Marriage is one of the most wonderful, delightful, satisfying and fulfilling
of institutions known to humanity. (And I'm not just saying that because my wife
told me to!) Over
90%
of
adults
in
the
U.S.
will
be
or
have been married at some time during their lives.
But not all marriages are like that. For some marriages the only solution seems
to be divorce. We all know about the kinds of things that happen in a POM economy.
When the money is or represents a physical object, money can be taken from a
person against their will. The State or corporation or a former spouse can take
money against one's will.
The result is that many divorces take place in an atmosphere of enmity, competition,
high-powered lawyers, and animosity. The lawyers get rich. The courts are overcrowded.
The former couple has a bone of contention that will keep them hating each
other for many years. The children just suffer. Unfortunately, some of the
lawyers really like what our culture does with divorce.
The settlement of the divorce requires dividing up the jointly owned property.
The division need not be fair or in any way equitable. There is also the matter
of child support if the couple has children. Sometimes the one who is required
to pay such support actually pays it and sometimes not. This situation often
results in frequent returns to court. Finally, U.S. culture has the tradition
that women cannot support themselves and carefully pays women less for equal
work in the attempt to make sure that is true. This tradition has led the courts
to require that the husband (and on some occasions the wife) pay to support
the divorced woman until she remarries or dies. These payments also are sometimes
not paid with resulting returns to court.
The non-POM economy is one in which money cannot be transferred from one person
to another because money comes into existence when earned and ceases to exist
when spent. Also, in a non-POM economy, there is no joint ownership of property,
and especially money. What one person earns is theirs alone. No one else shares
in that ownership. Therefore, child support and alimony are impossible and
there is no jointly owned property to divide. All the court needs to settle
is child custody, visitation rights, and whether the couple should be granted
a divorce.
Divorce is quite simple and takes relatively little of a court's time so that
the court can investigate more thoroughly which parent should retain primary
custody.
As far as child support is concerned, anyone who provides care for a child
or food or clothing or housing or education or medical care is paid for providing
that benefit. So there is no need for a divorced parent to provide money for
what doesn't require money anyway.
The same is true for alimony. It is both impossible in a non-POM economy and
unnecessary since everything one needs is available without money.
But the best news for non-POM divorces is that they would be less likely.
If one investigates the motivations for divorce one will find that
the most commonly cited factor is money problems. As is pointed out in the
article "POM:
a Zero-sum Simulation" the nature of a POM is to simulate
a zero-sum game in all money relationships. So if a family has a certain income,
anything one person spends is no longer available for the other to spend. What
benefits one costs the other. If he buys a new set of golf
clubs, she cannot afford new drapes for the living room. If she gets that face-lift,
he can't
afford to go to Hawaii on vacation this year. But more than that, what one
borrows the other is responsible for paying back if they share a credit card.
All sorts of family decisions, to buy a house or a car or whatever, can put
the family in very stressful circumstances as the current mortgage crisis illustrates.
Such stress is a great source of problems between husband and wife. Such circumstances
lead them to believe the other no longer loves them or they reveal that the
other only claimed to love them for the money.
In a non-POM economy, there is no simulation of a zero-sum game relationship.
It is obvious that what benefits one party benefits the other in the marriage.
In a non-POM economy, there is no debt so one spouse cannot be expected to
pay the debts of the other spouse. If one spouse spends money on something,
that is not a problem for the other spouse because they cannot spend that same
money for themselves under any circumstances. To allow one's spouse to enjoy
things one has bought is to give them a present.
When it comes to buying things members of the family need like housing or
food or medical treatment, again any person who provides the basic necessities
will be paid for doing so whether they are a member of the family or not. The
family will not suffer if one of its members stops working since those necessities
will still be available. This avoids the need to replace a husband who doesn't
earn much money with one who earns more. It is never necessary to divorce your
spouse to get more money. Finally, since your spouse never stays with you because
of financial dependency, they only stay because they love you.
Therefore there will be less need for divorce and fewer unhappy marriages
in a non-POM society.
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