their needs. There is no independence, only dependence on the State, which controlled by the few is easily and eventually corrupted. As the state cannot oppose itself, all opposition is squashed. Individual freedom is lost to the swirling mass of an enormous government.

The middle path, the natural passage itself that is so neglected by both captain and head of state, is called Microcapitalism.

A Few Definitions

All metaphors are flawed; but the story of Odysseus’ choice presents some vivid imagery to the decisions regarding economic systems that we face. However, before we continue further in this book the definition of a few key terms should be established so that our imaginations and varied experiences do not cloud our discussion.

Productive Property is synonymous with the terms capital and means of production. It can be defined as that which can be owned and produces or is necessary to produce other things of value, either for direct use or trade.

Capitalism is the economic system based on the theory that productive property should be in the hands of private citizens.

Socialism is the economic system based on the theory that productive property should be in the hands of the people, but administered, controlled, or in some cases outright owned by the government.

Microcapitalism is the economic system based on the theory that productive property should be in the hands of as many private citizens as possible.

The State refers the local system of government, regardless of its form. Capitalism, Socialism, or Microcapitalism, as economic systems, can exist in any form of government, from despotism to democracy.

Things As They Are

Capitalism
Property monopolized or in the possession of a few is a curse to mankind. We should dispense it among all ranks. We should preserve not absolute equality – this is unnecessary, but preserve all from extreme poverty, and all others from extreme riches.
-John Adams, Dissertation on the Canon and the Feudal Law, 1765

Capitalism has no universally accepted definition, but as it has already been stated, it can be broadly and simply defined as the theory that productive property should be in the hands of private citizens.

Capitalism recognizes the inalienable right to property identified by John Locke in his Second Treatise on Government. As such, it is rooted in natural rights which have been asserted by philosophers, religious leaders, and governments for as long as our history can demonstrate.

The problem with Capitalism lies in its lack of limitations. Any definition of Capitalism states only that the people should own property, and that individual property should be protected from government control. There is no definition of Capitalism that states how much is too much for a single person or entity to own.

Since the industrial revolution, it has become possible for a small number of people to control large companies comprised of thousands of employees. This was brought about, for the first time in human history, with the technological advances that allowed for machines to automate jobs, such as the assembly line.

Capitalism, following the industrial revolution, has grown beyond its natural roots – like an untended garden that has grown wild, where weeds choke the vegetable plants and flowers.

Employees toil for the benefit of the company owners. They are paid a wage, in almost all cases set by the company, and are paid for their time. What they create for the company, the fruits of their labor, are combined with that of others and sold to the public. The employee’s wage, and any benefits, such as health insurance, are the only compensation they receive for their work. Seldom is such compensation equitable for the amount of capital produced by the labor.

The employee trades their time and their work for the means for day-to-day living. If they do not work, they do not receive the means to survive. They do not control their compensation, and they must follow whatever commands they are given – even regarding such personal decisions as expression, recreational activities, or family matters – or else risk termination. In this way their situation is not unlike those of slaves, a class which has existed throughout human history. Slaves own nothing, not even themselves or the fruits of their labor. Their freedom is non-existent, and they must trade their toil for the means of survival.

For this reason employees in a capitalistic society have been called wage-slaves. If this seems unjust, consider they have also been referred to by some, such as J.D. Salinger, as another long-standing class who sells themselves for the means of survival: prostitutes.
Employees quickly become viewed by the company they work for as part of the machine. Their cost, that is, their compensation, must not exceed their output – otherwise, they are a liability. Jobs and employee roles are defined so that a person fits an opening like a bolt fits a nut. Just about anyone meeting certain criteria will do. Recruiters brag about computer systems that scan a person’s qualifications and fit them to a job that uses similar terms to describe its requirements. How is this different from replacing a part from your car from a warehouse of various parts? People have become part of a machine, an asset just like the tools they use.

As companies grow, more of their customers become their employees. When the company cuts staff or wages to improve profitability, they reduce the buying power of their own employees. In this way they resemble a snake eating their own tail.

These are just some of the primary consequences of unrestrained Capitalism. As the concentration of productive property increased, the consequences grew more severe.

With almost limitless resources, the few capitalists still free had the means to run for political office or support the campaigns of those who protected their interests. News was delivered to citizens by means of only a handful of companies, and thus could be influenced by those subsidizing the media with advertising dollars. Once a political career was over, many politicians could look forward to a well-paying job in the private sector. Bribery took on new forms such as employment and lucrative business contracts.

Education became a means to the end of supplying workers who fit job descriptions, who would be less likely to challenge authority and more likely to fall in line. Those who posed a problem were dealt with in several ways, such as expulsion, or personality altering medications.

In other cases, the government directly interfered in private affairs to benefit large corporate interests. In the 2005 case Kelo v. City of New London the Supreme Court ruled in favor of forcing residential property owners to surrender their property to a large corporation, because the exchange was supposed to benefit the community at large. In other words, a corporation could petition a city or township to seize property owned by citizens, if they could show their plans would create more jobs.

In 2008, the U.S. Government passed the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act which authorized the expenditure of up to $700 billion, paid by citizens through taxes, to private financial companies. Struggling automaker General Motors received over $50 billion, driven by fear that if the manufacturer failed, the lost jobs would cripple the national economy. The justification for the use of public funds to aid private corporations was that the companies were “too big to fail” and had to be subsidized by taxpayers.

With capital concentrated in the hands of the few, another ancient evil reared its ugly head: usury, the charging of interest. Condemned from the time of the ancient Greeks as unnatural and legitimized only after the Reformation, the “breeding of money” allowed the rich to get richer by charging exorbitant prices on the regular, necessary dealings of the wage-slaves. To buy a house in which to live, to buy a car to get to work, or to get the starting capital to begin a new business, or even for everyday expenditures with a credit card – all of these loans became commonplace, and a new stream of revenue for the company owners and a ever increasing banking industry, increasing profits and power at the same time.

Our world has seemingly abandoned the philosophical basis on which our culture was founded. Capitalists often turn to Aristotle to show a sound philosophical basis for their theory. However, in his Politics Aristotle wrote: “In the art of acquiring riches there are no limits, for the object of that is money and possessions; but economy has a boundary.” In regards to usury itself he said “of all forms of money-making it is most against nature.”

Like Scylla, Capitalism requires the sacrifice of some citizens for the benefit of others. Unfortunately, in the case of Capitalism, it is the many that are sacrificed for the benefit of the few.

Socialism
If we do not restore the Institution of Property we cannot escape restoring the Institution of Slavery; there is no third course.
Hilaire Belloc, The Servile State, 1912

Socialism can be defined as the theory that productive property should be in the hands of the people, administered by their government.

Socialism seeks to treat all as equal by distributing the fruits of production, regardless of how much the individual contributes to the resources to be shared. While this is supposed to ensure that all members of a society receive the necessary provisions for life, it does so by undermining the work of the more ambitious, and removes the motive of self-interest and the human right to the natural reward for one’s work.

