Abundance and Scarcity; B. Barker

Ben Barker Abundance and Scarcity THERE are two opposing philoso phies prevalent regarding the natu ral distribution of wealth on this earth. One presumes that virtually all material wealth has already been discovered, and the role of man is to distribute that wealth in an equita ble manner. This view is the one that has predominated throughout most of recorded history and has saddled man with one monumental conflict after another. The other philosophy assumes that wealth is boundless in the universe, and man must merely discover new combinations of be havior and/or existing matter in or der to unlock the vaults to that vast, undiscovered mass of benefits. The shape and nature of a social order is a consequence of whatever ideas dominate in that particular Ben Barker, M.D., is a specialist in psychiatry and contemporary therapeutic techniques and is Director of the Crisis Advisory Center, Simi Valley,California.

society. Civilizations which endorse the idea ofscarcity, or limited wealth, tend to be rigid and structured. They are likely to be ruled by individuals whose concept of leadership is to create and implement wealth redis tribution formulas that assure ade quate food, shelter and warmth to members of their own group. Secon darily, if there does not appear to be an adequate supply of internal wealth to distribute, a warrior class may emerge whose role is to raid other groups and forcefully extract goods to bring back home. In such a society there is a natural tendency for the warrior segment to achieve positions of dominance for theirs is a twofold role. They must raid and plunder surrounding groups, plus, they must preside over the wealth redistribution process at home by force of arms. Since the most common personality trait in such a 369 370 THE FREEMAN June society is rigidity, there usually ex ists an abundance of rules and reg ulations governing not only prop erty but all manner of dealings between individuals. The basic premise is one of scarcity. Hence rule by force is necessary, for such a pre sumption takes for granted that one man will take from another less powerful unless restrained by an even more potent force.

Most of us are unable to see that such a pessimistic viewpoint is but a matter of perspective. Is the glass half full or half empty? Were not the raw materials for the space shuttle Columbia buried in the earth along side the materials for the craft that first flew at Kitty Hawk? Man is a noble creature, gifted with rare skills in comparison to the remainder of plants and animals. These skills al low us to manipulate our environ ment in ways unavailable to other forms of life. If we activate our tal ent to think and plan, we can liter ally recreate the world. The ideology of scarcity ignores that ability and presumes that God created a uni verse in which, for me to have enough, another must starve. BoundlessWealth? The ideology of abundance pre sumes that the wealth of the uni verse is boundless, and that we must merely put our minds to the task of tapping that wealth-and it will come. The difference in perception in these two philosophies is star tling, and one can produce a vi brantlyalive world for the believer if acted upon. Countless men have met their deaths journeying to the far ends of the earth in search of for tune. The Yukon, the Alaskan north slope, mine shafts cut deep into solid rock in South Africa, Chile, Peru, and even our own coal mines. Yet a man in the American southwest recently tinkered with a tin can, a small gas oline engine and a piece of string and found great wealth. He invented the rotary weed-cutter and changed the gardening habits of millions of us.

When enough of us finally tumble to the fact that both wealth and progress ·lie in appropriate utiliza tion of the mind, our nation and the world may begin to move forward again. The task of this era is to free creative minds from the bounds of bureaucratic conformity and inepti tude and allow them to pull us out of the economic and social mess that we have tumbled into. Government must get out of the way! It must stop taxing us into oblivion. It must stop punishing intelligence and creativ ity and stop rewarding indolence and ineptitude. These tactics will lead to a failed society. If bread, circuses, a huge bureaucracy and a Senate that's a joke could hold a social order to gether, then Rome would still be a mighty nation. The philosophy of scarcity is tinged with envy, greed and meanness; we 1983 ABUNDANCE AND SCARCITY 371 don't need it. For as long as there have been written records, men have been predicting that we would soon run out of raw materials. Have we?

