MORAL ECONOMICS
Posted by Erik Frey Wed, 31 Dec 2003 06:08:00 GMT
my dad is a fan of the posit, and i guess he’s reaching his golden years, and beginning to wonder grand things. grand things, which, at his age, probably warrant some wondering. a little ruminatin’. one of the things he brings up occasionally, is the question of whether he has contributed overall to society. you know, while leaning back in his leather recliner, smoking a pipe, and poking at the fireplace coals.
i guess i’m too young (i.e. too selfish) to do much more than write flippant journal entries about it.
HOWEVER, my mind has been poisoned by a political science professor, who made me read greider and chomsky. stuff like “People who believe in a better way of life know that the way we live now is criminal.” was forcibly injected into my skull. and it hurts, guvna. so, using some sloppy mathematics, here’s what i’d have to do to be an asset to society:
if i am a system, then imagine i’m spread eagle, 4 arms and 4 legs like the davinci drawing, and i’ve got arrows coming into me, and leading away from me.
the arrows coming towards me will be things like food, income, the price of raising me, the time, effort, and emotional expenditure of those around me, and a lot of general infrastructure that supports me.
the arrows going away from me will be things like my environmental regulatory work, my meager contributions to the sciences, and the time, effort, and emotional expenditure on those around me. and charity, i guess.
now, before i continue, i have to simplify these arrows and restate them in quantifiable terms. regrettably, i am going to end up using the dollar as my measuring unit – it’s just a unit we’re all familiar with.
the first thing i’m going to do is cut the social aspect out of the picture. for some people this could play a big factor. some folks thrive on being helped, and helping others in a personal, face to face manner. this resource (time, love, caring) would be hard to equate to a unified system – maybe you’d have to convert everything to quality of life instead of dollars. dunno. for me, it’s a pretty safe bet to say that i’ve probably caused more or less the same amount of grief in others as i have received, and i’ve probably received more or less the same amount of joy from others as i have caused, so i will grossly estimate that i can cancel this aspect out all-together.
next is the kid issue. this one is a little tricky. i think a lot of parents imagine that bringing kids into the world is their way of contributing. of doing good in the world. to me this is sort of a cop-out. you’re passing along your social debt. i don’t think i have to worry, though, because it’s not likely i’ll have kids, so this makes my social responsibilty my own, and my parents’ responsibility their own, and so we have another thing that can be dropped out of the equation.
the final non-monetary aspect i have to consider is my contribution to the arts and sciences. for some people, this could play a big factor. this bastard has probably paid off his social debt, and then some. he has probably influenced thousands of potential scientists, mathematicians, and philosophers. his shit is tight. i’d like to think one day my shit will be tight, but i’m not going to bank on it, so for now i’ll cancel this out of the system, too.
so, down to the beef, we’ve got RESOURCES. ben franklins. we have to look at this from a global perspective.
we have to look at this from a GLOBAL perspective.
it’s not enough to say “well i help with the church soup drive on sundays!” when this guy isn’t getting any of that soup. you’re working in a closed system, effectively a national cartel that is astonishingly good at funneling most of the world’s wealth into one geographic region. and we wonder why people are hijacking planes and crashing them into our buildings? surely it’s because THEY are an axis of evil. yep.
so, on a global scale, reports say that the mean income around the world is $3,160 per year, scaled for purchasing power.
for simplicity, let’s just say that what this means is that if i keep more than $3,160 per year in goods and revenue, i’m a mooch. as far as i see it, i have two ways to approach this:
1) become mother theresa, buy nikes for lepers, all that stuff.
2) live in such a way that (money i keep/spend) MINUS (money i give to charities and good causes) IS LESS THAN OR EQUAL TO ($3,160) per year.
option number two is better in my book. but it’s also a little daunting. before i continue, let’s add one final sink – the amount of money that has been invested to raise me.
the average price to raise a kid these days, in the U.S., is $165,630. i am going to throw in an extra $25K in my case, because my parents liked to keep the fridge stocked.
so, i’m already starting with a debt of $190K.
now, let’s say that i could live comfortably off $40K a year. that’s pretty generous.
let’s also say i’m going to die at age 75, and that i started living completely unaided by my parents at the age of 21.
this means that by age 75, if i give nothing back, i will have accrued a debt to society of 190 + (40 – 3) * (75 – 21) = 2.2 MILLION DOLLARS.
EQUALS HOLY FUCKING CRAP.
so, let’s say i sober up and decide to start giving back at age 30. this gives me 45 years to repay my debt to society. for 2.2 million dollars, let’s assume world charities have an operating overhead of 15% (a reasonable guess, i think), and the other 85% goes straight to helping folks. this means, starting at 30, i’d have to give away $57K a year to charities.
this means, if i want to live off $40K a year, i have to EARN just under 100 grand a year, and give away more than half of it, in order to be a contributing member of society.
yeow.