The modern world exists for one reason, one reason alone; modern commerce. On the surface one sees technology as the vehicle for the miracles in the modern world, the movement of half the population on the planet out of poverty, short life-spans and away from hunger.
Simple proof that technology is not the prime mover: you don’t see the broad use and acceptance of technology in the parts of the world that don’t have modern commerce, areas such as most of Africa, large parts of Indonesia and vast tracts of the Middle East and the Steppes.
Modern commerce is the primary source of technology in everyday life. Russia and India are good examples where the military makes extensive use of the latest technology but very little of it trickles down to the vast Russian or Indian population.
The same is true when you compare a small rural Iowa town with technology overflowing in every household to a small similar town on the same longitude in Puebla, Mexico, or continuing on the same latitude to the other side of the planet to Mysore in India or Astana in Kazakhstan. Maybe 5% of the technology in a farm village that in Iowa is found in every home can be found in even a dozen homes in Puebla, Mysore or Astana. Widespread existence of modern commerce is the difference between an abundance of technology in every home and a technological desert.
Technology is a common element in the lives of people who live in the world of modern commerce. But technology is only found in areas where modern commerce thrives.
The two real benefits of modern commerce, the two greatest daily benefits are pervasive cooperation and an infinite array of livelihoods.
Pervasive Cooperation not competition.
For people whose eyes and minds are closed, modern commerce is a competitive system. For people whose eyes and minds are open, modern commerce is more than 95% cooperation every minute and every hour of the day.
Yes, Boeing competes with Airbus, Peet’s competes with Starbucks and Taco Bell competes with McDonald’s. But the same airline can buy both planes and a consumer can go to any coffee shop or any fast food outlet minutes apart. That is the strange idea of market competition from the consumer point of view. Competition in the market means multiple businesses are clamoring to make you happy. Acting as if they were potential lovers, going after you; the word competition doesn’t make much sense. Lovers pursuing you, is more like it. Market competition is more accurately a love fest.
For people whose eyes are open we see employees working together, every minute of the day, supporting each other, having birthday and anniversary parties at work, being extra kind to customers and suppliers. We see suppliers doing everything they can to help their customers with the best possible service, the latest technology, advice on best practices and useful trade information. Everywhere we look in modern commerce we see cooperation and mutual help.
That is the incredible beauty of modern commerce. There is no tribal rivalry. It is the opposite of many Chinese stores where you see fellow clan members treating family much better than other customers. In Southeast Asia, you see Malaysians and Indonesian merchants being cold or rude to Chinese customers. In tribal societies entire families work in the same business. In contrast, in a Los Angeles Peet’s coffee shop you’ll find a barista who is Shia Muslim, a Bahai, a Jew, a Baptist and three atheists working together effectively for years, on every shift. Helping each other. That is modern commerce versus all other economic systems.
An infinite array of livelihoods
One of the greatest benefits of modern commerce is most often overlooked. One can find work in a very wide variety of livelihoods. Before the turn of the 20th century, the variety of occupations was limited. There were several types of farm workers, several types of day laborers, ministers, medical workers, lawyers, teachers and public officials.
As the government grew in the 20th century, the need to classify occupations increased and the first Occupational Codes were published. In 1938 the first classification of occupations had 4 digits, for a possible 10,000 occupations with only a few hundred occupations listed. By 1958 the list had 5 digits for a possible 100,000 occupations with less than 1,000 actual occupations individually itemized. By the 1970s the Occupation Code list fell out of use in most of the United States, except for tax authorities, because there were so many ambiguous multi-functional occupations and so many people who had broad occupational responsibilities that a simple occupational number was meaningless.
Today, people working for large corporations are hired with a specific occupational title but the responsibilities are diverse, complex and variable; especially where managerial responsibility is included.
A young person entering the job market has a nearly limitless choice of livelihoods and a mature worker can virtually define their own occupation. This is a miracle of the modern commercial world. Almost limitless variety of available livelihoods,
Adam Smith, more than 250 years ago, championed the commercial marketplace where the miracle of individual greed was supreme as opposed to individual generosity. Smith pointed out that the baker would not get up every day at 2 in the morning, for most of his life, to bake bread out of the kindness-of-his-heart, but he would out of personal income earning desires.
That was a very limited but persuasive argument for the open commercial market. Today, with modern commerce ascendant in much of the world, we know that there are two more powerful arguments for the open market: a daily world where a wide variety of people can work cooperatively together and a world where a myriad, nearly infinite, number of skills and talents can be appreciated and rewarded.
Modern commerce has created a miracle never seen before in human history.