While Capitalism is optimistic about humanity’s tendency to work for the common good, Socialism is pessimistic. It seeks to use government control to enforce the redistribution of the fruits of production so everyone gets what they need. Unfortunately, as a great deal of power is then given to a relatively small number of human beings to oversee the process, Socialism creates the very problem it is trying to avoid. As Lord Acton put it, power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Socialism is also self-defeating because, in failing to reward the individual and providing according to need, it violates the natural right to controlling one’s own property and the fruits of one’s labor. Without such motivation, adequate production cannot be made to meet the demand.

Finally, a socialist government provides everything for its citizens, however, it cannot provide an opposing viewpoint to balance extremism or oppose corruption. How can a state-owned news service investigate its own owner? It cannot bite the hand that feeds it; nor can the state allow its own appendage to undermine its authority.

Socialism cannot tolerate opposition, and individual views and rights, even those of freedom of speech and religious practice, are crushed and trampled.

G.K. Chesterton pointed out a state society that already exists within each country; a Socialist paradise of sorts in which all are equally employed, all are clothed, and no one goes hungry. Residents of these societies have their every need met by the State. This sustainable example of Socialism is only found in a prison.

Like Charybdis, all individuals in a Socialist society are consumed, unified in an inhuman mess.

If this book seems unfairly harsh toward Capitalism, it is because Microcapitalism is nearer to it than the over-reactionary Socialism. Also, the opponents of Socialism have been louder and seemingly greater in number than critics of Capitalism, and those who criticize Capitalism are generally proponents of Socialism. Therefore there is already great deal of criticism written about the consequences of Socialism, so this work need not belabor the point.

In the Belly of the Beast

Big Business and State Socialism are very much alike, especially Big Business.
-G.K. Chesterton, G.K.’s Weekly April 10, 1926

In the belly of the beast, it does not matter who ate you. The Greek poet did not expound on what happened to sailors who were eaten by Scylla or Charybdis, but it is probably safe to assume the fate of those swallowed did not fare better in one or the other.
In the same way, Capitalism, as we have seen it unfold, results in the same situation as Socialism for the working classes. The few control the fates of the many, creating a class of wage-slaves with little choice in their lives. Capitalism does not distinguish the monopoly of one man controlling an industry from the many owning several competing businesses in the same industry. A man may have hundreds of slaves in his machine: the only difference between Socialism and Capitalism is that one man is a state official, and the other is a citizen in the public sector. It can and has been argued that at least in a Socialist society the master is chosen by the people, whereas in Capitalism power is granted to the one who seized the most.

Those in the midst of crisis caused by a concentration of wealth may still cling to Capitalism as the solution. Capitalism works, they claim, despite human failing; but what they mean is Capitalism works better than Socialism. It does not mean it is our only option.
There is nothing in the definition of capitalism that prohibits exploiting others, under-paying workers, or bank ownership of millions of homes while the ranks of the homeless swell with families evicted for being swindled by predatory lending.

Capitalism cannot condemn that which we all know is wrong, and therefore Capitalism cannot be the answer.

When a government reacts to the failings of unrestricted Capitalism by embracing Socialism, the fault lies squarely with the citizens that allowed greed to become a good. Seduced by the luxurious lifestyle of the rich, the selfish ethics permeated even the working classes who then engaged in stingy self-indulgence, ignoring the needs of others. Socialism is an attempt to legislate charity, following failure of free citizens to look after one another.

A person must be free to give willingly to those in need; charity cannot be demanded or legislated. If those with more than is necessary to survive do not willingly share with those who are in need, they will eventually lose both their property and their freedom.

What is Microcapitalism? The solution to this economic identity crisis lies in a tempered version of Capitalism called Microcapitalism. Where Capitalism is defined by productive property being in the hands of the private citizens, Microcapitalism is defined by productive property being in the hands of many citizens.

The difference between Microcapitalism and Capitalism is subtle, but very important. Capitalism is generally concerned with protecting an individual’s right to property, regardless of how and why it is obtained, from those who would take it away. Capitalism is chiefly concerned with the State taking private property or redistributing it. Microcapitalism is concerned with every individual’s right to property, and is as concerned about another citizen or private enterprise taking one’s lawful property as much as the State.

There is another theory that is similar to Microcapitalism known as Distributism. In the early years of the industrial revolution, distributists, including G.K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc, called for the defense of small property. Distributism had its shortcomings. Its proponents could not have foreseen the technological advances in digital media and communications that would restore the producers’ connection with the market. Their limited view of productive property meant that their goals were too focused on agriculture and a return to family farms. This isolates those unable to even grow a garden from participating. Furthermore, the name was terrible and caused the theory to be confused with Socialism. “Distributism” evokes the idea of a redistribution of wealth similar to Socialism.

Both Distributism and Microcapitalism are based on the idea that Capitalism is a perversion of the natural way of things, and Socialism is a reaction to Capitalism that is just as unjust.

What went wrong?

Our society is so abnormal that the normal man never dreams of having the normal occupation of looking after his own property. When he chooses a trade, he chooses one of the ten thousand trades that involve looking after other people’s property.
- G.K. Chesterton in Commonwealth, October 12, 1932

Distributists considered their theory of small property to be the way things had worked before the industrial revolution. Citing writers like William Cobbett who had chronicled the lives of rural citizens, they pointed out that when people had property of their own they had leisure, stability, and security. Cobbett wrote that with a garden of just a quarter acre, a cow, and room to pasture his animal and gather firewood, an English peasant could rather leisurely live on just 10 shillings a week (roughly equivalent to $57 in today’s U.S. dollars) by working for local farmers.

Life was not perfect, and there were abuses of power. But throughout human history economy worked like this: the many had small property from which they produced what they needed to live, and traded for that which they could not produce.

A peasant with a pitchfork, so often portrayed as part of a mob, was a fearsome sight to lords and kings not only because he was one of many with a sharp object, but because he was one of many with a tool to till his own land.

This independent way of life was seen as idle by larger landowners. The machinery of the industrial revolution provided the means to keep men busy in a factory instead of the idleness of looking after one’s own interests. The promise of a better way of life, fringe benefits such as health insurance, and a steady income seduced many to leave the family homestead and move closer to
the factories. Small property was abandoned for the selling of one’s labor for a steady rate of pay.

At this point in history, the definition of Capitalism became insufficient. The tools of the new revolution allowed a single man to employ thousands, under legal employment contracts, and pay them low enough that he could at once gain an advantage in the market and profit immensely. The formula was applied in every aspect of commerce throughout the 20th Century. Newspapers, hospitals, retail stores – everywhere employees sold their labor for a steady wage, instead of getting a proper share of the capital they created for their employers.

While some of these masters of capitalism were philanthropic with some of their earnings, their fortunes were made by denying capital to those who earned their fortunes. Credit for Carnegie Hall belongs to Andrew Carnegie as much as the Great Pyramids are the work of the Pharaohs. In both cases the master has taken all of the credit for a marvel created by their slaves.

