In less than a month, this blog will mark its fourth anniversary. How ‘bout that. But I haven’t developed much of a following, like some bloggers have. And that’s probably a good thing. I probably wouldn’t handle fame and acclaim very well – my ego would get puffed up too much. And it’s nice to think that there are still some undiscovered and underrated things out there in the world. Is my blog one of them? Well, I try to keep believing. And I keep trying to be humble, although I’m obviously having my problems with that. I guess the best thing to do is to shut my ego up and keep writing.

But I know that it’s tough sledding sometimes for the handful of you who do try to read my stuff. I did a little search and found that I used the word “economics” in at least 15 of my essays over the past four years. And guess what I’m going to talk about right now?

But hey, economics ultimately means the stuff that’s in your wallet; just because something’s boring don’t always mean that it’s unimportant. Anyway, back when I was in school, I learned a lot about competitive markets and about their theoretical social benefits. And hey, a lot of that theory does pan out in the real world. Our American competitive economy is efficient and innovative. But it sure ain’t perfect either. My economics teachers were up-front about the inherent inequity of market economics: ya gotta pay to play, and the more you start with in life, the more plays you get. And the more likely that you get a big and fine old house along a hillside with a nice car and all the good stuff like that.

In other words, the free market thrives on economic inequality. Someone born poor has a whole lot less say about how the world’s wealth and resources are going to be used than a person born rich. Sure, the market gives people a chance, and there are lots of poor folk who work their way up, maybe even get rich. But that’s more the exception than the rule. For the most part, the rich start the game with more than the poor do, so they stay rich while the poor stay poor. If you think that rich families are inherently better than poor families and deserve their gains, then everything looks rosy to you. But if you’re like me and you can’t see why a baby born to a rich family should experience so much more resource availability as compared with a baby born to a poor family, well, maybe it bothers you.

America does not have a purely capitalistic economy; there are many governmental regulation and redistribution mechanisms that help to level the economic playing field a bit. But over the past 30 years, since Ronald Reagan, such government involvement has been going down the tubes, in the name of “market efficiency”. And guess what? Statistics clearly show that over that time, the rich got richer, the poor got poorer, and the middle class didn’t quite hold on. America’s economy has grown vigorously, but the fruits of that growth have largely wound up in the pockets of the rich.

Another side effect of market capitalism: the ecology and long-term human sustainability. Market economics are imperfect; they don’t take into account things like global warming. Government imposes solutions to these problems in lieu of business, but too often the wrong people get stuck with the bill for the fix-up. A writer named Ronald Epstein (Pollution and the Environment: Some New Ancient Views) compares our economy with cancer, something growing too fast, well beyond the long-term sustainable level.

Is socialist control the answer? No, socialism is a flop. Epstein rightly suggests a Taoist answer. According to the Tao, our natural state is one of few desires. We need to break the consumption mentality that our imperfect market economy has increasingly caused over the past 30 years.

(Of course, I should talk; I just bought my second digital camera, a Kodak C310. Mea culpa; I just wanted a small camera that was easier to take to family outings; my Z10 takes great pics, but can hardly fit in a shirt pocket. But that’s a common excuse used by people who do nasty things: I was trying to help my family.)

Sure, the poor have a right to increase their consumption, but even a lot of their desires are ego-driven (their desire to be like affluent Americans with Nike sports gear and Oakley sunglasses sometimes surpasses their concern for basics like food, shelter and education). We need to somehow create a social ethic that questions whether and when “more is better” (e.g., when Mickey D’s urges you to supersize those fries and shakes, you’re that much closer to a heart attack). How to do that? The Tao would condemn any forced solution on the part of the government. The only way is education: try to get the word out, and hope that the people pick up on it. As the Eternal Student, I remain eternally hopeful that such an approach will eventually triumph. Even over my own material desires and my own enchantment by the wizards of the free market for consumer electronics.