A modest proposal

OK, so I have one idea (well, several actually, but you probably don’t have time for all of them right now) on how we can jumpstart our economy…but before I unveil my brand new baby, let me at least tell you how I got there—but be warned, if you’re a capitalist stooge, you probably won’t like this because the tenor of it, in a word, rhymes with schmocialism.
So, in any case, now that the ideologically sensitive aren’t reading anymore, let’s begin. This morning, as I was working out (yes, yes, insert your fat jokes here), I saw a Hertz Car Sales commercial, and I realized that rental car agencies buy new cars almost every year. Brand new cars, every year. And primarily American made. And then they sell them, as they themselves admit, for about 30% lower than they bought them for…and I had a bit of a revelation: we make a crap load of cars. A shit load even. And cars, new cars, are expensive. And they hold their value about as well about as well as an old man can hold his bladder. Simply put, the entire automobile industry is incredibly wasteful, and has built itself into a disposable consumer market. People are fooled into buying new cars because of the cleverness of financing terms—sure the car’s value may be $35,000, but I only have to pay $389 a month.
The problem is that ultimately, this kind of industry asks a tremendous investment on the part of the consumer…not only that, but it’s not all that efficient, because instead of repairing cars using interchangeable parts, every car is different, every car is unique, and because there is less incentive for companies simply to make parts when they don’t add up to a whole, cars are more often totaled or replaced than repaired.
Of course, the automobile industry is not the only one that is wasteful, and this brings up the central thesis of this essay: we cannot continue to consume products at such a tumultuous level, because at some point, the ever expanding markets that capitalism relies on reach their limits; at some point we cannot continue to buy more cars, razors, etc. In the end, that type of consumerism is simply not an efficient use of our resources, raw, refined, or human; because rather than racing to build a product that is only going to be disposed of shortly thereafter, we could be using those resources to better our society in another, more enlightened way.
As of now, I don’t have many ideas on how we can move from a consumer society to a sustained, enlightened society, but I know where it can start—with housing. Why not have the government buy up houses that have been foreclosed and allow people to apply to live in them, giving priority to the lower classes and those that work for the public good (firefighters, police, teachers, etc.), but also based on merit, intelligence, and congruency to the particular arrangement? The houses could be leased on say, a 25 year loan, for $400-500 a month. At $400 a month, adjusted for 3% inflation, the lessee would owe just under $5000 a year. Over a 25 year span (and you have to stay all 25 years), this would mean that the lessee would pay about $125,000 into the system. During their tenure, they would be responsible for all house repairs, and when they are through, they keep the $125,000 they paid into the system, minus what it takes for the government to renovate the house to make it ready for the next tenant, or could buy the house at the market value minus what they’d paid into it.
Granted, the numbers might be slightly different depending on how exactly the arrangement was reached (sorry, I didn't major in math), but the principal concept works. The benefits of such a program would be tremendous. First of all, it would head off some of the vagrancy that now plagues our society. Teachers, police officers, firemen, and others that qualified for the program would remain in their communities for the 25 years, forming community organizations, building parks, participating in local government, solving problems, and generally bettering the community in which they live. In addition, because the rent would be so low, these individuals (which, would obviously have to have extremely stable jobs) would provide a stable consumer base for their community and for society at large. Moreover, the government’s involvement in the housing market would also stabilize prices, and perhaps help us avoid the ridiculous ballooning and consequent deflating of the real estate market that acted as the primary cause of our current crisis.
I guess the point I am trying to make is that we have to start looking to compensate people in ways that don’t involve money. Money, itself, is a fantastic invention that allows for efficient trade and investment, but it is also a tremendous barrier to progress. After all, nothing stops us from building schools, public transportation, hospitals, roads, bridges, etc., but money. We possess the resources, human and physical, to complete the task, and yet the need to pay for the labor and resources prevents progress from taking place. I am not here suggesting that we should institute slavery, or simply take resources from those who hold them, but it does beg a question: how long are we going to let our current system obscure the improvement of the human condition?