Deadwood is a HBO series, a term used in bowling and it is also the term used by management when referring to redundant or unproductive workers.
It could be said that management exists to weed out the deadwood in the workplace.
Ponder that then consider the term deadwood were it applied to society as a whole.
How many people can the average citizen carry on their back?
On one hand there is the `Army of the Unemployed', the tens of millions of people who for one reason or another can't find suitable work...or any work at all.
Then we flip this coin over and consider those who earn many multiples of your salary while contributing nothing useful...make no mistake about it; you're carrying them too.
How many people can you carry on your back?
This redirects us to the idea of what constitutes a balanced economy?
Forget the idiot economists, a balanced economy is one where everyone works producing what society needs in exchange for the means to obtain what they need from society.
If everyone capable of working had a job there would be very little unemployment, in fact, there wouldn't be any.
If the least of our jobs paid a living wage, poverty would be wiped out overnight.
Two very simple, easy to comprehend ideas, nay, facts, yet we don't see this happening and you have to wonder why.
Ask any economist and they'll tell you that full employment is impossible, that it can't be done yet deadwood in tribal societies is confined to only the very young and the very old, everyone else pulls their weight.
We have to ask ourselves why tribal societies can achieve virtual full employment while our current modern way of life can't.
Could the answer lie in `profitability'?
We are just beginning to see the effects of relying on tax dollars to support needed social functions.
To the extent that many public sector jobs now pay salaries that you can only dream about in the private sector, we indeed find ourselves further out of balance than ever before.
So we must add to our burden, the amount of deadwood we all carry, the salaries of those who earn their pay from the public till.
Are you feeling the weight yet?
I recently finished reading `Collapse' by Jared Diamond, the author of `Guns, Germs and Steel.
Like the title implies, he examines several past civilizations that collapsed and subsequently vanished.
It should come as a surprise to no one that the principal cause in every case was the failure of the society's leadership to correct ecologically damaging behavior...because these same said leaders personally benefited from these disastrous decisions.
The conclusion drawn from this work is that sustainability is key.
This creates somewhat of a problem because the only way to achieve sustainability is through management...
Management that trumps ownership rights, management that trumps short-term profitability concerns.
To wit good citizen, we must either radically change how and why we do what we do or watch helplessly as the elite drive our society off a cliff.
So they can maintain control.
If there is a sure sign that our society is headed off the very same cliff so many other civilizations have leapt off of before us, the huge amounts of deadwood in our society is it.
Given the choice good citizen almost everyone who currently doesn't work would if it were worth their while.
They'd happily do just about anything so long as it kept a roof over their heads, food on their table, the lights and heat turned on along with a few bucks that they could blow on a good time every now and then.
It doesn't take a whole lot to make people happy.
Shift a couple of rules around and deadwood would disappear virtually overnight...from all three ends of the spectrum.
Regardless of what anyone tells you, profitability is the single largest cause of deadwood.
It's time to redefine profitability from dollars in an owner's pocket to the benefit reaped by society.
Once we address this single issue, world peace will take care of itself.
Thanks for letting me inside your head,
Gegner