Love and Peace, Family and Friends.
Shalom. Namaste. Salaam.
Our current economy is predicated upon “nickel and diming.” People pervasively try to skim a little here and there, directly from someone else, in order to gain an advantage, make a profit, stay ahead. We do it when we set the price for a loaf of bread; we do it when we negotiate our annual salary; we do it when our company negotiates a contract with another company. It is an intrinsic part of doing business.
And this is other than simply just a capitalist thing. This goes back millennia within the history of humanity and the mere practice of trading. It is historically done when negotiating terms between rice and cloth, between a shovel and olives, between cows and sep, and between a cart and a canoe. It is a very slight, yet fundamental practice, of asserting one’s own interests over another’s interests, one’s family over another’s family, one’s prosperity in perpetuity over another’s prosperity in perpetuity.
This is done so regularly, and commonly, that we abstain from seriously considering the implications. This practice of nickel and diming is done perhaps billions or even trillions of times every day, by billions of people, throughout the Earth. It seems almost intrinsic within the fabric of humanity. And there may be thousands, or millions, or more techniques and strategies in how to go about nickel and diming: some may utilise charm, some may utilise threat of force, some may inundate with information, some may utilise leverage, some may utilise guilt, some may utilise sexuality.
Those who are more proficient in this practice tend to accumulate an increasing amount of material wealth. Although many people may seem envious, those who are so proficient in nickel and diming tend to also have a reputation of being disingenuous and have difficulty maintaining genuine friendships. It seems that the vast majority of people, at some point, forego the opportunity of being proficient in nickel and diming, and instead, intrinsically decide to maintain a more modest and moderate lifestyle, with more genuine friendships and less preoccupation with accumulation, and even with occasional outbursts of illogical generosity and altruism. So there is promise for humanity.
However, just as there are certain consequences for those who are proficient in nickel and diming, there are also certain consequences for those who are deficient in nickel and diming: those who are inept or unwilling to engage in profiting off of someone else. Whilst the materially wealthy are commonly perceived as being more intelligent and/or more diligent, the materially impoverished are commonly perceived as being more dull and/or more lazy. However, both ends of the spectrum are the direct and eventual consequence of the aggregate practice of nickel and diming. All the thousands of business interactions that we each make, every year, each ultimately results in the vast, disparate polarities amidst the spectrum of our aggregate socioeconomic behaviour; some people are nickel and dimed into gated mansions, and some people are nickel and dimed into the sewers.
Yet many may argue that this is an unfair assessment. Many may proclaim the vast amount of charity that is practised throughout humanity. However, all of this is simply a matter of insufficient, reverse nickel and diming. Whilst there may be exceptional cases to the contrary (who can simply be categorised as people who eventually are unwilling to nickel and dime), the vast amount of charity that is spent within humanity, is spent out of our excesses directly provided from nickel and diming. Whilst it may lessen some of the severity of material poverty, it seems that the practice of charity is much more intended to alleviate our respective consciences rather than to effectively alleviate the very existence of material poverty.
But, perhaps that is appropriate. Perhaps, as some may suggest, poverty is inevitable. Perhaps there are those who deliberately choose to be materially impoverished. Perhaps there are those who subconsciously choose to be materially impoverished. However, if that is the case, is that actually poverty? And does humanity maintain a responsibility to sufficiently provide after such people? After all, intentional poverty (going without food and water) only lasts so long. And what about people who are interested in experiencing enhanced material wealth? What is the appropriate bottom line for humanity; and what are the appropriate circumstances to facilitate respectively desired socioeconomic mobility within the grey area of the spectrum between the vast, disparate polarities of rich and poor?
And I have yet to even directly address the substantial inefficiency, the scepticism, the stigmatisation, and the general social disdain amidst the practice of attending to the materially impoverished. I have yet to directly address how some are simply born into material wealth and some are born into material poverty, each with each person’s own challenges to experience. And I have yet to directly address how some tend to abstain from nickel and diming, and instead, resort to blatant usurpation: robbery, theft, warfare. Yet even amidst such cases, there is the necessity for returning to the mainstream and interacting with the rest of society. Yes, within the realm of nickel and diming, the buck is in perpetual motion.
So, what is the solution. The simple solution is becoming increasingly mindful of our everyday interactions: what needs are we directly and intrinsically satisfying when we engage is such behaviour, and what are the implications, the further reaching consequences, of our behaviour. The simple solution involves being more compassionate within each and every transaction that we enact; to be more generous. Perhaps, this means to haggle less; to simply accept the price that is initially given; to acknowledge that the person offering the price is experiencing a need and to simply satisfy that need, even if it is only an ambiguous and inflated fear of experiencing material poverty. And yes, it may be that by doing this, we incur a certain amount of increased socioeconomic expense, at least initially. However, by effectively doing this, we increase the trust, cooperation, and loyalty that we have for each other. And this establishes a socioeconomic atmosphere that encourages us to lower each other’s prices; the cost of doing business is less severe, we care more for each other’s wellbeing, and we are less fearful of becoming materially impoverished. We establish a socioeconomic atmosphere without harsh polarities, where each person is valued and provided sufficient care, where there is an absence of fear and duplicity, and instead, there is proficient mutual trust and cooperation.
In fact, we may even be brave enough to enact a socioeconomic system without any prices; a socioeconomic system built substantially upon honour, built upon mutual trust. One idea is that we all maintain our respective socioeconomic behaviour in a manner that is similar to contemporary circumstances: there are many different stores with many different products; there are teachers and labourers and executives; and there houses and apartments and planes and trains and all other forms of socioeconomic behaviour. The difference is that when we go to the store, we abstain from paying any money or even directly trading anything. We simply take what interests us. We give the proprietor our “honour card” and the transaction is recorded. When we complete an hour of class instruction for a group of students, or complete the manufacturing of a couch and it is acquired by someone else, or complete a contract negotiation between two parties, each of these economic products and services are recorded. And after consuming such products and services, when we return paper, plastic, furniture, and even fecal matter and additional waste products to respective recycling facilities, each of these transactions is recorded as well. So that there is a continual tabulation of our respective socioeconomic activities, including: productivity, consumption, and recycling. And this is made publicly available to the entirety of humanity. We can see exactly how much each of us is contributing and taking away from the Universe. And our continuing socioeconomic behaviour can be predicated upon this knowledge.
This may seem preposterous. We may anticipate people, within such a system, initially hoarding products and services and attempting to take advantage of the circumstances. However, we may also be underestimating the power and influence of honour. Admittedly, it may require a gradual progression to reach such a level of mutual respect and trust; however, we may also reach such a level whereby it is even unnecessary to record and publicise such behaviour: that our instinctive tendencies towards animosity and hostility, for the sake of self preservation, are superceded by our instinctive tendencies towards compassion and cooperation, for the sake of the wellbeing of all.
Love and Peace,
Peter
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