Not all tyrants are in government.

Many capitalists were too greedy; working their employees long and for extremely low pay. The employees joined together in unions to protect their interests, but even then they were already broken. They demanded better working conditions, better hours, better pay. They were still content to be slaves, to sell their labor outright for much less than it was worth.

Money became seen as capital, as productive property in its own right. In this way the employees were told they were receiving just compensation for their work. The banking industry expanded and grew rapidly, as the rich invested their money to earn more money. With a sizeable fortune one did not have to work, for money could be bred again and again in the markets. Banking and investment income was not new to the industrial revolution, but it grew considerably as the capitalism fueled the wealth of those who enriched themselves by their employees’ labor.

Money is at once the most versatile form of capital, but also the most worthless. Its value continually shifts, generally downward with inflation. It does nothing in and of itself, and it alone is insufficient to meet the basic needs of any human being.

By the end of the 20th Century, the industrial revolution had created a culture of consumerism almost around the world. Giant companies controlled millions of employees, able to make policies more binding and restrictive than law through the simple threat of firing. Instead of fearing big government, corporations became the villains in the dystopian nightmares of movies, books and television. Governments around the world were so entangled, influenced, and even controlled by big business it no longer mattered to the average citizen who was elected to office.

The Next Revolution

The world just gave you control over the means of production. Not to master them is a sin.
-Seth Godin, Linchpin, 2010

The next advance in technology brought about what is called the Age of Information. This next revolution took place as quietly and bloodless as the one that preceded it.

Computers which filled rooms in the 1950s were outclassed in power by wristwatches made in the 1990s. In time, desktop computers became far more affordable than automobiles, and far more versatile than any other tool mankind had created.

And then came the Internet.

A worldwide network of computers changed the way the world communicated overnight. When communication takes a leap, so does commerce. Services like eBay, Amazon, and Etsy brought back the marketplace in a new form.

The industrial revolution’s mass production had created the tools for its own destruction. Producers were now connected to the rest of the world. Unfortunately, large companies still had control over their most valuable and crucial asset – their human employees.

Even as the companies laid off and fired hundreds of thousands of employees, the employees clung to the empty promises and oppression under which they had lived so long. Just as the Hebrews who had recently been delivered from Egyptian slavery begged to return to their oppression, so too did the workers of the world seek to remain or return to their tyrannical rulers even as they were set free.

The age of information had another important effect: the rise of intellectual property. Music, books, performances, systems and concepts could be protected and owned. Combined with opening of markets via the Internet, productive property was growing, and the burdens of bringing the fruits of such property to market were disappearing.

Employers, having already enslaved the body of their employees, were quick to also ensure they owned the minds of their slaves. Employment contracts included “Work for Hire” clauses that gave the employer rights to any ideas, systems, concepts or works that the employee developed. After a profitable idea was produced, the employer had every right to dispose of the employee and keep the productive property, or continue to pay the employee a regular wage while the employee’s property produced millions of dollars for his employer.

Why Microcapitalism?

Consider a meadow, with a single tree and millions of blades of grass. Science tells us that grass is the most important plant on earth for animal life, including humans, on Earth. But the tree competes with the grass for its nourishment – it requires the nutrients and water in the soil the grass also needs. It also requires the sun’s light, as does the grass. However, when full of leaves, the tree blocks the light from the grass. If water or nutrients are scarce, the tree monopolizes the precious resources, and the grass withers.
While size and type are factors, a single tree produces enough oxygen for two people a year. The same oxygen output can be produced by a patch of grass that is 36 feet long and 36 feet wide.

If we only consider the oxygen output, which system is better able to withstand failure? Would you rather be a leaf on the tree, or a leaf of grass? A leaf on the tree requires the trunk to nourish it. The leaf, in turn, produces food for the tree. If the leaf is plucked off, the leaf dies and the tree survives. If the tree dies, all the leaves die. If the tree cuts off nourishment to a particular branch, all the leaves on that branch die. The leaf is at the mercy of whatever happens to the tree.

A leaf of grass, however, is more closely connected to the network of roots. It lives or dies by the circumstances that directly affect it, not some other part of the plant. And there are many of them; the death of even a patch of grass does not have such catastrophic consequences as the death of a tree for the local ecosystem.

While the allegory cannot be perfect, it illustrates the difference between the two systems. Capitalism, unchecked, creates big businesses with thousands of employees, like the tree and its leaves. Microcapitalism, comprised of a more independent
workforce distributed over many smaller businesses, has the resilient qualities of the grass.

Instead of workers having to fit a mold to become a part of a corporate machine, Microcapitalism works on the principle that people can produce and bring their products and services directly to the world marketplace on their own, or through much smaller enterprises.

Practical differences between Microcapitalism and Capitalism

Too much capitalism does not mean too many capitalists, but too few capitalists.
-G.K. Chesterton, The Uses of Diversity, 1921

As Capitalism and Microcapitalism share a root in natural law and history, they are similar in their practical existence. The goal of Microcapitalism is not equality of property. Equality of capital is neither possible nor just. Nor can a Microcapitalist society find every citizen working for their own business. Some businesses will require large numbers of workers to function.

What can be changed is the way workers are employed. Employees must be seen as partners, not associates or underlings. The lowest raking employee is often the one whose work produces the most income for the company. Therefore, each should receive compensation proportionate to their capital contribution.

The practice of including “Work for Hire” clauses, in which the company automatically owns any intellectual property created by the employee, ought to be replaced with clauses granting the company first rights to an exclusive license of the employee’s property. When the employer/employee relationship is terminated, the terms of further license, or even outright sale are negotiated. Otherwise, the employee retains the rights to the fruits of their labor and the employer loses the right to use them.

Consider again Ayn Rand’s story of Atlas Shrugged. Henry Rearden, an ambitious capitalist and owner of a steel company, had invested his own time and money into a new kind of metal. Pressure was put on him to share his idea with the world and his competition, which Rand condemns.

But what if Rearden didn’t own the company? What if he was a foreman, or another worker at the company, who put in the time to invent the new metal? His labor, his capital would instantly become the property of the company – and they were under no obligation to promote him, compensate him, or even retain him after that. In the best world, he would be rewarded, but Capitalism has no grounds to condemn such robbery. Many of us know of at least one instance where such a crime was committed. Thomas Edison did the very thing to Nikola Tesla, failing to deliver a promised bonus, or even a raise, in return for innovations from his brilliant assistant.

To turn a phrase of Karl Marx’s: From each according to their ability, to each according to their production.

There are already a number of methods companies can employ to justly compensate their staff. Paying by the rate of production, also called piece-rate, consists in paying each employee for the percentage of the total job they do. The company could be established as a cooperative, in which every employee receives a percentage of the profits the company earns. Not as options on stock in the company, but an actually cut of the earnings in excess of expenses. Companies can also give or sell the tools of the job to the employee; if the employee is terminated he takes the tools with him to start a new venture. His labor paid for the tools, they ought to belong to him by right. Finally, each employee can be an independent contractor of the company instead of an employee.

