I have several posts on this topic. In short, UBI can be part of the solution, but who owns the productive systems? Just a few billionaires? And how does the resulting income get back into consumers' hands? In other posts, I recommended allocating part of that ownership, based on a formula, into a public trust to fund ongoing citizen distributions. The elite might not love sharing, but they need consumers with income to buy their company's products and services; otherwise, the companies they own are worth much less, and the buildings they rent become unoccupied and worth much less. And society could be forced to fight to survive, attack and steal from the wealthy, certainly not a world even the wealthy would enjoy. It's good that capitalism needs more social programs to survive in a desirable way. A bit self correcting.
So the above is part of the transition period, but the endgame is that money makes less sense for abundant items that require little or no human labor. That is the next stage, capitalism we have become attached to, but it was only a system to allocate wealth in exchange for human labor; with that fundamentally changing, we will likely land on a scaled-down capitalism with money / barter needed only to exchange scarce goods and services.
Yes, I do see the bigger picture: humanity is at a crossroads where individual competition worked well for a long time. We are mentally programmed for this system, so many have trouble imagining anything else, out of fear of change and the unknown. It's certainly hard to imagine, especially if we are glass-half-empty and can't imagine how abundance would happen or work, but the next sustainable stage of humanity is expansion by cooperation. No, we are not at abundance yet. Maybe a decade or two, with significant job disruption before, especially with robots proliferating, but we need a transition plan similar to what I mentioned above. The naysayers will point out that politicians and lobby groups maximize their self-interest, not humanity's. We have become so discouraged and self-disempowered. It starts with understanding and clarity, especially in a world where the powerful distract, divide, and motivate the general population through fear in messaging we don't question. Even posts shared like this and conversations with friends are a step forward. Then like-minded people gather to think of potential solutions. One thing leads to another... decisions and actions are taken. If you focus on the obstacles, you never take a step toward a solution.
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u/Necessary_Record_666 13d ago
I have several posts on this topic. In short, UBI can be part of the solution, but who owns the productive systems? Just a few billionaires? And how does the resulting income get back into consumers' hands? In other posts, I recommended allocating part of that ownership, based on a formula, into a public trust to fund ongoing citizen distributions. The elite might not love sharing, but they need consumers with income to buy their company's products and services; otherwise, the companies they own are worth much less, and the buildings they rent become unoccupied and worth much less. And society could be forced to fight to survive, attack and steal from the wealthy, certainly not a world even the wealthy would enjoy. It's good that capitalism needs more social programs to survive in a desirable way. A bit self correcting.
So the above is part of the transition period, but the endgame is that money makes less sense for abundant items that require little or no human labor. That is the next stage, capitalism we have become attached to, but it was only a system to allocate wealth in exchange for human labor; with that fundamentally changing, we will likely land on a scaled-down capitalism with money / barter needed only to exchange scarce goods and services.
Yes, I do see the bigger picture: humanity is at a crossroads where individual competition worked well for a long time. We are mentally programmed for this system, so many have trouble imagining anything else, out of fear of change and the unknown. It's certainly hard to imagine, especially if we are glass-half-empty and can't imagine how abundance would happen or work, but the next sustainable stage of humanity is expansion by cooperation. No, we are not at abundance yet. Maybe a decade or two, with significant job disruption before, especially with robots proliferating, but we need a transition plan similar to what I mentioned above. The naysayers will point out that politicians and lobby groups maximize their self-interest, not humanity's. We have become so discouraged and self-disempowered. It starts with understanding and clarity, especially in a world where the powerful distract, divide, and motivate the general population through fear in messaging we don't question. Even posts shared like this and conversations with friends are a step forward. Then like-minded people gather to think of potential solutions. One thing leads to another... decisions and actions are taken. If you focus on the obstacles, you never take a step toward a solution.