The Bible’s reference to “cattle on a thousand hills” seems to flow, metaphorically speaking contrary to the actual feeding habit of cattle. That is, cattle tend to assemble, or graze, as do grazing animals in general, in areas where grass grows. And, in my observations, grass tends to grow much more prominently in the valleys, rather than on the hills. While the focus of this writing is not on cattle per se, it is focused on the feeding habits of grazing animals as a metaphor for its real message.
And the real message of this writing is to inform Americans, all Americans, but in particular, those Americans of the 17th (1926 - 1955) and 18th (1946-1975) generations that are still trying to figure out what has become of the industrious and productive America handed off to them by their parents and grandparents. They can easily see, and it doesn’t take a brain surgeon to figure out that things are not working as well as before. During their early lives and the lives of their parent and grandparent’s generation, the primary source of stress or tension in the nation had to with questions of race and of racial equality, or in-equality not the nation’s productivity. Since the civil-rights movements of the 1950s, 60s and 70s seem to have essentially resolved the race issue, we should be more productive and thus moving forward even faster than before. And yet, with the shoulders of both races, and both genders pressed to the wheel we appear to slowing down, why. What has happened to the industrial might of this, the “greatest nation on God’s green earth?” Using an aerodynamic metaphor, just when engines are at full throttle, that is, the social turbulence between the genders and the races has been abated, and now with everyone participating fully in the in the workforce, the nation should be soaring, instead, it appears that we’re stalling out. Why?
To answer that question, we are obliged to switch back to the metaphor of the grazing animals. First, it is necessary to understand that the thing that initially made this country the greatest nation on God’s green earth and greatest source of economic power in the world was its capacity to produce. The nation had a democratic system of government, a brand new creation, and one that liberated the creative initiative of its citizens. And it had adopted capitalism, or the free enterprise, a European innovation, as the engines of its economy. So governed and structured, the nation knew no boundaries to its capacity, and essentially there were none. During the lives of the 17th and 18th generations of American, the production capacity of America provided for the needs of practically the whole world. Products that were produced in America were in great demand because Americans could produce quality products more efficiently and thus less expenses than other less developed nations. The reason for this enormous success was because the American people had hitched their wagon to the most powerful socioeconomic engine of all times; free enterprise capitalism and the technological innovations spurned by it.
However, like all things, free enterprise capitalism has both its positive and negative edges and it cuts equally efficiently from either of the two edges. And worst yet, free enterprise capitalism can’t be owned. It is a maverick, an animal without a brand and roams free at its own will. We can see that behavior pattern exhibited over the past centuries when it migrated from Western Europe across the Atlantic to America. Now, having grazed the green grass of the Americas, the unbranded animal appears to be migrating across the Pacific to the greener valleys of Asia.
And it’s no mystery, or it should be no mystery. Free Enterprise Capitalism is the metaphorical animal that we introduced back at the beginning of this article. It roams freely always migrating toward the source of the lowest cost of labor. Over the past years, the cost of labor is America has been steadily driven up by American’s continued demands for higher and higher lifestyles. Those demands have continued to drive up the cost of labor. And, failing to continue creating innovative and cost cutting methods of production, as mass production was a hundred years ago, the free enterprise capitalist animal has begun its migration eastward, to still greener pastures. The only way to lure the animal back across the Pacific is by developing a technology that substantially reduces the cost of production.