When government is good

We usually think of government as people.  That immediately has us thinking of all the uncertainties that come when some people make decisions for other people.  We much prefer to make decisions for ourselves.  This, I think, is the great appeal that a “free” market has to us.  However, good government is not people; good government is good standards.  Let me give you two examples that are beyond dispute, clocks and calendars.

Clocks govern us constantly, that is, all the time.  It is difficult to imagine living without time.  We could not do it.  The earth has a natural time clock because it rotates.  We say the sun rises, but it is the earth rotating to the east that makes the sun appear to rise.  The sun courses across the sky as the earth continues to rotate to the east then sets for night fall.  Clocks are simply devices that we have invented and calibrated to follow the sun.  That’s good government.

The same is true of calendars.  They follow the earth’s orbit around the sun.  We know when spring, summer, fall, and winter start and end,  Farmers plant by the calendar, we work and have holidays and vacations by the calendar,  That’s good government.

Where we are failing to govern well is with money.  Money is floating around in ambiguity, uncertainty.  We defend ourselves by wanting more money.  No matter how much money a person has, whether it is a little or a lot, people want more.  This causes other people to have less, so we expect a “government” of the people and by the people to make corrections for the people.  It just isn’t working.  Why not?  Too many decisions to make.  Every decision made makes more decisions necessary.  The evidence is a tax code that is thousands of pages. 

We are hearing proposals from candidates for office for a “flat” tax, for a tax of 999, to tax the rich, to give tax breaks to “small business,” to employers, the list goes on and on.  We do not need more and more rules.  We need a standard.  That standard is the one we already use – time. 

Let us make an Hour of work our standard of money and of a fair wage.  People can always negotiate more or less – just like we negotiate when to have meetings, when to start and stop work, and when to have holidays and vacations.  Time Money will govern well and make more government “of the people, by the people, and for the people” less necessary!  Time money will guide each and every one of us to make good wage and price decisions.

If you like the idea of timing money, send me your mailing address and I will send you examples of what that money could look like so you can pass it out among your family and friends.