We cannot define Microcapitalist businesses in terms of revenue, number of employees or size. Whether or not employees are directly compensated for the value of their capital is the test.

Small business and self-employment are encouraged over working for a larger organization. We have the means, now more than ever, for a single worker to sell his labor, or create, produce, market and deliver his products without entering into an employment agreement with a larger entity.

There are some institutions that thrive in unrestricted capitalism that will suffer under Microcapitalism. Merchants, such as retail stores, will have their role in society greatly reduced as producers reconnect with customers via the marketplace. The role of a manager will also be redundant. As businesses shrink, employees are given back the self-interest and fruits of their work – multiple levels of localized management staff will no longer be needed.

When workers unite, they shall not unify under an organization that will represent them as a whole, govern their demands, and in all ways form a small socialist community, as the unions have. Rather, each man will be seen as an independent practitioner of his trade within the organization. They shall be self-regulating, self-limiting, and overseen by those who have mastered the trade and earned mutual respect for having set an example of excellence. In this way, workers will form Guilds rather than Unions.

A union unites all men against a company for better wages; a Guild keeps scoundrels out of its organization so that the members’ reputation will be renown, and thus more desirable to clients. Being a member of a Guild shows competency, being part of a union shows you were only present to join a mob.

The medical profession is an example of a Guild in a modern form. Doctors are engaged in limited competition with each other, and they run their own practices, in most cases. They have the ability to inform, decide, and act as a body through their independent organizations which are self-regulating and managed by practitioners of their craft.

What are our Obstacles?

When success is equated with excess
The ambition for excess wrecks us…
As the heart and soul breathe in the company goals
Where success is equated with excess
-Switchfoot, American Dream, 2006

The obstacles to Microcapitalism have more to do with attitude than anything else. They exist in the mind of each person, and are not embodied in the nebulous society or government as a whole. As attitudes and misconceptions, they can be changed, but only through individual decisions to correct them.

Self-interest and profit motive are not the same thing. In a Capitalist society, the terms profit motive and self-interest are used synonymously. However, to act in one’s own interest does not necessarily mean that making the most money, or exceeding your expenditures by the largest possible margin is your goal. Profit motive is a Capitalist term; self-interest is a Microcapitalist term.

Money is a tool of exchange, not real productive property. As it was stated earlier, money is the most versatile and yet worthless form of capital. It only represents capital. It can be traded for productive property, however it can also be squandered on luxuries, or lose value over time. It cannot be eaten, it cannot be worn or shelter you, or meet any human need on its own. On its own, it loses value, unless gambled in games of chance or in a financial market.

Wealth is determined by the amount of productive property you control, not the amount of money you have. Too often one’s wealth is considered by the amount of money owned, or the lifestyle (meaning luxuries) one can afford. However, it is possible to live in a large house, have 2 cars in your garage, a swimming pool, and a yacht and not own any of it. Worse yet, it is possible to have all of that and not own any productive property, even productive skills or knowledge, that will continue to provide for your welfare.

So long as a person can provide food, clothing, and a place to live by his own labor or the exchange of the fruits of his labor, they are not poor, regardless of how little money they earn. If money is not the definition of wealth, neither can it define poverty. If you did not have to make a payment on your car, on your house, on your education, how much income would you need to live? If you only made that much money, would you be poor?

A “good job” is not one where you serve at the whim of an employer in exchange for a wage for showing up. Educators and parents bring up children to get good grades in school, to get into a good college, where getting good grades gets you a good job. A good job means a steady, high-paying job. Not a rewarding job, not a difficult job, not a challenging or productive job. A job which anyone with similar training can do. A job where, if you don’t fit in, you can be terminated for no reason whatsoever. A job where you can lose your livelihood because the company can’t afford to pay you what they agreed to when they hired you.

That’s not exactly a good goal in life, much less a good job.

A job in which one simply shows up and receives a regular wage for their time from an employer is just as much on welfare as a person who receives welfare payments from the state. Everyone knows at least one person who does the absolute minimum to keep their job. Unionized workers and government employees in particular have safeguards preventing their termination, and some employees take advantage of the situation by riding out the clock. They show up, they get paid. Why do more?

The question is, why not do less? In a welfare state you get paid to be home and not work.

Big businesses that employ lots of employees are not necessary to a national economy. A strong case could be made that they are in fact a liability. The presence of steady jobs with benefits skews public attitudes toward finding such employment. Education is geared towards filling such jobs instead of teaching practical life skills. In the end, the government finds it necessary to prop up failing businesses because it knows its citizens have been institutionalized too long, and are unable to produce their own necessities, or trade for them with the fruits of their own independent labor.

What do we do from here?

Those who cannot fathom a way in which Microcapitalism can be brought about without government involvement have become too dependent on the government effecting change in their lives. Individual decisions and actions, coordinated by a common vision, is the only way to make the necessary changes without further increasing the power of government.

Microcapitalism cannot be legislated. Microcapitalism is limited Capitalism; but it must be limited by the people directly, not the state. The change must start at the bottom, it must be done by each of us making small changes.

Those in government can do little else than get out of the way of small business. Policies such as minimum taxes for business harm small entities far more than they do larger enterprises. Unemployment benefits are structured to help an unemployed worker find another job, but can get in the way of the same worker trying to start his own business and create new jobs. Other than eliminating some of the red tape involved in starting and running a small business, the government has little to do with a Microcapitalist revolution.

When government must step up to limit Capitalism, it must be as close to the people as possible. In other words, township, city, and county governments, not national governments, must enforce limitations on greedy abuses of property, such as monopolistic retailers or usurious predators as needed to protect their communities.

Most of the responsibility for limiting Capitalism rests on each and every individual.

Those who are employed should realize that, through no fault of their own, they can be let go, terminated, or laid off for no reason
whatsoever. Economic pressures or bad decisions by others in the company can cause the loss of a job. Planning for the termination of your employment should start the day you are hired.

An employee should be mindful not only of his duty as an employee to build capital for his employer, but to build personal capital at the same time. Learning new job skills, even from co-workers employed in different jobs, is an educational path accessible to almost any employee. Investing your wage in equipment, tools, and training outside the workplace builds personal capital, as does starting a hobby business in your spare time. While you have the temporary security of a job, you must be as ready to fire your boss at any time, just as they are prepared to let you go at any moment.

Investing your money in a bank is less secure than spending it on training or equipment that you can use to produce goods or services you can offer to others.

For those who are unemployed, finding employment quickly may be the primary concern, but even in their vulnerable state steps can be taken to secure personal capital. Time not spent looking for a job can be invested in developing a product or offering services that may blossom into the creation of a new line of work. Even without money to offer, skills can be learned from others, the internet, or books. When on job interviews, ask questions about the company, its procedures, its products and methods. You can learn a great deal about business by asking questions during the interview process. If a new job presents itself before you are self-sufficient, do not stop creating personal capital; remember how easily you can be cast back into unemployment by your new employer.

