Maybe the Chimps Have Something

By Quinn Ellery

I really liked a post I saw on the internet once that expounded upon the strengths of our democracy and the capitalistic society we all value. I think it missed a fundamental flaw in our hallowed capitalistic structure, though: When corporations refuse to allow new costs of doing business to come out of their profits and continually pass them on to their customers by increasing the prices for their products, wages must grow in order to keep pace.

But what's not realistic is that wages will ever keep pace. If we look down the road and the inevitable conclusion, given the 10-cent price of bread during The Great Depression and historical inflation, in fifty years or so, a loaf of bread will cost 10$, a gallon of milk 25, and a gallon of gas (if we still have any) will be 30$ or more. Think wages will increase so we can afford to purchase what we need? Nope.

I don't intend to be an alarmist and I know this argument has hounds, but I think it's something for which we should prepare, as the premise is still sound.

So where, really, is this Grand Experiment going? How will it avoid a total collapse into anarchy without the government stepping in to freeze prices for a few years and all the resultant, associated nightmares such a course of action would confirm in our worse revolutionary fears?

Sure, it would be nice if minimum wage became 75$ an hour, but how likely do we really think that's going to happen? I just don't know. I have the opportunity of living in three centuries, so I actually could see the beginnings of all the above for a little while before I move on.

I just don't see a sustainable endgame, unless wealth redistribution becomes a part of national pride-- a national pride such as we had during WWII.

A national pride, where owners, as they've begun to do in a northern province of Spain, decide they will earn no more than three times of their lowest paid employee.

A national pride in which all profits get spread out evenly to all the workers, while part of them and some of their high wages are not actually paid, but put back into the company, in effect making them all part owners, collectively-- the next step (or two) after what is known today as "profit sharing."

A national pride in which "term limits" of seven or ten years of company ownership are voluntarily adopted (none of this can be legislated; the country would erupt!!), where business owners would sell their corporate property rights, either to another owner for the next seven or ten years, or to the workers themselves, who'd then create their own collective with their own boards and their own management, which, after their seven or ten years were up, would then pass the company on either to the next generation of workers or to another single owner, restarting the whole endeavor. Departing owners could then be free to do what most secretly wish they could do-- pick up to go start a new company, avoiding conditions that make them feel stagnated and stifled.

I like the first idea, am not certain about the second, but could probably live with it (there's a lot of hope for the masses there), and I know of several business people who actually do the last idea, sort of acting like nomadic business geniuses that get their rocks off building a business up, then get board, choose to sell around the seven year mark, and move on to the next joy in their lives, building up another company-- the real pleasure of business.

As radical as all that sounds, these are logical, workable solutions. Unfortunately, these solutions (designed to salvage capitalism) can easily be critiqued as the very definitions of socialism-- or even communism-- though they really don't come anywhere close.

In true socialism or communism, when everyone is contributing, things are poor, but fine, as nearly everyone is in the same boat. In the worst case scenario, the society buys into giving up 80% of their collapsing wages so they can then be equally portioned out to those who can't, won't, or don't work in order to keep them alive-- another (depressing) form of national pride.

Imagine, you earn 100$ a day carting metal and wood around and when you go to collect your wages, they thank you for your service, give you twenty bucks and you're supposed to be happy in the knowledge that you're supporting all those other citizens. At that point, Marx and the People win and ownership or equity in anything becomes meaningless.

Should such a thing happen in America, today's 1% become tomorrow's 10, and 40% of the population work (if enough work is available) to support the 50% who aren't. In effect the wealthy become the upper middle classes of today who don't need to work because they've collectively banked their earlier wealth while effectively creating a new slave class of hale workers who are now in a worse state than where they once began; 90% get paid poorly and 10% never need to work again. Nearly the entire population loses out. Sound familiar?

The suggestions made earlier-- 3:1 wage ratios, collective worker ownership, business owner term limits-- though similar to socialism and even communism (but miles away from being so), would effectively repel such a horrible future. They would, in truth, go a long way in saving capitalism, make our economy independently sustainable, and preserve our basic capitalistic traditions-- getting paid well for our work, the pursuit of a modest profit is good and noble, competition best regulates a market and the freedom for innovation must have multiple means to flourish. All of these are key and should be cherished.

Unfortunately, though some may see the need for such changes or others like it, for others, I fear our collective anxiety of anything resembling socialistic or communistic concepts will prevent needed change. We'll likely need things to get so bad as to break down into a dystopia, go through all that pain and death, before deciding we should've done something. After some time, though, over the generations of recovery, we'll have forgotten the lesson and will likely begin building the same system all over again.

Hmmmm. Sometimes, I think we might be better off if we all just went back up the trees.

ref: hounds = flaws or, more specifically, those who sound them out. (Sorry, couldn't pass up the tempting rhyme when I happened to see the meter's time. On occasion, my writing goes there; a wee challenge, as though the words dare.)

A native of Colorado, "Quinn Ellery" has a B.A in Sociology from NMSU and has visited many places in the world as an Air Force brat. They write essays in the areas of politics, social issues, science, writing, motivation and mental health. A little absurdist poetry's written, too. They are currently writing two or three novels of autobiographical fiction at the same time, as well as a fantasy adventure book, tentatively entitled "GeGe's Dogs" for young readers. They are only 5 million dollars away from retiring rather comfortably.

Sorry, if this isn't the way it's normally done. Don't savvy what a listicle is or its function.