As for the pursuit of “cleaner,” “renewable” energy sources to preserve our environment, take care of the Mother Earth, and so on, there is no need to fret. For in addition to ever-improving technologies that allow for the cleaner and safer access to and processing of fossil-fuel sources, the multi-century supplies will allow more than enough time for the required technological development to occur that makes alternative fuel sources cheaper and more effective. And of course, other new sources will be discovered along the way.

Keeping an Eye on the Prize  

In the meantime, not only is it unwise for the human species as a whole to compromise its productivity, efficiency, innovation, and advancement as it prepares for the existential challenges that confront it—such as the earth becoming uninhabitable at some time in the distant future, with the possibility of space colonization yet unknown—it is unwise for any given nation, including any given leading nation, to compromise its productivity, efficiency, innovation, and advancement, as there will be much natural selection to endure before such space colonizers evolve within the leading nations that compose the human species.

In other words, unilateral economic disarmament will prove just as self-destructive as unilateral military disarmament, as it is the combination of the two that provide for total survivability. And as a voluntary lack of advancement in the respective areas means a sacrifice in future economic and military performance, this too amounts both unilateral economic and military disarmament, which in an evolutionary sense amounts to the suicide of a lineage—whether familial, national, or species-wide—in the biological realm.

On the one hand, this assumption is understandable, given that we humans are naturally prone to perceiving current states of being and current trends as permanent—noting that we humans are in the midst of a climatic optimum that generally allows for abundant food and fresh water. While, on the other hand, it is also understandable because many have become convinced that ever-increasing human intelligence and technological aptitude either have already or soon will render tough times a thing of the past.

The problem is, in the first case, we are currently experiencing only the second such climatic optimum in the last 125,000 years (especially if the earth is still warming, as warm, moist times have typically be the most prosperous for species at large), with most times being not just less hospitable but downright inhospitable with regard to human endeavor.

Times That Have Not Changed

In the second case, while we humans have indeed become increasingly able to modify our environments to suit our needs, we are not all that much less susceptible to serious threats than our predecessors—be they ongoing ice-age cycles, supervolcanic eruptions, or asteroid strikes.

And most important here is that all major physical perturbations on earth will have the same predictable and devastating affects on the species hierarchy, with those at the top being most vulnerable, with humans residing at the very top of the hierarchy (all of which is described in detail in Living With Evolution or Dying Without It: A Guide to Understanding Humanity’s Past, Present, and Future). The result will inevitably be a food shortage that leads to widespread malnutrition, weakened immune systems, intense warfare, infection, and disease.

Hence, as it is not a matter of if but of when the next cataclysm will set this series of events into motion, any human population that fails to produce, innovate, and advance as quickly as possible, all with the greatest efficiency and at the lowest cost possible, will place itself at long-term risk to the degree it fails to do so. In short, one must incessantly plan on the worst and hope for the best. And what this means by extension is that even in the best of times it is a bad time to lose sight of the only thing that matters in the grand evolutionary scheme of things: survival. And to best secure survival a nation must make use of the most inexpensive and effective energy sources possible in time and space.

While most will chuckle at the absurdity of such efforts, with these individuals becoming candidates for the famed Darwin Awards (an annual publication that honors those who have removed themselves from the human gene pool in the most spectacular, idiotic and/or humiliating ways), most will not recognize how Western nations are effectively doing the same thing, as they attempt to quickly replace cheap and reliable fossil-fuel-based energy sources with solar, wind, biofuels, and so on.

True, human societies will not starve themselves to death per se when they cut themselves off from fossil fuels, as individual humans will when they cut themselves off from food and water. But societies will seriously hamper their economic and military productivity, efficiency, innovation, and advancement by raising the related energy costs, which combined compose the survivability of nations. That is, as nations compete with one another through good times and bad, it will be the nations that lag in these measures that will increase their chances of demise to the degree that they do so as time goes on.

The Data to Support the Theory

For proof in this regard one must merely turn to any atlas of world history for humankind, or more expansively and resoundingly the fossil record for species at large—which contains the 99 percent of earthly species that have suffered extinction over the last 3.8 billion years—most of which have been wiped out during difficult times, and especially particularly difficult times. Both depict how competition for space over time allows only those who perform at the highest relative level to sustain their existences indefinitely. However, as opposed to viewing this past as something to learn from—in an attempt to avoid similar results in the future—this past is typically disregarded as something humans have gone beyond or risen above.

