Inert America: Crossroads to the Future
Copyright © 2010 Gary W. Griffin, Ph.D.
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 145159528X
ISBN-13: 9781451595284
E-Book ISBN: 978-1-4392-9014-9
Library of Congress Control Number: 2010904972
Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Figures
Prologue – The Beginning
Chapter 1: America at a Crossroads
Introduction
The Current State of Affairs
Significant Events of the Twenty-First Century
The Need for Reform Everywhere
Crisis as the Impetus of Change
Chapter 2: Poverty and Social Change
The Social Problem of Poverty
Society as a System
The Chaos of Social Change
People as Strange Attractors
The Cause and Effect of Change
Chapter 3: America in Transition
American Industrialization: A Brief History
Postindustrialism: A Time of Change
More Than Technological Advancement
Transition to the Information Society
Lifestyle in the Information Society
Problems within the Information Society
Information Society in Twenty-First Century America
Chapter 4: From Theology to Theory to Truth
The History of Ideas
Philosophy and God
Is There a God?
The Connection between Numbers and God
What is Knowledge?
Chapter 5: The U.S. Constitution as a Social Contract
The History of the Social Contract
The U.S. Constitution as a Social Contract
A Social Contract for a Knowledge-based Society
Chapter 6: Politics and Government
The History of Political Parties
Modern Politics
Government as Master — People as Slaves
The Current State of Government
A New Political Party and a New Government
Chapter 7: The New Political Economy
The History of Economic Thought
The Connection of Politics to Economics
Production and Consumption
Necessity, the Mother of All Invention
Economics for Twenty-First Century America
Chapter 8: The Power of Ten
The Power of Ten
The Lack of Education and the Unemployable
The Baby Boom Generation
Middle-Class America and Debt Poor
The Evolution of the Welfare State
Chapter 9: Globalization
The Changing Models of Globalization
Benefits of Globalization
Risks for the Twenty-First Century U.S. Economy
Chapter 10: The Three Es of Prosperity
A Change in Course and Direction
Twenty-First Century Education Strategy
Energy: The Power Broker of the Twenty-First Century
The U.S. Economy in the Twenty-First Century
Chapter 11: The Future of American Society
A Twenty-First Century Strategy
Measuring Progress of Twenty-First Century Reconstruction
Final Thoughts
Notes
TABLE OF FIGURES
Figure 1: A Belief System
Figure 2: Economic Model Resulting in Prosperity
Figure 3: Economic Model Resulting in Poverty
Figure 4: Manageable Economic Model
Figure 5: U.S. Population Distribution by Class
Figure 6: U.S. Wealth Distribution by Class
Figure 7: Comparison of U.S. Dollar to E.U. Euro
Figure 8: A Twenty-First Century Strategy Map for America.
I thought I should start with a brief description of my journey. Most, I think, would find it interesting to know that at the end of 2007, I had no intention of writing this book. It wasn’t even a thought in my head. So, how did I arrive at the idea for this book?
The year is 2007. I had spent seven years sacrificing, investing, and building a small company. It embodied my hopes, dreams, and my ambitions for a bright future for me and for my family. I was very busy working hard to build my piece of the “American dream.”
At the end of 2006 and the beginning of 2007, things were tough financially. I was running low on cash, and I thought I would sell my small company and live to fight another day. The company was sold—or so I thought. At the last minute the deal fell through, and to my disgust and agony, I had no choice but to close the doors and declare bankruptcy as 2007 came to a close. I did everything in my power to no avail.
Besides the very stressful financial situation with the company, I had my own personal finances to deal with that year. I had put everything into the company, thinking that with years of sacrifice and hard work, I would one day have a big company that had created thousands of jobs and put thousands of people to work. As this American dream came crashing down around me, I was forced to take a hard look at reality. I had never felt more disillusioned.
I thought I had done all the right things. I had invested in my education, earning three college degrees—one a doctorate. I had built a small company from the ground up and always tried to operate with honesty and integrity. I had many years of work experience that could scarcely be covered in a ten-page vita. I thought I had surrounded myself with all the right skills and credentials. I thought I had done all the right things. But by the beginning of 2008, I had gone almost eighteen months without any income. That’s right, I couldn’t find a job; I couldn’t find a contract; I couldn’t sell my company; I could not get my hands on a single buck. I just couldn’t understand that reality. On more than one occasion, I thought, “Isn’t this the land of opportunity? Isn’t this America where anyone who wants to work, can work?” I had never felt more disillusioned. Of course, I was also mad as hell—who wouldn’t be?
