Here’s the deal:  There’s a global market, but there’s no global polity. The UN is a forum for discussion, but not a re-distributor of wealth. It can’t systematically ensure justice. Cosmetically, maybe. As a band-aid polity, at best. But it’s not a polity.  It’s not a government.

Government, among other things, aims to ensure the fair distribution of resources. We live in a world where those in power agree that markets–and their careful political management–are the best way to distribute resources. This dogma is fine, I guess. Whether or not we like it, it’s not going anywhere.

But we need to think more politically in a global market context. Polity must catch up with markets. Injustice reigns otherwise.

We need a global tax code. We can’t have countries going around doing whatever the hell they want without paying into some kind of institution that at least aims to ensure equal distribution of the global social product.

Nations do this, sort of. Unfortunately, in terms of markets, nations haven’t meaningfully existed for some time. The global nation, whose only common culture is price fluctuation and exchange, has existed for a long time, but we haven’t given the strength it needs to play its proper role.

It’s not a question of whether this global nation exists. It’s a question of making it functional so we don’t destroy each other.

What’s does a polity look like for a nation whose culture is price and exchange? A tax code.

Here’s my proposal. It’s called “The Average is Best.”

Using some globally recognized measure of asset value (GDP is probably best), countries should be taxed according to their asset value’s variance from the world median average of that value.

The country with the median GDP pays no taxes. Countries that have more than the median pay a credit to the global polity proportionate to that excessive variance (the difference between the median GDP and the country’s GDP). Countries that have less than the median go into debt to the global polity proportionate to that deficient variance (again, same proportion, only this time it’s a debt, not a credit).

Wealth is redistributed according to the credits and debts: the money that countries over the median GDP pay to the global polity goes toward the debts of the countries under the median GDP. The global polity determines what amounts go to what countries based on other dimensions of need, such as those reported in the Human Development Index. Countries under the median use that money to pay back their debt by the next global fiscal year. If they don’t, the debt rolls over to the next year. Etc.

For example, here is the CIA World Factbook list of GDP by country from 2010. There are 216 countries reporting GDP on this list. The 108th country is Nepal, with a GDP  of US$15,840. The first country is the U.S. with a GDP of US$14,660,000. Here’s how much the U.S. would pay the global polity:

14660000 – 15,840 = US$14,644,160

The second country is China, with a GDP of US$5,878,000. They’d pay the global polity US$5,862,160.

On the opposite end of the spectrum is the last country, Niue. They’re GDP is US$10. Here’s what they owe the global polity:

15840 – 10 = US$15, 830.

Niue owes the global polity $15, 830. The amount collected by the polity from the countries in excess of the median will be funneled to Niue, and countries like it, in order that they may pay their debt. If they can’t pay it by the end of the next fiscal year, their debt rolls over. Whatever they couldn’t pay goes back to the polity. They try again.

There. I said it. What does anyone think?

Turns out we encourage this: experiencing other people’s pain as pleasure. Some sadistic shit. Like, your mom gets cancer, can’t work, can’t pay her mortgage, and some meathead in a skyscraper is betting other meatheads (actually, the meathead is watching a machine bet other meatheads’ machines) that your mom won’t make her mortgage payment. The meathead is also buying insurance from other meatheads for himself just in case she does so that even if he loses his bet that your mom’s life will be fucked he’ll be in the black.

Always be in the fucking black. Always.

So the question is: how is there an ‘education bubble’; if so, why? and what will happen if/ when it bursts?

Short answer: there’s no short answer. I have to read more. I’m not prepared to say anything yet. I’ve read a few things so far (Forbes, Economist, Chronicle of Higher Ed, n+1, Education Sector), but I need to keep looking into it. My understanding, at this point, goes like this:

A bubble is when assets are valued disproportionately to their actual value. If there’s an education bubble, it means education is valued disproportionately to its actual value. At this early stage in my thinking I want to add the following idea, which doesn’t seem present in the discourse:

Schooling isn’t education. We entrust our schools (primary, middle, high, higher) to educate children, but what happens in these buildings and institutional settings isn’t necessarily educational. We rely on them to reproduce our social norms and maybe even progress them beyond the status quo. But educational experience itself isn’t subject to economic bubbling. Education–transformative learning experience–will always be valuable.

To the extent that schooling insures the citizenry against low wages, our schools–particularly university schooling, since we don’t guarantee it like we do K-12–are vulnerable to bubbling. That’s what we see happening now: we think schooling will protect us from low wages (or bad household income in general). But we’re wrong.

That’s what’s happening. But it’s not an education bubble. It’s a schooling bubble.

The reason America won’t change
because 1%  of people own everything
is because our country is like high school
the poor are like freshmen
and they see the seniors
who get so many privileges
just because they worked hard for a little while
and waited and suffered
the unpleasantness of beginning
with the hope of someday achieving
the promise
for freshmen it’s graduating
and senior skip day and prom, etc
and for the poor it’s wealth
it’s having that 1%
it’s being a king
because ours is the only country
where anyone can be a king
–not everyone, that’s statistically impossible–
but anyone that wants and suffers
can make it to senior year.

Why would freshmen ever give up
the chance to be seniors?

and we stood on the other side
of fences the police put up
but we didn’t break them down
we just looked at the police
and the police looked at us.

This is what we went there to do, I think:
Look at the police together.

One time we were hitting around a beach ball
with 99%! written on it
and it fell into the street
where a bunch of police were standing
and at first the police didn’t look at it
they seemed nervous to get involved
but then one of them smiled and shrugged
and hit the ball back to us.

