FIRST CLASS CITIZEN

At some point, Florida's former governor and U.S. Senator, Bob Graham, stated on the Senate floor that he was a Jeffersonian Democrat. What does that mean? It means he believes in republicanism. As such, it promotes the idea that citizens behave in accordance with their civic duty, which includes participation in the political processes of their communities, especially, and in the affairs of their state and nation. This includes, at some minimum level, the duty to vote. Government should encourage citizens to vote. Jeffersonian democracy is in favor of obliterating aristocracy and generally representing the interests of the common man and woman, especially that of the yeoman farmer. A yeoman farmer is a farmer who cultivates his/her own farm and is generally considered a relatively small farm farmer. In Jefferson's time, yeoman farmers were common in New England. He found these people to be honest, diligent, and socially connected to their local affairs. When Jefferson was alive, these ideas and ideals made up the platform for the political party Jefferson founded, the Democratic-Republican Party. It was one of two parties at the time – late eighteenth century, early nineteenth century – the other being the Federalist Party started by Alexander Hamilton and John Adams. Don't be misled by the names of these parties; their names were chosen because of the historical prelude to their origins and were not a true reflection of the terms' meanings.¹

But I digress. My main point here is to convey my admiration for Bob Graham. Jeffersonian democracy is a view of governance and politics akin to federalism, but with some deviation. But to the degree the two constructs overlap and to the degree Governor Graham abides by these jointly held beliefs, I find him to be a man deserving of respect and admiration. Let me share an anecdote that I believe reflects the kind of public servant he was.

I, as a classroom teacher, was sent, from time to time, invitations to participate in varied in-service educational events. One such invitation was sent to me by the U. S. State Department. The event was scheduled to take place at State's headquarters in Washington, D. C. I accepted. When I arrived, I found that there were teachers from all over the country – about several hundred of us. And the event was scheduled over two days; I think a Thursday and Friday. It was very informative, well organized and I was delighted to be there – they really made the effort to make us all feel important and the information they shared about several international issues and conditions about varied nations around the world was well presented. A lot of discussion ensued. It was a trip well taken. The man mostly organizing our activities, at least as the emcee of the activities, was Lawrence Eagleburger, who at the time was second in command at State. The Secretary of State was James Baker under the administration of George H. W. Bush. The last scheduled event was to be a reception for all of the teachers, including a presentation by Secretary Baker. Unfortunately, I couldn't attend because I needed to get to the airport for my flight back to Miami. I was disappointed. But what I didn't know at the time was that Eagleburger would succeed Baker in the post of Secretary of State – a fact I would appreciate in future years.

Anyway, I arrived at my gate at the airport and among my fellow travelers was a group of people surrounding someone. At first I couldn't make out who the person in the middle of this group was. Eventually, I saw it was my senator, Bob Graham. We all waited for our plane to arrive, an Eastern shuttle from New York or Boston. Finally, it pulled up to the gate and we still had to wait for the passengers to deplane and then we all started boarding. They first called the first class passengers. I expected Senator Graham to board. He didn't. I thought, smart politician; he doesn't want to be sitting in first class while the rest of us board and see him there as we shuffle back to coach. Then it was time for the coach passengers to board. It happens that when they called for my section of seats to board, Senator Graham was one of us. It turned out he was flying coach and his eventual seat happened to be a couple of rows behind mine. The flight took off and we made our way down to Florida. As I worked my way out to leave the plane, the Senator was right behind me. I didn't maneuver this; it just worked out that way. Anyway, as we got to the concourse, I looked over my shoulder and simply extended a positive word, saying, “I'm a fan” and intended to go about my business. Well, he engaged me in conversation which was good and bad. The good was he expressed a genuine interest in my trip, in the program I attended, and my career as a teacher in general. For those who are not Floridians who might be reading this, I will inform you that Graham was somewhat famous for his work days when he would spend a whole day doing different jobs while governor and he continued the practice after that time. He has indicated that the work days were a good way to learn what was on people's minds. As we made our way down the concourse, which was a fairly long way, our conversation was lively and interesting, at least to me. The bad part of the walk was that I had to keep up with him. He was simply walking at what seemed to be his normal gait, but I had to hustle to stay even with him in order to keep the conversation going. As we got to the lobby area of the airport, I noticed a group waiting for him. I let him walk ahead so that he could mingle with his welcoming entourage. He did go ahead, but after a second he looked around and wanted me to join the group. He handed me a little black book and asked me to write down my name and address. Unfortunately, after holding my bag for the time it took to walk the long concourse, my arm and hand muscles didn't want to cooperate and my penmanship, which I think is usually pretty good, was awful. I scratched the information down and if I didn't know what I had attempted to write, I wouldn't have been able to read it. Oh well, c'est la vie. I parted with a warm goodbye and off I went.

