After many successful seasons, a gardener decided he never wanted to get his hands dirty again and resolved to grow his garden without planting. He suggested to his neighbor that she could plant it and keep a portion of the produce, but she already had a garden of her own. He threw seed on top of the hard ground, but it didn't sprout. He got down on his knees and begged the earth to produce, but nothing happened. Finally, he came to his seneses, dug into the ground, planted, and was rewarded with one more bountiful season.
Every industrialized economy in the world, like every garden, was planted. The American economy has seen many planting seasons, but this time around we're that silly gardener who doesn't want to get his hands dirty. We're trying to tempt others into planting with tax breaks and giveaways. We're scattering seed on hard ground by providing little bits of capital to trendy projects. We're on our knees begging, trying to "stimulate" demand, by repaving roads and digging ditches.
Both progressives and the conservatives in America have developed an ideological opposition to planting, directly building industry. Conservatives believe in the power of the seed alone: the entrepreneur. Progressives believe in that too, but also think of the soil and water that nourish the seed: the past invention and infrastructure that make the entrepreneur possible. Both sides have written the planter out of history altogether.
Who plants national economies? In American history it has almost always been an even mixture of the government, the military, and Wall Street. The planters of other industrial economies are all some combination of the same players, in some cases a little more military or a little less banker. The good fortune of America has been that the prevailing interest of its economic planters for almost 200 years was national industrial economic development. The path was not always perfectly direct, but in the end industrial development was always the purpose that trumped everything else. The American Revolution was fought for the freedom to develop our economy instead of langish as a source of raw material and customers for another country's industry. The Civil War was fought for the industrial cause when the Confederacy formed to protect a Latin American style planation economy. Today, however, America's power elite are invested in the world economy as a whole with no particular interest in replanting our economy here at home.
The world's most modern communications and transportation systems were always America's. Some of them, like the canals, telegraph, highways and Internet were planted by the government and military. Others, like the railroads and airlines were planted by a combination of Wall Street, government and the military. The world's most advanced and high-value industries were always America's. Our steel industry, oil industry, and auto-industry were planted mainly by Wall Street. Our aluminum, plastics, and pharmaceuticals industries were planted by the government and military for the second World War.
Don't forget the seed. Railroads, for example, were begun by a thousand local entrepreneurs. But America's national railways were built in a chaotic and messy yet centrally-directed effort by Wall Street, fueled by massive government subsidies, that squashed those local entrepreneurs like bugs. Like most large scale centrally planned economic efforts, there was massive waste and redundancy, but in the end America was covered with rail that served as a new infrastructure on which new generations of entrepreneurs and planners could build.
The world's best communications and transportation systems are no longer America's. The world's highest-value, largest and most dynamic industries are no longer America's. There is only one global industry that America truly dominates: Facebook. It employs 6,000 people.
Americans don't want to dominate. We just want to be able to take care of ourselves by going to work and earning a decent living. To get back to that place, we need entrepreneurs. We need to build on past invention and infrastructure. And we also need to do some gardening. Our elites in government and on Wall Street no longer want to get their hands dirty. It's easier to invest in other gardens that others have planted. Our elite now draws its wealth from the world economy, not the American economy.
End of story?
Not quite. We choose our government. So there is the possibility of a group of Americans stepping up and offering to get their hands dirty by replanting the American economy.
What would planting new industries look like in the 21st century in America? It's our destiny to find out. When you think about how fast, with modern technology, poor countries such as Korea or China were recently able to plant new modern economies, you can't help but wonder what a country as advanced as America would be capable of.
I want to find out what we're capable of.
Follow Zack Exley on Twitter: www.twitter.com/exzackley
Michael Hughes: The Idea of America in the Age of Empire
The 2nd half of the gardener's parable goes like this: The gardener decided that it would be easier to lease the garden out to a large farming corporation and grab food from his neighbor's garden. When his neighbor resisted, he first told the townspeople that his neighbor was bad for the garden. Then he sent voles and groundhogs to the neighbor's garden. The neighbor still didn't budge. So he bulldozed the neighbor's garden.
