30% of businesses fail in their first year. 50% by their second. 75% by their 4th. Business (especially small…

30% of businesses fail in their first year. 50% by their second. 75% by their 4th. Business (especially small business) is a terrible model for a society. But that’s what the ‘economy’ is. Not only does it mostly fail, it’s even worse than that. /1 https://t.co/UxDaw0BoVh

There’s no mechanism whatsoever to ensure that all of that effort is targeted at socially useful need. This business was, so it’s a sad ending. It just proves the point of the disconnection. Anything you can whip up a desire for, even if useless, can fuel a business. /2

Even more damningly, about 50% of business who fail inside 3 years are actually profitable, when they fail. So it’s not just about money, the social model itself is flawed. But what could you replace it with? Small business is the darling of economic politics. /3

Economy folk love small business because their prejudice is against scale, against the regulation it brings. The ‘red tape’. Against being a grown up, doing some basic administration to ensure things are being done properly. It’s the social life least infected by the ‘State’. /4

They despise the State. And with it the public, which they replace with a market of individual consumers. They’re the iconoclasts of our age, like those in previous ages who smashed idols inside churches. Iconoclasm is a constant movement throughout history. /5

The problem with business is, like the economy itself, it doesn’t exist. I use that phrase a lot with everything surrounding the economy, because it’s all a fairytale, every last part of it. Yes you can set up a business, in law (courtesy of the State!). /6

But business itself, the activity or transactions, is entirely driven by customers and their desires. (And whether they have any money.) If nobody wants what you’re selling, your business ceases to exist. Or if you can’t supply what customers want, you also go belly-up. /7

An ‘economy’ is just ordinary people with or without money to spend. That’s it. It’s not business, business is the usually temporary setting up of activities that satisfy certain desires, of these ordinary people. *By these same people*. /8

As with the libertarian nonsense, there’s no binary here. The State is just the people too, not some separate actor. People invented States just as they invented business, to satisfy the needs and desires, of the people. The see-saw tedium of politics doesn’t get this. /9

Pro-State and anti-State parties swap time on the government front benches, depending on the prevailing mood. As if either position makes any sense at all. Individuals and groups are not two separate things. They’re ONE thing. /10

Groups are made up of individuals, it’s all the same raw material. Groups are set up by individuals, to make life easier, for individuals. Setting groups and individuals up in opposition is delusional, the distinction isn’t even real. Progressives don’t get this either. /11

They wail about the ‘selfishness’ of individualist politics, and demand we become more selfless. Captured by the same delusion. Helping others doesn’t need sacrifice, it’s the best thing for us all as individuals too. A functioning group makes INDIVIDUAL life easier. /12

That’s why humans act collectively. To make their individual lives better. We’re not run by systems ending in -ism, of any kind. We’re a society of people. Always and everywhere. Politics focuses on facets of this social mix, the different groupings (businesses, States). /13

And the different individuals comprising our society. As if those are independent entities, interacting. That’s where all the -ism nonsense comes from, belief in those being separate things, interacting. But it’s all just society, acting socially. Always, and everywhere. /14

George Bernard Shaw used to shock by suggesting everybody just be paid the same money for what they do. The -ism folk cry ‘communism!’ for that, even though communism never did that or even suggested it. Shaw was making a point though that was a social point. /15

Again, a society, or an economy, is just people with or without money. If you want to make the share of that money different for different people, you have to justify why. We do that the way social groups do everything, through conformity, hierarchy and status. /16

‘Business’ is a social status group. A particular, social way of justifying a share of social resources. Just as the State is, and any other collective entity, like any of the jobs people do. Teachers are paid less because their social status is less. Ditto for nurses. /17

We should ditch our politics to recognise again that humans always only act socially. They just give that social activity different names, to hide the same underlying mechanism. The -isms gave status, socially, to their proponents. They don’t exist. Like business. /end