The Wealthy Have 'Worked Hard' And Deserve To Keep Their Money

[Mairead]

145. Someone (or several someones) decides to do it

What if I start a small family run company that was so successful that it had to expand - what would happen?

There is no "had to expand". A balloon has to expand or burst, if you keep pumping air into it, but a business doesn't behave the same way. If a business expands, it's because the owner chose to try to get more money.

If we humans have a future, our socioeconomic world won't be like it is today. Huge industries are an artifact of "cheap" energy and a political system that lets the wealthy keep the profits while pushing the risks and costs onto the rest of us. They're like the dinosaurs - a product of their time, a time that is now running out.

Our current crazy way of life must end, too. We will no longer be able to afford bringing Clementine oranges from Spain, olive oil from Italy, and tomatoes from Bolivia to our tables in Boston or Minneapolis. That's madness. Nor will we be able to afford moving a 200 lb payload by first wrapping it in a ton of steel (or worse: 2 tons) and then moving the steel. Nor throwing out an otherwise good floor fan because the motor wore out. Nor paying a fortune to heat/cool our houses because they have inadequate insulation. Nor doing any of the other wasteful things we do because it's more profitable for the owner class.

That way of life got started during FDR's time. The wealthy looked at Nazi Germany and wanted to install fascism here. The poor looked at the USSR and wanted to install Communism. FDR wanted to save Capitalism, so his "brain trust" came up with the idea (this is documented) that the US would have a third way: the poor would get all sorts of "stuff" and feel rich while the wealthy would stay wealthy by providing it. The fact that it would wreck the world wasn't something they thought about. Or if they did, they didn't record what they thought about it.

Nearly all businesses all around the world since time out of mind have been cottage-sized craft businesses. Today's business theorists call them "lifestyle" businesses: they're a way to make a living pleasantly, with social rewards. That's what will be left when the industries go away. Instead of Triangle Shirtwaist firetrap-sweatshops, there'll be people who know how to sew clothing. There'll be people who know how to repair electric motors. There'll be people who know how to make computer chips. And so on. When something big, like a bridge, needs to be built or mended, everyone who knows how to do part of it will get together for the project.

Detroit is thought of as the icon of US industrialisation. Giant punch presses, huge assembly lines, showers of sparks from welding. Thousands of cars being turned out every day. Industry! Nobody thinks about the waste, just the glamour.

But Detroit is not the only way to build cars. A farming couple in Britain were going to go on holiday to Ireland some years ago. The woman happened to notice in the brochure for the ferryboat that vehicles with fewer than 4 wheels travel free. So, knowing that her spouse is a trained engineer who builds race-winning motorbikes, she suggested that he build them a 3-wheel car.

Four weeks later, they putt-putted off to the ferry in their brand-new cyclecar that he'd built from the ground up with his own two hands. He cannibalised a clapped-out Citroën 2CV for its engine, transmission, and running gear, but he built everything else. In FOUR WEEKS. You can see the car here: http://www.pembleton.co.uk/PMC.html. (The left and center photos. Like many people including me, he loves the '34 Morgan SS)

He has a nice little cottage industry selling the kits: you send him the bits from a 2CV and £995.- and you'll get by return of post the date on which you can come collect your welded space-frame, templates for cutting the aluminum skin, the modified parts to make your cyclecar, and full instructions for the build. If you don't want a 3-wheeler, you can get a 4-wheeler (rightmost picture) instead for £1150.-

We'll either have a non-industrial, non-Capitalist future, or we'll have no future at all.