We cheered and cheered and clapped and laughed
and chanted “YOU SHOULD BE HERE WITH US!!”

That’s what we were doing at Times Square.
That’s why we do anything at all.

For example:
First, regarding the money civil society gave to its banks.
Its location must be revealed. Where is the gift we gave?
This was a public gift
a gift for all of us.
So we ask that those who received the gift
tell us where it is
and what it was used for.
It is ours too.
$787 billion.
We propose that those of our polis who received the gift
use it to relieve debt throughout the polis
and employment and infrastructure projects
and other reparations for damage done thus far.
Second, regarding future ‘economic crises’
like the one that necessitated the aforementioned gift.
There will be a new court system
that decides whether economic transactions
of a certain size
that affect a certain number of those in the polis
are just or unjust.
It will be an economic court system
with lawyers for both sides
and judges
and a jury of peers
so all the fathers and mothers and children
anywhere in the polis
–which is everywhere, not just here–
can live and grow together well.These are little proposals
and we can make more. So many more.
as many proposals as there are humans being.
Because that’s what we are doing.
We are demonstrating
that we are.

Data plan.

At first I said no. Then I said yes. Then I looked at my girlfriend. I said no again. I said yes. I said no. My mother rolled her eyes. We were going to Rosh Hashanah services. We wore suits and ties. She said, “We’ll go to the Verizon store after services.”

I stood with the smartphone in my hand. “Okay,” I thought. “This is going to happen eventually and I can’t help it–all my friends have them–and I can use it for various things. Tweeting. I’ll use it to tweet. I have four Twitter accounts. I can pay more attention to them. And getting lost. I won’t get lost. I’ll know where I am. And a calendar. I screw up appointments a lot. This will help me that.”

Then I asked myself, “this is late capitalism, right?”

Then I answered, “Yes. It is.”

I stopped. I decided to do something that cellphones and smartphones have made extremely popular among my peers: I decided to decide later.

I asked a philosopher friend if I should get the smartphone. He said no. Smartphones make you less smart. The capacity for memory, the interest in living questions, the constant (mis)direction of attention away from the present moment–just don’t. You don’t want to mess with that. You’re better without it.

I already have an iPad. I stare at it for hours. Every day. Mostly reading PDFs I download for school. Hobbes, Plato, Foucault, etc. This week it’s Adam Smith.

I see people walking down the street on their smartphones. I see them eating dinner, the smartphone sitting in front of them next to their food. I see them playing games on their smartphones on the train. Reading the newspaper. Checking email. Facebook. The New York Times. The best tweeters I know couldn’t do what they do without a smartphone. Richard Nash. Andy Carvin. Also Maud Newton made this connection: ancient humans used to carry smartphone-sized tablets with poetry and scripture carved into them. In Cuneiform.

Smartrocks.

I can see them walking around in cloaks and sandals with their faces hunched over their smartrocks after written language became vogue. The people that thought too much probably got nervous and talked with their friends about what they should do. Should we trust writing? Should we trust these scratches that everyone in the market is staring at? What will happen to our memory? What will happen to the truth of voice, of sound, of memory? Plato wrote a whole Socratic dialogue about it called Phaedrus.

Then he will not seriously incline to “write” his thoughts “in water” with pen and ink, sowing words which can neither speak for themselves nor teach the truth adequately to others?

Should I trust this smartphone that can neither speak for itself nor teach the truth adequately to others?

Marshall McLuhan says media technologies are ablated mental states. It’s like a slice of my mind fell onto the table one day after breakfast and kept doing whatever it was doing when it was in my brain. It turned into writing, a telegraph, a telephone, a television, a computer. When I stare at the computer and write it’s like when people used to sit and think about Homer’s poetry. Now I can hold whatever was happening there in my hand. I can push its buttons.

Obsessing with technology is just self-obsessing. It’s narcissistic. But it’s just like any mental state. I have the option to be well-disposed towards it. If I get angry when I’m walking because I hate when people pull their dogs while they’re trying to pee, and I obsess over that anger, it’ll consume me. It’ll ruin my day. It’ll make me be a jerk to the dog-owner, who might need a gentle reminder, sure, but not my sass. Other people don’t deserve shitty treatment because I can’t deal with myself in a non-shitty way. Same with smartphones.

We’ve been dealing with this problem for a long time. How do I treat myself well around other people? How do I not become obsessed? How do I reach a balanced happiness? How do I lead a good life? Etc.

Will a smartphone lead to a good life? I don’t know yet. The smartphone arrived  like anything else from the universe. A stubbed toe. My father’s laughter. A death in the family. A political debate. A fungus on my little finger. A love poem.  Do any of these lead to a good life?

They’re just life, I think. What makes a good life is a good me in life. Can I be a good me in life with a smartphone? I hope so.

Yesterday morning I woke up and my phone wasn’t on. I always leave it on to wake me up in the morning because I don’t trust myself to wake up at the right time without it. I tried to turn it on. It gave me a message:

“Please use genuine battery power or phone will shut down.”

Then it gave me a count-down. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1. Then it turned off. It did the same thing when I tried it again. I spent the day without a phone. I panicked. I went to the Verizon store after I inadvertently stood a friend up for lunch.  They said it was water damage. That I’d have to get a new phone. They asked me, “Do you have a phone we can transfer your information to?”

I said, “Yes. I have a smartphone.”

Both of the following are from the Art Bin, a magazine that went under in 2003, I think. Their stuff is incredible.

This is from a series by Max Klinger. Each panel in the series depicts people interacting around dropped gloves.

Also from the art bin, part of a series of collages by Edvard Derkert.