well... on the road...
but i would still welcome a dummies guide book
It's easy Yorkie:
Income 500 per week - outgoings 600 per week = Time to change my name and emigrate.
Income 500 per week - outgoings 501 per week = Slowly going tits up.
Income 500 per week - outgoings 500 per week = Boring.
Income 500 per week - outgoings 499 per week = Moving in the right direction.
Income 500 per week - outgoings 450 per week = The dog gets fed this week.
Income 500 per week - outgoings 400 per week = The dog gets fed, and we get a trip to the boozer.
There are around 100 different schools of economics, all are variations on the same theme of how to get money out of my pocket and into the hands of those who are already rich. Of the 100 there is one basic difference between neo liberal (Vienna School) economics, on the one hand, and Keynesian on the other: The neo liberal theory is like an updated version of the Laissez Faire of the 19th century ie. the state does **** all - they believe the best system to be that of unrestrained economic competition and in a kind of trickle down theory, meaning that if we allow the rich to accumulate wealth then this will eventually trickle down to the masses. Keynesian economics reverses this and stresses that you should create, and maintain, disposable spending power at the base of the pyramid - ie. a trickle up theory. The latter would have more of a role for central government in eg. fixing prices, and also in regulating a mixed economy. As you will guess I am a fan of neither of these. The first because the 'trickle down' theory has been proved as not happening - rather we see concentrations of wealth, and monopolies which are a threat to our democracy. The contradiction being that it promises freedom, and choice, but. if left to itself, produces monopolies - which means less choice. Keynesian economics sees me, first and foremost, only as a 'spending' animal - a 'customer', and nothing more than that. All modern schools of economics are based on the idea of 'growth' as being good - and the question of whether we actually have enough already and simply need to distribute it more fairly, rarely arises.
All of these schools are based on factory farming, which is a central fundament of modern consumer capitalism - because, if the percentage of disposable income spent on food rose from the present 6-8% to the levels of 70 years ago (30%+) then the system would be ****ed. They are also based on making us more stupid by the day - they need to convince us that a) What we have already is not enough and b) they need to create 'needs' for things, which we don't actually need.
If you google under 'Anarchist economics' - in particular looking for William Godwin, Peter Kropotkin and Pierre Joseph Proudhon then you are well on the way to my position. More practical is to go under the maxim 'think global but act local', namely economic systems should be as local and as self sufficient as possible - only importing what they cannot produce themselves, preferably with 'local' currencies - the larger state is simply a voluntary amalgamation of these. Look up the transition town idea of Rob Hopkins, together with the idea of permaculture. One of the biggest problems with the ideas of people like Kropotkin was in trying to establish exactly how we calculate the price of something. Also to find a way of making sure that the work done in any state is usefull work - with defining what work is (as opposed to play) John Ruskin is usefull. If the object of any activity is only to move money from here to there (without producing anything which is usefull to somebody else) then it is not work - and, for me, work should always be the only source of wealth. This means, for me, that such a thing as 'interest', and living from it, is theft - but this is not just an anarchist/communist idea, but also comes from the Bible and the Koran.
