Hi!
This is me again. Before I get started, an apology and a request:
Last week I couldn’t write my newsletter. As an excuse I’ll say I was in Prague, for some well deserved family holidays. But the truth is I had too many ideas in my head, which I find stressful, and needed a cool-down period.
I try to set myself a deadline (the newsletter should come out every Thu or Fri), but it gives me anxiety the thought of putting my thoughts in order and starting to write. Once I get started, then it’s all easy, but the preparation kills me. Anyone have a good antidote? Any idea on how to improve my stage fright? (Thank you!)
A Road Map to Transition to Plenty
The first time I heard about the concept “Post-Scarcity Economy” was maybe 5 years ago when reading the Wikipedia page of one of my favorite science fiction books, the “Culture” series by Iain Banks: there’s plenty of everything, intelligent and (therefore) benign AIs run all serious affairs, money plays a very secondary role, humans are free to explore their hobbies and passions and sometimes take on “real” jobs out of pure interest or to have something to do. Death is voluntary.
I’ll write more about the “Culture” in a future email. But it signifies a destination. A possible world where Abundance is already a daily fact.
We’re currently toddlers doing our first baby steps in that direction.
That’s why dutch Rutger Bregman’s book, “Utopia for Realists” is important. It is a road map on how to get there.
He proposes:
Universal Basic Income for everyone. It should be at the 60% of median income, in line with EU definition of poverty. It would suddenly eliminate poverty! The total amount would be different in every country, but let’s say for the EU it would be an average of 1000€/ month. The reason for that? Study after study suggests the reason people are poor is they don’t have money (it is not lack of intelligence, laziness, etc). So the best way to break the cycle from self-perpetuating would be to just give money. Also, receiving unconditional money would empower the weakest and radically change social, economic, labor relationships…
More leisure. 15 hour workweeks. Most things are produced automatically anyway, and many, many jobs are either bullshit jobs, or are affected by “presentialism” (all that looking busy and serious while checking Facebook, googling your next holidays or doing the online shopping…)
Free migration. It would be a boon to the world economy, and recipient countries (aka us in the 1st world) would benefit the most from receiving willing, hard-working immigrants. Also, it would reduce a lot of international problems.
“If we want to hold onto the blessings of technology, ultimately there’s only one choice left, and it’s redistribution. Massive redistribution.
Redistribution of money (basic income), of time (a shorter working week), of taxation (on capital instead of labor), and, of course, of robots.”
Because that’s the key:
We can do all that because we are so rich that we can afford it. We have been so fixated in austerity, efficiencies, etc that we cannot see how rich we are. But the best way forward is to invest in human capital. That is, in letting us humans express of humanity. Now we can afford to let ourselves laugh more, dream more, enjoy more, be more gentle to each other. There’s no real need for exacerbated competition for breadcrumbs.
We are so rich and we can afford it, we just need to deploy our wealth differently. To tax it differently. If production is automatized, the wealth produced by said automation belongs to all of us. Not to investment funds who triangulate it all away to some tax heaven.
It sounds radical after 40 years of cutthroat liberalism, but it’s not so new: in the end, for most of us in the West most of the facts of life are already socialized. We enjoy socialized healthcare, education, elderly care, transportation, culture, retirement, some degree of socialized housing, et.
So well, lets’ move one step forward and let’s also socialize the wealth produced by robots!
That’s how you move one step closer to Abundance (and elevate ourselves to aour better selves).
(NB: Here in Germany and in many other European countries we’re already enjoying a proto-UBI, it’s the “Kindergeld”. The government pays every family with children an unconditional universal income of ~200€ per child until they turn 25.)
What are your reactions to Basic Income?
If your work hours were so reduced, what would you do with your new free time?
I’m interested to know. :-)
Let’s create our own tomorrow
…and embody the Earth
Let’s all be emperors now!
Have a great weekend, beautiful people!
Your friend,
Òscar