Economic Management and Living were joint operations long before there was Money and Commercial Banks economist says

by Horace Carby-Samuels

People are the owners of the society. They are not supposed to be slaves to the targets of the commercial banks and the corporations. However, there is abroad in our society, a prevailing misconception that the government in its economic development commitments, has the obligation to take steps which ensure that the members of the society are participants in financially-measured equivalent “prosperity”. This misinformation, regarding what an economy is all about, and regarding what governments must best do to service the targets of human economic agents, has been cultivated and communicated via government institutes, and also via the institutions of formal and informal education (schools, colleges, newspapers, magazines, radio, and television).

The message that the delivery of financial-equivalent”prosperity” is the indication of economic development performance, is intended to cultivate support for the financial and the control priorities that the commercial banks and other capitalists are pursuing. However, there is also another intent which is associated with leading people to focus on that financially-centred interpretation as to what economic progress consists of. The aim is to use (scientific sounding analytical arguments by capitalism-supporting economists) to dissuade citizens from drawing on economic performance weights (beyond monetary ones), into which their evolved sentience and understanding, has for a long time been guiding them. Yet, we need to begin to focus more extensively on the messages which arise from that historically valid existential (as compared to financial) perspective. Impact on the quality of the living experience which is forthcoming to people, is the indication of what RESPONSIBLE economic development, is all about.

Recall that humans have been economizing on their resource and effort allocation, over the history of their accommodation to the autonomous operation and evolution of their environment. In the process, they budget their time, and also their effort commitment, toward the achievement of what is essentially a survival-centred existential goal. However, the capitalist economic presentation, emphasizes that the economic management efforts of persons are aimed at achieving financial-equivalent results from their efforts.

As a result of that capitalist presentation, the framers of economic development programs, are led to focus on outcomes from resource management, that “coincidentally” fit into the achievement priorities, that the corporations, the commercial banking system, (and the agencies of governments which the capitalists have seduced), happen to be pursuing. In the process, the capitalists have succeeded in manipulating prevailing programs of education and skills development, to lead persons to focus on their imputation that a financially-centred perspective is at the basis of the linkage between humans and their resource management operations.

In contrast, it is being emphasized here that, historically, in light of their available information and understanding of how their material environment operates, humans have been committing their time and their energies toward the achievement existentially-centred results. In these economizing strategies, humans have operated under the guidance of their sentience and Consciousness. As a result, their management aim has been a survival-centred one, where they seek to generate in co-operation with their environment, results that will make their lives more sublime and meaningful.

As Conscious and sentience-guided entities, the normal, long-standing, and continuing feature/tactic of human economizing practice has not been money centred.

Rather, as human economic agents use their time and effort commitments to manipulate their environment, they have sought to appreciate its norms in greater depth. They expect, thereby, to be able to arrive at, to reinforce, (or to otherwise clarify), their perception of themselves. In the process, in their economizing tactic as living (by time-use commitments that they do), they seek to arrive at an experience in living as a meaningful sentience-directed and understanding-guided operation. Noticeably, therefore, that long standing economizing practice by conscious sentience-guided humans, was in operation, long before the capitalist economic analysts began to emphasize that it is expected results in the form of near term financial-equivalent results, which provides guidance principle to appropriate human economic management choices.

Appropriate economic development policies will need to promote (as well as lead to), enhancement in accessible quality-of-living, from the resource and effort management commitments of people. Outcomes from the aggregate economic development policies of governments, must show the extent to which the persons who make up the society have enhanced their opportunities to experience Human Development.

That is because, in contrast, within the economic performance announcements, (that capitalists, and their intellectual promoters and apologists have persuaded governments to adopt), the living-centred priorities in the effort and the resource management initiatives that humans have historically pursued, may not be made subordinate to priorities in respect of commercial success. Although enhancement in levels of commercial success happens to be the results which the capitalists, and the commercial banking system want to see, the “prosperity” to which economic development is supposed to lead, is not necessarily revealed primarily in what capitalist market data show.

Instead, the survival-centred “prosperity” among humans, (who have evolved as sentient, priority-setting, mind-guided, Conscious, technology-creating, mortal entities), is a sublime context. That type of “prosperity” is revealed in terms of how targets in living have been serviced. It is indicted as THE LEVEL OF ACCESS THAT PERSONS as owners of the society (and of their lives) HAVE, TO INFORMED PARTICIPATION IN SECURING THEIR SURVIVAL; and also have, to (the experience of) active linkages with HOW their (social and material) environment evolves.

