1. Change the goal : from endless growth to thriving in balance
2. See the big picture : from self-contained market to embedded economy
3. Nurture human nature : from rational economic man to social adaptable humans
4. Get savvy with systems : from mechanical equilibrium to dynamic complexity
5. Design to distribute : from “growth will even it up” to distributive by design
6. Create to regenerate : from “growth will clean it up” to regenerative by design
7. Be agnostic about growth : from growth as a must to growth as a maybe not
We are all economists now
Acknowledgements
Appendix : The Doughnut and its data
Notes
Bibliography
My Thoughts
As I gleefully plowed through Kate Raworth‘s book, Doughnut Economics (2017, ~241 pgs), in 2 days I found myself editing my policies and adjusting them based on her amazing thoughts, and my policies are all the better for the changes.
She takes us on a journey through the history of economics and why things are the way they are, and then asks us to really question contemporary economics as she points out the issues with its foundations and practice, while granting us a new perspective through her analysis as an economist herself. She asks the apocryphal question “If a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth policy is really what we should be doing?”.
She goes over some foundational changes that we need to make in order to help Humanity to live sustainably within planetary limits as well as raising people up from poverty and suffering while smartly approaching her process through systems theory.
The diagram below, which is empty and for demonstration purposes so you can see what we are talking about, shows you this infamous Doughnut diagram. You see the inner most white area which will show whether or not we have short falls in basic human needs. The center green part is the safe space where human needs are met and we are living sustainably. The outside is will show if we are living beyond planetary limits. The version of this graph that is most often seen is one listing the state of the world.
The Doughnut Inner Ring – The twelve essentials of life that no one in society should be deprived of; Middle Ring – The sweet spot which is both environmentally safe and socially just where humanity can thrive; Outer Ring – The nine ecological limits of earth’s life-supporting systems that humanity must not collectively overshoot;
This book has reaffirmed for me that my stance on economics is the right path to walk and she gave me even more tools to work with in my work towards trying to make the world a better place. This book should be on everybody’s reading list. It is important enough that I am adding this to my policy site’s required reading section. Seriously, spend the time to read this book. It will really change the way you think about economics.
Quotes from the Book
But, Mariana Mazzucato, and expert in the economics of government-led innovation, points out that the basic research behind every innovation that makes a smart phone ‘smart’ – GPS, microchips, touchscreen and the Internet itself – was funded by the US government. The sate, not thee market, turns out to have been the innovating, risk-taking partner; not ‘crowding out’ but ‘dynamising in’ private enterprise – and this trend holds across other high-tech industries too, such as pharmaceuticals and biotech.
~ pg 73, Doughnut Economics
Ten children’s day-nurseries all introduced a small fine for parents who were more than 10 minutes late collecting their children at the end of the day. The parental response? Rather than arriving promptly, twice as many parents started arriving late. Introducing a monetary fine effectively wiped out any feelings of guilt and was interpreted as a market price for overtime care. Three months later when the experiment ended and the fine was removed, the number of late pick-ups rose higher still: the price had gone, but the guilt hadn’t come back. The temporary marketplace had, in essence, erased the social contract.
~ pg 103, Doughnut Economics
Contrary to the founding theories of development economics, inequality does not make economies grow faster: if anything, it slows them down. And it does so by wasting the potential of much of the population: people who could be schoolteachers or market traders, nurses or micro-entrepreneurs actively contributing to the wealth and well-being of their community instead have to spend their time desperately trying to meet their families’ most basic daily needs. When the poorest families in society have no money to pay for their essential needs, the poorest workers in society can get no work in supplying them, and so among those who need its dynamism most, the market stagnates.
~ pg 147, Doughnut Economics
One such city is Oberlin, Ohio, located in America’s “rust belt” of post-industrial decline. In 2009 the city administration teamed up with Oberlin College and the municipal light and power utilities with the goal of becoming one of America’s first “climate positive” cities by sequestering bore carbon dioxide than it produces. The initiative also aims to grow 70 percent of the city food locally, conserve 20,000 acres of urban green space, and revive local culture and community, creating much-needed enterprises and jobs to make it all possible.
I have collected some links and quotes in case you guys are curious about what all of this Game Stop and Wall Street Bets Reddit Shenanigans is all about.
I know at least one of my followers doesn’t quite understand what is happening in the stock market right now and that’s enough to motivate me to explain because this is somewhat of a turning point in world history. First, you need to understand what a ‘short’ is in trading.
A ‘short’ is when you borrow a stock from a broker and sell it immediately at its current price. Then you hope the stock’s price falls such that you can buy the stock back at a lower price and return the shares you borrowed to your broker, but keeping the difference.
Example: Let’s say I want to short XYZ which has a current price of $10. I borrow 1 share and sell it immediately at $10. I have $10 now but I owe my broker the 1 share I borrowed. Then let’s say the price of XYZ drops to $7.
I now decide to ‘cover’ (buy it back) my short position and buy 1 share at $7 and return the 1 borrowed share to my broker. I made $10 when I sold and only had to pay $7 to buy it back lower, so my profit is the $3 difference.
But now let’s say that instead of the XYZ price dropping to $7, it goes up to $15. I still need to return the 1 borrowed share to my broker, except now it’s going to cost me a lot more the buy it back.
Before you spend another day hosting your shill hedge fund buddies to come on the air and demonize r/wallstreetbets I hope you read this.
Your contempt for the retail investor (your audience) is palpable and if you don’t get it together, you’ll lose an entire new generation of investors.
I keep thinking about these funds that are short GME like your boys at Melvin Capital / your coverage of this subreddit and I’m getting madder and madder.
These funds can manipulate the market via your network and if they screw up big because they don’t even know the basics of portfolio risk 101 and using position sizing, they just get a bailout from their billionaire friends at Citadel. Then they have the nerve to turn us into public enemy #1 just because we believe in an underdog company getting a second chance.
We don’t have billionaires to bail us out when we mess up our portfolio risk and a position goes against us. We can’t go on TV and make attempts to manipulate millions to take our side of the trade. If we mess up as bad as they did, we’re wiped out, have to start from scratch and are back to giving handjobs behind the dumpster at Wendy’s.
Seriously. Motherfuck these people. I sincerely hope they suffer. We want to see the loss porn.
An open letter to CNBC by Stable Genius
An Open Letter to Melvin Capital, CNBC, Boomers, and WSB
I was in my early teens during the ’08 crisis. I vividly remember the enormous repercussions that the reckless actions by those on Wall Street had in my personal life, and the lives of those close to me. I was fortunate – my parents were prudent and a little paranoid, and they had some food storage saved up. When that crisis hit our family, we were able to keep our little house, but we lived off of pancake mix, and powdered milk, and beans and rice for a year. Ever since then, my parents have kept a food storage, and they keep it updated and fresh.
Those close to me, my friends and extended family, were not nearly as fortunate. My aunt moved in with us and paid what little rent she could to my family while she tried to find any sort of work. Do you know what tomato soup made out of school cafeteria ketchup packets taste like? My friends got to find out. Almost a year after the crisis’ low, my dad had stabilized our income stream and to help out others, he was hiring my friends’ dads for odd house work. One of them built a new closet in our guest room. Another one did some landscaping in our backyard. I will forever be so proud of my parents, because in a time of need, even when I have no doubt money was still tight, they had the mindfulness and compassion to help out those who absolutely needed it.
To Melvin Capital: you stand for everything that I hated during that time. You’re a firm who makes money off of exploiting a company and manipulating markets and media to your advantage. Your continued existence is a sharp reminder that the ones in charge of so much hardship during the ’08 crisis were not punished. And your blatant disregard for the law, made obvious months ago through your (for the Melvin lawyers out there: alleged) illegal naked short selling and more recently your obscene market manipulation after hours shows that you haven’t learned a single thing since ’08. And why would you? Your ilk were bailed out and rewarded for terrible and illegal financial decisions that negatively changed the lives of millions. I bought shares a few days ago. I dumped my savings into GME, paid my rent for this month with my credit card, and dumped my rent money into more GME (which for the people here at WSB, I would not recommend). And I’m holding. This is personal for me, and millions of others. You can drop the price of GME after hours $120, I’m not going anywhere. You can pay for thousands of reddit bots, I’m holding. You can get every mainstream media outlet to demonize us, I don’t care. I’m making this as painful as I can for you.
To CNBC: you must realize your short term gains through promoting institutions’ agenda is just that – short term. Your staple audience will soon become too old to care, and the millions of us, not just at WSB but every person affected by the ’08 crash that’s now paying attention to GME, are going to remember how you stuck up for the firms that ruined so many of us, and tried to tear down the little guys. I know for sure I’ll remember this. In response, here is a list of CNBC sponsors and partners. They include, but are not limited to, IBM, Cisco, TMobile, JPMorgan, Oracle, and ZipRecruiter. Their parent company is NBCUniversal, owned by Comcast and GE.
To the boomers, and/or people close to that age, just now paying attention to these “millennial blog posts”: you realize that, even if you weren’t adversely effected by the ’08 crash, your children and perhaps grandchildren most likely were? We’re not enemies, we’re on the same side. Stop listening to the media that’s making us out to be market destroyers, and start rooting for us, because we have a once in a lifetime opportunity to punish the sort of people who caused so much pain and stress a decade ago, and we’re taking that opportunity. Your children, your grandchildren, might have suffered as I described because of the institutions that we’re fighting against. You really want to choose them, over your own family and friends? We’re not asking you to risk your 401k or retirement fund on a single GME bet. We’re just asking you to be understanding, supportive, and to not support the people that caused so much suffering a decade ago.
To WSB: you all are amazing. I imagine that I’m not the only one that this is personal for. I’ve read myself so many posts on what you guys went through during the ’08 crash. Whether you’re here for the gains, to stick it to the man as I am, or just to be part of a potentially market changing movement – thank you. Each and every one of you are the reason that we have this chance. I’ve never felt this optimistic about the future before. This is life changing amounts of money for so many of you, and to be part of a rare instance of a wealth distribution from the rich to the poor is just incredible. I love you all.
An Open Letter to Melvin Capital, CNBC, Boomers, and WSB by ssauronn
I know alot of yall have been wondering why the markets have been FRIGGIN WEIRD the past few days, and I thought I would hop in and fill yall in.
If you guys haven’t been following the GameStop Stock Shit-Show, you really need to look into it. This is fucking hilarious.
Allow me to catch you up. So this hedge fund called Melvin Capital wrote out some douchey article about how the smart investment move would be to short-sell GameStop stock. To put it simply, short-selling is essentially gambling that a stock’s price will drop. If it does, you make money. If it doesn’t, you end up paying out money for however much it goes up.
Well, this little article that Melvin wrote pissed off a dark, dank corner of the internet called Wall Street Bets. WSB is a hive of Ritalin-addled lunatics who treat the stock market like a fucking casino. These dudes will regularly gamble their life-savings on a single trade. It’s a glorious thing to watch.
The WSB crew has a weird fascination with certain stocks. They call them “meme stocks.†Tesla is one, AMD is another, and GameStop, arguably, is the most weirdly beloved meme stock. So for reasons that make sense only to the degenerates on WSB, Melvin trying to short-sell their meme was a declaration of war.