Companies should also consider paying and rewarding employees based on production, either by instituting a piece-rate compensation system or establishing a policy of dividing annual profits among the workers each year. Once companies begin establishing such policies, they will be more attractive to prospective workers than their completion. This change must be proposed to each employer by their employees before it will be considered.

Remember that every person is in business for themselves, and is a business in themselves – motivated by self interest, they sell their product or service to a client. It is important that they keep this in mind with every decision they make; basing a business on a single client, or selling a product through a single national retailer is a bad business practice for a company or an individual.

How each individual acts by spending money, choosing a career, and working should either reflect their life as a microcapitalist, master of their own labor and a small business owner, or that of a wage slave grinding for a handout.

Educational institutions must cease to be corporate training centers. The misconceptions identified earlier are reinforced, implicitly and explicitly, by today’s schools. Compliance and attendance are rewarded more than creativity and inquiry. As most of the world’s schools are currently controlled by governments, the most immediate path to change is for Microcapitalist parents to take direct control of their children’s futures by home education, or cooperative education conducted by a community of parents that want their children to be more than wage-slaves in a machine, until real educational reform takes root in the public intuitions.

Capital being produced and controlled by a multitude of individuals will erode the power of the big businesses. Like raindrops forming a flood, control can be broken by the unified commitment of the many against the few.

Boycotts of large businesses are ineffective as a strategy, especially where they have eliminated competition. The battle before us is not so much about where we spend our money, but how we earn it. If small businesses and individuals market directly to one another, if we invest our wages in real productive property for ourselves, then we shall break the banks and the superstore merchants who thrive on concentrated capital and a submissive workforce.

Microcapitalism cannot promise equality. It cannot promise that every citizen will be master of his own personal capital. But it can promise a more sustainable, secure future for the country that adopts it and encourages its people to be responsible for their own welfare.

The Spectre of Things Yet to Come

History has shown that when inequality of freedoms, property, and rights becomes too great, a redistribution eventually takes place. Often, the shift is violent, bloody, and unjust.

Even as this book is written the clouds of discontent are showing signs of a violent storm. It is not hard to see the anger turning to hatred in the future. Do not underestimate the cruelty of oppressed masses!

Just as Pharaoh was drowned in the Red Sea, so shall a banker be drowned in his own swimming pool. Just as the French rulers were beheaded, so shall bloody coups end civilized governments. Just as the abolition of slavery in the United States devastated the Southern economy, so shall new oppression rise in the violent wake of the next class war.

We have the tools, the means, and the ability to restore natural rights to productive property to all – peacefully and justly. If we fail to exercise them, if we hesitate to change, if we do not conduct the revolution peacefully now, the change will be forced upon us just as it was forced upon the great civilizations before us.

This is not the task for government. This is not a task for society, or for everyone. This is a task that must be undertaken by you.

We can change the world now, or pay in blood later.

If you liked this, please share on Facebook via email, or by linking here (please do not repost this copyrighted work elsewhere!). You can also support further publication by buying the Kindle edition from Amazon or the PDF version here for $5.

You can also join the Microcaptialist group on Facebook here.

photo credit: bfishadow

As a byproduct of publishing my books as ebooks and learning the process, I now have a technique for converting books to the epub and mobi formats for Barnes & Noble’s Nook, Amazon’s Kindle, Sony Readers, etc.

For those of you who have published books, or have been thinking about it, I’ve put together a presentation video on the subject, for those of you who don’t like reading all the technical information that is out there and just want it summarized. It helps paint the picture behind the decision of several authors, such as Seth Godin, to go 100% digital with their future books.

The video also demonstrates why I don’t podcast.

Why eBooks? An Overview for Niche Publishers and Indie Authors from Paul Nowak on Vimeo.

Key points:
1) People buying Kindles and other readers have purchasing power and the desire to read many books. If nothing else, the ebook market segregates avid readers with purchasing power from the rest of the population. You shouldn’t be ignoring that market by not having your books available as ebooks.

2) With 3 million Kindles sold (before the Kindle 3 and not counting the free Kindle App) there is enough market for your ebook to be a best seller, even if only digital. Also note this doesn’t include iBookstore or B&N’s readers!

3) Amazon, Apple, and other retailers are giving the author/publisher 70% of retail sales of the books. No retailer is going to give you that much share of the gross retail price for a product, especially a book. You can keep more of the revenue per sale, making it an efficient market.

4) Don’t think creating a PDF gives you access to this market; they do not display well in many cases on ebook readers. Nor can you sell them through channels like Amazon, where one ebook has already sold over a million copies.

If you have questions about the conversion services, feel free to email me at wordsmith@eternalrevolution.com

photo credit: russelljsmith

I wanted to highlight a few contemporary authors that advocate Microcapitalist ideals – although they are not yet using the term. Rather, if you ask they will probably identify themselves as capitalists, though they are critical of some of the traditional ideals, and you could hardly liken them to big business and finance companies that defend capitalism. They’re the kind of modern practitioners you don’t hear distributists talk about, despite the impact they have in today’s culture.

Timothy Ferriss, author of the 4-Hour Workweek. I almost stopped reading Ferriss’ book a few pages into it, as he writes like he’s in competition with the Old Spice Guy & the Most Interesting Man in the World for bragging rights. But Ferriss lays out how working for someone else won’t get you anywhere and the need to produce something yourself (albeit by outsourcing). The real hidden value is how to subversively get started, even while an employee by avoiding meetings and getting approval to work out of the office.

Seth Godin, author of Linchpin and Small is the New Big, and more. Godin constantly pushes his readers to take risks and personally produce more, fighting the the survival instinct of the amygdala or “lizard brain” to fit in, keep your head down, and remain a wage slave. He’s explicitly critical of modern education, particularly business schools.

Jason Fried & 37Signals, authors of Rework and Getting Real. I was blown away by these guys. Unlike Godin and Ferriss, 37Signals is not in the book-writing and inspiration business, they’re a software company, creators of Ruby on Rails. Their books have come out of their own practices, and have a great mix of practical tips and theory – not just for those in their industry.

Let’s retire the term entrepreneur. It’s outdated and loaded with baggage. It smells like a members-only club. Everyone should be encouraged to start his own business, not just some rare breed that self-identifies as entrepreneurs.

Jason Fried, Rework

Want to join the discussion on Microcapitalism? Join the Facebook page!

photo credit: Tim & Selena Middleton

This is another long post from Chesterton. This fragment was never published until it appeared in his biography by Masie Ward. However, it is relevant as it addresses the idea of “Christian Socialism,” and interesting as Ward mentions that at this time Chesterton did not yet call himself Christian.

However, the power of the piece is not about economic theory, but about any movement of people. Do we call for society to change, or place the responsibility on each and every one to change, as Christ does?