For the better part of the past decade a horde of supposedly brilliant ana lysts told us that we had at last nearly depleted the earth of oil. The OPEC cartel exploited that fantasy, and was aided and abetted in that disastrous experiment in social ma nipulation by the U.S. Department of Energy . We spent billions of dol':' lars on that Department, and more billions on the overpriced oil that its policies perpetuated. Did we run out of oil? Not hardly. Today the world is bathed in an oil glut and our banking system is stretched to the limit because it bought into the il lusion of oil scarcity. All of the limitless material wealth of this universe is open to the inqui sitive' exploring mind. Our fires will remain lit either with wood, kero sene, coal, gasoline, or some yet-to be-discovered substance. New in ventions will warm us, cover us, lift us and move us-if they are needed, and if the inventor is provided suffi cient reward for applying his mind to the problems that we must solve.

The greatest danger that our cul ture faces today is that those with truly creative potential will remain preoccupied with trivia such as ani mated cartoons, self-stimulatory electronic games and complex weap ons of annihilation. Obviously, the reason that our creative geniuses are presently tied up in such pursuits is because that is where the rewards are. A pity. Explosionsof Creativity Periods of incredible expansion in the quality and capacity of life occur when certain basic conditions have been met in the human situation. These conditions have to do with freeing the mind, are cyclical throughout history, and the relative scarcity or abundance of resources has little or no bearing upon them. The social and cultural factors which enhance creative thinking jelled in Greece to produce Aeschylus, Soph ocles and Euripides almost simulta neously. A later period of the same culture brought forth Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. Likewise, there were no geniuses at all in England be tween 1450 and 1550, but a whole series of them in literature, music, science, philosophy and politics be tween 1550 and 1650. Germany saw a similar explosion of creativity be tween 1700 and 1800.

In examining these separate peri ods of Western history, more than a few sociological parallels are ob vious .. First, the cultural substrate which feeds genius consists of an open, receptive social order not fo cused exclusively on only one aspect of human life, whether that be mili tarism, religion, comfort, sensuous ness, materialism or something else.

372 THE FREEMAN June Secondly, the culture must place a stress on becoming, not just on being. This translates to a tolerance for, and even an encouragement of transi tional phase behavior. Genius tends to plan ahead, often very far ahead, and a society that focuses on being emphasizes immediate gratification, comfort and pleasure and distrusts activities that relate to remote goals. Becoming, though, should be part of being, and the mature, thinking in dividual is always becoming, for to day he is somewhat different from the way he was yesterday, and to morrow he will be different from the way he is today. Next, other forms of freedom and tolerance must be manifest in the culture for it to grow and develop. The creative individual must be al lowed to move unhampered between different and even contrasting cul tural stimuli. America itself emerged from a synergistic combination of English and German philosophies, values and traditions merged with the new, adventurous, enterprising and individualistic spirit of the col onies.

Those who focus upon the ma terial resources that creative eras utilize to express their wealth miss the entire point of the matter. The explosions of knowledge, wisdom and mastery of the environment such as took place when Americans moved westward and settled the frontier are not secondary to the land conquest. It is the other way around-the knowledge explosion made the land conquest possible. The Indian could not stop both the gun and the new plow.An idiot alone on an island with a family of chickens will eat roast fowl, then stai-ve; an individual of creative intelligence will develop an array of egg recipes and will learn to breed and cull his flock. Both the conquest and exploita tion of the frontier and the survival tactic on the deserted island are done best when creative juices are sprin kled on the situation. If our nation is to emerge intact from this era of economic instability it must move again toward the type of social order which both rewards and fosters cre ativity. If you unduly tax creativity and productivity (which we do) you will get less and less of it, and if you reward indolence you will soon be drowning in indolent beings (which we are).

Instruments of Socialism and Cultural Decline The philosophy of scarcity is a predominant influence in producing the slide of our great nation toward oblivion. The government and the instruments of education and per suasion are currently in the hands of those motivated primarily by that philosophy and the grasping greed it produces. Control, dominance and wealth redistribution are the social ist formula, and they are techniques 1983 ABUNDANCE AND SCARCITY 373 of cultural suicide-not growth and development. The philosophy of abundance rec ognizes that free minds can and will wrench wealth from the environ ment if allowed to do so. Just as the space shuttle Columbia lay undis covered in the crust of the earth un til our minds were ready to conceive it, there are even greater discoveries yet to be made. These discoveries can and will produce a social order of growth and abundance if they're not prevented from doing so by the choking bureaucracy of our repres sive, ever-hungry government.