Yes, this is dumb. But it gets so fucking hilarious. WSB decided to do a “short squeeze.†This is when you see people trying to short a stock, so you buy up that stock, and you get a bunch of other people to buy up that stock. With each purchase the price actually goes up. Since Melvin was trying to short the stock at a price of $20 per share, WSB wanted to get it as high above that price as humanly possible.
They got it up to $200 per share.
This means Melvin has to cover over $180 per share they bought.
This came out to billions. Fucking. Billions.
Melvin Capital, over night, was suddenly facing bankruptcy. Think about that. A bunch of self-identified degenerates on a fucking website were able to tank a fucking hedge fund. That’s hilarious.
Well, the rich and powerful don’t like seeing us plebeians fucking with one of their own. So Point72, another hedge fund, teamed up with a few other little funds, and they injected around THREE BILLION into Melvin Capital to keep them from spiraling. Essentially this meant the billionaire hedge fund crew were banding together to fight back against Wall Street Bets. And WSB just said “okay, no problem.â€
Today the stock for GameStop is at $320 per share.
Melvin Capital lost all of that three billion they were given. It’s gone. They’re still fucked. Point72 gave a little over a billion of that injection, and that means that fund dropped from 17 billion to 16 billion. That means in less than 24 hours WSB managed to all but ensure one hedge fund will die and drop the value of another by 6% so far.
$GME was just the start. They avalanche effect this has had across the entire market has been HISTORY MAKING.
And remember, WSB are just a bunch of jackasses on the internet.
They aren’t hedge fund guys, they aren’t millionaires or billionaires.
This is literally being done by morons with a phone app coordinating to ruin billionaires’ lives because they can.
What we’re watching here with GameStop stocks is a bunch of rich people who are getting fucking wrecked, purely for entertainment, by the kind of middle-class and poor people they regularly lobby against and treat like this. This “eat the rich†via phone app. It’s “damn the man†with a meme-stock.
It’s fucking beautiful.
And because whoever is writing our reality lost all sense of subtlety after 2020, the icing on the cake is that the app the WSB crew are using to pull this off is a stock-trading app called Robin Hood.
Yeah, as in steal from the rich and all that jazz.
I truly love living in 2021 compared to 2020.
As such, What do yall think of these shirts I am getting made? I have to pick one so please give me 1,2 or 3 as your favorite
This first video with Saagar does a great job of going over the hypocrisy and corruption with all that is happening.
Saagar Enjeti: Wall Street Elites REGULATE, DEPLATFORM Redditors Who BEAT THEM On GameStop
Krystal Ball: GameStop And The Ecstasy Of Making Elites Pay
AOC and her guest go over the basics of what the previous links and stuff went over. Good to see her going over this on a Twitch stream with someone for others to hear about and to get educated on.
It’s been a tough day, and we’re grateful to you for being a Robinhood customer. In light of the extraordinary market conditions this week, we temporarily limited buying for certain securities this morning. Starting tomorrow, we plan to allow limited buys of these securities.
We’ll continue to monitor the situation and may make adjustments as needed. This was a temporary decision made to best continue serving you, and was not an easy one to make. We know it’s led to frustration and confusion, and wanted to provide some clarity.
As a brokerage firm, we have many financial requirements, including SEC net capital obligations and clearinghouse deposits. Some of these requirements fluctuate based on volatility in the markets and can be substantial in the current environment. These requirements exist to protect investors and the markets and we take our responsibilities to comply with them seriously, including through the measures we have taken today. To be clear, this decision was not made on the direction of any market maker we route to or other market participants.
The past year in particular has shown us that the financial markets are for everyone—not just institutional investors and hedge funds. We’ve seen a new generation enter the market, and they’re sparking conversations about what it means to be an investor. We stand in support of you, our customers. Democratizing finance for all means giving more people access, not less. We’ll keep monitoring market conditions and will update this Help Center article with the latest changes. We also published a blog post regarding today’s events. Thank you again for being a Robinhood customer. We’re so grateful for your support.
For all the Robinhood users out there. Send in a ticket. Select other for all help options then hit continue to agent. #LiftTheTradingBan
So, you’re disallowing the common man from investing in stock markets to profit off volatility? I bet you wouldn’t cut our trading access if we had a couple of billion in the bank. Just like the rest of them. If you want to keep our accounts I would suggest lifting the trading ban.
There was no violence from MAGA supporters which was a good thing.
Biden’s Inauguration Speech
Biden’s borderline-coherent acceptance speech was empty emotional manipulation, filled with empty platitudes (like Democrats in general), and was devoid of any policy talk at all.
It is sad that people are happy and satisfied, or even moved by this mockery of democracy.
If you were similarly disappointed and want to see some real policies, then here are mine: Interstellar New Deal. I also live stream politics a few times a week on Twitch.
Mostly Fascist War Criminals Present
How many war criminals can you fit into one gathering? Well, you can definitely fit more in – social distancing and all that. They all need to be in prison.
No matter which party (red fascist or blue fascist) is president the bombs will continue to fall, the coups will still happen, and the war on the 99% will be perpetuated while the brainwashed masses celebrate their oppressors. Stockholm Syndrome should not be political stance.
The whole thing would be done in an open part of the White House (or outside) that would not interfere with its daily business and with just the people needed, so they can move on with their day to get shit done.
It would be done as early as possible so we can get to work.
All speeches would be translated into Esperanto first and then into as many languages as possible for the widest possible availability.
Sign-language interpreters would be available to translate live.
The 200 million that this waste of pomp-and-circumstance, which is used to brainwash the masses and for the self aggrandizement and celebration of the 1% owning the government again for 1 more term, would be given to local poverty non-profits.
This is a Q&A post to answer a great set of questions and comments posted to my Discord server from one of my long time followers on my Twitch live stream where I talk leftist politics a few times a week. I was originally going to post my comments to Discord, but my response became too big to just post there (due to the character limits of Discord), plus I would like to add some links, quotes, and other stuff in there too, so here we go!!
I wrote this over a few days, so it is still rough. =)
Questions and Answers on Capitalism
A. Live Stream Bad for More In-depth Conversations, so DISCORD!!!
Awesome! Let’s Do it! Thanks for posting your thoughts. <3 I understand live streaming is not the best place for a more in-depth conversation on topics like this, because only I get to speak, while you amazing people in my chat are limited to your typing skillz and that small chat box.
It is important to keep in mind that my world view and bias comes from being an American, a veteran of the Iraq war, a college graduate, a small business owner, a political activist of sorts with his own policy site, etc. If you want to learn more about me and my potential biases you can check my About Me page.
I also think that a large part of this conversation will center around your bias and significant potential privilege from living in one of those amazing, almost idyllic Nordic countries where real freedom actually exists, unlike in most of the rest of the world. As we go I will try to point out your potential bias or presence of your “Nordic colored glasses” as we go. I am sooo jealous! <3
B. Capitalism is NOT BAD!!!
Capitalism IS Bad!!! Well, actually, it is really monetary systems that are bad – of which Capitalism is a symptom of. But, yes I do say Capitalism for short because it is easier for people to identify with this emotionally charged word instead of that lower level abstraction of Monetary Systems. I am in the process of completely combining and expanding all 150 pages of my RBE/Capitalism posts into one work and I may try to make that terminology shift from Capitalism to Monetary Systems. Perhaps, in doing so I will be a bit pedantic, but… anyhow. =)
But, yes, still Capitalism is still bad. As a matter of fact, my entire policy site, Interstellar New Deal, is about fixing those very many devastating harms of Capitalism globally, and there is A LOT there. I write a lot about those basics of how it is harmful in the The Final Problem section of my infamous Cancer of Capitalism post where the primary issue is Tension which is the first and most important thing that I tackle there. If you have not read that post (or at least that large section) yet then please read the giant section on Capitalism (The Final Problem); or, at least, please read this current rewrite of the Tension section of that content which I am working on to get you started.
C. Capitalism just needs some tweaking!
1. Massive Horrors are Happening Globally
The annual cost of capitalism – 20 million people die each year
I would completely disagree. “some tweaking” is a gross, gross understatement and, to a significant extent, ignores the majority of the last few hundred years of human history, as well as all of the horrors currently happening all through the world today:
The whole global Labor Movement as well as the movements for Socialism and Communism have been created to combat those visceral harms from Tension, and these are battles that we are still fighting today all across the world. These are all massive symptoms of the absolute failure of monetary systems and competition.
2. Entrenched Historical Harm
The US is, of course, one of the greatest first-world examples of Capitalism’s failure, especially when we have (prior to CoVID) one of the highest level of inequality in the developed world, a 22% childhood poverty rate, homelessness, people dying from rationing insulin, etc; and also studies have shown that the government of the US does not statistically care what the people actually want. They just care about what their corporate and rich owners pay them to think. We are a corporo-plutoligarchy. This is true even if Democrats (a center right party) control everything, although they will throw the people a bone on occasion while still selling us out to their corporate donors. Obama oversaw one of the greatest transferals of wealth in US history (at that time).
In the long term, as we have seen historically, you cannot just get past that Tension issue, which at some point will bring back the bad things into the economic system. Many, many laws throughout every country in the world are all about attempting to deal with the many, many harms created by Tension within Monetary Systems. No matter what progress we make, there will always be attempts to have them undone such as we are seeing quite plainly with the Trump administration which is undoing decades of positive policy changes.
Of course you, you lucky bastard, are from one of those Nordic countries which has great eco-humanistic cultural and economic values and therefore, it will most likely take a long time for the detrimental effects of that Tension to ever be seen, although it will eventually become a thing… eventually. Perhaps, from your standpoint there in Nordic land with great eco-humanistic values and policies, it may require some “tweaks“, although this not at all true for the rest of the world.
As I alluded to in the my Twitch stream, the Capitalist corruptions might even be happening now through the issues created by the external force of the EU and the loss of your sovereign currency which will radically change the way your country will budget and pay for things. Deficit spending will be something that will start to take its toll unlike before, and may not be something that will be able to be sustained as a core of what enables the payment of the mass of socialized programs (as well as high taxation). I imagine that those will see a slow but steady erosion as time goes on, and then those Capitalistic Tension issues (such as austerity) will creep in as a result. I hope not, but that is what I see eventually happening.
In my recent post How might an RBE playout, if it ever did? I did write a section titled Getting to the Transition Point with the Nordic countries as a center point for one of the 4 methods of getting to the transition point in order to shift to a Resource Based Economy. In that section I specifically call to the issues with the European Union:
Here is an excerpt from that section: The Democratic Socialist Vanguard:
Here, we will again look towards those Democratic Socialist countries (Norway, Finland, Denmark, Sweden), who, while languishing economically under the auspices of the European Union (EU), specifically due to the socioeconomic harm caused by the loss of their sovereign currency, decide to restore their countries’ collective sovereignty, progress, and values by leaving the EU. Those Nordic countries also decide to unite into one collective democratic-socialist union of sorts too.
As part of that unification process and to more further unite these 4 countries ideologically with their collective eco-humanistic values, they hold a large convention and then come up with a values doctrine as their primary cultural and economic guide (hopefully like my 8P3H), which results in radicalizing them, pulling them further towards socializing more parts of their society for the sake of Equity, Humanity, Justice, Compassion, and Sustainability.