Now, for my own part, I cannot in the least agree with those who see no difference between Christian and modern Socialism, nor do I for a moment join in some Christian Socialists’ denunciations of those worthy middle-class people who cannot see the connection. For I cannot help thinking that in a way these latter people are right. No reasonable man can read the Sermon on the Mount and think that its tone is not very different from that of most collectivist speculation of the present day, and the Philistines feel this, though they cannot distinctly express it. There is a difference between Christ’s Socialist program and that of our own time, a difference deep, genuine and all important, and it is this which I wish to point out.

Let us take two types side by side, or rather the same type in the two different atmospheres. Let us take the “rich young man” of the Gospels and place beside him the rich young man of the present day, on the threshold of Socialism. If we were to follow the difficulties, theories, doubts, resolves, and conclusions of each of these characters, we should find two very distinct threads of self-examination running through the two lives. And the essence of the difference was this: the modern Socialist is saying, “What will society do?” while his prototype, as we read, said, “What shall I do?” Properly considered, this latter sentence contains the whole essence of the older Communism. The modern Socialist regards his theory of regeneration as a duty which society owes to him, the early Christian regarded it as a duty which he owed to society; the modern Socialist is busy framing schemes for its fulfilment, the early Christian was busy considering whether he would himself fulfil it there and then; the ideal of modern Socialism is an elaborate Utopia to which he hopes the world may be tending, the ideal of the early Christian was an actual nucleus “living the new life” to whom he might join himself if he liked. Hence the constant note running through the whole gospel, of the importance, difficulty and excitement of the “call,” the individual and practical request made by Christ to every rich man, “sell all thou hast and give to the poor.”
To us Socialism comes speculatively as a noble and optimistic theory of what may be the crown of progress, to Peter and James and John it came practically as a crisis of their own Daily life, a stirring question of conduct and renunciation.

Modern Socialism says, “Elaborate a broad, noble and workable system and submit it to the progressive intellect of society.” Early Christianity said, “Sell all thou hast and give to the poor.”

We do not therefore in the least agree with those who hold that modern Socialism is an exact counterpart or fulfilment of the socialism of Christianity. We find the difference important and profound, despite the common ground of anti-selfish collectivism. The modern Socialist regards Communism as a distant panacea for society, the early Christian regarded it as an immediate and difficult regeneration of himself: the modern Socialist reviles, or at any rate reproaches, society for not adopting it, the early Christian concentrated his thoughts on the problem of his own fitness and unfitness to adopt it: to the modern Socialist it is a theory, to the early Christian it was a call; modern Socialism says, “Elaborate a broad, noble and workable system and submit it to the progressive intellect of society.” Early Christianity said, “Sell all thou hast and give to the poor.”

This distinction between the social and personal way of regarding the change has two sides, a spiritual and a practical which we propose to notice. The spiritual side of it, though of less direct and revolutionary importance than the practical, has still a very profound philosophic significance. To us it appears something extraordinary that this Christian side of Socialism, the side of the difficulty of the personal sacrifice, and the patience, cheerfulness, and good temper necessary for the protracted personal surrender is so constantly overlooked. The literary world is flooded with old men seeing visions and young men dreaming dreams, with various stages of anti-competitive enthusiasm, with economic apocalypses, elaborate Utopias and mushroom destinies of mankind. And, as far as we have seen, in all this whirlwind of theoretic excitement there is not a word spoken of the intense practical difficulty of the summons to the individual, the heavy, unrewarding cross borne by him who gives up the world.

For it will not surely be denied that not only will Socialism be impossible without some effort on the part of individuals, but that Socialism if once established would be rapidly dissolved, or worse still, diseased, if the individual members of the community did not make a constant effort to do that which in the present state of human nature must mean an effort, to live the higher life. Mere state systems could not bring about and still less sustain a reign of unselfishness, without a cheerful decision on the part of the members to forget selfishness even in little things, and for that most difficult and at the same time most important personal decision Christ made provision and the modern theorists make no provision at all. Some modern Socialists do indeed see that something more is necessary for the golden age than fixed incomes and universal stores tickets, and that the fountain heads of all real improvement are to be found in human temper and character. Mr. William Morris, for instance, in his “News from Nowhere” gives a beautiful picture of a land ruled by Love, and rightly grounds the give-and-take camaraderie of his ideal state upon an assumed improvement in human nature. But he does not tell us how such an improvement is to be effected, and Christ did. Of Christ’s actual method in this matter I shall speak afterwards when dealing with the practical aspect, my object just now is to compare the spiritual and emotional effects of the call of Christ, as compared to those of the vision of Mr. William Morris. When we compare the spiritual attitudes of two thinkers, one of whom is considering whether social history has been sufficiently a course of improvement to warrant him in believing that it will culminate in universal altruism, while the other is considering whether he loves other people enough to walk down tomorrow to the market-place and distribute everything but his staff and his scrip, it will not be denied that the latter is likely to undergo certain deep and acute emotional experiences, which will be quite unknown to the former. And these emotional experiences are what we understand as the spiritual aspect of the distinction. For three characteristics at least the Galilean programme makes more provision; humility, activity, cheerfulness, the real triad of Christian virtues.

Humility is a grand, a stirring thing, the exalting paradox of Christianity, and the sad want of it in our own time is, we believe, what really makes us think life dull, like a cynic, instead of marvellous, like a child. With this, however, we have at present nothing to do. What we have to do with is the unfortunate fact that among no persons is it more wanting than among Socialists, Christian and other. The isolated or scattered protest for a complete change in social order, the continual harping on one string, the necessarily jaundiced contemplation of a system already condemned, and above all, the haunting pessimistic whisper of a possible hopelessness of overcoming the giant forces of success, all these impart undeniably to the modern Socialist a tone excessively imperious and bitter. Nor can we reasonably blame the average money-getting public for their impatience with the monotonous virulence of men who are constantly reviling them for not living communistically, and who after all, are not doing it themselves. Willingly do we allow that these latter enthusiasts think it impossible in the present state of society to practise their ideal, but this fact, while vindicating their indisputable sincerity, throws an unfortunate vagueness and inconclusiveness over their denunciations of other people in the same position. Let us compare with this arrogant and angry tone among the modern Utopians who can only dream “the life,” the tone of the early Christian who was busy living it. As far as we know, the early Christians never regarded it as astonishing that the world as they found it was competitive and unregenerate; they seem to have felt that it could not in its pre-Christian ignorance have been anything else, and their whole interest was bent on their own standard of conduct and exhortation which was necessary to convert it. They felt that it was by no merit of theirs that they had been enabled to enter into the life before the Romans, but simply as a result of the fact that Christ had appeared in Galilee and not in Rome. Lastly, they never seem to have entertained a doubt that the message would itself convert the world with a rapidity and ease which left no room for severe condemnation of the heathen societies.