I am man of faith, and this challenged my faith. I couldn’t understand how a loving God could lead me down such a road. Was I being punished for some crime that I had committed? These thoughts and many others played over and over in my mind.
As someone who has never been able to accept things unquestioningly, I just couldn’t accept my situation. I couldn’t reconcile the reality with what I believed about God, about myself, and about America. This led me on a thirty-month journey. This book is dedicated to a search for the truth. The more I sought out and understood the truth of my situation, the more I began to understand what truth is—what it looks like, what it tastes like, what it feels like, what it smells like, and what it sounds like. I learned that truth is multifaceted, and that it has characteristics that define it just as much as any science and scientific endeavor can define anything.
When you arrive at the knowledge of the truth, you just know it. If you don’t know it, then it’s not truth. There is only one truth. There may be many different beliefs people have about what they believe to be true, but a close inspection of those beliefs will reveal that it is something they believe based on a TV broadcast, a newspaper article, a talk show host, or a blog on the Internet. It is rarely thought out, wrestled with, analyzed with a critical eye, or questioned with an analytical mind. It’s a belief, and beliefs can be either true or false. If you want to know the truth, you and only you can find it. It takes a lot of hard work, though, and a great deal of hard thinking.
The words I write in this book are the knowledge I’ve discovered on my journey as I searched for the truth. I’m not trying to convince you that it’s the truth—this is a point that you have to a
rrive at all by yourself. However, I am challenging you to not simply believe everything you hear or read. Do your own thorough investigation; you’ll be surprised at what you find.
Here’s the knowledge I’ve obtained, and the truth I’ve discovered. I now wish to share it with you in hopes that it will enlighten you and change your thinking. I’ll see you on the other side.
The future is not known, but the path we must take toward that future is clear.
Gary W. Griffin
INTRODUCTION
Powerlessness in the most powerful nation on planet Earth is the state of affairs in America today. America is approaching a grinding halt and everything is slowing down. “All stop,” has been the command of the ship’s captain. We’re sitting at a four-way stop, and even if we haven’t come to a full stop the car is slowing down, and the brakes are being applied. “These are uncertain times,” said President George W. Bush in a press conference in early 2008. My response is these are not uncertain times—we can be very certain that to continue on the same course is not the right answer. America has to move forward instead of taking a left or a right at this crossroads in its history. There are no easy answers, but there are answers, or at the very least, clear indicators of the right direction for America in the twenty-first century. That direction is straight ahead. America must move forward, but it currently lacks the power to do so. Through both quantitative and qualitative means, I provide readers of this book with simple and straightforward answers to the complexities that have become a twenty-first century America as we explore the Inert America condition.
THE CURRENT STATE OF AFFAIRS
I begin this chapter with the use of two analogies—America as a ship commanded by a captain and American society as a car sitting at a four-way stop, where the driver has to make a decision about the direction to take. Both of these analogies aptly describe the current state of America on a number of different levels.
First, both a ship and a car are born out of the mind of a man, perhaps the mind of multiple men, or women for that matter. The main point here that both of these, a car and a ship, were once only ideas in someone’s brain that became a reality in our experience here on planet Earth. We created both as a means of transportation to move us through space from one point to another. Both of these artifacts of American civilization are creations that originated in the mind. They were once only ideas, but now they have become a part of everyday experience. Everyone knows what they are, and on some level, they can be used as a point of reference in communication between two people.
Second, while both the car and the ship are powerful, they both require the mind of a human being to function. That is to say, a ship moves across the Atlantic by means of the interaction of people like the captain who makes the decisions that guide it across the ocean. Similarly, the automobile can’t move forward through the intersection of the crossroads without a decision from the man or woman who is driving the car. On some level, both the car and the ship are technological innovations that aid humans in the everyday chores of life. They are tools, but no matter how sophisticated, they can’t work by themselves. They require the mind of a man or woman to work.
We’ve entered the twenty-first century, and the years that have passed since the turn of the century have been anything but uneventful. There’s something special about this century and this particular time in human history, some would say; we are embarking on an entirely new journey. Things seem different now, but are they really? Has human kind entered a new plane of existence? Does the twenty-first century offer something new that we’ve never seen before? Those who are more optimistic would say absolutely. As for me, I perceive that things are the same. There’s a lot of truth in the old saying the more things change, the more they stay the same.
