Who built it?

This morning I saw a post from a High School friend on Facebook commenting on the following blog post by John Green (of “The Fault in Our Stars” et. al. fame):  http://fishingboatproceeds.tumblr.com/post/30565841330/i-didnt-build-that

In an election year that is charged with hyperbole, this is a current end to a back and forth debate of “who built that?”  It is most prominently/contemporaneously a counterpoint to a punch-line of the just completed Republican National Convention, where many a placard stated “We built that”; a clear indication that it is those entrepreneurs that invest or develop businesses that are the engines for prosperity and job growth in the American economic system.  This article (the blog post above) cites the opposite thesis, in that, it is not “you who built it” but the system and workers that work for you that built it, or at the very least made it possible.  I have posted elsewhere some notes on economics, but I think I need to wade in on this banter between two poles that seem unwilling to see the common ground between them.

As I cited in my comment reply to my friend, this is not an “either/or” proposition, but one that needs to be recognized as a “both/and” proposition.  We need individuals that are risk takers, investors, entrepreneurs, business owners, capital investors, and industrious to help drive the economy.  We also need to have stable markets, consistent and just courts and laws, effectual government, protective regulations, and investment of all forms of infrastructure to enable our economy to flourish.  Using an eastern metaphor, you cant have your ying without your yang.  We need the creative chaos of individual actors in free markets to be tempered by the needs of society, and we need the rules of society to support, not hinder, the individual to be willing and able to succeed.  At their core, both poles in our political discourse are missing the critical fact that they need each other; neither theory works without the other.

For my part, I am tired of the rhetoric that our discourse has put forth, especially in light of the facts on the ground evidenced by the actions seen in history.  As one of my most favorite historic figures Abe Lincoln said, “Your actions speak so loud, I can hardly hear what you say.”  Republicans touting themselves as budget hawks and fiscal conservatives turned a surplus government budget to a deficit, and that was before emergency spending after September 11^th.  Democrats, wanting us all to believe that tomorrow can take care of itself, continue to enact stop gap budget measures to shore up what is rapidly becoming an untenable safety net and enacting new entitlements by framing them as a “right” we all ought to have, that we can’t get close to affording (I will not delve deep here, but global evidence cannot even get close to supporting a right to healthcare, it is a privilege and based significantly upon the culture and prosperity of it and the actors within it).  Both parties have and continue to fail to level with themselves, never mind the American people, that neither side is right about substantial economic policy on their own. 

The reality is that we have so mortgaged our future, that we have to start looking at the next page of the American experience, one that isn’t as rosy as they want to paint; but also isn’t one we can’t overcome.  Our hope isn’t in post-WW II euphoric unleashing of the arsenal of democracy, but instead in the power to put on the yoke of the burdens we have wrought through overreach in some cases, and simple necessity of history on the other, and plow a new field going forward.  This involves a step into the place my grandparents experienced in the 1940s, that after a massive contraction in their lives, they opted to accept rationing, and sacrificed being able to drive to a station and get gas on demand, to be able to afford to pay to save the world from tyranny.  Since that time, we have gone from being savers to being debtors.  We shouldn’t see our future as a downgrade, but an in-grade.  By each individual and all of us collectively reassessing how we engage in our economic lives, we can not merely pay for the errors of almost 50 years of borrowing tomorrow, but again become the vehicle of growth in the world for the next 50 years or longer.  This is not a cut and save or a spend and borrow scheme I am talking about; both are colossal failures on their own.  But, we need to invest and capitalize.  Many eons ago I learned that probably the most important reason that the Roman Republic/Empire became what it was, was because of its infrastructure and its granting of citizenship to the people they conquered.  It was an investment in infrastructure by the government as a collective good and the capitalizing on the ingenuity and drive of new vigorous races and people that enabled the phenomenal growth and prosperity of Rome to last well over 500 years.  This is the strategy we need to employ, it’s a “both/and” way forward, one that is in the center if we are only willing to gain the humility to see it; “we both built it together”.