The Collective Manifestation of Microeconomic Intelligence in Macroeconomic Systems

The Problem: Discovering specifically how these and any other essential elements interact Utility, desire, time, space Intelligence, quality of value perception (short and long-term) versus true worth Efficiency, appropriate application of technology Resource availability, sustainability of processes and resources Long-term quality of life implicit in the consequent restructuring of the environment Individual and sub-population desires and the collective good Economic manipulation by governments, powerful individuals, and/or sub-populations War The purpose of the underlying philosophy suggested here is to serve as a guide in addressing the various components of this problem. This philosophy posits that an optimum economic model should have its basis in overall system intelligence and coherence for which there exists a theoretical ideal of perfect coherence and infallible economic intelligence implying foreknowledge of both short- and long-term consequences. Using an ideal model as a point of departure, then accounting for non-ideal factors to approximate reality as closely as practicable is analogous to theoretical modeling within the physical sciences, the most successful of all sciences in terms of the practical accuracy and utility of their models. The fundamental premises of the proposed economic philosophy are: 1. All economic activity is ultimately understandable as a restructuring of both the immediate and global environment with energy modulated by intelligence (i.e., lawfully directed energy flow, whether generally by natural structure or its evolutionary products such as its human subset). 2. Economic systems are organic entities that have the potential to evolve. 3. Restructuring the environment, including simply moving things and using them, is always ideally in the service of the global health of the system at every level. 4. Genuine value is a direct function of the degree to which an economic activity actually serves this ideal. 5. Positive evolution implies the modification of an economic system toward the ideal of exclusive production of genuine individual and social worth as defined here. 6. In historical terms, we have only passed relatively recently the threshold at which rapid advances in technology are self-sustaining rather than almost exclusively motivated by threat of war or a desperate need to merely survive. 7. The evolution of advanced technology alone does not guarantee positive economic evolution in a society. If inappropriately applied through lack of a corresponding evolution of society in terms of its collective awareness and intelligence, it can even lead to world-wide destruction. 8. The evolution of an economic system is ultimately dependent on the collective evolution within the associated societies toward the appreciation of genuine worth at the microeconomic level. 9. Positive evolution toward appreciation of genuine value occurs in populations only to the degree to which they are exposed to well-structured educational systems and genuinely informative media virtually free from manipulation by narrow, short-sighted self-interest within powerful sub-populations. 10. War is the antithesis of economic coherence. It never serves the collective interest, but always and only serves that of relatively small but powerful sub-populations and then at Copyright October 2007 Robert P. Wendell All rights reserved.

the high cost of damaged environmental quality even for them, not to mention the strong potential for extremely severe longer term consequences. a) Historically, war has virtually always been instigated by small but powerful, competing sub-populations. b) Competing power elites have historically used religion and other popular belief systems espousing high ideals to fashion the rationale for war within their respective societies in the service of eliciting popular support and conscripting most of those who fight their wars. The real motives for war are historically much less elevated, much more short-sighted and narrowly self-serving than those represented in these religious ideals or cultural belief systems of a religious-like nature. c) Those in control of powerful international economic interests have the potential to subvert legitimate government and bend political life to their will. d) Occasionally wars are not the product of competing power elites, but rather the product of class war resulting from exploitation by the power elite either within a society or across international boundaries as in the case of colonies. This includes the modern equivalent of colonies represented in the blatant international corporate exploitation of resources within nations whose governments are corrupt or have been corrupted by these same interests, sometimes with the aid of military intervention by other governments with economic stakes in the corporate exploiters and/or an overriding need for the resources these exploiters do or can provide. e) Small but powerful sub-populations with enormous economic and/or political power also have the means to gain either ownership or significant control of principal media outlets to subvert them to their own narrow, short-sighted ends. They may cleverly allow dissent, even encourage it, while judiciously exercising editorial control over how much of what becomes highly visible to the public. f) In modern times, corporate interests providing goods and services to national defense have historically reaped war-time profits from twenty to sixty, one hundred, three hundred, and even eighteen hundred per cent as opposed to six, eight, ten, and sometimes twelve percent in peacetime for the same corporate interests. This includes not only industry providing expensive military technology and weaponry, but mundane items such as military clothing, field supplies, food and other vital provisions, etc. g) The techniques for public relations management and media propaganda are more highly developed than ever within the scope of our historical memory. Many decades of successful commercial advertising contributing to the means for designing media campaigns have honed knowledge of mass psychology. This leverages many times the power of pre-existing knowledge from historical successes around the world in planning the political conditions and strategies that create public acceptance of war. 10. There has been no essential change in the social mechanisms and machinations that have always instigated war. 11. A collective change is necessary in individuals toward increased clarity in their perception of powerful, narrowly self-serving interests in order to reduce public vulnerability to their manipulations. 12. The apparent economic gains of war for the powerful are gains only in a narrow, shortsighted view, since a truly healthy individual life cannot exist within a societal body and environment diseased by war, no matter how apparently insulated by wealth. The more enlightened among the wealthy and powerful must redirect this wealth to achieve point 8.