The Struggle Within -- Relearning Community

“Political ideology can corrupt the mind, and science.”
-Edward O. Wilson 

"Only entropy comes easy."
-Anton Chekhov

"Empires die, but Euclid's theorems keep their youth forever."
- Vito Volterra

In the field of Biology the concept of community describes a framework that binds all interactions between all species within a geographic location, all of whom which exist in a life and death struggle for their survival. For an organism to thrive, it must follow one or more of the following four strategies -– competition, predation, parasitism, and mutualism. When organisms singularly thrive, then the species will thrive. If the individual organisms cannot thrive and survive, then the species will fail and become extinct. Organisms and consequently entire species will adopt and execute the previously listed survival strategies and an equilibrium will be attained within the community if all organisms and all species are free to act, and a fixed set of rules govern all. The rules are important, and they maintain the integrity of the community. The Law of Gravity does not treat one species differently than another. There are naturaul rules that governs all within the community; however, individual species and organisms will react and adapt differently to these rules. Birds will evolve wings to navigate the gravity and beavers will use Gravity's power to move water to build a dam. How these individual organisms and species react to natural law in their varying different ways in combination with competition, predation, parasitism and mutualism creates and maintains the complexity of interactions between all organisms and maintains the equilibrium between energy and entropy within the system. This is known as emergence, grass roots or an organic system.

Human societies (and economies) operate by the same principles as natural systems. Like natural systems, interference by unnatural agents can throw off equilibrium and create huge unintended consequences. Consider the havoc that an invasive alien species can wreak on a small ecosystem. Just as introducing the foreign zebra mussel has damaged the equilibrium of Lake Superior and the St. Louis river, government intervention into society and the economy can create havoc with the existing social and economic balance and thus throw off equilibrium. A system that is balanced maintains a minimal cycle of change, whereas an unbalanced system has excessive, even bipolar fluctuations. Consider healthy eating habits, healthy eating habits consist of 3 modest meals per day. If one doesn't gorge himself and doesn't starve himself, he'll never get too hungry or too full. A non balanced binge and purge diet results in vomiting and starvation. What the Federal Reserve and the Federal Government are doing with their policies is the economic equivilent to bingeing and purging. The government has committed to ensuring that the boom time never ends, thus warping the business cycle and ensuring that after we vomit, we shall all starve.

Elements within the left and right sides of the so called "political spectrum" understand and embrace different parts of this concept. The left does a better job at fighting for and preserving Civil Rights (with the exception of 2nd amendment rights) than the right does. On the converse, the right does a better job of fighting and preserving Property Rights than the left does. The moderates are the worst, they have given up on both Civil Rights and Property Rights and campaign for an ever increasing malignant Statism in the form of a "Benevolent Leviathan"that seeks to dominate, control and direct every single aspect of human life. The Liberal Left and Libertarian Right both oppose the Statist middle, and yet are distracted by the false dichotomy of Left vs. Right. It is now clear that George W. Bush wasn't a conservative and didn't not dedicate himself to protecting property rights, the free market or limiting the size of the Federal Government. While it has become clear to most conservative Republicans, that they've been sold out, it is not yet clear to Liberal Democrats that that President Obama is not dedicated to preserving Civil Rights or any other pet project of the left. Obama has dedicated to continue Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney's immoral war of aggression against Iraq and has further promised to take on Pakistan (a nuclear power). Obama has also pledged to increase deficit spending and to cut taxes. These policies mirror the policies of the last 8 years. 

This post isn't about Obama or Bush, but about the need for the Left and the Right to work together for their common goals. The Liberal Left and the Limited Government Right want to make this country a freer and better place. Both sides want to increase individual liberty and to decrease tyranny on behalf of the State. The false dichotomy of the Left vs. Right has confused both the left and the right into thinking they are working for opposite ends. This could not be further from the truth. The Left blames the Right and the Right blames the left. Those who can't see the Emperors new clothes, blame the State. 

While it is becoming clear to most people that what the government is doing to the economy is not working, and that things seem to be getting worse, it is not so clear to the public how we got into this mess. Think back to when I wrote about community in the biological sense. Competition, predation, parasitism and mutualism are the strategies for survival. The state as a super citizen with a monopoly on the initiation of violence, has a clear advantage and upsets the balance against the individual citizen. 

Competition

In nature organisms compete for resources and the chance to reproduce and pass on DNA. In a human society or a human economy competition is a method of allocating resources. If I sell sell widget X and my neighbor sells sprocket Y, we are competing for the same customers. Our competition with each other will determine how we move forward. Perhaps one of us alters our product to make up for the others shortcomings. Or maybe one of us will go out of business and start a different business. Another option is that there is enough customers for both of us ad we coexist within the same niche. When the State becomes involved it throws the entire equallibrium out the window. Let us say that I manage to donate a large sum of money to my elected representative in our local government. Let us say that I have 75% market share and my competitor has 25% because he charges more money but makes a superior product. I have very costs because I use sweat shops and have a lower quality production line. My competitor makes his goods by hand. I call up my representative and tell him that we need to sell more sprockets because they improve the standard of living. To do this we need regulation that sets a maximum price for the sprockets sold. I suggest $2 below what I currently sell my sprockets for, but $25 below what my competitor sells them for. This law passes and now my competitor has to adopt a sweat shop assembly line like I do, and he has to decrease the quality of the materials he uses in his sprockets. He begins to lose customers because his customers uses to buy his goods BECAUSE they were higher quality. His customers now become my customers because I build a better cheaper sprocket then my competitor does. 

The State through regulation has thrown off the balance and given my company an unfair advantage while stripping the consumers of choices in the marketplace. This is similar to introducing an alien predator into an ecosystem to bring down the jack rabbit population. Not only does the introduction of the alien species kill off more jack rabbits than intended, but now the ecosystem is overfilled with dandelions that the jack rabbits used to eat. The dandelions choke off the strawberries that the monkeys used to eat etc etc. In our example, not only are the people worse off, but anyone who worked for sprocket company X, or who sold them sprocket parts. These are known as unintended consequences because they were the result of the imperfect knowledge of government planners. 

Predation

In nature some species and organisms prey upon others. Predators do not produce anything for the community, they merely consume and move on. In an economy, a predator takes the form of the criminal, especially the murderer, rapist or thief. In nature predators move from area to area and consume and in some sense can help provide balance by devouring an overgrown population. In the economic sense predators steal from the wealthy in a misguided attempt to balance wealth. While the individual criminal is a problem, state sponsored predation is a far larger problem. This takes the form of War, Police Violence and theft through taxation and other redistribution programs. The State in this regard doesn't produce, it merely destroys. 

Mutualism 

Mutualism is the foundation of community and the most successful biological strategy. It is also the most successful social and economic strategy and one that is fundamentally opposed to Statism. The humming bird the pollinates the flower is an example of this kind of natural free market cooperation. The humming bird and the flower are both better off by working together or else they wouldn't do it. They also work together out of free will and self interest, not duty or decree. In a human economy mutualism is private charity, the church or even local trade and interaction. Just like the Government can not force the hummingbird and the flower to work together if it isn't in their best interest, the State cannot create mutualism in the market place. 

 The natural world is many things including harsh and dangerous as well as nurturing and kind. Despite the wishes of individual members of any given species, survival depends on the success of the entire system. This is reality, natural law, biological necessity or whatever else you choose to name it. The success of the system requires a state of constant equilibrium. In this regard Government coercion always creates more problems than it solves.