Certainly technology has improved, but the human condition remains the same. We’ve witnessed some spectacular things and new inventions have appeared almost daily, but neither the human experience nor the human condition has changed. We who are alive today are experiencing something that is new to us, but it’s not a new experience.
We began this century with both a boom and a bust. The beginning of the century started with the bust of dot-com bubble that began in 1995 and spanned approximately six years through 2001. That same year, America experienced a tragedy that most never thought would occur on American soil—we were attacked on September 11, 2001. For the first time since the attack on Pearl Harbor that marked our entry into World War II, we became a nation at war in response to an attack on our home soil.
The focus of this book is on America and Americans in the twenty-first century. Few would argue that America is not the most powerful nation on the face of planet Earth. That’s a status we have enjoyed for quite some time. Why then does it seem as though America is slowing down—almost as if there’s a sense of powerlessness to move forward. It is as the ship’s captain has said, “All stop.” The car is rolling to the stop sign, and if we haven’t stopped, we’re at least beginning to apply the brakes. There’s no way forward—the road ends here.
Political parties pretend that we have to take a left or a right. Their arguments assume that their philosophical ideals are the right ones for America. I agree that it’s time for a decision for America, and all must make it. We must make it as individuals first and as a nation second. We must find the will to change because it is only then that we will be able to push forward through this crossroads in America’s history. We’ve been down the road to the right, and we’ve traveled down the road to the left. Neither road leads us to prosperity; in fact, the opposite seems to be truer. We don’t need another pendulum swing to the left or right. What we need is to move straight ahead because to move to the left or to the right does not move our nation forward.
The purpose of this book is to challenge your beliefs—all the beliefs that form your individual belief system. This belief system forms the basis for your choices and ensuing actions. It is only through action that work gets done; it is the end result, the output. Here’s the problem—beliefs can be either true or false but not both. False beliefs that form the basis of action often yield unintended consequences. These unintended consequences of false beliefs are one of the reasons America is inert, that is, lacks the power to move forward. The American ideal so often referred to as the American dream is such a belief system.1
In order for America to return to a state of prosperity, we must once again become a nation of producers. Our action must be directed toward an ideal that is based on true beliefs—or more specifically, on knowledge that is truth. The current social structures of our society—political, economic, social, and philosophical—do not allow the working population of America to be productive. The production system is broken. The social structure no longer meets the needs of the mass of the population. This is the reason for the economic crises2 in 2008 and 2009 that likely will continue and worsen through the next decade. Before we can be restored to a prosperous nation, we must make drastic changes to our ideal or our current belief system to be more specific. Through these changes, we can then alter the social fabric of our society.
As stated previously, it’s my intention that this book will challenge your beliefs. It is only through challenging your beliefs that your beliefs can change. The measurement of success of this endeavor will be your acceptance of the truth that is the reality of our society in the twenty-first century. It is my belief that if you know the truth, that you will alter your belief system to align with the reality. My main reason for this exercise is to move America toward prosperity and away from poverty. I wish to spare Americans the pain and suffering that are inevitable if we do not make the systemic changes we need to make in our society. So, if you don’t want to have your beliefs challenged, you should stop reading right here.
Although not an exhaustive list, the following compose the primary set of beliefs that I will challenge in this book either explicitly or implicitly.
There is a God, and he is in contro
l.
There is no God.
Man has free will.
Man evolved from apes.
Every American is free.
We have the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Our system of government is a democracy.
The actions of the American government always represent the best interests of the people.
All social policy is informed and intended for the good of the U.S. population.
All laws are applied equally—justice is blind.
Our elected officials only serve the interests of the voters who put them into office.
There are two major political parties in the United States.
The Federal Reserve is a part of the American government.
Our currency is based on the gold standard.
The American dollar has value.
Capitalism is the only economic system that works.
The current economic crisis was unavoidable.
People who know what they are doing set economic policy and monetary policy.
Government is the solution to all our problems.
SIGNIFICANT EVENTS OF THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
This century began with a boom and bust. We were faced with the Millennium Bug.3 While companies were busy trying to fix this bug, the Internet evolution/revolution exploded into our lives and in our homes. These major technological innovations saw the end of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first century with what we now call the dot-com bust. As is usual, the stock market had major gains, but then with sudden, unstoppable forces, wealth was washed away; there were many losers and a few winners as the technology stocks that had propped up the dot-com boom lost their favor. As quickly as it began, the information revolution came to a grinding halt, at least on Wall Street, and technology was no longer the answer for all that ails us.