Life is incredible. It allows the human spirit to florish, to learn from its failures, to conquer immense feats and even to defeat the demons within the individual. According to the United States Census Bureau (which I might be working for sometime mid-month), the global population is around 6.8 billion individual human beings. Each human life on this planet ranges from the newborn dawn all the way to octogenarian sunset. And its not necessarily human life that emerges, grows, and declines, it is also the same with terrafauna, flora, fungi, protista, bacteria, archaea (and viruses?)...though the decline is rare in the animal kingdom due to patterns in mother nature.
*Some individual members of a species do not necessarily die. For instance a species of jellyfish called the Turritopsis nutricula is known to revert back to the polyp, or sexually immature, stage of life from an adult stage. It can theoreticaly do this repeatedly. The species has spread from the Carribean and now is located across the globe, in some part due to this ability...although there may be some other factors involved.
With that aside, the prime reason I'm talking about the wide scope of life on Earth (elsewhere?) right now is because I see a growing trend of interconnectivity, whether its in terms of communication (as with the internet), or more intriguingly with regards to trade. Traditionally we think of trade occurring in three main forms:
- Free Market Trade: Adam Smith, the unseen hand working for the greater good, products and services being exchanged competitively, retaining the innate spirit of "harder, better, faster, stronger" yet in terms of product and service choice. Contemporary Origin: The United States
- The Command Central Economy: Karl Marx, Frederich Engels, socialism, wealth and power distributed according to the amount of work expended in production of a good or service, Post-WWI Soviet Union (not to be confused with Pre-WWI Soviet Union, which was more of a Nationalist State that didn't enter the necessary capitalist stage first before forming a socialist economy...there was no two-class economy in USSR before WWI, remember the Czars?). Contemporary Origin: The Soviet Union
- Fair Trade: higher market price for goods and services in order to benefit producers in developing countries (3rd world), benefit smaller businesses rather than predominant existing ones, external growth as opposed to national growth, emphasis on microeconomics. Contemporary Origin: United Kingdom with Oxfam in 1965, Wales became the world's first "fair-trade nation" in 2008
For each of these forms, we can generate several legitimate counterarguments. Now I won't go into detail about these, but I'll briefly give you one for each type of existing system: 1. In the real world, requires frequent government intervention, thus negating the idea of a market regulating itself, in addition to an unresolved "free rider" problem in the international political economy 2. Lack of a rational price mechanism and a natural inclination for producers and consumers to not make rational economic decisions, because they favor the state. 3. A mimimum price floor leads to an excess in supply, thus wasting resources (Milton Friedman Hot, Flat, and Crowded).
Since we can see that each of these systems is flawed, as most systems are, then wouldn't it be rational to develop one that seeks to eradicate flaws, eventually having none? (if that is possible) Is there a perfect economic system? Is there an economic system that benefits producers, consumers, thinkers, movers and shakers alike?
Solution: The Friction-free Market
*Definition: An extremely efficient market in which buyers and sellers can find each other easily, can interact directly, and can perform transactions with only minimal overhead costs.
I've been hinted at this idea for some time now, through my studies in Government and Philosophy at the University of Texas and at Texas A and M - Corpus Christi, but it wasn't until events that took course yesterday that I felt inspired to write upon this subject. Yesterday I went in for a job interview for a temporary paralegal position with Hire Counsel. The interview went its normal course, introductions, overview of the position, review of my credentials, why I qualify, etc...but before I was about to leave, my interviewer (whom will go unnamed) had an interesting last question for me. He asked, "What particular philosophy did you study and why were you interested in it?" I thought this was unusually strange, because employers usually blank out the word Philosophy when I interview or think of it to mean irrationally mean "mission statement" or "way of life".
I suppose that it was with great fortune that I entered a discussion with an enlightened professional, whom happened to be from the UK, that involved a comparison of Machiavelli to Immanuel Kant, Sartre to Rousseau on civilization versus barbarism, and Atlas Shrugged. These things can sometimes normally be overheard in coffee shops or in public places, but what struck a particular cord was when we were discussing the concept of a
Technocratic Society.
Lets imagine that you want to purchase a good or service and that you also want that good or service transferred to you in the most efficient manner possible. How would you propose that such be done?
The basics of a trade:
- First, you contact the party/producer/seller for the good(s) or service(s) that you want.
- Then you provide payment for said good(s) or service(s), as goes tradition, for a symbolic trust that you will get what you requested.
- Good/service is transferred to you, either by transport (if physical) or direct exchange
- Good received
Request X -----> Payment for X---->Transport/Transfer of X----->Receive X
In plain English, I think this is the simplest way that an ordinary transaction can be broken down. If you want to get picky and complicate things, of course you can add things like receipts, invoices, credit, and account transfer notices. But this is a demonstration to simplify the scope of what can be managed through any financial program like Quickbooks.
As earlier stated, problems with the three predominant economic systems arise with regards to Payment and Transport of any good/service X. The prime solution that arises with a friction-free economy is that it aims to reduce or eliminate transportation/transfer costs in any transaction. With the advent of the internet and an increasing ability for human beings to communicate with one another over long distances, with a diminishing need for intermediaries, consumers are more able than ever to directly contact producers. This enables them to skip "The Middle Man".
For example, (and I'm taking this from a 1996 article written in the Los Angeles Times) lets say that you wan't to buy a new refridgerator. You search a query through the 'net, find the cheapest one (including S & H), contact the seller and 'voila the refrigerator arrives at your doorstep in the time you requested. You may have purchased such fridge directly from a small producer in Northwest China, instead of at your local Sears & Roebuck. (Perhaps Sears also buys from that Chinese manufacturer but would rather you not know that, because they desire to make a profit)
This approach is a far more constructive pattern to creating a global individualist free-market economy than the traditional free-market paradigm, because the traditional variant (like it or not) requires some sort of government intervention, whether it be controlling of inflation, international economic sanctions (as with the case of Iran, to deter nuclear material production), subsidies, or more controversial: military action. A friction-free (international/national) economy decreases the need for these interventionalist measures, thus increasing the ability for individuals to do trade with one another.
Although the music would be ace, we don't want civilization to continually fall and rise, do we?
(Los Campensinos - You! Me! Dancing!)
This is just an introduction to the idea of a Friction-free market, but I encourage you to search and read more. T.G. Lewis is attributed to the development of this idea, and it is advocated by many other leaders in the Information Technology field, most notably Bill Gates. Check out his book:
The Friction-Free Economy
Apologies again for the long post, but I had alot to cover.