Today, Governor Graham is heavily involved with a variety of issues, one being civics education. He and former Justice Sandra Day O'Connor have somewhat joined forces and have backed the promotion of civics curriculum projects across the country. Let me quote him:

We're developing curriculum … which will say if a child is learning the basic skills of how to read, why can't they be reading about something important like the history of our state or our nation or people who have shaped it and some of the principles that make us the unique democracy that we are … .²

His qualified description of efforts to enhance civics in our classrooms reflects the current emphasis on basic skills at the expense of other curricular concerns such as civics. Governor Graham shared, in a recent visit to the state capital, that when he graduated from Miami Senior High School he had had three courses in civics. This is a far cry from what students receive now. The Governor is working to find ways to ameliorate this deficiency. Thank you, Governor Graham, for your service, for your interest in civics education, and for a wonderful memory.

1For example, the Federalist Party favored a strong central government which is in dire contrast to traditional federal ideals. The Democratic-Republican Party was not so democratic as we use the term today.

2Burlew, J. (2014). Graham calls for more civic engagement. The Tallahassee Democrat, March 19, p. 3 A.

WHEN ZERO MEANS MORE THAN NOTHING

What's your image of heaven? For the sake of discussion, let's get beyond the question of whether heaven exists or not. My image of it is a place where you can have whatever you want, whenever you want it. I have that image because that's how heaven was initially described to me as a child. My image has become more complicated, but it's still a place of no scarcity. Of course, by the time some adult described this nirvana, I was already aware that the world around me was not like that. But the language I needed to explain the real world around me did not come to me until I took my first economics course. There, I was to get a more concrete understanding of what scarcity really meant. It means that whatever one wants – even those things that are emotional or spiritual – are limited. They are limited because we have just so many material resources, so much time, so much physical and emotional energy and no more. These are the things necessary to produce, get, and enjoy those things I want and they are scarce.

So what encourages those who produce what I want to do those things that result in my being able to acquire those things? Well, it turns out that those people have wants also and those wants exist in the same reality of scarcity with which I am confronted. To satisfy those desires, they take advantage of this general reality of scarcity and engage in activities that will result in meeting their individual wants by helping in meeting the needs and wants of others. They don't perform them for nothing. In exchange and under a system of competition, they take on certain costs to provide what goods and/or services will be used in exchange – usually for money, our medium of exchange – so they can have their desires satisfied. It is a way of handling scarcity and in a capitalist economy, this process counts on every one of us acting to advance our personal interests – seeking our own version of heaven as best we can.

The nature of these exchanges changes over time – we don't trade in beaver skins any more nor seek the products of the past such as buggies and whips. And the assumptions upon which the capitalist mode of production and exchange is based seem to be constantly challenged. All of these changes are mostly spurred by changes in technology. While this is not a new thing, up to now, capitalism has been nimble and has been able to accommodate and even take advantage of new technologies.

But let's take a closer look at the process. Producers of goods and/or services, as mentioned above, take on costs. One of the effects of technology is to lower those costs. In the main, that is a good thing to the producer. But costs don't just go lower. You have to initially purchase the use of new technology and this incurs an increase in marginal costs, the extra costs in changing your production process. If I produce a hundred “doo-hickies” for a thousand dollars and I want to produce two hundred units, the costs of producing the extra hundred units are my marginal costs. While the costs of any one doo-hicky might decrease with the new investment, my overall costs go up. According to economic theory, it is rational to continue this process of increase until my marginal costs equal my marginal revenues – which assumes I will sell all those extra doo-hickies I am producing. Actually, capitalism is good at lowering marginal costs – the reasons are beyond the purposes of this posting. But what happens if marginal costs fall so much lower that they approach or are equal to zero? “The inherent dynamism of competitive markets is bringing costs so far down that many goods and services are becoming nearly free, abundant, and no longer subject to market forces.”¹ Free stuff? Are we talking about the onslaught of heaven? Not so fast.

