AT THE INTERSECTION: EXAMPLES FOR THE MATRIX

by Dr. James W. Jackson

Founder, Project C.U.R.E.
Author, The Happiest Man in the World: Life Lessons from a Cultural Economist

We have now discussed the components of economic production: Land, Labor, Capital, and the Entrepreneur, and also the components of our cultural structure: Traditions, Institutions, Family, and the Individual. Our premise is that Transformation takes place at the intersection of Culture and Economics. Wherever the components of Culture and the components of Economics cross in the intersection of real life, you can expect change.

I’m going to resort to the chalk board and see if we can walk through some common examples in order to see just how such a thing works. The components of Economics will be positioned along the left side of our matrix and the components of Culture will follow the bottom line. The dynamics of the situational example will determine the point of intersection and which of the components will be involved in the confrontation that sets up the incidence of transformation:

• We talked earlier about the incredible global transformation that took place based on the intuition and action of Alexander the Great after being influenced by the cultural and economic insights of his personal teacher, Aristotle. He conquered the known world.
• Two hundred seventy- one years later, Julius Caesar laid claim to Alexander’s dream and once again, transformed the global system at the intersection of culture and economics.
• King James of England, in 1606, granted rights to a business investment company to establish the first American colony in an area designated as Virginia. But the second contract was made with another organization to establish a colony in America. That contract was born out of conflict and the desire for change and freedom. The Pilgrims were a group of settlers who had previously left England to seek relief and freedom in Holland. Disappointed there, they found investors willing to underwrite the expenses of a contract to colonize in America. On September 16, 1620, the Pilgrims set sail on the Mayflower and landed sixty-five days later. At the intersection of culture and economics, the Pilgrims employed their powerful traditions and even religious institutions and families. They set into motion transformation in areas of land use, labor, and capital and the individuals eventually realized the fruits of a new world

• Eventually the American Revolutionary War between young America and England would be fought at the intersection of culture and economics. Institutions, traditions, families and individuals were pitted against each other on matters of land, labor, capital, and entrepreneurial enterprises.

• Within recent years, China’s citizens have experienced immeasurable transformation due to national laws implemented in 1979 limiting the family’s size to one child per couple. I personally visited many orphanages throughout China and have been acquainted with the affects of the policy that was fully centered at the intersection of culture and economics. The policies were initiated to alleviate social, economic and environmental problems in China, but have set into motion firestorms of consequences.

• A bit closer to home . . . we commonly experience the intersection phenomenon in controversial land use situations. Traditions endeavor to dictate how a certain piece of property will be used regardless of personal or institutional ownership rights. Or, a municipality may want to appropriate or condemn a property and build a big box store or commercial strip in order to generate higher tax revenues. The battle is waged at the intersection of culture and economics.

• Divorce settlements, civil suits, and estate squabbles so very frequently find the principles yelling at each other in the middle of the intersection of culture and economics.

• Individual families, also, find themselves hammering out philosophical differences at the intersection when it comes to making decisions regarding how they will earn and spend their resources.

• Don’t be surprised when it dawns on you that this same matrix works even for such issues as dealing with the disciplining of the children, (Land = Resources, Labor = Activities, Capital = Rights and Rewards, Entrepreneur = Creativity and Independence). We can count on major transformation taking place at the intersection of culture and economics even when applied to the components involved in domestic situations.

We live in a world of transformation. It is good for us to concern ourselves with how we can more efficiently allocate and manage our resources and abilities. It is also to our benefit to discover and understand how various aspects of human cultures interact with economic events, behaviors, and conditions. Economic philosophies and systems have the power to affect and shape our culture, as well as our culture having influence on our political systems, inherited traditions, religious beliefs and the formation of our institutions. It is imperative to lay aside the notion that economic has only to do with money. It is also imperative to more fully comprehend the scope and sequence of culture.

As we move into a more complete understanding of the eight components listed herein, and see how they work together under a larger umbrella of cultural economics, our identification of problems and even our tasks of conflict resolution will be more easily accomplished.

Next Week: Our Market Basket

(Research Ideas from Dr. Jackson’s new writing project on Cultural Economics) 

© Dr. James W. Jackson  

Permissions granted by Winston-Crown Publishing House

www.drjameswjackson.com  

Dr. James W. Jackson often describes himself as "The Happiest Man in the World." A successful businessman, award-winning author and humanitarian, Jackson is also a renowned Cultural Economist and international consultant, helping organizations and governments to apply sound economic principals to the transformation of culture so that everyone is "better off."