Unfortunately, many are placing their trust in the apparatus of gov ernment at this time of economic and social crisis in the mistaken belief that it can reverse the process of de cay and dissolution. This hope is sheer folly, for it has been the unre lenting implementation of counter productive government policies which has been the major force in creating the onrushing calamity. The public debt is beyond control, the size of the bureaucracy continuously es calates, and even those who sense the reality of an impending calam ity are in the grip of a vague, anes thetized helplessness which is usu ally described as malaise. Others are trusting in material objects such as diamonds, gold, sil ver, art or antiques to shelter their wealth during this period of insta bility. An external device of dubious value (currency) is used to acquire other external devices (goods) of less dubious value, and these devices are then secreted. We call people who randomly steal items for which they have no reasonable immediate or deferred need kleptomaniacs and consider them ill. People who pur chase a variety of items with equal randomness we call consumers and have built an entire commercial sys tem about them.

Materialism Is an Outgrowth of the Philosophy of Scarcity Materialism, or the preoccupation with the acquisition of money or the devices it can purchase, is an out growth of the philosophy of scarcity. Surely, if things are the measure of man, and if there are not enough things to go around, then it is rea sonable to be constantly concerned with acquiring things. The thing oriented individual often decides that it is a waste of time to continue to yearn for the old freedoms, ques tions whether or not they ever really existed anyway, and busies himself constructing substitute gratifica tions to replace those he feels have been permanently lost. Those of us who are thing-ori ented people often view both objects and people as commodities-includ ing ourselves. We think, "I am what 1 have" -and we collect injustices done to us as if those injustices were valuable possessions as well. Our 374 THE FREEMAN June dreams are of great wealth, ro mance, intrigue and power.

If we're men, we lavish a great deal of attention on our automobiles or other shiny objects and well-kept possessions such as condos, rental houses, yachts, and the like. If we're women, we are likely to lavish our affections on our jewelry and our personal appearance. We feel more comfortable touching objects than we do touching each other-especially objects that we own. Additionally, we spend a great deal of time and en ergy safeguarding our possessions from theft, taxation or random de struction. Indeed, we often appear to be owned by our things for they command so much of our thoughts and activities. Such materialistic, thing-ori ented, scarcity-dominated behavior can be termed life-rejecting. Those among us who are life-rejecting tend to carry our bodies stiffly. We view relationships from a paranoid angle, feeling exploited by nearly every one. We respond to these feelings by projecting a free-floating resent ment, coupled with anger and envy, out onto the world. We would deny the rich and powerful, as well asthe powerless, the right to enjoy plea sures that we cannot experience. We tend to view work as a duty and pleasure as sinful and immoral. We may own many things, but we often hurt those people who come close to us.

The life-rejecting obsession is with control and dominance, so we are of ten found within hierarchical situa tions. That includes government, the military, educational institutions, or some large corporations. We are the bureaucracy. We scorn disorganized "messy" personal relationships and prefer those in which· a superior subordinate interaction is precisely defined-the more precise the defi nition the better. Life-OrientedBehavior Adherents to the philosophy of abundance, on the other hand, are life-oriented rather than thing-ori ented and life-rejecting. Those among us who feel this way tend to view the universe as a vast tool placed there by the Creator to assist us in achiev ing self-actualization. We learn to fully experience and express our feelings and tend to be loving and accepting of others. We are capable of outer-directed, or helping, behav ior, even though our primary motive for such behavior may be self-ac tualization. The difference is best seen in the idealistic social worker versus the inventor.

An inventor is perceived as selfish and preoccupied with his own crea tions and the social worker as altru istic. However, if the inventor is successful in creating a meaningful new product (lightbulb, flush toilet, hot-water heater, weed cutter) he can profoundly affect the quality of life 1983 ABUNDANCE AND SCARCITY 375 of all society. That is the essence of effective outer-directed behavior. Such people tend to be sponta neous and open, and present them selves in a loose, natural style. Their work allows them to feel competent and self-reliant, and they don't wait for others to fill their needs or solve their problems. Perhaps most im portantly, life-oriented persons are capable of deep, profound relation ships bathed in freely flowing and totally experienced feelings. They learn to activate and express buried potential-aesthetic creation, self less service, communion with na ture. They learn to become one with the environment rather than merely dominating it.