Option 2 – The Democratic Socialist Vanguard (How might an RBE playout, if it ever did?, Dec 2020)
We can also take a look at the Demographic Transitions which maps the 5 stages of the socioeconomic progress that Humanity undergoes during their march towards first world status (as well as their impact on population) we begin to see that most developing countries have glommed onto the American model of progress which results in the many horrors that Capitalism manifests, especially the usage of fossil fuels and the unsustainable exploitation of human and natural resources. The American way to progress is NOT the right way for these developing nations to progress, and this is a further long term testament to how broken the process and system is, because that process is NOT driven with eco-humanistic values nor through interdependence. If we truly cared then we would be working to lift these developing countries to first world status as soon as we could with those oh-so-necessary eco-humanistic values, instead of exploiting them like is done now. Why is this so?
3. More than Just Tweaking Required
Fixing all of these horrors like the ones I talk about above requires more than just tweaking. One of my largest policy pages is on economic changes and there is A LOT there, but that is just the beginning. Honestly, the most important policy I have, the Philosophical Foundations, is also the most difficult to implement because the core value of monetary systems is antagonistic to eco-humanistic values. If my Philosophical Foundations were implemented then everything else would eventually follow because they would be a logical extension of those eco-humanistic values. However, most of the world does not have these values, especially the United States, so just “tweaks” to Capitalist policies to save Humanity from its horrors will do nothing in the long term because they do NOT have the values or history to support them.
4. Commentary on Capitalism
Why would we continue to use a broken socioeconomic system which requires an eternal struggle of implementing aggressive levels of monitoring in order for it to not destroy people’s lives and the environment? I have a whole commentary piece titled The Domestication of the Velociraptor which works with this concept:
Your tribe has the option of continuing to unsuccessfully domesticate wild velociraptors or to try to domesticate those wolves that have been coming close to your tribal lands, eating from your garbage, and on occasion eating from your hands.
For thousands of years your tribe has been unsuccessfully trying to domesticate wild velociraptors. You capture them, cage them, and train them up. They act right for a little while, or at least you think they do, but you still see them look at you and your family like they are its next lunch. For a while they even perform as you would like: guarding your homes and flocks, allowing you to pet them, playing with your children, pulling your plows.
Eventually, it acts out tearing off you arm or clawing you. Your people capture and then retrain it. Then it eats your dog. You repeat the retraining process. Then it escapes eats most of the family next door. With a new color of harness you retrain it again with tremendous cries of support and religious services dedicated to it and its amazing potential, because this is how we have lived for thousands of years and this is what is right. You even set the raptors upon the wolves who come near and eat from your hand.
Now the raptor is roaming throughout the streets of your tribe eating whoever and whatever it wishes. Your people live in fear while espousing the wonderful traits of velociraptors: strong legs, powerful jaws, sharp claws, great hunter… even while its fangs are disgorging blood from your spouse’s neck. Your tribal members cry out “Velociraptors are amazing! In fact they already are domesticated, but maybe we need a new harness to make sure this time…”
A tribal member cries out “Look at those tribes over there. They have wolves. They are being successfully domesticated.” Your tribe angrily rages “We already have the superior domesticated velociraptors which eats wolves! How could you even suggest? Those tribes are the enemy. They use wolves. You are a traitor. You are not a member of our tribe.” The member points to the trail of blood left by your spouse’s lifeless body as it was dragged out by the velociraptor. You say “It is my spouse’s fault for not petting the raptor properly.” as you think ‘The raptor’ just needs a new harness of a different color.
You go to the mass grave where your spouse and many of your neighbors are buried as the domesticated raptor fed upon their unsuspecting bodies as it was meant to do. Excitedly you say. “Yes, a harness of a different color is the answer!”
The Domestication of the Velociraptor (Commentary on Capitalism) from The Cancer of Capitalism
D. Voting with Wallet?
Voting with the wallet when it comes to a large scale businesses (national, international, global) especially when they have a market cornered (Amazon, Walmart, Google) is a very difficult method to effectuate change, because of the massive scale of movement required. For this to have any real effect it is only really possible in countries which have strong eco-humanistic values and high levels of equality (such as in those Nordic countries), but not in a place such as the US, or developing countries because of high levels of inequality, poverty, corruption, and monopolization.
Alluding to market forces as a balancer requires an educated buyer which cannot actually exist in the real world which is a fundamental flaw in core economic theory. The closest would be in a country with strong eco-humanistic culture and economic policies. An educated buyer also requires real choice which is also not possible in places where eco-humanistic values are NOT present… so it is not really possible in the majority of the world.
It also requires a buyer which has the extra money to be able to really make that values based choice. Ethical choices tend to be more expensive which means the majority of the people in the world do not have access to those choices, which is a feature of Capitalism (inequality). In societies with significant inequality there is no real choice or an educated buyer, which includes the many, many developing nations (A LOT of the world), and the United States as well. An educated buyer with real choice only really becomes close to possible in a country with low inequality which is a position of extreme privilege to which the majority of the world does not have. The concept is nice to think about, but is not really a thing.
If the BDS (Boycott, Divest, Sanction), this voting with your dollar or lack thereof really, worked at the consumer level quickly and well on a mass scale then Israel, the Arab states, and the fossil fuel industry, Amazon, Google, and Walmart, etc… would all have been devastated decades ago and would have changed, but this has not ever come to pass which is a sad, sad reality.
E. Values Based Decisions for Work Choice are a Thing
Having a real choice in where you work is not something that most people have access to. Again, this is really only a major thing in the Nordic countries (and some other parts of Europe) with all of those eco-humanistic values and low levels of inequality. In much of the rest of the world, they are at the mercy of what ever work is available along with the exploitation that comes with it. In the US where we have student debt, wage slavery, and healthcare debt, right to work laws, no universal education or healthcare or housing, etc… so real choice is not a thing in most places.
Again, to be able to have the chance to make that choice to work somewhere you want to based purely off values requires a position of significant privilege to do so, which most people in the world do NOT have. I know I do not have that real choice here in the US, especially because we do not have universal healthcare, universal education, UBI, etc. =( I have wanted to go back to school for a long time so I could change my profession, but I have not been able to do so. =(
F. Voting Through Investment
1. It Takes Money…
First, it takes spare money to be able to invest consistently. In the US the top 20% of the country controls 80% of the stocks, and the top 10% takes in 80% of the profit per year too which means 80% of the US population really does not have spare money to invest soo much without an incredible level of discipline and frugality (their life style suffering). Again, this comes down to inequality (which is an inevitability within Capitalism).
It takes money to make money and most people (in the US and globally) do not have the money to invest; and therefore they do not have an economic voice in the stock market, and have no democratic economic values based vote in the global economy. This also true for most people in the world, especially in those developing countries. To have stock is a position of significant global privilege which is a voice that most do not have access to.
2. Values Based Investing?
Note: I also use that 7% RoI number too when thinking about investments and retirement planning too.
If you do NOT start investing aggressively at the very beginning of your life then you will have zero room to not maximize your RoI, if they ever have a chance to invest in the first place, which is NOT likely for most people globally due to global poverty and inequality. This is even more prescient a thought when you look at places such as the US where the minimum wage is $7.25. =( So, for most people the discussion will be more like:
“Do I invest with my values and not really be able to retire OR do I maximize my ROI so that I can retire as well as I can, if at all?“.
When you are doing so well financially that you do not have to worry about your retirement (started early with aggressive investment with a great salary) is about when that values based investing conversation can really start, because you have already taken care your retirement through maximizing your RoI early enough to ensure that you will have enough saved up in order to retire in the sort of life that you want – which is somewhere over 1 million dollars for a good quality of life so that you do not have to work or worry again.
To be doing so well that values based investing is a conversation to be had is a very privileged position to be in. This is that Tension problem again. And, most people globally will never be in a position to have this conversation, because of the harms of Capitalism and inequality.
3. The Questions We Should be Asking
After talking about this, the next few questions that we may ask ourselves if we truly want to understand what is going on may be:
Why is this conversation even a thing? Why isn’t retirement dealt with systematically and structurally so no one has to worry about it ever, so that no one ever suffers in old age?
What negative externalities result from this conversation being a thing?
Globally, who is benefitting from this suffering and worry, and this position of privilege?
Once you start to answer these questions, you will really begin to see the picture.
4. Sociopathy
Studies also show that along with inequality comes sociopathy, so getting the majority of the rich and affluent people (with all of their sociopathy) who control the majority of the stock market to have a conscience is a difficult thing to do, as we currently quite well see because the Fossil fuel industry still exists, cigarettes are still a thing, the Military Industrial Complex and War Profiteering still exist and are inflicting their harms, as well as many other predatory capitalist companies such as Amazon and Walmart, etc. They all still exist and keep inflicting their harms because what matters to most people in the privileged position to be able to invest is quick profit and market dominance, and with that comes power and the ability to manipulate and control consumer choice, all regardless of the negative externalities caused – poverty, war, exploitation, slavery, pollution, etc. When such wrongs get published a company’s stock prices take a hit with employees taking pay cuts or losing their jobs and benefits, but the stock price always bounces back because there is profit to be made with that dip. This is the Tension at work in the stock market and with inequality.
Do I invest in stocks to: (1) make money (2) or for my values (assuming I had any to begin with) with a lower return on investment? From the current state of things, we see that blindly investing to maximize profit is what is being done, sadly, and much of that is done through massive and soulless mutual funds, EFTs, and whatever else there where the only question that matters is RoI. Those values based stocks portfolios are not the norm and, even if they are, RoI is still going to be a major factor which will warp things as it always does. Values will always eventually lose out to RoI.
G. Economic Pressure Through Purchasing Choices
Sure, some of that is happening, slowly, but not due to your emails or contacts, and definitely not in the short term. Changes are happening only due to long term economic pressures and market trends, but that is a slow, slow process. All of those businesses had the ability to make these changes 10 years ago or to have done the right thing in the first place (which is the real problem), but why didn’t they? What we really need to be asking ourselves is:
Why didn’t they do the right thing in the first place?
Why did they choose to do the harmful thing to start?
And, why are we the people or the government eventually responsible for policing that company’s choice to do the wrong thing?
How many people are harmed in the long run because of that ability to choose to do the harmful thing?
Those are real question that you need to answer. They chose benefit (self) over Benefit (society). This will typically be the case as we quite well see with the state of the world today, and because we are even talking about this.
They have to be forced to change because Tension drives them to choose profit over doing the right thing until the long term economic incentive pushes them to do otherwise. And, how much damage have they caused by the time that they have been forced to make a change? How about all of those negative externalities like poverty (under paying), pollution from manufacturing which causes significant long-term health and psychological and economic damage which they company does not have to deal with, until they eventually kinda have too. They get that slap on the wrist of a few million dollars after they have made billions and billions over the years from destroying people’s lives and destroying the environment for fun and profit.
This is slow and basically ineffective in the short term which is the fundamental problem – no real pressure beyond standard rate of change of social and market forces; or it only applies to people in positions of socioeconomic privilege which have a level of sociopathy, so such values based changes are again not the norm or a significant driver.