As the founder of Project C.U.R.E., Dr. Jackson traveled to more than one hundred fifty countries assessing healthcare facilities, meeting with government leaders and "delivering health and hope" in the form of medical supplies and equipment to the world's most needy people. Literally thousands of people are alive today as a direct result of the tireless efforts of Project C.U.R.E.'s staff, volunteers and Dr. Jackson. 

To contact Dr. Jackson, or to book him for an interview or speaking engagement: press@winstoncrown.com

CULTURAL ECON.: A WORKING DEFINITION

by Dr. James W. Jackson

Founder, Project C.U.R.E.
Author, The Happiest Man in the World: Life Lessons from a Cultural Economist

I will take the opportunity at the beginning of this new year to thank Winston Crown Publishing House for inviting me to continue writing these articles under their banner. It has been a delight to work with them since their publishing of my book, What’cha Gonna Do With What’cha Got? in1982. I look forward to sharing with my reading friends the ongoing literary adventure of investigation, information, and inspiration. Thanks for the opportunity!

*****

In especially the last twenty-five articles, we have talked a lot about Cultural Economics. Perhaps it is time to inject some basic definitions. The word economics comes from the Greek words oikos (a house) and nemein (to manage) and quite simply deals with the efficient allocation and management of goods and services.

I like to think of economics as the study of making good choices under conditions of scarcity . . . or even abundance. Economics is not all about charts with axis points, slopes, and curves. To me, economics is all about people. People with their emotions of love, joy, surprise, anger, sadness, and fear make up cultures, and cultures affect economics. And, of course, in turn, the chosen system of economics affects the cultures and individual persons.

Cultural Economics is the branch of economics that concerns itself with the relationship of culture to economic outcomes. It studies how various aspects of human cultures interact with economic events, behaviors and conditions. A given culture will even influence the political system with its traditions, religious beliefs, the formation of institutions, and the value ascribed to individuals.

Sometimes folks raise their eyebrows at me when I suggest to them that the major defense for the existence of economists is to accurately predict the future. They are expected to be fortune tellers. They collect their data about what is apparently going on in the world, compile their evidence, and arrange it neatly on charts and graphs. Then, they go back to their study cubicles and see if their data matches up with what they had been espousing as a theory of truth. There is a supposition with economists that future reality will be an extension of past reality. If they feel their findings are trustworthy enough, they project into the future some expected outcome. If they are right about the future they become acclaimed economists . . . if not, they go to work for the government.

Economics, however, is a great practical exercise and is not a Dismal Science, as Thomas Carlyle referred to it in his essay written in 1849. When we consider that there are well over seven billion individuals alive on earth today, and they are each making scores of individual choices right now, it is a bit overwhelming. Each person is involved in trying to figure out how to make better choices regarding efficiently allocating and managing the resources of land, labor, capital, and entrepreneurs, and how they are going to organize and manage the production of millions and millions of goods and services all at the same time.

In the studying of cultural economics we have the thrill of taking some basic principles of economics and combining them with the unpredictable thoughts, choices, and actions of over seven billion people on earth today. That makes for an exciting adventure that can open our eyes to the understanding of motives, methods, behaviors, successes, and failures regarding our world’s resources and human life styles. Follow the money.

My love and interdisciplinary bias certainly leans toward the behavioral aspects of the study of economics rather than the pure analytical number crunching of the econometrics laboratory. So, the notes and research findings presented in the future articles will be aimed at how people affect economic systems and how cultures are affected by economic choices. Who knows, I might even throw in some moral observations I have witnessed in my travels around the world regarding peoples’ influence on economics, and the economic influences on the cultures of this old world. 

Next week: Scarcity, choice, and cost.

(Research ideas from Dr. Jackson’s new writing project on Cultural Economics)

© Dr. James W. Jackson  

Permissions granted by Winston-Crown Publishing House

Dr. James W. Jackson often describes himself as "The Happiest Man in the World." A successful businessman, award-winning author and humanitarian, Jackson is also a renowned Cultural Economist and international consultant, helping organizations and governments to apply sound economic principals to the transformation of culture so that everyone is "better off."

As the founder of Project C.U.R.E., Dr. Jackson traveled to more than one hundred fifty countries assessing healthcare facilities, meeting with government leaders and "delivering health and hope" in the form of medical supplies and equipment to the world's most needy people. Literally thousands of people are alive today as a direct result of the tireless efforts of Project C.U.R.E.'s staff, volunteers and Dr. Jackson. 