As the Renaissance swept aside the bleak intellectual torpor of the Dark Ages, this era of bureaucratic banal ity is likely to be jolted by an awak ening. But such an awakening will not come easily. Creative, individu alistic believers in the abundant universe must shoulder their way through the deadwood of a social or der choking on its own pollution. Small men with small minds hooked into the philosophy of scarcity and lusting to control and dominate the assets and lives of others are in the halls of power and .must be dis placed. Until and unless they are we will continue on the road to social chaos. Those who preach that this is the age of limits are only projecting their own myopic view of the world. The concept oflimits is acceptable to those who have lost the capacity to grow and develop. It allows them to ratio nalize their own narrow achieve ments. But it ain't necessarily so. At one time surgeons would not cut into the human abdomen for fear of a fa tal outcome. Today abdominal sur gery is commonplace, and opera tions on even the heart and brain take place on a daily basis. These and other miraculous vistas open each day in the field of medicine, and similar progress can doubtless occur in other disciplines as well.

The ComputerRevolution The electronics industry repre sents the cutting edge of modern technological development. Prop erly implemented, the computer revolution will bury once and for all the idea that there are limits to ex ploration and utilization of the en vironment. Entirely new industries will spring up around this new so cio-cultural entity and these indus tries will rejuvenate America's manufacturing infrastructure. We will march from this point into an age of unprecedented prosperity if we but allow ourselves to do so. At one time men believed that the world was flat, and that earth was the center of the universe. One man spoke up against this misconception and announced that not only was the world round, but that earth was only 376 THE' FREEMAN one ofseveral planets revolving about the sun. His observations brought him ridicule and agonizing persecu tion-but his truth eventually pre vailed. Without the appropriate mental concept of a spherical earth in orbit about the sun, men would not have made it to the moon, or placed the satellites in orbit, or done a thousand thousand other things that have permanently altered the quality of life.

So it can be with the concept of a universe of boundless abundance. Once man can accept the fact that the power of the mind is limitless, he can begin to apply that power in a myriad of ways to improve his ex istence. It would seem far better for us to invent new techniques to im plement the vast number of raw tools God has provided than to scheme, fight and plunder each other for the few resources that have already been converted to physical wealth. In the final analysis man, collec tively and singularly, is the mea sure of himself. We can accomplish what we believe that we can, find what we want to find, go where we want to go. The magic carpet in the universe without limits is your mind. Use it. , IDEAS ON LIBERTY For the Better Economic Life IDEAS formed in a man's mind, after it has been trained and sharpened by education and experience, are the basis of successful research. With out the creative brain of the scientist, all investment in research is worthless. American scientific laboratories are the best equipped in the world. Yet continued progress will be insured only if the rights of the individual to exercise freely his initiative are reestablished and jeal ously guarded.

American research prospered by providing rewards for success; the inventive genius of the nation was kept alive by adding to it what Lincoln called "the fuel of incentive." Further, the integrity of American research was kept inviolate; the research worker was spared the neces sity of finding "political" conclusions as the goal of his investigations. In this atmosphere of free inquiry and of freedom of the individual to enjoy the fruits of his labor, science here flourished. Elsewhere in the world, it has suffered serious setbacks .... Without freedom, scientific research and the progress in its wake will falter in the United States, as has happened elsewhere. The individual must be assured the freedom of incentive. The university scientist must have freedom of inquiry, of discussion, and of publication. CRAWFORD H. GREENEWALT A REVIEWER'S NOTEBOOK JOHN CHAMBERLAIN At the Eye of the Storm ON its journalistic level Ron Ar nold's At the Eye of the Storm: James Watt and the Environmentalists (Regnery-Gateway, 282 pp., $14.95) is a book about contemporary poli tics. Arnold's immediate aim is to defend Jim Watt, our embattled Secretary of the Interior, from at tacks that are really aimed at Ron ald Reagan. But the deeper inten tion of the book is to challenge the extreme modern breed of environ mentalist on religious grounds. It is this aspect that will give the book its lasting value.