Business Makes; Authority! Takes

It is the nature of every living thing to want something for nothing. Lots of creatures make their entire living by just rooting or otherwise staying around all their lives in one place waiting for nature to bring them their sustenance. Trees and sea anemones come to mind. There is no incentive for them to exert them selves. Why should they? They get everything they want by just hanging around taking it all in.

Creatures that don’t root in the ground or hang around must work for their living. Lions, tigers and bears in the wild must work or go hungry. They much prefer their meals given to them than having to hunt them down though. It is easier to scavenge than to hunt. Hunting is work. Gathering is work. When a creature is hungry or wants something, it has a job. It has incentive to work to do its job. Incentive evaporates, and so does the job, when the creature is satisfied and content. That is the nature of the beast.

This applies equally well with human beings. It is our nature to want something for nothing. You know that unconsciously. There is nothing to be ashamed of. That’s just the nature of the beast. When we are satisfied and content there is little or no incentive to exert ourselves in activity we might otherwise not want to do. There is no incentive to look for a job. It is much easier to sit back and collect unemployment benefits than it is to work.

Congress recently extended two years of unemployment benefits another 13 months. Most of the lucky recipients will be satisfied to wait until their benefits run out before seeking employment. Perhaps by then, they reason, their Authority! will have created enough jobs for anyone who wants one.

Politicians are always talking about creating jobs as if a job is a real thing, something valuable, which is created like a painting or a sculpture; a building or a house. “Vote for me so I can go to Washington and create more jobs,” declares the Authority! You can almost see in your imagination all the thousands of shiny new jobs rolling off the congressional assembly line.

But we all know unconsciously that there is no such thing as a “job” in the contextual reality of existence. A “job” is not a real thing, but only a conceptual abstraction in consciousness. “Job” is really just another word for “work.” Work is something we’d rather not do if it can be conveniently avoided. So the actual work – the job -- is not normally considered valuable.

The fruits of our labor are real and valuable. The products of our work – not the jobs -- are real and valuable. The “job” is merely the necessary activity that must be done in order to realize the value. It’s easy to create jobs. Anyone can create jobs – lots of new jobs. My house needs painting. There – I’ve just created a job. My neighbor wants his lawn mowed –another job. If you can think of something, anything to do that you or other people want, you have created a new job.

Jobs are created by what we want – what people want -- not by government Authority! Government does not generally create values, it takes them. If you want something, it is your job to honestly do what is necessary to get what you want, and someone else’s job to make what you want available in trade for something you have to offer, because that is what they want.

Jobs are created by free interaction between human beings each supplying each other’s wants. The best word for this ongoing process is called “business.” As long as people have wants there will be business, and with business there will always be plenty of jobs. The problem for us humans is not any lack of jobs but the extent of all the values produced which are taken by the Authority!