Where Is America's Surplus Going?
It's a bit odd, isn't it? It is well known that technology multiplies the product of work. When technology is used, human effort produces more 'fruit', making technology a crucial ingredient to generate economic surplus. In an economic context, surplus means producing more than you need. The better technology gets, the wider the surplus becomes. Humankind started generating surpluses ever since the adoption of agriculture thousands of years ago. Fast-forward to today, technology is as advanced as it has ever been... Shouldn't that mean that surplus production is also historically high? American technology leads the world and yet, somehow, we are told our country cannot afford to lift the minimum wage, that there's not enough to build transit, and not enough to pay pensions or provide healthcare. If technology multiplies the product of human work and the multiplier today is higher than ever... Then why does it feel like there isn't enough of the most important things for everyone? Have we not reached the technological tipping-point where the world starts to feel abundant?
Something isn't adding up... Where are the surpluses? Why is life in America getting harder and more precarious? Why is earning income for a decent life more difficult? Shouldn't people be working less today for the same outcomes? Are we not supposed to be producing more than ever, with more advanced and efficient techniques than any other time in human history? If you agree with this — that humanity is indeed producing more and better than ever — then something is happening that is not letting the economic success of our nation register in the quality of life of everyday people... Where is the surplus going and how do we account for it?
I see two options: Either life is improving for all but people fail to realize just how better life is today compared to the past. Or maybe, the surplus is going elsewhere, not towards improving life for most people. In any case, the idea that America's economic surplus is something that everyday folk don't get to benefit from is ludicrous. The national surplus is, in essence, the product of the collective effort of all working Americans and it would be fundamentally unjust to misappropriate it at their expense.
The American government has a duty to make sure the national surplus is allocated judiciously, otherwise we would be denying ordinary people the fruits of their work. Maybe everyday folk don't get to benefit from the surplus because it is constantly reinvested to solve the hard problems of society. Perhaps we are making people work so hard to improve their quality of life such that hard work itself becomes problematic. People are working hard with the challenges on If this were the case, that humanity is working hard to solve its the first case, the surplus could be going to solve the hard problems of life
Surprisingly, there are still many Americans that find the above ridiculous. For them, there is no question that life is getting better. In their minds, America is a tremendously successful country where social challenges and deteriorating quality of life are piece-meal problems that can be solved through individual accountability and hard work. It doesn't occur to them that perhaps we are making people work so hard to the point that the amount of work itself becomes problematic. They see the troubles of others not as local symptoms of larger system-level phenomena, but as the result of personal choice and circumstance. For a whole lot of them, passive income is a fact of life, something that reflects on the bank account regularly.
⚭ Topic Nexus
🙏 Thanks for reading
-
What would you like to do?
-