This living-centred target from their resource management (which sentient humans have been historically in the process of pursuing), had also been formulated in terms of their seeing themselves as being also an organic complement of planet earth (as the human home-base).

Indeed, it is this latent awareness of an organic union with planet earth, among Conscious humans, which illuminates the fact that historically, the target of the effort-economizing of human economic agents, was not necessarily that of achieving net financial gain. Rather, (in association with the evolution in human sentience and awareness), historically, Conscious humans have aimed their time and effort management, toward being a better complement of planet earth and its bio-diversity.

Over that accommodation period, Conscious human economic agents have also discovered that, particular patterns of effort commitment, will enable them to secure more effectively their (substantively) survival-centred goal. That goal is, understanding-guided participation in their environment, and how it evolves. Therefore, although capitalists, and their intellectual promoters and apologists have persuaded governments to see planet earth, as a repository of tradable components, that may be transformed by banks, into (power-leveraging) financial quantities, there remains the unquestionable reality of earth, as an organic sphere, which we should seek to preserve, in behalf of continuing our historical survival.

Meanwhile, the flexibility of money, and the resource and effort organizing role that it stimulates, requires us to reconcile the capitalist emphasis on financial-equivalent profits, with the survivalist emphasis on servicing the delivery of opportunities that will promote the achievement of Human Development. However, before that can be done, there are also two CRITICAL features that responsible members of the society must more clearly understand. One is the role of money, (as surrogate property); together with the role of the commercial banking sector ,as an instrument in respect of the total quantity (and usage) of what we now recognize as money.

The second critical feature, is by no means a subordinate item to the monetary one. It is the concept of “property”; how the components in its category come into being; and how the property feature interfaces with the reality of money.

Of particular importance, is the linkage which exists between designated property, and money, and how that linkage has influenced governments to choose economic development paths which appear to be more focussed on the profits of corporations, rather than focussed on the path of sentience-guided evolution, on which humans are embarked.

Getting individuals to focus primarily on their access to money, is substantively the manipulative technique, that capitalists (and the governments which they control), use, to direct how humans focus on and appreciate their reality. However, in today’s world, money, is essentially a certificate of rights, in terms of exchange-value units, (and that has been created in association with the banking system, in concert with the propaganda of capitalist economists). Meanwhile, this prevailing political economic conditioning that guides the focus that people place on money, operates primarily as a HUMAN BEHAVIOURAL ENSLAVEMENT TOOL. (It operates largely by way of the misperception-formation strategies, (even though in today’s complex technological environment, most societies appear to be structured so that money now functions as the leverage which enables persons to gain access to the technical components/services on which they need to draw, so as to secure their survival).

However, notwithstanding that prevailing societal emphasis, rather than seeking money, Conscious humans seek technical services that will allow them to secure definitely identifiable mixes of patterns of experience (with which they desire to fill their lives).

As a result, notwithstanding the creation of money, humans are mindful of the living-centred targets which they have, and they rank options in experience/results accordingly. In particular, each human, as a sentient, Conscious mind-guided entity, aims to arrive at the deduction (or to conclude) that, in the passage of time which houses his/her life, his/her resource management efforts have been able to enhance the quality-of-living of him/her (and his/her selected reference group).

This living-centred technical ranking and weighting of prevailing outcomes (which humans give to how their time for survival has been used), accompanied the evolution of the human brain. As a result, that type living-centred economizing focus on human effort achievement, preceded the prevailing capitalist economic development focus, that emphasizes the net growth in financial results (on which the mercantile society and the banking system, with its emphasis on financial profits) chooses to focus.

The economic role of money, is the doorway through which the trans-national corporations, in concert with the local commercial banking system (as their partner and ally) end up taking control over the lives and the quality-of-survival of the people in an environment. However, it is the capitalist political economic norm, rather than the monetary role in trade, that is the culprit.

At the same time, the economy is not “stew” where money, and property, are the principal ingredients; and where the “seasoning” is provided by the commercial banks, with the government operating as the”chef”; and where the people are manipulated to operate as the “energy source”.

Meanwhile, an economy where economic achievement is shown as enhancement in the forthcoming quality mix of the living-centred opportunities of persons, is distinctive. For one, that type of economic achievement targeting does not pander either to the generation of high business profits (which the banks need to see), while being indifferent to whether these profits flow from, promoting the exercise of greed, or from the execution of accompanying “sharp” business practices (even though such practices are tolerated by the government constituencies which the capitalists have “captured”).