With regard to the second merit, that of activity, there can be little doubt as to where it lies between the planner of the Utopia and the convert of the brotherhood. The modern Socialist is a visionary, but in this he is on the same ground as half the great men of the world, and to some extent of the early Christian himself, who rushed towards a personal ideal very difficult to sustain. The visionary who yearns toward an ideal which is practically impossible is not useless or mischievous, but often the opposite; but the person who is often useless, and always mischievous, is the visionary who dreams with the knowledge or the half-knowledge that his ideal is impossible. The early Christian might be wrong in believing that by entering the brotherhood men could in a few years become perfect even as their Father in Heaven was perfect, but he believed it and acted flatly and fearlessly on the belief: this is the type of the higher visionary. But all the insidious dangers of the vision; the idleness, the procrastination, the mere mental aestheticism, come in when the vision is indulged, as half our Socialistic conceptions are, as a mere humour or fairy-tale, with a consciousness, half-confessed, that it is beyond practical politics, and that we need not be troubled with its immediate fulfilment. The visionary who believes in his own most frantic vision is always noble and useful. It is the visionary who does not believe in his vision who is the dreamer, the idler, the Utopian. This then is the second moral virtue of the older school, an immense direct sincerity of action, a cleansing away, by the sweats of hard work, of all those subtle and perilous instincts of mere ethical castle-building which have been woven like the spells of an enchantress, round so many of the strong men of our own time.

A knight is not contented with the statement that his commander has hid his plans so as to insure victory: what the knight wants is a sword.

The third merit, which I have called cheerfulness, is really the most important of all. We may perhaps put the comparison in this way. It might strike many persons as strange that in a time on the whole so optimistic in its intellectual beliefs as this is, in an age when only a small minority disbelieve in social progress, and a large majority believe in an ultimate social perfection, there should be such a tired and blasé feeling among numbers of young men. This, we think, is due, not to the want of an ultimate ideal, but to that of any immediate way of making for it: not of something to hope but of something to do. A human being is not satisfied and never will be satisfied with being told that it is all right: what he wants is not a prediction of what other people will be hundreds of years hence, to make him cheerful, but a new and stirring test and task for himself, which will assuredly make him cheerful. A knight is not contented with the statement that his commander has hid his plans so as to insure victory: what the knight wants is a sword. This demand for a task is not mere bravado, it is an eternal and natural part of the higher optimism, as deep-rooted as the foreshadowing of perfection.

photo credit: U-g-g-B-o-y-(-Photograph-World-Sense-)

With all the coverage of Steven Slater’s bailing from a Jet Blue flight after dealing with passenger that cussed him out for enforcing the rules of the airline, there’s been talk of him being a ‘hero.’ His own rant and selfish (but spectacular) exit from his career does not really meet the definition of hero, but anti-hero or folk hero fits nicely.

Every time Slater comes up, I keep hearing a tune in my head. No, not “The Ballad of Steven Slater” which seems to be a exploitation of the vulgarities exchanged between Slater and the still nameless passenger who pushed him over the edge – but the “Hero of Canton.” Here it is performed by Adam Baldwin, the actor who played “The Man They Called Jayne” on the series Firefly.

The song is sung on a world where “mudders” or slaves, make ceramic bricks for a wealthy magistrate. Jayne and a partner robbed the magistrate, but in the escape Jayne ended up pushing his partner – and the loot – out the hatch to save his own skin. (Maybe that’s where I first made the connection?) Anyway, the money rained down on the oppressed mudders, who saw Jayne as a hero, despite his very un-heroic motives. In fact, as the mercenary muscle on the Firefly crew, nothing about Jayne is remotely heroic.

So like Jayne Cobb and Robin Hood, Steven Slater could be considered a kind of folk hero: someone lauded, cheered for a specific action, despite the dubious morality about how or why it was done.

What is being admired about Slater is, when push came to shove, he left a job in the middle of the recession because you couldn’t pay him enough to take the abuse anymore. The term wage-slave gets tossed around a lot, but when someone is continually subjected to verbal abuse, that is oppression.

Slater couldn’t walk away. He couldn’t go ask his supervisor to intervene. They were on a plane. All the usual ways of dealing with abusive bosses and customers were closed to him. He had been struck (probably by accident, but I’m sure it hurt anyway) and cussed at. He couldn’t not enforce the rules that were being broken, he couldn’t get sarcastic back or yell at the passenger without losing his job. So when he boiled over, he made a spectacle of it, and quit.

I can’t condone the manner in which Slater quit, but neither can I condone those who seek to crucify him. The National Catholic Register published a blog post by Danielle Bean, editorial director of Faith & Family Magazine in which Bean called Slater “a big fat baby.”

Real working man heroes are people whose names most of us will never know. They are the ones who show up, day after day, faithfully performing hard, thankless tasks without complaint. Because they know the value of a dollar. Because they are grateful for the opportunity to earn a living. Because they are driven to provide for their families.

Danielle Bean

Criticize him for being reckless, for disrupting service, for being selfish in his tantrum or for the vulgarity of language he used. Scold him for sinking to the level of the passenger. But do not call him names because he valued himself more than to take verbal abuse for money. Especially as a Christian magazine editor on a Christian website. You can’t serve God and money – so don’t tell people to “suck it up” for cash.

Prostitutes do the things that Slater was told to do, and they do it for money. There are obviously levels of abuse we are not to subject ourselves to for money. We are children of God, his creation. If we find it acceptable to endure verbal, emotional, or physical abuse for money we are spitting on his creation.

As Christians, there should be limits to what we will do. We are not called to provide for our families first and foremost; we are told not to store up earthly treasure, to forsake family, even parts of our bodies if they keep us from the kingdom of heaven. If we are called even to those scarifies, are we not called then to leave jobs too? Certainly it is easier to find a new job, even in this economy, than to re-grow an eye you have plucked out. Perhaps Slater felt if he kept swallowing the abuse he’d snap in a more violent way, and he had to do something drastic to keep from doing something worse. Or maybe he didn’t think at all, other than to end the oppression.

And that, at the very least, is admirable.

photo credit: bobster855

It is all too easy to push off changing the world to things that “society,” “the future,” or even worse, “the government” ought to do.

You may have noticed we don’t talk a lot here on Eternal Revolution about current politics, if at all. Most of us can’t affect the power plays of the ruling class other than with our votes and the occasional participation in notification campaigns.

Leaving change to something society must do is lazy and cowardly. It reduces your requirement to change things in your life, in your world, and in your sphere of influence. The Eternal Revolution, like the Kingdom it is restoring, exists in its smallest, most nuclear form within you and your family.

Jesus did not call society to change. Rather, he said specifically that men’s hearts must change first. When teaching socio-economics, his command was “Go and sell what you have and give the money to the poor.” It was a a personal call to action, not a suggestion to join a political action committee.

Many of us would rather cut off a hand than quit a job, for instance. Even a morally questionable job, even though we are told to sever the ties that lead us to sin – even if it be a hand or an eye. Most of us fear criticism of our fellow man than doing the right thing.