H. It is Easy to Get Rich, Right?
I have studied investing a bit too. If it was easy to get rich then everyone would be rich, and, as we well know, this is not the case globally with high levels of global poverty, starvation, inequality, etc. Why do the rich get richer? Because they have plenty of spare money to invest. Most stocks are in the hands of the global affluent minority, while the rest of us cannot afford as we struggle to get the bills paid. Like they say “It takes money to make money.” and most people do NOT have the money to do so as global levels of poverty and suffering will attest.
I am thinking this is your “Nordic colored glasses” showing itself again in your magical land of high levels of unionization, minimum wages, sustainable energy, socialized services, etc. Again, most people do not have stocks or the ability to invest on a scale where it can make a long term difference and to pull themselves out of poverty.
This is the second post (now ~9,000 words/~19 pages) of a 2-part post which ended up being the longest post I have ever written which was also written in just over about 12 days, so editing could most likely be improved. This 2-part post in total (19,000+ words/~50 pages) beat my previous longest post, Calendar Reform (13,510 words/~55 pages) which I wrote in a month, by 6,000 words/-5 pages (due to fewer pictures and tables), so buckle in!! The first part of this post is titled Capitalism and Resource Based Economies Q&A from Facebook (Dec 2020) (12,124 words/~31 pages), so feel free to check that out for the context for this post.
These 2 posts are an attempt to answer a slew of questions from someone in this Facebook post and this Facebook Meme post too, both of which have a great conversation going about Monetary Systems, Capitalism, and Resource Based Economies. If you want to see the explicit context of these questions you will want to check those threads. This post is here to answer just one of those questions which you will see below.
Here are all ~126 pages of my RBE posts which you will want to read in order to potentially understand all that I am referring to here if you are not already intimately familiar with this topic. You may also want to read these in this approximate order. In either case start with The Cancer of Capitalism since that is the one that starts them all off.
Honestly, if I did not have to work for a living I would love to forge these all into a book and do even more research and writing in order to expand on this very, very important topic.
B. The Question?
OK, so here is that 1 question that this 1 post is going to try to answer in some basic way:
“Even disregarding the huge disparity between the most developed and the least developed countries, how would this work just in, let’s say England?“
OK, so the moment happened and the world magically said “Yes, Let’s do this RBE thing! Engage!” Now what? What will happen? I will give you a taste of how I think it could unfold. Keep in mind the Magic?? section from part 1 of this 2-part post which is super important, because this process will not happen magically over night and the process will take a LOT of time. You can always make arguments for approaching this process in a few different ways. I can think of a few more ways myself.
I. Interstellar Humanity
A. Need for a Resource Based Economy’s Values
When thinking about writing this second part of this 2-part post I found that it was interesting that it was much easier to think about how evolve Humanity into an interstellar species (which I write about in my Interstellar Humanity policies) than it was to try to think about trying to get Humanity to shift to an RBE. Why is this? Well, taking Humanity to the stars is merely a pure engineering problem whose process was almost fractal in nature (has a repeatable process through each stage). Whereas, shifting Humanity to agree to stop doing everything it can to destroy itself at the fastest rate possible, in order to become a globalized civilization drenched in peace and cooperation, requires something infinitely more difficult – something that is not merely a technical or logistical problem – something that is truly, at its core a societal values problem which is the the hardest thing to change. As I have been saying all through this 2-post document: we have the knowledge, technology, and resources to evolve into a Resource Based Economy today. The final real question then becomes “Can we evolve or develop the values needed for this to happen?”. An even better question is “Can do it quickly and safely?”
This is important, because of the long term implications of thinking this far out about Humanity’s potential future as a potentially interstellar civilization, which I also hope will help to reinforce the importance of shifting to an RBE for Humanity’s long term survival. Below I have excerpted the Interdependence and a Space-faring Humanity section from my Interstellar Humanity policy page, so you can read it for yourself which I hope will drive this home for you:
B. Interdependence and a Space-faring Humanity
Earth Rise Over the Moon from the Apollo 8 Mission
As below (on Earth), so it shall be above (in space).
James O’Neill
Humanity carries it’s cultural, theological, emotional, intellectual, and social baggage with it wherever it goes which creates perpetual strife, exploitation, and conflict. If we cannot live in harmony here on our planet of origin then we will never be able to live in any semblance of harmony in a space station nor anywhere else in the universe. This is the Star Trek vs The Expanse conundrum. The only real way to accomplish peace in space is to create peace here on Earth.
As a globalized species we need to advocate for a change in Humanity’s social, environmental, political, and economic systems so that we can save ourselves and our planet of origin from our own self-inflicted horrors and the systems and structures that created them, otherwise we shall NEVER know peace, even as much as we would like to idealize life in space and space colonies, etc. Nothing will change with Humanity in space if we do not ourselves change.
The entirety of the policies here on Interstellar New Deal are aimed at just that – creating all of those changes so that Humanity may finally know peace on Earth and wherever we shall find ourselves throughout the universe.
This process would happen in phases of sorts. I mean it has too, right? We have countries with various levels of food, water, housing, healthcare, sanitation, etc, right? – various forms of infrastructure that aren’t all on the same level – so equalizing all of that will be important. But, the most difficult part of this is not the building of an RBE, because, as we have established before in part 1 of this 2-part post, that implementing an RBE is not a resource, technology, or knowledge problem. It is predominantly a societal values problem, therefore once we solve the problem of shifting Humanity as a globalized civilization to embrace an eco-humanistic socioeconomic values system, then we can collectively move on to implementation with very little problem, especially when we are able to start pulling from the global brain trust to solve our various technical problems.
Even with those differences, the essential process will follow a similar order to which follows below. Keep in mind that anything I pose here will only be a vast oversimplification of the insane amount of changes that will have to happen, so take this for what it is worth. Also, there are quite a few ways to think of this process unfolding. The process I will present here is one that will take a bit longer and draw it out a bit, so we can see some more discrete phases.
This is just a thought experiment to give you an idea of how this all might happen… in 9 Phases:
“Quite clearly, our task is predominantly metaphysical, for it is how to get all of humanity to educate itself swiftly enough to generate spontaneous social behaviors that will avoid extinction.”
This entire section’s discussion will hinge upon the core concepts developed within the previous section How about Communism and Socialism? from the first post of this 2-part post which set forth the concept that Socialism and Communism have historically failed for 4 basic reasons, the most important of which, at least for this discussion, is not having the eco-humanistic values required for success. As a reminder, here are the 4 reasons from that section as well as what assumptions we will make regarding these as we discuss them in this section:
Tension and Monetary Systems – Frankly, evolving beyond monetary systems is the the entire point of this document, but this is hard to achieve without the appropriate values system, which is the point of this section. In the examples we give below they will all end in the eventual evolution of the appropriate values system needed.
Eco-Humanistic Values – This whole section is about Humanity evolving the appropriate values.
Violence – A violent revolution will tend to result in further violence, so a good result is not likely.
Technology – Currently, Humanity has the basic technology and resources needed to basically implement an RBE, so no assumptions needed. Although, there will be technological innovations and other things needed as noted below.
The United States of Terrorism – At some point the US, as the greatest global terrorist organization, will have to become part of the solution or no global progress towards peace and cooperation will ever be possible.
This section will look at a few ways that Humanity might evolve into a globalized civilization with the values required to unify Humanity which would want to successfully implement an RBE. The hardest part of getting the world ready to come together as a global (if not interstellar) civilization in order to implement an RBE is ensuring that we have the eco-humanist values required to make it successful. This is especially problematic because of the imminent threat of extinction posed by Climate Change which is accelerating faster than we can accurately predict, and whose harms will exacerbate geopolitical issues making this process even more difficult. Not to be a complete doomer here, (which I definitely am), but honestly, for most of this section’s discussion, Climate Change is the one thing that will realistically ultimate cut short any real progress towards any positive end for Humanity, so I will ignore this until the last part of this section where I will take it into account Climate Change and Humanity in the best possible light, at least for that limited discussion.
With all that being said, I will start by giving you 5 separate (although seemingly outlandish) movements as examples of ways we might reach the Transition Point with some bit of overlap between them as you will see:
The Arc of the Moral Universe
The Democratic Socialist Vanguard
The Hacktivist Movement for The Great Transition
The Eve of Annihilation
The Pan-African Decolonized Union (PADU)
Option 1 – The Arc of the Moral Universe
You can consider this first option as the condensed form of the other options.
I will quote Martin Luther King, Jr. here who reminded us that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” as the primary mode that we shall look at things here. This is a very, very long term look that would probably take over a hundred very optimistic years assuming that theocracies, competition, global capitalist exploitation of undeveloped countries, territorialism and expansion, violence, poverty, coups, nuclear war, bigotry, and Climate Change don’t destroy us first; and are all some how minimized globally through global action, cooperation, and progress. I know, it all sounds so magical and nigh impossible. =( This potential can seem like completely magical-rainbow-unicorn thinking because this would also mean that the United States would have to stop terrorizing the world and would want to work towards healing the world instead of exploiting it for fun and corporate profit, and I say this as an American. =(
It is easier to imagine an end to the world than an end to capitalism.
attributed to both literary critic Fredric Jameson and philosopher Slavoj Žižek
More specifically, that ‘bend towards justice‘ would eventually have most countries effectively evolving into something resembling the Democratic Socialist countries (Norway, Sweden, Finland, Netherlands) whose values are humanistic and environmentally friendly which are the core values needed for global cooperation, peace, and sustainability, and a Resource Based Economy.
Option 2 – The Democratic Socialist Vanguard
The concept I will present here seems like an even longer shot than the previous option if you can imagine that, mostly because of the small scale. An RBE is perhaps impossible to implement on a small scale, but this process may provide the case study and genesis for conversation, cooperation, and eventual global change.
Here, we will again look towards those Democratic Socialist countries (Norway, Finland, Denmark, Sweden), who, while languishing economically under the auspices of the European Union (EU), specifically due to the socioeconomic harm caused by the loss of their sovereign currency, decide to restore their countries’ collective sovereignty, progress, and values by leaving the EU. Those Democratic Socialist countries also decide to unite into one collective Democratic-Socialist Union of sorts.
As part of that unification process and to more further unite these 4 countries ideologically with their collective eco-humanistic values, they hold a large convention and then come up with a values document as their primary cultural, economic, and policy guide (hopefully like my P3H), which results in radicalizing them, pulling them further towards socializing more parts of their society for the sake of Equity, Humanity, Justice, Compassion, and Sustainability.
Eventually, even with socializing more parts of their society they begin to see the conflict between the: negative biopsychosocial effects of money and even their minimal inequality, as well as their collective separation through the existence of national boundaries vs their stated eco-humanistic values, so they begin to minimize the use of money which then starts their conversation into money artificially limiting possibilities, and then finally asking “Why do they need money at all?”. This also begins to have them look at how money and national boundaries operates in other countries and how other countries relate to each other due to economic and competitive pressures which would then begin a global conversation on money and inequality vs a society with strong eco-humanistic values.
