Trans-Economics: Self-Actualizing Cooperation (2003, Revised 2011).

 

                                       ABSTRACT.

Many have questioned whether there is not a better way to organize human affairs. Indeed the problem appears to revolve around the value of labor. Aristotle (350 B.C.) knew that a commodity had an exchange value, but underestimated the value of the slaves whose labor proved so useful. Then though Karl Heinrich Marx (1867) realized that an exchange value relates to the amount of labor incorporated, he did not however, have an answer as to why the retail value often exceeded the cost of materials, labor, etc., to such a arbitrary price, often estimated to demand. However, with Alfred Korzybski's (1921) Time-Binding, we finally realize why. Representations for value such as money, must-and-remain a 'finite' quantity, whilst the objects, transactions, 'actions', etc., they represent are not always a definite, quantifiable value, but in some cases clearly invaluable as priceless. The first person who discovered how to reproduce fire, now lost in history, though made legend via Prometheus, perhaps represents the first innovated free-gift passed down to later generations via the Time-Binding process, subject to further refinements by the later generations. Usually, we do not pay for the knowledge, instead the knowledge can become gained freely, though the modern, recent, technological methods to reproduce fire can prove costly, such as our electricity, Central Heating, etc. However, the ability to reproduce fire has become common-place, though for those who first manage to make it, magical, but for someone whose live it saves invaluable. Indeed, can we put a price to a human life? Well, 'Capitalism' has now failed twice (1929, 2009), but this is not because for those who use 'linear' methods to try to predict non-linear processes, hence unsurprising remaining uncertain, but primarily because of selfishness, otherwise greed, especially Corporate greed, whose drive to make a profit, outweighs the consequences for human life. However, this not due to human nature, but the drive of businesses to survive in competition, to pay debts, share-holders, rewarding salaries of CEOs, etc., hence the 'Capitalist' system. Ultimately, since we cannot own the invention of fire, since we did not invent it, then we cannot charge others for the privilege! Furthermore, the notion of charging a fee before we save the person's life, is nothing more than unacceptable, repugnant, etc. Therefore, we should re-organize our society freely around voluntary co-operation, allowing for further self-actualizing Time-Binding.