One relevant example is this young woman’s valedictorian speech. Of course she’s nervous. What Seth Godin refers to as the “lizard brain,” her sense of self-preservation, is fighting the idea of criticizing the educational system that is honoring her. Perhaps she is biting the had that fed her (even if it was junk food), but she saw that something had to be done, and she did it despite her fear.

Somehow I think the staff sitting behind her are wishing their deviant valedictorian would have just been one of those to flash the audience.

Most of the changes we need to make are not this drastic. Looking to your personal economy. Look first to care for those who you have a divine charge to take care of – your children, your family, your neighbor. The revolution starts there. Don’t skip ahead.

photo credit: gettattoo

A recurring issue in any economic discussion is that of profit motive, which is always mentioned to defend capitalism from socialism or even at time distributism, if the capitalist is aggressive enough to do so.

There is a fundamental flaw in using profit motive as the sole means of motivation, or to speak of it as if it was the only form of self-interest. Certainly, on the individual level, it is not a universal equality.

To explain this further, I’ll refer to a video on studies done on motivational methods:

While the talk given above was focused more on management methods, it has application in economics as well. Don’t expect people to do things just for the money. There are many forms of self-interest that are not profit motive – after all, few people simply want money for money’s sake: they want money to accomplish something or reach a certain goal. Money only represents capital, it is not capital (or a dream, or sustainability) in itself. Adam Smith defined the free market in terms of self-interest, it was more recent economic thinking that defined profit motive as the “ultimate” purpose of a commercial enterprise. Distributism and are more true to the root of capitalism in recognizing self-interest as the primary motivator for commercial enterprise.

So the next time someone brings up profit motive in defense of capitalism, point out that the proper term is self-interest.

photo credit: Felipe Skroski

The question of local economies came up in a recent discussion on the Microcapitalism Facebook Page. I had posted something about Alice.com, a new online marketplace for grocery goods.

Jim Bryant raised the question of how such marketplaces might impact local economies. Until that point I had not given much thought to the “Buy Local” campaigns, or their place in an economy. In most cases, though, I find that it is a marketing gimmick, not a sound economic principle.

“Buy Local’ is most commonly used by merchants. Those merchants, while local to you, seldom buy from local producers. Therefore, “Buy Local” stimulates a local market economy that in actuality hurts producers and consumers.

My wife presented an example she saw on a “Buy Local” segment. A mother buys a glass of lemonade from her son for $1. The boy spends the dollar at a local train shop. The train shop owner spends the money somewhere else local, and one way or another the dollar comes back to the mother.

Remember, money is not capital, it merely represents capital. So where is the capital? The mother (we assume in most cases these days) provided the lemonade mix from a supermarket which bought the lemons (if any real lemons were used) from a farm out of state, or perhaps outside the country. The proceeds of that first dollar were as diluted at the mix was in water by the time it reached the producer. At the train store, at least half the dollar went to the distributor, and perhaps only 35 cents went to the manufacturer of the train. Both the distributor and the manufacturer are likely outside not only the community, but the state.

In this scenario, unless the boy squeezed the lemons from the family tree, nothing was produced in the town, and the example of the dollar being passed around is merely the shuffling of money, with large chunks of it going outside of the community anyway.

Besides, what is local? Do we mean the township, the metro area, the county, state, or national economy? Certainly, microcapitalism is concerned with personal economy, that of a family unit, but beyond that where do regional boundaries matter? More focus should be on shortening the chain from producer to consumer than on geographic location.

There are of course exceptions: the most direct producer to consumer chain for produce is a local farmer, bypassing not only the store but also transportation companies. Local merchants who have developed their business around a marketable service are “producing” something that is added to the product they import. Expertise, service, consultations – these are the things a merchant must add, lest the become merely a leech on the production of others.

To build up a local economy, the locale must be producing some good or service that is exported outside the community. If the local economy is based on keeping their own money in the local economy by buying from local merchants, the economy is sickly. Silicon Valley need not worry about whether or not people “buy local” because the whole world buys things produced in their fertile region. Detroit used to not have to worry about buying local, but now even buying local cannot save a city’s economy when their chief export dries up.

There is on other exception: a national economy must also be seen as a “local” economy. Like the family unit, nations should strive to produce as much as they can for themselves, trading only what cannot be obtained easily in their location. A nation that only consumes, and reduces its own production, will slowly see its economy, and that of its citizens, rot away.

photo credit: twicepix

I was all set today to continue our theme of “Atheist Week” here on Eternal Revolution, when a banner ad caught my eye with the slogan, “Be the Master of Your Own Economy.”

The design was far to modern to be a distributist campaign, but I watched the inane animated ad until I discovered that the call to action was issued by Verizon for their wireless phone discounts.

When did we exactly start equating personal economy and thrift with coupon clipping and deal hunting? The former has always been a marketing ploy, and now, through sites like Woot and Groupon, merchants are gaming sites like SlickDeals and FatWallet by offering “price mistakes” and “special deals.” Using a coupon to buy something you don’t need, or purchasing something just because it’s on sale is not how you master your own economy.

“Be the Master of Your Own Economy” would be a great slogan for microcapitalism, except that the word economy has been so lost someone thought it made a great slogan for a mobile phone sale. Mastering your own resources, your own capital, is certainly a way to increase the stability of your own life, instead of expecting a handout from a government or corporate entity on which to live until the arrangement is terminated. As you cannot have an economy without producing, it is insane to presume that mastery of personal economy (or even a national economy) is to be attained through consumption.

To borrow from William Cobbett, a good starting place for mastering your economy is the rule that you should not pay another for something you can achieve or produce yourself. Any economics student will jump in and point out the benefits of exchange, but it has been modern economics that brought us the Verizon ad campaign in the first place – or the attitude of the boss in Dilbert who ponders whether if enough costs are cut, can the company make a profit without making anything. Cobbett’s rule is a starting point, a founding principle that has been lost.

What can you produce yourself? Here’s just a starting list:

1) Food. Just about anywhere you can at the very least grow some cherry tomatoes in an indoor planter. Cobbett laid out how a family can feed itself on a quarter acre garden in Cottage Economy. The tyranny of zoning laws may be an obstacle, but you can make a dent in what you would have spent elsewhere with a garden of that size. Rabbits are a very lean meat and since they breed, well, like rabbits, the cycle from mating to table is as little as 7 months.

2) Cleaning supplies. This can be a real eye opener. Google the MSDS for your favorite cleaning supplies, and make what you can yourself. Did you now that Febreeze is just 2-7% alcohol in water, with a bit of perfume as a “fresh scent?”

3) Detergent. A bit of borax, washing soda, and soap makes a powerful cleanser and clothing detergent, and for a family of six an annual supply could be made for about $30 a year. If you want to get all Fight Club about it, make the soap yourself too.

This is just the beginning, things just about anyone anywhere can start with to really start to take control of their personal economy.