The gardner leases the garden out to a large farming corporation and goes grab food from his neighbor's garden and gardens across town. When the neighbor resists, he first tells the townspeople that the neighbor is bad for the garden, and then sends voles and groundhogs over to the neighbor's garden. If the neighbor still doesn't budge, he bulldozes the neighbor's garden.
The 2nd half of the parable actually goes like this --
The gardener decided it was easier to lease his garden out to a large farming corporation and go grab food from his neighbor's garden and gardens across town. If the neighbor resists, he first tells the townspeople that the neighbor is bad for the garden, and then he sends voles and groundhogs to the neighbor's garden. If the neighbor doesn't budge, he bulldozes the neighbor's garden.
Leaders DEFENDING our nation w/all its promise for individual liberty, equal right under law, with justice, including economic justice, FOR ALL, not just the wealth of the few.
Leaders working FOR the working class in America--not just "work them".
Leaders that are agressive advocates for the consumer class majority that have the strength and willingness to throw the moneychangers and their lobbiests out of the halls of OUR CAPITOL.
Leaders that are strong advocates for our humanity:
.... leaders that will insist non-human life is treated humanely, even if it is destined to be slaughtered and eaten, as this informs our character and portends how we will treat each other.
.....leaders that will insist on BOTH individual liberty and responsibility without completely abandoning those totally incapable of being self-supporting.
.....leaders that will work to protect the environment -- the earth's very ability to sustain life upon this planet upon which we must live for the foreseeable future.
Leaders that will move us BEYOND fear and greed and the bleeding hearts of political correctness to demand both individual liberty and individual responsibility while acccepting nothing less than equal right under law.
We need leaders focusing on solutions for our nation's problems rather than pursuit of their own personal wealth and power.
Which is why they spend as much on 'defense' as the rest of the world put together ...
No one in this world denies the first place for American technology. Korea and China catch up with America is better than to be left behind. Any knowledgeable people understands that what will take to be in the position as good as United States is today. This catching up does not mean Korea and China are DUMMIES as a lot of Americans want to think of. ANY SELF-SERVED GLORIFICATION IS NOT AMERICA NEEDED TODAY. .
A peaceful and meaningful competition is a way of PROGRESSIVE ADVANCEMENT. A competition filled with confrontations and downgrading others are counterproductive and lowering value of HUMANITY, A SPIRIT OF INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD IF REAL PEACE IS WHAT NEEDED FOR THE WORLD.
PEACE ON EARTH MUST BE BUILT BY REGIONAL PEACE. REGIONAL PEACE MUST BE BUILT AND MAINTAINED BY THE INVOLVED NATIONS WITH RESPECTS AND COOPERATIONS TO EACH OTHERS IN THE REGION. NATIONAL SELF DETERMINATION IS NO SUBSTITUTE
There is NO PROBLEM for America to work around these environments except WAR is the option to look for. ASK YOURSELF, WHY MUST BE WAR ? what can you get after war ? Don't be kidding.
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Korea and China did nothing of the kind. What they did was no more an achievement than you unpacking a computer and turning it on. Did you design it, create the technology to make it, and then build it? Did you write the software? No, you just bought it and turned it on, and that's what Korea and China did, with the help of American corporations. Korea and China basically bought factories and turned them on.
We know what America is capable of. We invented the computer, designed it, created the technology to make it, and wrote the software. We're capable of that. But it doesn't help us because we are not capable of overthrowing the 1% that bleeds our wealth and destroys our economic engine.
Programmable computers existed in Europe years before they did in America.
in the current low rate system, vast amounts of capital then moves to easier, short-term speculative investment which only serves the financial industry to the detriment of our economy. money is 'sheltered' by all kinds of tax avoiding strategies.
money is redistributed upwards to those who speculate and pay low taxes.