9. ULTIMATE PRODUCTIVITY: DEMOCRACY

Despite the tremendous gains in time-saving technology during the 1960s, 70s, and 80s, the quality of human life on this planet has declined, due to the unsolved public problems which our politicians have caused or tolerated. How can people stop and reverse the decline? Time-wasting public problems must be defined and solved, beginning with the largest problems.

What is the best way to list and rank problems? Organize those suffering the problems to tap their intelligence in a democratic fashion. Only the people can solve the people's problems, if organized to represent themselves. Only their concerns and consensus can prioritize the problems. The citizens know which problems waste the most time.

Only a person who knows the problem can solve the problem. Other people can only talk about it or throw money at it. If a problem sufferer naively trusts a nonsufferer to solve his problems, he will continue to suffer the problem.

To increase productivity per capita, democracy is essential in public problem-solving. Democracy brings about a less troubled world. Democracy is the ultimate form of productivity for humanity.

THE Common, General Problem

There is no one specific problem behind inflation. However, one central, general problem contributes to all inflationary problems: Incompetent and corrupt politicians. For America, our common problem is a politicized Congress of the elected, by the elected, and for the elected. Incompetent, corrupt political problem-solving by both Democrats and Republicans fuels the fires of inflation, unemployment, and overtaxation.

Currency instability, for example, does not result solely from the government printing too much money or running deficits. Inflation is more than politicians running money presses or treasury-bond presses. This simplistic view obscures the path to restabilization. A stable currency is the penultimate tool of productivity.

Inflation is an index of corrupt and/or incompetent politicians ruining (not running) a system of production. They overlook, ignore, or exacerbate unsolved problems.

The reason for the lack of good solutions is the lack of relevant democracy. People don't realize that inflation is an index of unsolved problems and that problems are a result of irrelevant democracy. Until people realize these truths, unsolved problems will waste more human time. The quality of life will decline as people have less and less free time.

Tertiary Productivity Gains Are Not THE Problem

Tertiary productivity gains in business cannot reverse the losses due to poor problem-solving and an unstable currency. Revitalizing or re-industrializing the steel and auto industries will not correct our declining standard of living while our democracy and currency erode.

Some people blame problems on the cost of energy. Politicians like to blame OPEC for our inflation rate. While OPEC does contribute to our inflationary rate, a simple consideration will show that people are wasting their time in blaming OPEC. During 1980, Germany and Japan imported more than 95% of their petroleum while the U.S. imported only about 50%. Germany and Japan should have had greater inflation rates than the U.S. if inflation is only a result of energy costs. Germany and Japan have consistently had an inflation rate at one/third or one/fourth of our rate. Energy costs are not the main cause of inflation. People waste their time and thoughts if they think this. Even the small inflationary rate from energy costs have a political source. The politicians mismanaged foreign relationships in the early 1970s.

Some people hope for productivity gains from a future cheap form of energy. They should temper their hopes with certain historical insights. Each new, cheap form of energy has caused problems. The politicians mismanaged coal, oil, and nuclear energy. Politically tolerated monopolies controlled and impoverished the people who became dependent upon the cheap energy at home and at work.

The issue of energy costs shows how tertiary productivity gains will not solve problems when the primary and secondary means of saving human time are disintegrating. The advent of cheap finessed hydrofusion energy would not outweigh the losses from irrelevant democracy and unstable currency. Quite to the contrary.

The lack of democracy would result in the organized and unorganized misuse of cheap hydrofusion. The politicians will allow a few to monopolize it. Terrorists will use it to strike the guilty and innocent. Any hope for economic salvation through a new form of energy is delusional. Citizens are in the middle between the misuse by politicians and the abuse by anti-politicians.

On the other hand, improvements in the ultimate and penultimate forms of human productivity could quickly stop inflationary suffering and improve living standards. These improvements are possible. A few people dedicated to democracy can make a difference. Humanity needs productivity gains foremost

in having a common, intermediate product (currency) "kept constant and current" in production time value from day to day, from year to year,

and

in achieving the unequaled productive time-savings of democracy "kept constant and current" relevant to the size of the system of production and the problems therein, day to day and year to year.

Without optimal democracy and stable currency, tertiary gains are worthless. U.S. research provides the ideas on which Japanese industrial policies capitalize to outproduce us.

Neither American democracy nor American dollars are relevant or current. The politicians have cheapened and diluted both. Neither fulfill their productive potential to save human time and improve the human standard of living. Demolections, not democracy, fail as a national problem-solving process.

Until we have a better process, we have no better future. The number one problem in America is an inadequate and irrelevant level of democracy when it comes to solving all the other problems.

Woe is Us: No Ultimate Productivity

Without a change in electing policy-makers and in selecting legislation, America and humanity will go the way of Rome. Problems will go unsolved and will waste human resources: time, energy, and matter. The rising quantity and quality of problems does not index that democracy is failing, but that democracy is dying. Humanity is losing the ultimate tool for saving human time. Problems are not a result of democracy failing. Problems result when people, especially habitual politicians, fail to be democratic.

Democracy is probably the closest thing to a perpetual motion machine. With optimal democracy, the biggest problem is solve efficiently and effectively. People have more time to address the next problem. With each problem resolution, the people gain more free time. Of course, if they misuse their free time to generate bigger problems than they solved, they don't have a relevant, optimal democracy. This describes America in the last decades of the 2nd Millennium.

Warning: Anyone found stealing lifehours will be forever banned from participation in and rewards of Better Democracy and Capitalism.

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