Bottom Up Economics

When the economy is set up to operate from the 'bottom up', marginal and middle-class start the money flow with their purchases, and the profits from what they spend works its way up the line. Sounds good so far, just spread the wealth around where the economy can begin at the bottom instead of the top. It certainly sounds better than the trickle-down scenario where the money trickles down to the bottom from the marketplace.
What happened to our sanity? Why haven't we thought of this 'bottom up' idea before now? Well the truth is, we have. The model failed every time a society tried it.

Imagine if you will, a society that lives nearly tax-free until a person reaches a predetermined income. That predetermined level, decided by the bureaucrats, triggers the taxes you will now start paying. From that point on, the Government harvests some to most of your profits. In effect, the Government takes only the good out of your business and leaves you with the headaches, the need to upgrade, making the payroll, and paying the health care of your employees. When the Government becomes an unequal partner in the business that you have nourished from nothing, it destroys the incentive to grow the business any further, what's the use.

A burgeoning population will require more and more jobs. The bottom up model discourages industrial commerce because of the onerous tax structure necessary to maintain the economy. Eventually the Government will have to decide to take over those remaining businesses or face revolt. The model cannot support itself. Anytime we cap freedom, progress goes backwards. A truism that everybody needs to remember is that, "Without the possibility of a top, we lose the inspiration to achieve, so we remain a perpetual underclass." Progress demands a mechanism that encourages people to climb that 'hill'.

A free market economy is the only model that allows people to elevate to their comfort zone. Notice I carefully chose the words 'elevate to their comfort zone' on purpose. Not all people have the same comfort zone. And thank goodness, it is that way. A given for everybody is that everybody has the 'wants'. We are born hard-wired to want things. The big question that each individual will have to ask of himself is just how much of life's energies should be expended for the things wanted.

I believe it is safe to assume that everybody would like to have a yacht, but only a few acquire one. The easy answer is that the persons who acquire a yacht were not satisfied with a rowboat or ski boat. In other words, the smaller boats did not fit that person's comfort zone. Now take the next step and think of the cost of that yacht. The person could not possibly own that yacht working for wages. That meant that he had to have an income stream that only a professional career or business owner could provide. In either case, they create jobs for others. This is an example of the free market at work.

People who put it all on the line and work to improve his situation to the point they can afford that yacht are special. We all depend on those people who set the bar a little higher. Without this group, there would be no jobs.

Next, we have the person who is satisfied with 'beer-thirty', goes to sporting events, and enjoys backyard Bar-B-Ques. An individual that reaches his comfort zone sees no need to invest more of life's energies to acquire more baubles. All of us also depend on that person. They build our bridges, work in our factories, and make life possible for all of us.

The individuals without the ambition to acquire the things that they want are the dreamers. They want, but are not willing to invest the energy necessary to make those acquisitions. Instead, they feed on the bottom of society wallowing in the welfare system. They resent those who have the things that they want, but cannot muster up the courage to step out of their circumstances and rely upon themselves. Dreamers are resentful of the rest of society. The sub-cultures that permeate the bottom dwelling group resort to shortcuts to acquire the things they want.

Short cut takers make up our prison populations. They are the thieves, robbers, dope peddlers, and others who seek their fortune by way of the shortcut. Joining society and acquiring baubles in an acceptable manner is not part of their persona. So society has to isolate these individuals to protect the rest of us.

The bottom up strategy destroys the mechanism of progress. Capping the limits of ambition with taxes also kills the need to create a better mousetrap. Bottom up will succeed until the money runs out, then things start going backwards. Removing ones ambition to get rich kills incentive to take risks and create a business. Observe any economy where the Government controls people's livelihood and ask yourself if you would want to live there. North Korea comes to mind, Russia, those African states with Autocratic Governments, and Middle-Eastern Nations under Theocratic Rule.

It is your choice, you can either vote for the repressive idea of a 'bottom up' economical model, or vote for a model that encourages individualism.

Cheers,

-Robert-