Collectively, they decide to say “Fuck it”! They begin to drop money altogether internally and begin to work with a few other nations who decide to join them in this socioeconomic experiment. Collectively they work to have an external Capitalist interface so they can attempt to operate an RBE internally (within their fellow RBE countries) as well as they can. This new Democratic Socialist RBE Union then acts as the primary experiential evangelist for ending monetary systems as other countries begin to be dwarfed economically, environmentally, and ethically, as well as through quality of life, productivity, and innovation. The rest of the countries begin to realize the advantages, and their lack of ability to compete, and then meet with the new RBE Union, sign the values documents, and then begin that transition to join the RBE Union. This process ends up being the global dominoes which ends monetary systems and capitalism globally.
Option 3 – The Hacktivist Movement for The Great Transition
With historic high levels of global inequality, violence, and exploitation, the veritable harms of climate change from fires and droughts to climate refugees and starvation going on while the 1%, the corporations, and bankers are living well while the people suffer, global hacktivist groups unite in a plan to end the horrors of monetary systems and Capitalism. They work together to perform a global hack on the banks and the various economic and political infrastructures to destabilize and erase them, while spreading news of the problem of monetary systems as well as to educate the public to create support for the Great Transition.
The process might follow something like this which may seem like a very bad hacker movie, but you get what you get when I only have a about a week or so to write:
Stage 1 (Expose the Corruption)
publishing
an examination of all of the problems faced by humanity and its root causes
all of the corruption of the banks, corporations, the rich, the politicians, the governments, the cartels, and those who enable and benefit from it
listing those who ARE harmed by these actions
versions – The following versions of these documents will be published:
in-depth report with all of the data, names, and addresses
one for Dummies with pretty infographics so it is easier to understand
a TLDR;/executive summary document
Stage 2 (Money is Meaningless) – Monetary inversion actions to make money meaningless:
erasing global debt, loans, mortgages, credit cards, other debts such as World Bank and IMF loans
deleting money from the governments, mega corps, banks, politicians, the 1%, as well as all of the offshore tax havens
adding a near infinite amount of money to the 99%’s accounts on places like Amazon and all of the banks, etc…
Stage 3 (Global Values Reset) – Releasing a manifesto and values documents which could be like my P3H, DURH, UDRME:
published – These documents will be published to every email and every major online account (social media and otherwise):
newspapers as advertising, and all major news and corporate sites
video sites and TV as advertisements
social media as advertising too
text everyone with message and links to it
a bookmark directory to the various ways to access this info to all browsers
as well as being available on their own website too which would require a massive amount of mirrors
something like Wikileaks
on Torrent sites too
install an app on all mobile devices and operating systems with info and links, as well as the eventual ability for voting
Versions
pushed to the public just like above too with those versions too
Stage 4 (The Great Transition)
giving the outline of a plan for a better world (RBE) – calling it The Great Transition
setup an global online convention streamed through all TV and online sources, as well as in person in all nations to discuss The Great Transition with voting, etc
With this sort of a radical level of information with evidence supporting it, the bank accounts emptying and switching, as well as also providing a potential solution this will hopefully drive the world to making change, and to take action to make the world a more equitable, sustainable, and more free.
Now that the corporations, the governments, the 1% have been exposed and the economic system tanked and shown to be horrendously harmful, and a solution provided the people of the world can now meet, discuss, and decide to move forward to evolve Humanity a new stage in its evolution.
Option 4 – The Eve of Annihilation
I like to play with things a while before annihilation.
Emperor Ming (Flash Gordon, 1980)
Note: This option is essentially taking an unrealistically optimistic look at the Climate Change long game that we are currently in.
With…
temperatures rising to record highs resulting in Wet Bulb temperatures making parts of the world unlivable;
too much of the world is on fire too often creating more air pollution as well as creating a negative feedback loop which further increases the climactic extremes;
ice melting at record rates causing ocean levels to rise, warm and acidify;
massive biodiversity loss as species are dying off at unprecedented rates;
the commodification of water on commodities markets and geopolitical skirmishes and tensions increasing due to water shortages;
all of which results in more droughts and famine, and mass migration of climate refugees throughout the world causing food, housing, and general resource shortages;
…Humanity, specifically starting with a vehement and passionate youth led movement, decides that something finally needs to be done.
The youth groups and other related human rights and environmental activist organizations being determined to bring about the global change that will save Humanity from capitalism, meet in a massive international convention and hammer out an umbrella of universal values documents as their collective demands and expectations for global change (such documents could be like my P3H, DURH, UDRME).
The movement and the documents spreads quickly, as a truly global movement catches fire unifying the 99% vs the 1% resulting in massive global strikes, acts of solidarity, as well as peaceful and not so peaceful governmental coups; one (or more) of which acts as the driving force for international recognition and parley which forces the Capitalists to the bargaining table for the sake of Humanity. This then drives a global convention to talk about these value documents and the state of Humanity, which then pushes the acceptance of RBE by popular global demand.
Option 5 – The Pan-African Decolonized Union (PADU)
The African states having suffered from hundreds of years of exploitation, colonization, and violence of various forms from the Global North, especially the economic warfare through the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, decides collectively to throw off the chains of their capitalistic imperialistic enslavement. They realize that capitalism and monetary systems contributes strongly to the separation of the African people by creating tribal lines and tribal competition, distrust, and exploitation of Africans… by Africans. Because of the sociopathy and inequality visceral to monetary systems, having the Europeans leave only resulted in changing white colonists for African colonists who settled into the power vacuum that was left behind. Working towards a unified, decolonized, and self-sufficient Africa means that Africa as a collective will have to cooperate for the good of ALL Africans which could NEVER be done within monetary systems which rewards competition, sociopathy, and exploitation, all of which is antithetical to cooperation, humanism, and environmentalism.
After many major large pan-African meetings, Africa as a collective decides to cast off money as way of doing business due to its inherent harms and exploitations. They start by shifting to focusing on trading with each other and towards sustainable food and energy production, as well as creating a unified Pan-African Resource Management System (PARMS). Next, they work on their internal infrastructure such as housing, schools, sanitation hiring only Africans. Then, they unilaterally default on all foreign loans such as through the IMF and the World Bank. Finally, they work towards creating an external Capitalistic interface to work with the external world while using an internal RBE.
Capitalism Imploding Through Cascading Negative Feedback Loops
Introduction
I want you to just be thinking about this potential, where a country which had strongeco-humanistic values and policies would effect things such as population, supply, demand, and profit, etc… which will result in a cascade of negative feedback loops which would result in the capitalism imploding.
a. Efficiency Requirements Reduce Product Demand
A byproduct of a shift to eco-humanistic values would be to bring about regenerative and sustainable policies such as:
maximizing product life times (to end planned obsolescence)
reduced unnecessary and wasteful non-variety
modular, open sourced, and universal products, etc… (to ensure they are easy to upgrade and fix with minimum wasted resources)
circular economy
resource sharing (to end masses of wasted duplicate products)
…which would result in an incredible reduction in global product demand.
b. Automated Efficiency Reduces Production Costs
Concentrating on technology, automation, AI, and efficiency in production which would lead to:
near zero-marginal cost for automated production
efficient product creation with very little (if any) waste
…which means almost near zero cost for most products, which means profit potential is decreased.
c. Population Decline Reduces Product Demand
Most countries on the Earth would eventually shift towards becoming relatively first world countries (non-exploited) in infrastructure, values, rights, public services, etc…, which would result in:
a declining global population due to all countries reaching high levels of equity and progress and urbanization (Check out Demographic Transitions for more info on this phenomenon and why this happens.).
…which would also result in a massive reduction in product demand.
d. Technological Unemployment Reduces Job Availability
With the massive levels of automation and AI being applied services and production, this will result in
massive level of technological unemployment
…which means people will NOT be able to buy things, and therefore a massive reduction in product demand.
e. The Implosion of Capitalism and Economic Systems
With these factors happening we would start to see monetary systems and capitalism imploding due to not being able to support infinite consumption and infinite growth required by capitalism through:
destruction of planned obsolescence (product demand going down)
This realization should come as a damning indictment of capitalism and monetary systems, because if a society with strong humanistic and ecological values was to enact laws to maximize a sustainable, if not a regenerative and circular economy, that the whole economic system would collapse. =O
2. Philosophic Foundations
Introduction
The above 5 potential options for societal evolution would be the sort of global values evolution that we would need in order to bring Humanity together into a globalized civilization. Hopefully, during that long process that something akin to the Philosophical Pillars of Peace within Humanity (P3H) as stated within my policies would evolve as our universal and overarching guiding principles.
Here are two examples of something similar that have happened historically:
a. Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948)
First, was the creation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) which was created under the Roosevelt administration through the United Nations in 1948 following WWII. If you have not read the UDHR then please do this now. It is an amazing document. I use this as the basis for my Declaration Of The Unified Rights Of Humanity (DURH) in the Philosophical Foundations section of my policies. At least, with being aware that this document exists and results from voluntary international cooperation of sorts through the United Nations, we know that such potential cooperation does really exist within Humanity when the conditions are right.
b. Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth (2010)
Second, was the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth (also a part of my policies) which was created in Bolivia in 2010 as a way to give rights to and to have a legal and political framework within which we could protect the Natural World.
c. Ties that Bind
The one thing that is missing with the above two real-world examples is a way to connect and unify them philosophically, which would hopefully end up being something akin to my P3H, as mentioned above.
At every level (community, county, state, nation, continent, global) there will need to be Cybernation Process Facilitators (CPF) (or whatever title) to help keep things moving by facilitating decision making and making decisions during this insane process. Collaborative groups of Cybernation Process Facilitators, and it should be multiple people at each level (and never just one person), will need to be those who best embody the values found in P3H and that best understand the vision, scope, and breadth of what an RBE is trying to accomplish who will guide Humanity through this process. Hopefully, by the time this goes down there will enough people who will fit this description. The Getting to the Transition Point and its resultant educational paths may help make this a reality in time.
How will these Cybernation Process Facilitators be chose? Perhaps, for some positions there will be local, state, continental, or geographical elections or some sort? Perhaps through direct democracy, liquid democracy, or something completely different. Who knows what sort of voting or electoral options are available then. Maybe it can be done completely online or through normal in-person elections, maybe even a mixture of that and other options. We have no idea what systems will be used when this happens
Once the groups of CPFs are selected, then we can move into the meat and potatoes of what it means to implement a Resource Based Economy… Implementation!
4. Harm Mitigation
Introduction
The Harm Mitigation process should begin once the decision is definitely made to shift to an RBE because there are literally billions people globally (if not over half of all of Humanity) who are suffering that do not need to be.
a. Low-Hanging Fruits
Anywhere there are obvious deficiencies and suffering such as homelessness, hunger, lack of water, clothing, etc… which are all easily fixable problems (but that Capitalism does not care about solving because there is no profit in doing so), local resources will be used to satisfy those needs as is possible or will be used or imported as needed:
Lift Up the Suffering
Those who are homeless will be given empty houses, apartments, and hotel rooms.
Those who are hungry will be given free access to food.
Those without clothes will be given free access to clothes.
Those who are in lower quality living arrangements will be moved to higher quality equitable housing.
