I sent this as a letter to the editor for the Memphis Flyer, which will hopefully generate some more discussion. I just based this off of "The Token Economy: A Motivational System for Therapy and Rehabilitation" by Teodoro Ayllon and Nathan Azrin. It may not entirely fit but experimental analysis of how to motivate people to engage in tasks by giving them slips of paper with token values may serve as an okay model for our economy as a whole.
Jason "OUR TOKEN ECONOMY" I think that most people understand what is happening with our economy. You can conduct a complex analysis of the equally complicated market but the simple truth still plays a major role, that is, our tokens (money) are exchanged for wanted goods and services. Since we no longer support the gold standard, our tokens will be worthless in the United States and the world economy if valuable goods and services can’t back them up. As I see it, a few major mechanisms are at play. First, big government has created a massive and expensive bureaucratic system, which the private companies and taxpayers must support. You need government but our government can’t and shouldn’t be expected to do everything. Second, Wall Street has accumulated too many tokens in the hands of too few individuals and these Wall Street individuals have given these tokens to other individuals who aren’t producing a lot of goods and services in exchange for these tokens—bad investment. Remember that token values are primarily based on what goods and services can be exchanged for these tokens and the tokens themselves are inherently worthless. Third, Wall Street and the average investor have liquidated many production institutions (companies) through mergers and other schemes to gain quick profits without any regard to the effects on long-term production of valuable goods and services. Fourth, Wall Street and the average investor have undermined the free market forces by determining (in contrast to allowing buyers to control) the fate of a company by its ability to make a fast profit while ignoring its ability to produce value goods and services. This climate has lead to an obsession with tokens and a blind eye to what makes those tokens valuable: accompanying goods and services. In my opinion, we need to focus on the basics. First, the government has no choice but to inject tokens back into workers’ pockets to avoid freezing the financial systems or disrupting the delicate exchange of tokens for good and services. Second, we should (once again) focus on producing valuable goods and services. That means that we have to continue to acquire skills and work hard with the more people working (instead of social-loafing) the better. Third, we cannot continue to act as if more tokens without accompanying sellable goods and services will somehow increase the value of our tokens. That is unrealistic. If money determined a country’s wealth, each African country could become extraordinarily wealthy by solely manufacturing paper and coined money. In sum, we need to start focusing more on the production of valuable goods and services and respect but stop obsessing over tokens. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Memphis Freethought Alliance" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/memphisfreethoughtalliance?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
