The larger problem a society faces with situations like this is a more fundamental one; especially for Capitalism. The problem you see is that to stay vigilant for such transgressions is also a cost factor. That this usually gets placed on government, who must then try to work that cost through via taxes, puts it into the same area of difficulty all such things have for a government. And of course it places such types of vigilance into easy reach of those who have had great success in depicting taxation as theft no matter if it is for a true public good or not. And they can do this even as they continue to claim that it is not Capitalism that has made efforts at publicly provided health care unsuccessful, but rather government waste.
That government can be wasteful is certainly no shocker, but that fact by itself is not why we do not have affordable health care. The bigger fact, it seems to me, is that there are just too many points of transaction, and interaction, within the vast multi dimensional matrix of transaction flow that is our economy, where profit gouging of one form or another can occur. And the thing is, any particular economic entity that didn't take the opportunity to take advantage of such opportunities, when presented with them, probably wouldn't last very long otherwise in the vast scheme of things; the simple logic being you have to do what you have to do to in order to survive, or what's the point in being in business in the first place? And of course for government to try and be vigilant against this across the boards creates an absurd picture of the armies of investigators, and accountants, and lawyers etc, who would have to be paid to keep them at it.
Just the oppressive flow of information required to feed this interactive beast, let alone the wages require by the direct participants, would represent forms creation processes, filling out processes, preservation processes, and retrieval requirements of staggering proportions. And at every turn, certainly, is another cost source.
This is another way of saying that the bigger problem truly is the system itself. And the fact that this system is now under the influence of the movement of electrons, as opposed to having things be manipulated only in terms of the movement of people. Several hundred years ago, seeing this primarily as the movement of people made perfect sense because other than the manipulation of a limited set of draft animals, fire, and taking what little advantage they could from the movement of water, there wasn't much else available for them to work knowledgeably with. But boy things have certainly changed now, haven't they.
This is the fundamental problem humanity is faced with now. It is a problem based on the fact that certain accumulations of change must be met by completely rethinking how a process is to be accomplished, and what the organizational parameters must now become to do that in the new realities a new situation must necessarily place you in. These are relationships that everybody in business, and government know already. Which of course makes it all the more perplexing why there is so much resistance to see this reality in this larger context.
And unfortunately the many clocks of ticking problems not addressed still wind inexorably down to the point where they will be ignored no longer. All because people seem to perversely enjoy ignoring the obvious, as things get crazier and crazier. That might be precisely because we're so entertainingly distracted these days, or it might simply be one of those quirks of madness sanity will never be able to figure out completely. In any case, though, sanity better wake up soon, or there won't be any sanity left to be woken at all.
No comments:
Post a Comment