If we need to move people and they agree to it, then we can move them and their families to where the resources are available for them.
Bring Low the Affluent
Those who live in exorbitant and gluttonous extravagance shall be moved to more efficient and equitable accommodations.
Buildings which are exorbitant and gluttonous in extravagance shall be used as efficiently as possible, including housing the poor, as facilitation or cybernation centers or resource sharing centers, etc… until as such time as it can be recycled or be used more efficiently.
Build More
In areas where the above steps are not enough to solve basic deficiencies and suffering then we will start with whatever method will most easily solve the issue such as sharing housing or building temporary shelters, Earthships, etc or whatever method is appropriate.
In this stage we want to minimize excess new resource usage and resist the urge to build anything new if possible, because that insanity is coming in Step 8 – Global Infrastructure Buildout Plan. This process will be done for as long as needed until a newly constructed RBE city is ready for people to move into. You get the idea.
b. Resource Centers
i. Resources for Quality of Life
This will be easy enough to implement from the start because we already have stores and logistical supply lines. People will have free access to what they need, but there will have to be some controls to start because some people have really been suffering from and still have their brain damage from Capitalism and artificial scarcity, so they may want to start hording things out of fear. This first part will be to make sure people have what they need for general items so we can increase the quality of life for those who we can, especially for those who were homeless or impoverished, while we get this started.
We will want to include other quality of life services such as internet, cell phones and computers, as well as universal access to food, healthcare, education, fitness, entertainment, as well.
ii. Resource Sharing Centers
Next, we can start setting up Resource Sharing Centers where people can donate their unneeded stuff and so the masses can start to check out things that they need or desire. The app for that will hopefully be developed sooner than later, so resources usage can be more easily tracked. I am sure we already have such applications already in available. Libraries might be a great place to look for this or equipment rental places.
5. Global Resources Data
Scarcity Reduction Inequality Reduction Increased Sustainability Automation – Transition from Labor-for-Income emphasis to Machine Automation emphasis. Goal: Maximize productive capacity; reduce human exposure; increase efficiency. Access – Transition from property/ownership emphasis to strategic Access emphasis. Goal: Maximize good use- time efficiency; Reduce production pressure; increase overall good availability for use. Open Source – Transition from proprietary research; data hoarding and internal development to collaborative commons contribution. Goal: Maximize innovation. Localization – Transition from globalization to localization, emphasizing networked design. Goal: Maximize productive/distributive efficiency; Reduce waste. Networked Digital Feedback – Transition from fragmented economic data relay to fully integrated, sensor-based digital systems. Goal: Maximize feedback and information efficacy/utilization; Increase total economic efficiency.
FIGURE 5C – Conceptual graphic representing five shifts to increase economic efficiency and reduce the scarcity pressure. These adjustments will decrease socioeconomic inequality and the spectrum of disorder and oppression consequential.
From the book – The New Human Rights Movement by Peter Joseph
a. Common Heritage Resources
All global resources (natural, manufactured, information, etc…) will have to be claimed as a Common Heritage to ALL of Humanity – not just of one nation or one company, not just one family or person, but of the entirety of ALL of Humanity. Common Heritage Resources is perhaps THE most important part of the implementation process, and this step is what truly enables an RBE to even be a thing. Without this there is NO RBE. This alone will effectively end nations states and businesses as entities, as well as the rich and their extravagance, all of which are a major sources of global problems such as wars, exploitation, and competition. This most important step will focus the global conversation on how do we best use all of OUR global resources for the benefit of ALL of Humanity and not just the few.
b. Global Resource Survey
Then we will have the Herculean task of performing a Global Resource Survey (GRS) so that we know what resources we have. Once the agreement was made to switch to an RBE the resource data gathering could begin and then collected until the GRS app was ready, so that this information could be quickly added so we do not hold the process up. Read my post Some Technical Steps Towards Implementing a Resource Based Economy which kind of sets the stage for how the open source app might be designed on a small scale which could be scaled up module by module, community, by community, dataset by dataset in order to record this massive resource survey.
We will want to know:
Resources Available – Every single resource that we have available such as:
information resources (patents, data, sensors, designs, research, databases, computer clusters, online services) all of which will be open sourced
manufactured resources (buildings, manufacturing and production plants and types, living spaces, farms, products in stores)
human resources (demographics, skills, locations, living conditions)
pollution and byproducts (an overabundance of something which results in harm or waste)is an untapped resource and part of existing processes
current waste (such as potential resources thrown within dumps) which can and will need to be eventually dug up and recycled
Quality – good, acceptable, or poor;
Quantity – surplus or deficiency
How long would it take to do this? No clue. We have never done anything like this. However, I would think that once the app was created to record this data and every community was connected, then perhaps a year or two would be plenty of time to get enough of the pertinent basic global data to start working with the basic calculations and to start some general planning. Distribution of the app could be done through something like the various mobile app stores, or Steam, or through Torrent, peer-to-peer networks, or a centralized RBE process website with lots of geographic mirrors.
c. Sustainable Resources Calculations
When we have the basic global resource data then we have to calculate their sustainability level – how long will each current resource last at the current rate of use. This will also take into account usage, replenishment such as through recycling and replanting, and losses through those processes, etc…, and byproducts too.
For organic resources like trees or plants, this is going to be a plus or minus number:
Unsustainable – This will be a negative number (-2) which means we are using the resource faster than we are replacing it.
Completely Sustainable – The number will be zero (0), meaning we are replacing the resource at the same rate we are using it.
Surplus – This will be a positive number (+1) meaning that we are replacing the resource faster than we are using it which may be desirable, especially in cases where there was an undesirable deficit previously such as will forests and green spaces.
For non-sustainable resources like ores, fossil fuels, water, etc…, this will be a calculation based on current amounts available vs rate of use while taking into account processing losses, so we know how long before we run out of this resource. Such calculations can spur us to find replacements for non-sustainable materials either through creating new materials, using organic replacements, or asteroid mining and the like, as well as looking to increase efficiency of current usage or its recycling processes.
Another important part of this process will be finding a way to automate construction as much as possible to reduce waste and to have it go as fast and as efficiently as possible. Technologies such as mega-machines, bots, and 3D printing will most likely be the center of this.
d. Range of Conditions that Humanity Thrives In
We need to dive deep into human psychology, sociology, and health to try to find out in broad conditions, under which Humanity thrives under – from housing, to food, to social contacts, to green space, and all of that stuff. Although, we will need to approach this research and data gathering in broad terms, because each human is different as an entity, but also that needs change throughout your lives too. So, here we need to find that range to see what the maximum needs are and the minimum needs are so we know what that basic academic range for resource needs are. This will also be crucial for the conversation in setting global resource access limits and sharing.
e. Quality of Life Calculation
Have you had enough of the math yet? Yea, me too! =)
Ok, once we have this insane mass of data – how much of each resource we have and how we use them – we can start to attempt to calculate what is the quality of life we can afford for each person. We will look at existing resources as well as existing structures and recycling processes to see where we stand. This will be a calculation that will take into account human psychology, desiring to maximize quality of life without wasting resources. We will calculate what is the variety of housing and other living conditions we can afford based on resource consumption and psychology.
f. Carrying Capacity of the Earth (CCE)
Once we have collected and calculated all of the above data then we can start to attempt to calculate the Carrying Capacity of the Earth (CCE) which is the calculation that will tell us: based on the current global resources and usage data at hand as compared to how many resources each person needs access to and sustainability calculations, how many people can we sustainably support on the planet. This number will be adjusted and refined day by day as new data comes in.
At the start of this process, this number is more of a reference, but it will act as a continuous indicator as to how well we are managing our global resources for the number of people living on Earth. If the the CCE is smaller than our current population then we have some serious resource sustainability problems and we will have to evaluate that and see how we can change that through:
finding out what our bottlenecks are which may require significant sustainability changes, resource substitution and/or creation
creating or modifying manufacturing and recycling processes
g. Calculations Overview
The amazing Peter Joseph goes over a general technical overview of the calculations for a Resource Based Economy in his work:
Below, I will list a dizzying array of technological advancements and innovations that will need to be researched and worked on whose progress and development can take advantage of the global brain-trust that we will now have access too. It is no longer country against country, or business against business, but how can we collectively create a global human civilization that will benefit us all, and not just the rich or corporations. This fact will, hopefully, have such developments come fairly quickly.
This will require an insane level of research and development so we can find ways to automate the recycling of every part of the existing inefficient Capitalist structures, which is basically never done now, so that once a community is empty (or we find derelict or abandoned structures) we can set the autonomous bots loose to reclaim and recycle the building materials… and then rewild that space.
i. Sustainable and Automated Construction
This will also spawn an insane level of research and development so we can find the more efficient and sustainable ways to build new structures to make the best use of our limited materials. Although, in this world of tomorrow, in this world WITHOUT money, we will not have to worry about cost. We only have to really worry about the sustainability of the process or materials. How freeing will this be – to be able to do it right the first time and not have to worry about “costs”?
We will also be working specifically to create the technology to attempt to automate this process using mega-machines, bots, and 3D printing, etc… too, so that when this process hits in full force that progress can be relatively quick.
ii. Cybernated System
An entire new system will have to be created in order to manage and display ALL of the global data to manage this new cybernated RBE world. This will include massive distributed data centers.
b. Global Distributed Computer Platform
All computers should have a distributed computing client on it such as World Community Grid so that global or local research can utilize the combined processing power of all idle computers globally. The client can be different from project to project, and could be uninstalled if desired. Each person should be able to decide where their spare computing power is used such as to a local project they support or the number crunching of solving climate change. This is the global democratization of research and computing power.
c. Sensor Data System
A system will need to be created to accept global sensor and other data as well as an eventually providing a data access portal so everyone can access and process this data for the benefit of ALL of Humanity. This will be important for smart cities, trend analysis, and generalized research and problem solving.
d. Resource Sharing Center Management System
A system will need to be created to manage the global Resource Centers so people can check out stuff and so we can track it too. We already have entire businesses around renting things, so the most efficient or robust software could be repurposed to this end and distributed quickly to get this working.
…and sooo much more…
7. Systems Integrations and Resource Localization
a. Systems Integrations
While the previous steps are happening with all of that GRS application development, data gathering, math, and R&D going on there will be time needed to figure out the starting systems integrations in order to better monitor, streamline, and manage all systems globally. This would most likely be done first on system by system, industry by industry basis, for every industry and system on the globe until they are all integrated into one cybernated system.
We will take a look at all of the major systems which run everything from food production, product delivery, mass transit, product manufacturing, energy production… everything, and we will look to integrate each silo into one system and then the individual silo systems into the whole cybernated system (or something like that).
As an example: We will look to merge major global product delivery chains like Federal Express, USPS, Amazon, Walmart, etc… into one global logistical product delivery chain. We will have to evaluate which systems works the best and then combine, replace of upgrade, or replace them into one global system; and then recycle, upgrade, or reassign the other resources and infrastructure. At the very beginning it will be more like, let’s just hook them together so they can just all talk, and then we can upgrade and integrate them once that all gets figured out.
