One commented that it is better for the economy to give money to the poor than the rich, because the poor spend the money immediately, circulating it into the economy, while the rich store it rather than use it. But it is opposite if the poor waste the money while the rich invest it. And the rich waste more money on luxuries than the poor waste on gambling and drugs, both indeed while walking past those in need.
This led to a deep question on economics: What is the difference between money put in circulation that was earned by producing value, on one hand, and money that was earned by producing nothing, like a stock trader, or by making things worse, like a mobster, setting a drag on the whole economy for ones own private benefit.? Economics, or wealth, is based ultimately upon real value, real goods, or even natural goods, and the difference between money that represents value and money that represents shysterism ought prove decisive. The question then sets up a problem in Economics that shows the natures of things. When money is earned and enters the economy while it is not backed by real value or natural goods, why, mathematically, this should cause inflation!
Similarly, no one considers what it means to “create jobs.” What is a job? There are two sorts, first, ones where someone can make more money off your labor than they have to pay you, including the hassle of hiring you, because they have devised the leverage of a company, and second, when someone needs your service more than they need the wealth that they have squirrelled away. Cities buy services, like a homeowner does, while companies buy time, effort and the investment, say, of a carpenter, in knowledge and tools (They are worth 40$ per hour, and come with 40,000$ in tools in their truck, and a laborer). Both these kinds of jobs ae different from the self-employment job of owning, storing and marketing a product for the common store, and owning one of these economic leverage machines we call companies..
Political philosophers like the question of the original condition of man, for what it reveals about justice, the nature of political society, convention and inequality. In the same way, we like to reduce economic theory to the hunting gathering and hut building/ clothes sewing from which our economy emerged, to see the natural goods in their simplest roots. There is food, clothing, shelter, tools, transportation, weapons, etc. and the goods in our economy are all reducible to these roots. Economics in this sense is about the goods of the body, and so the best things of the heart and mind appear as entertainment, which barely appears for those hunting and gathering. A job is one’s place in the economy, the collective enterprise of providing for the pressing necessities of the body. Classical economics, and the meaning of the Greek word, is much more broad, household management, and as such economics is the root of politics.
mmcdonald77 