Whether it is the advocacy of socialism that spawns institutionalized government redistribution, or institutionalized government redistribution that spawns the advocacy of socialism, the outcome will be the same: the ever-increasing pursuit of justifications for government control—not just in economic dynamics but in all societal dynamics, as the pursuit of equal outcome will leave no societal dynamic untouched by the hand of government. The fact of the matter is that a society which mixes government redistribution and democratic republicanism is not likely to stand the test of time, as the inevitable feedback loop can easily reach a point of no return whereby a reversal becomes impossible. And while it is possible that the resulting societal implosion will give rise to a new and improved version of democratic republicanism, history has shown that such power voids are far more likely to give rise to strongmen that can impose order from the top.

And a Flawed Keynesian Goal to Boot

While few in number, some have argued that the market cycles Keynesian economic theory seeks to eradicate are instead something to be embraced. Here they typically cite the element of “creative destruction” that occurs during downturns. What they probably do not know is just how right they are. For evolutionary history clearly shows that it is from the worst of times that the greatest technological advancements in species are born, as those with outmoded technology have their weaknesses revealed and suffer extinction, while their more-adept upstart counterparts gain access to the newly vacated spaces of all kinds—thereby raising the mean performance of species at large. Similarly, it is in the free marketplace that down cycles drive weak companies to extinction while forcing others to purge themselves of their weaknesses. And it is with marketplace space cleared that all survivors will gain access to new opportunities when better times come around—opportunities that will be most taken advantage of by the best of the survivors, of course.

Meanwhile, it is extended good times that not only lead to a stagnation in the advancement of functional and adaptive characteristics but also to the rise of many dysfunctional and maladaptive characteristics, as good times mean relatively low attrition rates, which means many poor performers can at least scrape by. And while many will see no harm in compromising functional and adaptive advancement to keep attrition rates low, they have no idea just how wrong they are. For it is only through maximal performance advancement that a species will maximize its chance of long-term survival in a world rife with threats—be they physical, predatory, microbial, or rival. As humans will forever remain exposed to any number of threats, including those with species-ending potential, they are no way exempted from having to advance as quickly as possible for best results–with regard to greater productivity, efficiency, and innovation.

With a Flawed Socialist Goal to Boot

Overall, the pursuit of societal equality will produce the same effect as dampening market cycles when it comes to retarding species advancement. For redistribution from the most successful to the least successful within society will on average translate to punishing the best performers and rewarding the worst performers—from the level of the individual to the level of the nation. With the carrot-and-stick compromised, all will have less incentive to perform at their highest levels, and this will inevitably lower the human performance mean in every way. Considering that it will be the leading members within a society, and the leading nations with the human species, that develop the technologies which will maximize the chance of species survival—e.g., when it comes to dealing with the next asteroid heading in our direction–to sacrifice greater human productivity, efficiency, innovation and advancement for the sake of societal outcome equality will mainly increase the chances of all within the human species becoming equally wiped out—not exactly the utopian ideal socialists have envisioned.

Just as borrowing can serve as a viable means of starting or growing a business, borrowing in conjunction with deficit spending by a government can serve as a viable means of growing a nation’s economy—assuming that the resources are being dedicated to efforts that enhance economic performance, such as infrastructure maintenance or improvement. But again, the problem is that such resources are far more likely to be dedicated to buying votes and campaign contributions and/or pursuing a redistributive ideological agenda than they are to boosting greater economic productivity, efficiency, innovation and/or advancement for a nation.

The Problem With the Printing Option

Printing more money and injecting it into an economy via government spending may temporarily increase the economic activity within a nation; but this will also create inflation that devalues whatever currency is in existence. Of course, if this were not the case, nations would be printing as much money as they could to build their wealth in competition with one another. Hence, here too the rationale is that the activity spurred in the marketplace and/or the improvements in infrastructure that lubricate commerce will more than compensate for any associated inflationary effects. But again, with government able to dictate where the new money is distributed, it tends to become part of the campaign-contribution and vote-buying scheme in which subsidies tend to encourage low-status individuals and even some businesses to produce less, not more.

Fatal Flaw Number One

While Keynesian economic theory may have some level of potential to smooth out up and down cycles in certain ways, at least once we have a better understanding of causal and correlative indicators in time and space, the government control at its heart was built on Keynes’ faith in the ability of government officials to do good. This is a faith that stands diametrically opposed to the view that the framers of the U.S. Constitution had: the power of government officials must be kept to the minimum level required to have government perform its truly necessary functions effectively; for history has proven time and again that those in power who can use that power to increase their power will do so. Hence, the combination of republicanism and any means for government redistribution will quickly result in a campaign contribution and vote buying arms race. A little redistribution will prove bad, and more will prove worse. It is Keynes’ faith in government officials to do good that may suggest his motivations were not entirely intellectual after all; for this very same faith is shared by all ideologues who are happy to give the government the power to determine how wealth is distributed within a society. Of course, such ideologues simultaneously share in a lack of faith in the ability of societal members at large to either be moral or to govern themselves.