Capitalism is not going away. Scarcity will remain. But there are certain goods and services that are becoming so cheap to produce that the scarcity needed to sustain a market for those goods or services is in jeopardy. Like what, for example? Look at music. We used to buy albums and CDs and then came Napster. The resulting technologies that followed Napster's efforts to provide free music have led to very cheap music products; it's not as free as it used to be, but still … . Another example: I can have access to ten New York Times' articles a month at no charge. I just make a few clicks on this computer I'm using and I can read the lead article for tomorrow's edition of the Times and pay nothing. Similar developments are happening in the book publishing industry. How about people with 3-D printers, recycled plastic, and open-source software making their own products? Then there are education and free online course offerings. All of these developments are the results of new technologies. Of course, these are new developments and we don't know exactly how all of these changes will actually work, but the trend is clear, according to Jeremy Rifkin: we are on the verge of an era of zero marginal costs.

I have expended a lot of key strokes in this blog describing and explaining how we have adopted, as our primary mental construct, the natural rights view of politics. We have adopted this view because, more than for any other reason, it supports and promotes those ideas of social interaction most conducive to the capitalist mode of handling scarcity. Primary in that view is the reliance of the individual seeking his/her interests. But now we have a growing number of goods and services that might not be dependent on capitalist markets. It might not depend on each of us being limited to our own personal interests and being forced to engage in competitive relations – what happens then? Consider the case we are seeing today in many local markets with the growing use of shared access to goods – as opposed to ownership – as with automobiles: “Millions of people are using social media sites, redistribution networks, rentals and cooperatives to share not only cars but also homes, clothes, tools, toys and other items at low or near zero marginal cost.”² The most promising technology is the advent of the “Internet of Things.” This is a network that coordinates the information of billions of sensors distributed throughout our economy such as in residential and commercial buildings and houses, production facilities, service centers, and the like. By 2020, there will be 50 billion of these sensors. We will be able to connect to this network and detect, monitor, and expend resources at the most efficient rates imaginable. The efficiency we are now experiencing in information industries will be possible in all sorts of activities – reaching and accomplishing zero marginal costs.

This trend is dependent not on competition, but on cooperation and coordination. And to arrive at these zero marginal cost possibilities, we need to develop a common infrastructure “in fields that tend to be non-profit and strengthen social infrastructure – education, health care, aiding the poor, environmental restoration, child care and care for the elderly, the promotion of the arts and recreation.”³ And the non-profit segment of the economy is growing in real and relative terms. It grew 25% from 2001 to 2011 whereas profit-making enterprises grew one-half of one percent. Their revenues came from fees (50%), government support (36%), and private donations (14%). As they take over more producing roles, these numbers will change. As it is, they are not parasites on the “real,” profit seeking enterprises as is often charged. They are viable and they are growing in number. Whether the future holds the optimistic picture Rifkin presents, time will tell.

If it is as rosy as all that, will this affect our general views of how we should consider our social world? Can these developments shift our competitive orientation to one of more cooperation and collaboration? Will such change make it necessary to change how we view politics and governance? I believe that such a change is possible and one a federalist should anticipate as a welcome development – not one that will occur overnight, but one that will happen, hopefully, over the next few decades. If and when it does, do not be surprised if civics curricular expectations in our schools might change to accommodate a different economic reality. While it won't be heaven, the future need not hold such scarcity as we now confront.

1Rifkin, J. (2014). The rise of anti-capitalism. The New York Times, March 16, Sunday Review section, p. 4. The concept of zero-marginal costs reported in this posting along with the facts regarding zero marginal costs are derived from this article.

2Ibid.

3Ibid.