To contact Dr. Jackson, or to book him for an interview or speaking engagement: press@winstoncrown.com

POWER OF STORY: BANKING

by Dr. James W. Jackson

Founder, Project C.U.R.E.
Author, The Happiest Man in the World: Life Lessons from a Cultural Economist

The last half dozen articles I have written have dealt with the question: What is Money? The conclusion was that over the past two hundred years our concept of money has slowly changed. Cash has become a concept and not a commodity. No longer do we think of money as a bar of gold or silver from which we peel off enough shavings to fulfill the requirement of the balance scale. We instead, fancy money as simply a credit or debit stored in the memory chip of a computer and backed up solely by confidence.

The money system has morphed into what it is because of our demand for convenience, and it is based strictly on the confidence that someone else will accept our ethereal numbers from the computer to satisfy what we owe. There is now no such thing as gold or silver to back up the value.

Here is a confession: I actually went back and read again what I had written about money. My question was: Why did I write that material as if I were an economics professor delivering a lecture in front of a classroom?

I am one of the diehards who still wholeheartedly believe in the power of story. We usually understand best through story. If we are to understand:

• our fractional reserve system of banking,
• how and why the Federal Reserve System exists without control of the US government or the banks,
• how the phenomenon of inflation takes wealth away from you like a thief in the night without the necessity of even one vote of congress,

it will be absolutely necessary to understand some very simple and basic facts that will probably not be gleaned from an economic lecture.

So, please indulge me to try to utilize the power of story to explain in the next set of writings how all of this works together in the real world of money and finance:

The story of banking begins with the ancient goldsmiths. When “Barney Businessman” was fortunate enough to accumulate a sizeable amount of gold or silver as a result of his business dealings, he was then confronted with the problem of keeping it safe from those who had intention of forced wealth redistribution, i.e., thieves and robbers.

Because “Gaffney Goldsmith’s” business was that of dealing in precious metals, he had been forced to construct a thief-proof vault. It was only natural then that Barney Businessman would go to Gaffney and request of him space in his vault to store his accumulated gold. In fact, Barney was willing to pay Gaffney a fee for the “safekeeping” of his gold.

Of course, when Barney deposited his gold into Gaffney’s vault, he requested and received a receipt of deposit which he had to present whenever he wished to reclaim his gold. Other people in the community began to realize that Gaffney Goldsmith’s vault was an extremely safe and convenient place to keep their gold. In fact, Gaffney’s vault became somewhat of a warehouse for gold.

Gaffney was pretty intelligent and he had taken mostly honors classes in school, so it didn’t take him long to realize that on any given day, eighty to ninety percent of the gold in his vault simply sat there collecting dust. He became convinced that there would never be a day when everyone would come to his vault and want to withdraw all their gold at the same time. Any daily withdrawals of gold would be offset by that day’s receipts of gold. And since gold is gold and gold is gold, no one seemed to care whose gold he received when he wanted to make a withdrawal.

Therefore, Gaffney usually made all of his transactions out of the few bags of gold in the front of his vault while all the bags in the back sat there collecting dust and taking up a lot of valuable vault space. Gaffney realized that he had a good thing going. And his books always balanced!

GAFFNEY GOLDSMITH

                                                                                             *        LIABILITIES &

                                                                       ASSETS          *            NET WORTH

                                                   --------------------------------*---------------------------------

                                                      GOLD             $2000       *        RECEIPTS      $2000

The gold was an asset to Gaffney, because it was under his control. The receipts were a liability to him, because they represented the owner’s claim on the gold, and sooner or later, he would be called upon to return the gold.

Question for next week: How was it possible for Gaffney to keep his books balanced and at the same time create more money in the community? 

          (Research ideas from Dr. Jackson’s new writing project on Cultural Economics) 

Dr. James W. Jackson often describes himself as "The Happiest Man in the World." A successful businessman, award-winning author and humanitarian, Jackson is also a renowned Cultural Economist and international consultant, helping organizations and governments to apply sound economic principals to the transformation of culture so that everyone is "better off."

As the founder of Project C.U.R.E., Dr. Jackson traveled to more than one hundred fifty countries assessing healthcare facilities, meeting with government leaders and "delivering health and hope" in the form of medical supplies and equipment to the world's most needy people. Literally thousands of people are alive today as a direct result of the tireless efforts of Project C.U.R.E.'s staff, volunteers and Dr. Jackson. 

To contact Dr. Jackson, or to book him for an interview or speaking engagement: press@winstoncrown.com