Once that process it done then we will be looking to create a whole new system from scratch to manage and coordinate a global resources. Then we will replace the old patchworked systems with the new cybernated one.
b. Resource Localization Plan
A huge part of Sustainability is trying to ensure that as much of the needs for a community are manufactured or produced as locally as possible (hyperlocalization). To start, we will want to know what surpluses there are and what deficiencies there are (which the GRS will tell us) in each and every community, and then we can realign local production to serve that local community and the surrounding areas as much as possible.
A great example of this process will be local food production. Most likely, especially on a county level, most food production is probably being shipped all over the state, country, or even internationally for processing and/or final destination because it was more profitable to do so; and are not used locally which is criminal, and a complete waste of resources too.
For all communities we will look to completely localize all production. Local food production will be realigned to serve their local communities as much as possible which will save an incredible amount of time, freshness, and resources. If there is a deficiency in some foods, then we will build urban vertical farms to help make up what food production was missing, which will also allow us to start to free up some of that farm land to allow it to be rewilded. This process will also work well with sustainable energy production too.
I hope you can kind of see where we are going with this. Obviously, this is not always going to be that easy for any given resource, especially those things which require rare earth minerals, or other ingredients which are harder to find or are geographically isolated. Some things might be best produced on a county level due to economies of scale or other such reasons, and then distributed locally. Somethings might still have to imported in one way or another, but reducing this is as much as possible is important for Sustainability and efficiency.
8. Global Infrastructure Buildout Plan
Introduction
Something to keep in mind is that this will not happen over night, this buildout will take decades (or a century or more) to complete. Check out the section on Magic?? from the other post.
So, since in this example, I was looking to have this be a slower process, let’s look at the previous 5 steps taking a decade to complete, especially with the R&D of new automated systems, completely new software systems and integrations, as well as evening out resource distribution to get the world communicating and everyone caught up to each other with qualities of life specifically in the developing world.
Once we have all of that information and planning done such as:
Global Resource Survey
Sustainable Resources Calculation
Quality of Life Calculation
Research and Development (automation, recycling, and sustainability) at least started with some innovations coming
Systems Integration Plan
Resource Localization Plan
…then we can combine that into a global buildout plan for each and every community in the world.
a. Priority Buildout
We should start with the places which have the worst quality of life because Human civilization has much more to gain by training and lifting up those peoples and countries that are suffering the most, so we would most likely prioritize Africa, India, and the Middle East for buildout first.
b. Technological Dominoes
As we start building our first sets of efficient and smart RBE cities in their isolated areas (perhaps 1 per “state/province”?), we would be looking to build them with excess food, energy, and other resource production (like 10 times what is needed locally) so that they can provide support for and accelerate the extensive global build out process with their new state-of-the-RBE-art:
energy and food production
manufacturing and recycling facilities
research and development, and medical facilities
education centers
perhaps more importantly, the ability to research more advanced bots and mega-machines to help accelerate the buildout process
These first generation cities will be built near an existing community and then, when it is completed, the local population will be moved in, and then the old, inefficient, and sprawling Capitalist structures will be recycled and rewilded.
I have started to diverge a bit from some RBE thinkers as far as what form I think that RBE cities should take, so take my thoughts with a grain of salt. The primary example of what RBE cities might look like is similar to what the models proposed by Jacque Fresco of the Venus Project, who is one of the pioneers and visionaries of Resource Based Economies. You can see examples of his concepts at the top of all of my RBE posts. I have also taken the time to aggregate some of those images in the following post: What Could the Cities of Tomorrow Under a Resource Based Economy Look Like? to get you started.
My thoughts on how RBE cities should be formed may not be the answer that Humanity decides on, but this is the basic form I currently like. We may want to build up or down using Arcologies as Earthscrapers or massive Skyscrapers. See Arcologies (2016) or Arcology Design (2021) for more information. Using these form factors will allow us to recycle those old horrible and sprawling Capitalist cities and then rewild that space which would greatly in increase the amount of green space on the planet, as well as global sustainability an biodiversity. With one rough set of calculations from the first Arcologies video, we could potentially house the entire population of the United States in individual spacious arcologies with populations of about 5,000 people every 1 mile along the coast, and then we could completely rewild the entire interior of the US. I talk about this a little bit in my Sustainable Communities policies.
I envision huge vertical (most likely cylindrical or similar), smart cities with mass transit, and masses of green spaces and amenities similar to a 4-star hotel. If you want to get an idea of the scale and amenities that I am thinking, take a look at project Neom (Line City) in Saudi Arabia. This video does a great breakdown of it and its many, many, many problems. This is an absolutely devastating form factor (a line city) and it is a complete vanity project by the Prince with no absolutely NO regard to the harm it causes to people or the environment. Ignore all of that because that is definitely not at all what I am talking about, because RBE cities will taking all of that into account the impacts on Humanity and the Natural World is integral to a RBE. But do take look at Neom’s scale. It is an individual city that is planned to house 9 million people. I applaud the scale that he is thinking. This is exactly the scale we need to be thinking, but, I repeat, its form factor (a line) is absolute garbage.
Once the first RBE city is built, then those first-generation machines and resources can move on to build a second first-generation city. These newly built (first generation) cities can then research and build the next generation (second generation) mega-machines or smart RBE city technologies, which can then be used to accelerate the building of more advanced second-generation technology based RBE cities. This will accelerate things even faster because all of the first-generation cities will be sharing their research not just with each other but with the rest of Humanity, and will even research different aspects of the building process. Older equipment can also be upgraded as we go to take advantage of modular design with universal components, and taking advantage of technological increases and acceleration. This process will repeat city-by-city, from advancing tech level through advancing tech level, until we have a critical mass of mega-machines and automation to accelerate the global buildout of this new RBE world to ALL of Humanity.
Acceleration of Resource Based Economy Cities Technological Buildout – The first generation machines will build the first generation cities. The first generation cities will research the second generation technologies to build the next generation of cities, etc… through the third, fourth, fifth, etc generations.
We may also want to start on building the foundations for an interstellar Humanity such as:
Obviously, this is oversimplified and is leaving a crapload out, and yes you can make a case for alternative ways of doing things or whatever you think I forgot, which are not conversations I am necessarily interested in for this post, but, hopefully, this may give you and idea of the big picture of how an RBE might come into being and possibly be even built out.
Although, if you think I missed something or something like that and it is appropriate to the scale I am writing here, then please let me know. I will update this post as I can as ideas strike me.
In response me posting that article John Spritzler posted a link to a PDBR Boston article as a response – The Venus Project and the Zeitgeist Movement (PDBR Boston). However, my response was that I had serious issues with what the PDBR article said, although I did not have time to post my thoughts. So, I will post my thoughts on that article here, so that I can answer this for those in that thread who were curious, and, well, everyone else who may care about what I have to say, but mostly so I can practice screaming into the void. =)
John, who I believe is the author of the PBR Boston site, a site which I have seen posted a bit through Facebook. Although, I wonder if it’s because I am FB friends with the John? Not sure though. This is a site I have found some interesting concepts on, but I have not really taken the time to dig into it as much as I really need to. This is a man after my own heart – caring enough to put his thoughts down in blog form so he can repost his thoughts without having to retype them over and over again. I blog for much the same reason, so bravo to that! =)
B. My Experiential Bias
Ok, to be fair to John and his article, and to you the reader, I must disclose I have a significant biases regarding this topic which will, of course, affect my thoughts here, and I want to make sure you know what you are getting into.
First, I have been blogging about politics for a little over a decade, all of which you can find here on this site. I started with social sexual issues and religion, and then shifted to economic issues such as minimum wage and inequality. I am a member of the Green Party and a Bernie supporter too, so you can see where I am politically. I identify as an eco-humanist and I have my own policy site Interstellar New Deal if you really, really, really want to see where I stand politically.
Second, I found out about Jacque Fresco and The Venus Project (TVP) first in 2017 and was immediately blown away by it. I read their entire website. I read both of the free e-books that were available on their site. I purchased and read Jacque’s book, The Best Money Can’t Buy, as well as watched all of their documentaries too. I eventually volunteered a smidge doing some transcription. I even spent the time to copy the entire content from the website and from all 3 of his books, and have reorganized all of that content into topical areas so I can someday rewrite it all as book with my own thoughts and commentary so that others may learn from it.
At the same time, through my initial research into the The Venus Project, I had also found out about Peter Joseph and his Zeitgeist Movement (TZM). I ordered his amazing book, The New Human Rights Movement, and watched all of their documentaries too during that short period too. This was a mind-blowing birthday month!!
I did all of that reading and the watching of all of that content in the span of a week or two in Nov of 2017, which spurred me to write my initial post on this topic, The Cancer of Capitalism, which has been updated over and over again as my understanding has grown over the last few years.
If you want to know how important this topic is to me politically, then you would be interested to know that both of their main books are required reading for my policies.
I had know for a few years prior that money was the fundamental problem through my reading and research on inequality and economics, and everything else, etc, although I could not wrap my head around it because of the sheer magnitude of it. I mean, we are talking about questioning the entire foundation of Human civilization as we know it today. Both of these people and their groups talk about that issue, why it is a problem, and what the solution is and why.
I have also written a bunch more on the topic of Resource Based Economies since then too as you will see below. Here are all 145 pages of my RBE posts which start with The Cancer of Capitalism. Then you could go into the Q&A post which references all of the other posts within an appropriate topical context:
Ok, so, I know quite a bit about this topic and I have a bias because of it. Whew! With that off my chest, let’s get into my comments on John’s article:
My Thoughts on the PDBR Article
Introduction
I have not read really any of his John’s other stuff, although I think I will have to now. =)
I do not have time to tear his commentary apart quote by quote, but I will cover the 4 main issues that pervade his commentary:
Fundamental Misunderstanding of Resource Based Economy
Fundamental Misunderstanding of What Causes Global Problems
A World Beyond Politics
Anti-intellectualism
1. Fundamental Misunderstanding of What a Resource Based Economy Is
A. Resource Based Economy Short-Take
The first issue is that he does not really understand well enough the The Venus Project and the The Zeitgeist Movement, or how they are recommending to accomplish the world of tomorrow. To be fair, this can be a very difficult to put your head around without a lot of reflection and research, so I do understand. For his “at a glance” he got a very basic idea, but there is much, much more to it that needs to be understood for a critical commentary like this to work well.
Both TVP and the TZM are both really talking about the same exact thing, but they are coming at it from very, very different perspectives which is something you could see by looking at their websites or reading their primary books: The Best Future You Can’t Buy and the New Human Rights Movement. I am not going to go into it all. My posts are linked to above and there are links to both books above in my in policy’s required reading (also linked to above).
Both talk about a moneyless society using technological advancements to set Humanity free from work, poverty, war and suffering. They both also talk about the root problems we have (monetary systems), why they are a problem (Tension), and what sort of society we need to evolve into in order to fix it all too (Resource Based Economy).
Perhaps, the key part for the people reading this post to understand (at least for the 3rd section below) is that a Resource Based Economy is also attempting to create a world beyond politics. How great would that be? No more 2 years long election season? No more two-party mudslinging and stonewalling? And, real progress and peace too?