It happens, however, that mindful of the role of money, responsible citizens need to bear in mind the following FACT. In order to have a viable environment of production and exchange (that may be referred to as an economy), but which also aims to facilitate the access of persons to the complements of human survival, it does not follow that, how the commercial banks are now able to create new money by financializing debt, should be seen as an operating condition (or right), that “is written in stone”.

Currently, commercial banks, are legitimated to turn the debt commitment to them (of their clients), into “NEWLY CREATED” money, that these clients receive. The bank then makes interest-payment profits out of that client debt, and also then gains “advisory”access to business and social-directive power, in how the mix of the resources in the society are used.

These banking arrangements are property-linked “economic” relationships. Where aggregate economic development achievement is revealed in management initiatives that will lead people to secure opportunities for quality-of-life enhancement, and to the achievement of Human Development, there is latent economic development challenge. It will be necessary to find ways to reconcile the CONCEPT OF PROPERTY, (that also includes financial resources), to the reality of a people-centred economy.

To do that reconciliation, it must be remembered that by and large, in our society to date, property, is construed as ANY ITEM that may be so LEGISLATIVELY described, and stipulated as being ownable and dispensable in commerce, (by the designated property owner), for a negotiated financial or financial-equivalent price.

However, it is that very type of societal perspective (on what constitutes property), which legitimated the enslavement of the black people of Africa, by Europeans, and which also had then legitimated the (domestic and international) treatment of these Africans, as being no more than chattel, or occupying “pests and vermin” on the African territory/geo-space, that the Europeans had laid claim to.

Additionally, it is the continuation of that type of property perspective (on human reality), which now conspires to further enslave the bulk of humanity.

The current political economic enslavement tactic, is to legitimate that the portions of the geo-space of planet earth, and also its associated non-renewable natural resource complement, may be treated as property. The accompanying prevailing legitimated norm is that, with the co-operation of the commercial banks, trans-national corporations may acquire and use this geo-space and its resource complement, independent of the quality-of-life impact on the mass of the people who live there.

Meanwhile, although the property concept continues to remain linked to production and to trade and exchange in an economy as a quality-of-life oriented administrative domain, the legislative stipulation regarding what may be treated as property, is more constrained. There, for example, to be seen as private (as compared to common) property, certain fundamental premises must be met.

Substantively, to be designated as property, the item has to be primarily the output from the personal private effort-management of individuals; and which item, other private cohorts may also seek to acquire (under negotiated terms). These cohorts, may also then incorporate that acquired property item into their own effort commitment decisions; (either out of personal preference, or by virtue of technical capability which the acquired property item delivers).

In view of the historical background, of jointness between the economizing and the living operations in which responsible humans have participated, “Back to the Future” is the evolutionary direction in which aggregate economic development of respective governments needs to be headed.

The aim must be to enable the responsible participating PERSONS who make up the society, to access from their environment, the respective critical mixes of survival-centred goods and services. Governments must be dissuaded from being guided in their economic development management commitments, by the banks, whose targets do not include facilitating service of the sentience-guided achievement targets, that emerged in association with sentience and with the evolution of the human brain.

Meanwhile, the search for net business gain will still operate as an economic force, even when quality-of-life enhancement is the target. However, when the aggregate economic development objective is informed participation in the evolution of the society and the environment, that type of economy will promote and also police definite objectives in behalf of information-processing capabilities, and also in information enhancement and dispersal.

For example, a government with a people-centred economic development focus, is unlikely to be one which allows education and skills development programming in the society, to be structured so as to turn offspring and immigrant additions to the society, into becoming primarily “working stiffs” (which corporations may indiscriminately hire and fire in their pursuit of unbridled profits). Nor will persons be conditioned to construe living, as being that which occurs when they utilize or consume “sold goodies”. Therefore, economizing, will not be promoted as being about the managing of money and financial-equivalent resources, (in operations that complement how the commercial banks become financially successful).

Regrettably, the successful execution of a “Back to the Future” people-centred programming, that re-energises the living-centred priorities of sentience-guided economic management evolution, is unlikely to arise. That is because, servicing the capitalist banking-articulated emphasis on the achievement of financial-equivalent results, seems to be the current priority.

For reference, see: Managing our Living-Space: Quality-of-Human-Survival as the Economic “Bottom Line”; ISBN (1897318944). See also; Quality-of-Living and Human Development as the Outcome from Economic Progress: An Elaboration on Living as Time-Use Management; ISBN (1897036353).

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