Cause and Effect.

I think I’ve figured out what the problem is.

Of course, to understand that, we must first agree on what problem we’re discussing.

I’m speaking of pretty much every problem we’ve got in society today, from child-rearing to the economy, from taxes to personal relationships. Look at any conflict, and then boil it down to the essentials, and I think you’ll find the same root cause.

We are, in virtually every case, denying how cause and effect are inexorably linked. Case(s) in point:

Child behavior. We have a daughter. We are trying to teach her to be responsible. To do that, we are trying to link responsibilities and rewards, in a cause and effect relationship. If she cleans her room on time, she gets to have a friend over. If she does her chores without nagging (or prompting), she’s rewarded. If she doesn’t – she’s not. Problems arise when the two are not connected. For instance, if we allow her to get her reward before she does the work, the message is lost, and, frankly, the chores don’t get done. Worse, she learns that she can work us and get what she wants, at no cost to her. That’s a bad message to communicate to any kid, and the reason we have to deal with an entire generation that seems to think they are entitled. Why not? We taught them that rewards come, regardless of if they are earned or not earned.

Economic behavior. The stock market, housing market, and economy are all tied to the laws of cause and effect. It’s called the free market. Any time you try and game the system by tipping the scales on one side or the other, eventually, the system will right itself. When you force the system to grant loans to those that can’t afford what they are buying, eventually they won’t be able to pay, and the house of cards you created will fall. Drive the price of stocks up by speculation, and eventually the bubble will burst. Borrow too much money, and eventually the lenders will stop lending, the borrowers will be unable to borrow (and unable to pay) and the market will correct itself. Trouble comes when some party (oh, say the Treasury Department, the Federal Reserve, and Congress) try and pump money they don’t have (“No money? No problem! We’ll just print some more!”) into the system to prop it up. All that does is to perpetuate the problem and to turn a depression into a recession.

Tax policy. Take from the rich and redistribute the income sounds like a great idea – if you’re poor. However, it’s a sucker bet for everyone concerned. When you get something for nothing, you learn that there’s no reason to be productive…the government will always step in and save you. When something is taken from you that you earned by the sweat of your brow, eventually you learn that hard work has no reward, and you stop working so hard. The result is that you end up with a system that rewards sloth and punishes industry. Take away the cause (hard work) and the effect (more money) and replace it with a system whereby the government determines who gets what, no matter who does the earning, and you turn captialism into socialism. The only REAL way to fix our economy is to allow the failing companies to fail, and the people that borrowed too much to lose the things they couldn’t afford. This sounds harsh – and it is. But it’s the very essense of “survival of the fittest” – and the natural law by which we are ruled, like it or not.

If we, as a society, can stop pretending that rules don’t matter, and stop pretending that we can have our cake and still eat our cake, we can fix what’s wrong. Unless we do that, we’re living in a dream world of our own device.