The new economic order

Quote:

‘The administration of economies is marked by budgets that are largely concerned with “balancing the books” and less about caring for humankind’

LENNOX FRANCIS

CALLING ALL economists, university trained, academic self-styled, those using common sense, as well as those described as “bush economists.”

Our theorists and university-trained have the advantage of creating a society in which the parameters are constant; make assumptions and apply selected make-believe laws to construct solutions for the present economic crisis. They always appear to be right since they are referring to their utopia.

Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley and Finance Minister Colm Imbert are in the lion’s den because they are presented with reality. In their wisdom they have to extract, apply and test the laws they feel will work. In the realm of human behaviour only change is constant. What works today may not work tomorrow.

Judging from the amount of unrest worldwide, actually managing economies is subject to strict scrutiny and empirical evidence suggest there is more failure than success. Why should I envy the politicians?

Why is this so? The laws of supplying goods and providing services to satisfy demand in modern economies have drifted far away from the barter system where things had value only when they were needed.

In the present system things are given absolute value and this encourages hoarding by those who claim they have “earned and achieved.” It further cuts off those described by the hoarders as underachievers and prevents them from enjoying the resources of the planet.

The administration of economies is marked by budgets that are largely concerned with “balancing the books” and less about caring for humankind. Like so many others, I do not want to wait till I get to Heaven to enjoy the rewards for the sacrifices I made in this life.

The elements that stand out in present-day economies are the factors of production, namely land, labour, capital and entrepreneurship. Following closely on their heels are cost, price and profit.

Even though man met the land here he still lays claim to ownership. For earthlings, it will always be an essential factor of production despite the fact that we did nothing to bring it into existence.

Entrepreneurship is just labour reclassified and make-belief importance attached to it. Capital, treated as God-given, is really accumulated labour to which is added the gains from exploiting labour.

So in reality there is only one factor of production – labour. Whence came cost, price and profit? If labour is the primary element, then wages and salaries must be the only cost of input. Profit arises when we try to dispose of goods and/or sell services at a rate above cost (called price).

In modern economics (the capitalist system) what perpetuates the eternal cycle of increased cost, higher prices and more remuneration for labour? In a word, greed. The desire of those who accumulated wealth (through the exploitation of labour) for more profits will necessarily result in increased prices. The only way labour is able to partake of what is provided is to negotiate for higher wages. Hence the beginning of greed, exploitation and impoverishment.

Any economic system that is devoid of caring and sharing will be gobbled up by greed and hoarding, sowing the seeds of a “rat race.”

In little TT, with less than .01 per cent of the world’s population, we are too eager to rub shoulders with the bigwigs. Anytime they sneeze we will catch the cold. The large economic vultures of the world have plucked our innocence from us. Our entry in these worldwide organisations was greeted with a share of the invented global burdens.

How can we regain our insularity? Our thinkers, using the works of Lloyd Best as a platform, can inject a system of caring and sharing into the economy. Remember scholars on whom titles were bestowed to encourage creativity, inventiveness and leadership rather than to maintain the status quo.

If TT cannot fight the world then we can be an exemplar. Higher-cost invasion must be marshalled at the ports of entry and equally distributed among the populace so that the economy does not reflect such increases as banks against the citizenry; hardware against builders; lawyers against clients; doctors, healthcare institutions and the pharmaceutical industry against patients and even Trinidad against Tobago.

Leave no room for false prophets, pirates and profiteers. Someone has to mind the store. The sooner we recognise that wealth cannot be taken off the planet, the more we will develop a heart of gold and allow our human ancestry to flourish.

To economists and politicians, to whom much is given, much is expected. Be the salt of the earth.

Lennox Francis is a former student of economics and teacher of accounting