13-Solutions

“There are no easy answers.” – Sue-Jo Jarrott Moffatt

            I’m quoting my mother. Of course she’s not the first one to say that, but she’s the first one I heard say it, and she said it more than once in her lifetime. It usually annoyed me (as it may you), because it sounded to me like an easy answer itself, a way to discount whatever brilliant plan I had come up with to solve some major problem of the world. It was though, and is, the truth. 

            We want to find a simple way through problems, so we don’t have to deal with them anymore, but the world doesn’t work that way. It’s messy and complicated and constantly changing. If we truly want to make things better for ourselves, and others, and future generations, we have to be constantly changing and re-evaluating our methods. We also have to understand that when something important isn’t working as we want it to, we need to fix it, not throw it out and start over. 

            What I write here is superficial, but the point is valid. You will think of many problems that I haven’t mentioned or even thought of, but still, we have to work through them, not tear the house down.

            As a society we don’t seem to realize that what is best for everyone is actually best for us, each one of us. We see solutions as problems because the transitions they require can be difficult in the near term.

            For the last hundred years or so we worried about overpopulation, which was seen as the cause of most of our larger problems including wars, climate change, and poverty. Now we’re worried about declining birthrates, which is the solution to overpopulation. 

            Declining birthrates in wealthy countries create problems because the populations start to skew heavily towards older, less productive citizens who take resources rather than create them. What’s the short-term solution? Immigration from poorer or more unsafe countries, which is happening naturally. But immigration is considered a problem. We need good federal immigration policies that support communities experiencing strain on citizens and public resources from new immigrants and also that effectively control the borders.

            Declining birthrates are the result of increasing wealth throughout the world from capitalist globalization. This has been linked for several decades. But capitalism and globalization, as with any growth, is not even. It tends to create income disparity that destabilizes societies, so it’s viewed as a problem.

            What’s the solution? Democratic governments that provide some wealth redistribution through welfare systems and protection from job displacements through unemployment insurance and job training while still supporting the capitalist engine that funds everything. But democracy is seen as too messy, corrupt, and ineffective to work—a problem—so democratic countries may vote democracy out. We need more patience and trust in common goals.

            What’s the long-term solution to all of this? Greater productivity through technology including artificial intelligence. Yes, that! That is how we can provide for everyone through the discomfort of a declining population and the temporary inequities of untethered capitalism. But technology, particularly AI, is not without risks and so brings problems in managing the implementation. We need rational and timely regulation of new technologies. 

            But regulations can have unintended consequences. Added complexity can burden people and societies and reduce productivity. They can also have a tendency to favor larger corporations that have the resources to navigate or avoid them while reducing their competition from smaller upstarts. A democratic society should be able to discuss this rationally, measure the effects, and review and modify regulations in the interests of the whole.

            What creates new technology? Entrepreneurial capitalism in a market in which large corporations are NOT unfairly advantaged by the government but allowed to fail if they become inefficient or anti-competitive, or occasionally, even broken up by the government if they become monopolistic, which is also anti-competitive. Failing companies for any reason cause problems because jobs are lost when they fail. The solution is again Democratic governments providing protection for workers and help for them to find new jobs which are created by a competitive capitalist marketplace.

            It’s all linked. Overpopulation is solved by increasing wealth from capitalist globalization which results in declining birthrates as people, men and women, become more educated and desire more in their lives and learn how to prevent unwanted pregnancies. The immediate problems of declining birthrates are solved by controlled immigration. The long-term problems of declining birthrates and the inequalities from globalization are solved by increased productivity from technology and by democratic welfare states that distribute some of the wealth.

            The welfare programs must also help workers through the disruptions from all the changes without hamstringing the desire to work to get ahead and without protecting inefficient or anachronistic companies from failure under the excuse of protecting jobs. Don’t protect jobs, protect workers. The companies and jobs must (and will) change as society and technology advance.

            Here’s a chart:

            People don’t like change, but change is not only necessary, it’s inevitable. It doesn’t matter what the government policies are, change will happen. It doesn’t matter if you don’t like markets. They are an unstoppable force. If governments can’t adapt to change and to markets but attempt to resist them, everyone suffers. The lower economic classes (and countries) suffer most of all, but everyone loses something. Governments have to manage change and markets the way engineers manage the flow of a river. You can’t stop a river, but you can tame it, get it to do a lot of things you want it to do, if you respect its power and understand what things you can’t make it do. The same is true for change and for markets.

            None of this is easy and there is particular difficulty determining the exact methods. What is the right amount and kind of welfare? What is the best way to manage change? How much wealth redistribution is enough to keep everyone healthy and protect and educate children and not too much to undermine the capitalist incentive? How much immigration and what kind? How do you control the borders? What policies are best to manage emerging technologies? How best do we regulate markets to prevent large anti-competitive companies from surviving without placing too much burden on smaller companies? These are questions to be debated in a democratic forum, with advice from experts, to work towards compromises. The compromises will never be perfect but are necessary for everyone to survive and thrive.

            The hardest part of this is patience and mutual trust in a common goal. We all act from our identities. The trouble is we each have many different identities. Tribal identities are just who we are at some level. That’s not bad, but we each have to listen to everyone, try to right past wrongs, do our best to treat everyone fairly, and then somehow, at some point, we have to each act from our common identity as citizens. From that point of view, what is best for all of us is best for each one of us, and the remaining conflict comes from determining how best to achieve it. 

            I urge you to think of each of these problems as a solution to some other problem that just has kinks to be worked out. If we take this attitude, we can attain a reasonable balance. But change never stops, so this process can never stop. That’s why democracy is the best governing model for managing change. It is designed for constant change. Bottom line, we have to learn to think of ourselves as one people and embrace and manage change.

            This is no small task, but the outcome is a better life for everyone, including you. My mother also said, “Somehow we always seem to muddle through.” It doesn’t sound like a very noble goal, but it’s not easy, it’s not a given, and it really is the best we can do. 

            Hugh Moffatt
            Nashville, Tennessee
            October 7, 2024