Community Economic Systems
Economic systems' impact on community well-being.
By Pierre Belhomme
December 28, 2010.  Revised January 13, 2011

Fundamentals of Economic Systems

The core purpose and function of economic activity seems to be individuals acquiring sufficient resources for their comfort. With this simple goal and enough resources for all community members, there seems little reason for conflict. Conflicts such as community members discovering that they are inadvertently attempting to acquire the same resource seem minor and easily resolved by agreeing to some combination of sharing and/or doing without that resource.

Complex Contemporary Economics
The focus of community leaders seems to shift from this simple economic model to more complex principles, ostensibly to increase community prosperity.  Increasingly, in my opinion, these complex contemporary economic problems and solutions, seem to boil down to the simpler economic issues described above. A purely speculative, yet apparently plausible theory seems to be that more complex economic solutions essentially gamble on future events.

Escaping The Limits of Existing Economic Structure By Developing New Economic Structures  

It seems that attempts to shape future events to favor those gambles have included introduction of new economic, social and even spiritual principles.  It seems that proponents of these new principles argue that existing principles can't be demonstrated to be superior to these new principles.  Presentation harm that these new principles have brought to the community as objective evidence of the principles' inferiority seems to be met with the suggestion that such harm is an appropriate and necessary cost of progress.

To what extent do these new principles represent true progress and to what extent do they represent community-harming alteration of factors of our existence that should not be altered? Who holds the standard for evaluating this important question? God, humankind, and/or an elite group of humans? The answers to these fundamental questions seem to determine the success of community economic systems.