In the first case, to increase taxes during an economic downturn specifically takes resources out of the marketplace to have them transferred back into the marketplace after they have passed through the government apparatus and/or those with connections to it. This first of all adds an unnecessary middleman. But worse is that this middleman will redirect the resources according to political considerations as opposed to functional considerations—typically taxing those of higher status to spread the resources around to those of lower status. This is one area where Keynesian economics and the socialist ideology clearly merge. Indeed, if the goal is to see that economic resources will go to the places they will do an economy the most good, they would not be taken out of the marketplace at all, as only the marketplace will maximize the win-win relationships between participants based on the standard of merit, which also does a nation at large the most good.

Magical Multiplication

To justify taking the resources out of the hands of those of high status—i.e., the individuals who create and invest in the businesses that produce jobs and therefore more taxpayers—and shift them to others, it has been argued that stimulating an economy from the bottom creates a “multiplier effect” with regard to driving growth. The rationale used for this is (1) The people who receive this money then spend most of it on consumption goods and save the rest, and (2) The extra spending allows business to hire more people and pay them, which in turn allows a further increase in consumer spending which further fuels the economy. However, this would first suggest that: the more redistributive stimulus the better, and that it should therefore be the standard for growing an economy. And second, this would suggest that those with wealth somehow take it out of economic circulation, say, like hiding it in a basement, as opposed to creating a very real multiplier effect by creating and/or investing in new businesses. And, most resoundingly, this also completely defies the standard of merit that has been favored by natural selection from the beginning of time. Overall, there is much to suggest that the Keynesian “multiplier effect” is merely an ideological fabrication.

A Redistributive Feeding Frenzy

At the same time, it stands as an ideological fabrication that can be made great use of by those wishing to buy votes and campaign contributions in search of reelection. The result within the U.S. has been a bidding war in which corporations and, increasingly, special-interest groups battle for their shares of the redistribution pie, while politicians favor the highest bidders with regard to the funds and/or voting blocks they provide. Indeed, as being part of the government has become increasingly lucrative, those within it have become increasingly consumed with reelection efforts, with most losing all concern for what is best for the nation.

The first problem with converting Keynesian theory to Keynesian practice relates to the “lag factor” described above. Here, in order for a central bank or central government to intervene effectively, there must be a relatively accurate sense of what is actually occurring at a particular time within an economy. Yet because data cannot be assessed until after they are collected and processed, they will inevitably represent snapshots of the past to some degree; hence they are revised regularly once more-complete data come in and/or more-thorough analyses take place. And meanwhile, any policy changes will not have their effects felt until some time in the future. So even if economic trends could be reliably established in the short term, the chance of trend shifts and even reversals could be considerable in many cases. After all, it was the very cyclicity of the marketplace that was Keynes’ inspiration in the first place. And perhaps most important when it comes to attempting to anticipate and counter market cyclicity: to get it wrong can not only perturb market self-correction; it can easily amplify the cyclicity one is trying to eliminate—as found in wave dynamics of all persuasions.

Difficulty Number Two

The second problem with converting Keynesian theory to Keynesian practice relates to the “interactive factor” described above. That is, there are so many variables in play that it is difficult to know how they are interacting with respect to cause and correlation, which renders using observations of the past events to predict future events all the more difficult still.

Difficulty Number Three

The third problem with converting Keynesian theory to Keynesian practice is that all the factors described above render it very difficult to know how much intervention will be required to counteract an anticipated cycle. And of course, given such room for error with all these factors considered, erring on the high side could prove catastrophic with regard to economic stability. For an apt metaphor we can consider what can happen when controlling an aircraft. Here, a pilot’s repetitive over-corrections, or corrections where none are required in the first place, can lead to what is known as pilot-induced oscillation (PIO), something that on more than one occasion has led to the death of all onboard.

Difficulty Number Four

Doubtless the greatest problem with Keynesian economic theory is that it requires the government to fuel a sputtering economy via government injected and directed “stimulus.” The first reason this is problematic relates to the source of the stimulus involved, as the funds must be raised from increased taxes, increased borrowing, and/or printing more money.

While there are those who wish to cling to a belief that all within society can be both maximally and equally prosperous despite the evidence to the contrary, there are also those who are less talented and/or industrious within society who are happy to have societal wealth equalized via the redistribution promoted by ideologues. And in the meantime, those who will inevitably benefit materially from promoting and/or facilitating such wealth transfer will be at least as compelled to deny the effectiveness and validity of free-market economic theory—especially “civil rights” advocates and government officials who promote class divisions via policy, and promote class warfare via propaganda, while promoting their own self-interest via societal wealth transfer.

