#4 AFKAN | 2007-07-06 18:18
Bob's point might be seen in a more subtle light, and that is the effect of technological shift on economic transformation; a simple example is the Rural Electrification Administration, and more complex - and much more useful example - is the development of the automobile, and the support complexes (petroleum distribution, mechanics) for it.
When my grandfather came home from WWII, he returned with his mustering-out money to the farm that had seven children, and no electricity. Grandma made him pay to have the REA run a power line back to the farm, and purchased an electric washing machine.
This one simple device freed up more time than anything she could imagine, and she invested that time in better raising her children. her new-found freedom from drudgery was balanced by her sense of responsibility.
One and all learned from this simple example in force amplification. More power means greater opportunities to do your duty.
The automobile, and its accompanying support complex, is a fascinating example of how transforming technologies transform society dramatically, in a very short time.
There is a larger, RACIAL component to the issues; they only took place in the WHITE societies of the industrial West.
Dave made a very important point, and that is the difference between money - usually defined as a fiat currency - and wealth. The Elite's focus on wealth, the nature of which changes from place to place. Money is fundamentally, as Bernard Lietaer noted, a social contract.
Thus, the people (*ahem*) of Zimbabwe have all manner of money, but the indicia of wealth are pretty much beyond them.
Poor people know WHAT something costs; wealthy people, who see and understand "wealth" as the abstract concept it is, know WHY something costs what it does, and what the alternatives are. Their children read textbooks on valuation methodologies, whereas the children of the poor don't read, at all, past the level they need to to fulfill their basic economic functions.
Thus, for instance, when the OPEC destination Embargo of 73-74 hit, many of my peers blamed "the Arabs," in spite of the fact that we received virtually no oil from Arabian states.
My International Relations professor saw it somewhat differently:
We paid for their oil with gold in the form of US dollars with a fixed conversion rate into gold. We inflated the money supply to pay for the Vietnam War, and the War on Poverty. When the overseas dollars were presented to be redeemed for gold (France was known for this), the US gold supply dropped precipitously. When Nixon closed the gold window, ending mandatory redemption of green pieces of paper for the yellow metal, the Arabs - and their financiers - discovered they were being paid with green pieces of paper that were depreciating in value. To restore the value of their oil, they required more green pieces of paper for each barrel of oil.
The gold/oil/USD ratios have been remarkably useful in describing shifts in relationships, and thus valuations, between these commodities. (Perhaps, in the century before us, clean water will be included in the various indices of national wealth.)
The larger issues, of course, is that the Creative RACE can transform economic systems to serve them, rather than transforming themselves to serve the economic system.