Theory Versus Theory

With so much to gain for the various advocates of societal equalization via redistribution, it was inevitable that in the age of science there would be efforts to come up with a theoretical justification for the pursuit of equal societal outcome. Enter John Maynard Keynes, the British economist credited with the development of the Keynesian economic model during the 1920s. Though Keynes was seemingly motivated primarily by the desire to solve the problems associated with marketplace cyclicity, as opposed to Marx who specifically created a theory to justify governmental economic control and redistribution, his theory was readily embraced by those who shared Marxist aims.

Proposed Causation

Keynes’ argument was founded in the concept that market cycles could at least be dampened, and perhaps minimized, through macroeconomic means using monetary intervention by a central bank, and fiscal intervention by a central government. If an economy seems to be performing too strongly, such that overheating could take place, a central bank can decrease money supply and increase interest rates, while a central government can decrease its spending and increase taxes—all of which will effectively decrease an economy’s fuel supply, driving its deceleration. Alternatively, if an economy seems sluggish, a central bank can increase money supply and decrease interest rates, while a central government can increase its spending and decrease taxes—all of which will effectively increase an economy’s fuel supply, driving its acceleration. Broadly speaking, the logic here is sound. But, then again, theoretical viability does not always translate to practical viability.

Yet ultimately, rendering the factors above such a problem is an ideological factor that has produced denial with regard to a plethora of historical data and the mechanism that accounts for them when it comes to a particular economic model. For while it is been abundantly proven data-wise that free-market capitalism has produced the greatest economic success for societies time and again, the non-zero-sum logic described in game theory explains why the same result can be expected every time it is tried. The problem many see with this is that this result can only come via competition that produces highly varied outcomes, even though the average individual will clearly experience the greatest possible benefit.

Indeed, while antagonists refer to the outcome disparity produced by free-market capitalism as a gap between rich and poor—implying that the system will increasingly separate participants into these two distinct class-based groups—the most prominent feature of wealth distribution with a free marketplace is a vibrant and massive “middle class” based on the bell-curve dynamics that describe all natural variation patterns. It is according to these same dynamics that both the number of the very rich and the number of the very poor will be remarkably small. In fact, it is the antagonists of free-market capitalism—i.e., redistributionists of all stripes—that keep the very idea of social “class” alive, as class divisions cannot exist within the bell-curve status continuum that an uncorrupted free market produces. Indeed, it is redistribution that specifically creates class divisions—whether the redistribution occurs from bottom to top or top to bottom, with the latter systematically allowing for the former.

Moreover, instead of the increasing outcome gap between the very rich and very poor being a problem, this gap serves as both an indicator of societal economic health and a harbinger for yet greater economic health. For if the rich are getting richer within an uncorrupted free-market economy, this means the economy is growing overall, thereby increasing the wealth access for all societal members. And perhaps most important, a great polarity between the richest and poorest (noting that at the poor end one cannot have less than nothing, while at the rich end the potential is ever-growing) will provide a great motivation to for all to perform at their best. And it is the latter that will inevitably produce the greatest possible productivity, efficiency, innovation, and advancement for a society in both the economic and military realms—i.e., that which is required to facilitate long-term survival for a nation and all those within it.

The Lag Factor

Relying on data alone is particularly challenging with regard to economic matters because a policy’s implementation and its effects will always involve a lag to one degree or another. Hence, an administration can easily be assigned blame for economic results while effective policies have not yet had their beneficial impact realized; or an administration can easily be assigned credit for economic results while ineffective, or perhaps destructive, policies have not yet had their detrimental impact realized.

The default scenario is that a new U.S. president inheriting a bad economy will be given around two years to correct the situation. And if the economy is good during the second two years, a reelection bid will likely prove successful. While, on the flip side, a president who inherits a strong economy will also own it after around two years, and will likely not be reelected if an economy takes a serious turn for the worst during the latter two. Thus, U.S. presidents tend to get serious about economic policies only during the latter two years of a term primarily with the next election cycle in mind.

Hence, sound long-term economic policy decisions tend to give way to short-term manipulations of the economy that tend to sacrifice a nation’s long-term performance for the short-term personal gains associated with staying in power. Of course, this is precisely the same dynamic that has existed within the corporate world for the last several decades, as strong quarterly results have taken precedent over strong decadal results.

The Interactive Factor

Relying on data alone is also particularly challenging because it is extremely difficult to separate causation from correlation when so many economic dynamics are in play. This is where the lack of a coherent understanding of valid economic theory—including the mechanisms that are actually at work—renders it impossible to make long-term predictions on anything, relegating all interested parties to making short-term predictions based on historical trends and apparent correlations, often without even attempting to establish any true causation, let alone the ultimate causation that drives everything else. Obviously, this too will lend itself to a short-term outlook for those within the private and public sectors alike.