B. The Venus Project Overview
The major strength of the The Venus Project‘s works is that Jacque, a brilliant and visionary engineer, has an amazing vision of what the World of Tomorrow could look like with amazing models and visuals; and why it should be this way with his unique experiences, research, clarity, and insight. He also talks at length about the issues we have as a civilization and how fix it too (without all of the references, studies, and statistics).
Aerial of a full city from the agricultural belt inward(The Venus Project)
Example housing apartment housing complex (The Venus Project)
Closeup of city buildings near the water (The Venus Project)
An amazing example of futuristic city design including urban green spaces and roof top landing pad (The Venus Project)
Elevated Home (The Venus Project)
C. The Zeitgeist Movement
The Zeitgeist Movement approaches a Resource Based Economy from a very, very different perspective. Peter talks about the failures of human civilization from a very academic and technical place. His life-changing book alone has 57 pages of references to studies and statistics. He approaches things very solidly from systems theory – very technical and very fact oriented. If I could buy his book, The New Human Rights Movement, for every person in the world I would do that. Very recently I was also very fortunate to have been given permission from Peter to read his book on my Twitch live stream too.
Scarcity Reduction Inequality Reduction Increased Sustainability Automation – Transition from Labor-for-Income emphasis to Machine Automation emphasis. Goal: Maximize productive capacity; reduce human exposure; increase efficiency. Access – Transition from property/ownership emphasis to strategic Access emphasis. Goal: Maximize good use- time efficiency; Reduce production pressure; increase overall good availability for use. Open Source – Transition from proprietary research; data hoarding and internal development to collaborative commons contribution. Goal: Maximize innovation. Localization – Transition from globalization to localization, emphasizing networked design. Goal: Maximize productive/distributive efficiency; Reduce waste. Networked Digital Feedback – Transition from fragmented economic data relay to fully integrated, sensor-based digital systems. Goal: Maximize feedback and information efficacy/utilization; Increase total economic efficiency.
FIGURE 5C – Conceptual graphic representing five shifts to increase economic efficiency and reduce the scarcity pressure. These adjustments will decrease socioeconomic inequality and the spectrum of disorder and oppression consequential.
2. Fundamental Misunderstanding of What Causes Global Problems
A. The Corruption is NOT the Problem
His “TZM doesn’t understand” section has significant problems because he does not address what the root issues are that face Humanity. He falsely attributes the causes while also really mischaracterizing TZM’s work, and in some cases he is completely incorrect.
Yes, corrupt leaders are a significant problem, but they are not THE problem. They are a systemic symptom of the root problem. He fails to dig down to really explain why the “elite” have broken values, why they create suffering, or how they even get their power to do so. Much like Andrew Yang said during the 2020 presidential debates:
This is why Democrats need to stop acting like Donald Trump is the source of all our problems. He’s a symptom of a disease that has been building up in our communities for years.
Andrew Yang, Presidential Debates 2020
Now, I am not a Yang fan, but this statement is 100% correct, and I clapped and cheered when he said that. Our corrupt leaders and the system they have created are not THE problem. They are a symptom of a much greater problem which allows them to do the horrors that they do.
B. The Tension Within Monetary Systems Creates the Corruption
In general, John is definitely on the right track which is great, but he just needs to dig a little deeper and start to asking what causes that corruption of these “elites“, to have them do the horrors that they do, or to even have the power to do so in the first place? If you keep digging you will find that the root problem for almost all of the problems that Humanity faces is monetary systems, more specifically its Tension problem that I write about in my Cancer of Capitalism post. Here is an infographic I created for that section to get you started on this very important topic.
Tension within Monetary Systems Flow Chart
Now, his analysis about why these corrupt leaders do things has good observations, and I agree with them within his limited context of understanding. However, it is essentially impossible to remove that corruption, those “elites“, from power in the long term, because the system rewards if not demands that corruption, that inequality, that suffering, as well as those “elites” who make that happen. The existence of this corruption, exploitation, poverty, war and suffering is NOT a bug in the system. They are a feature, a symptom of the system working just the way it was intended with the concentration of wealth falling in the hands of a small minority while killing people and destroying the environment for fun and profit as the end goal. This is the way the system is intended to work.
This is all happening because the system, monetary systems, only has one morality or value – profit no matter the cost to Humanity and the Natural World. That’s it. All of the laws we create and all of those politics are just trying to deal with the inevitable result of that lack of real humanistic values visceral to the system itself. The system is THE problem. If the system does not change then the outcome will also not change because the system’s values make that corruption and all of that suffering an inevitability.
C. A Values Change within Monetary Systems Will NOT solve the Problem
Another graphic I created in the Tension section says that even with a tremendous values change, the corruption will always seep back in like virulent cancer. A values change will only temporarily stem the tide of the inevitable harm that is coming.
A Values Change while within Monetary Systems will NOT Solve Our Problems Flow Chart
The only way to get actual long term change in order to create a better world for Humanity is to change to a system which values the Interdependence of Humanity and the Natural Word. That system is a Resource Based Economy because it gets rid of monetary systems and specifically embraces a values system that values the Interdependence of Humanity and the Natural World; such as could be represented as through my 8 Philosophical Pillars (8P3H). To learn more check out my Cancer of Capitalism post, and then the Q&A post to start.
3. A World Beyond Politics
A. Politics are a Symptom of a Broken System
I know that this very concept might be somewhat unimaginable today, because of how ingrained politics, much like monetary systems and Capitalism, is to us today, but if you are willing to consider a world beyond money, then how much further do you really have to go to consider a world beyond politics as an option? Ok, yea, that is quite a jump. =)
Politics, as we see it today, is a larger symptom of the root problems of the corruptions of monetary systems – competition, exploitation, poverty, war, and suffering – all of which are the result of a societal values disorder. The existence of a political process is NOT something that we should desire, for it is a symptom of a broken society which needs to be patchwork adjusted to prevent harm. A society with visceral eco-humanist values will not need those dirty words of politics and monetary systems and capitalism which hopefully will all be considered swear words, virulent pejoratives that will be the subject of the horror movies from the future while looking back to the broken and corrupt world of the today.
B. A Technocracy of Sorts
A large part of why neither TZM of TVP does NOT goes into the specifics of how decisions will be made (or not) is because we have no idea what the world of tomorrow is going to be like or what technologies or electoral concepts or social evolutions will happen when we get there, especially when we embrace civilization wide eco-humanistic values. The specifics of democracy or whatever is honestly far, far beyond the scope of this conversation or ability to predict.
RBE System Diagram
A Resource Based Economy to me seems very much like a technocracy of sorts where those within their individual fields collectively will forge a Sustainable and Humanistic future world based on what science and human psychology and sustainability says works, and not just on what the populace votes for. Doctors will be in charge of medical stuff. Environmentalists will be in charge of environmental stuff. Mechanics in charge of fixing vehicles. The opinion of the populace on how to do a surgery, how to create a sensor network, how to sustainably harvest some fruit has nothing to do with anything and it should not. It would be like voting on if Climate Change or Gravity or Evolution were real. The people’s mass opinion would not be relevant.
Now, something to keep in mind here is that a core principle with a Resource Based Economy is a highly educated populace along with city centers that are universities and research centers. A culture of life-long education and learning will be present which will uniquely position each person to be educated and belong to professional or academic organizations which will have a unique sphere of influence over how their part of society is managed.
It is not that the people at large will not have input. It is just that the people will have very little reason to do so. For every project planned there will be studies done to see how it will effect Humanity and the Natural World, and such things as people’s desires will be mostly caught there because it is built in to the process to an extent. I also imagine there will be a level of indirect democracy where how the people chose to allocate their personal resources or through the projects they support will help to show what the public’s opinion is. There will definitely be times where input from the populace will be desired and that can be done easily through the ubiquitous Your RBE Life app where they could vote or comment.
Ideally, the people that should be in charge of this process are those who best embody the values found in 8P3H and that best understand the vision, scope, and breadth of what an RBE is trying to accomplish, so, hopefully, by the time this goes down there will enough people who will fit this description.
Obviously, at every level (community, county, state, nation, continent, global) there will need to be Cybernation Process Facilitators (or whatever title) to help keep things moving and to make decisions during this insane process. Perhaps, for some positions there will be local, state, continental, or geographical elections perhaps through direct democracy or something completely different. Who knows what sort of options are available then. Maybe it can be done completely online or through normal in-person elections, maybe even a mixture of that and other options.
4. Intellectualism Elitism?
Again, there are significant issues with this section of his writing which is a massive misrepresentation of what both movements represent. I actually have no idea where he is getting the thought that either movements “have looked down upon ordinary people as being stupid and morally wrong”. He seems to be projecting his previous research into Socialism and Communism (from the article he wrote and he linked to in that section) into what he thinks TZM and TVP think of contemporary people. So, color me patently a bit insulted and confuzzled too.
These 2 posts are an attempt to answer a slew of questions from someone in this Facebook post and this Facebook Meme post too, both of which have a great conversation going about Monetary Systems, Capitalism, and Resource Based Economies. If you want to see the explicit context of these questions you will want to check those threads. I will not reproduce every single line here, which would make this really, really long post even longer than it already is! =) I do pull small excerpts from my other RBE posts too when I thought it useful.
This ended up being the longest post I have ever written (and has been broken into 2 posts) and was written in just under two weeks, so editing could most likely be improved. This 2 part post (19,000+ words/~50 pages) beat my previous longest post, Calendar Reform (13,510 words/~55 pages) which I wrote in a month, by 6,000 words/-5 pages (due to fewer pictures and tables), so buckle in!! This first part of this 2 part post is (12,124 words/~31 pages). The second part of this post is titled How might an RBE playout, if it ever did? (7,000 words/19 pages).
If you would like to get a huge start on answering these questions then feel free to do the background reading. Here are RBE my posts, all 95 pagesof which I will reference within and which you will need to read in order to answer some of these many, many questions:
If you do not want to do the significant amount of reading now then you can do them later when I reference them, but you will want to read them en toto or you will miss the complete answers to these questions.
Honestly, if I did not have to work for a living I would love to forge these all into a book and do even more writing.
I. Answering Questions About Capitalism
Me. Me. Me again in 37 minutes. Beating the dead horse of ‘Capitalism is bad’.
A. Introduction
You don’t believe that monetary systems and Capitalism is irreparably broken? Well, getting past that wall of absolute denial is going to be difficult. =) But, just for argument’s sake, just humor me and just for this post, let us just assume that Capitalism is really broken. Just press your “I believe” button and then let’s talk about Capitalism.
My post The Cancer of Capitalism goes over the basics of the how and why Capitalism is broken, which I think you have already read, but if you have NOT read it yet, then please go ahead and read at least the first part talking about Capitalism and then go back to finish the rest of it once we start talking about Resource Based Economies, because I will NOT be repeating content from that here because that post is really foundational knowledge (talking about Capitalism and Resource Based Economies) to really even begin this discussion. So, please go read that now if you have not done so yet. I will wait here for you.
B. Capitalism is Hostage Taking
It must be understood that to be required to work in order to not die is coercion and hostage taking, enslavement and indenturement. That is NOT freedom and there is a significant negative biopsychosocial toll on the whole of society (rich and poor alike) because of that. This indenturement and suffering is required in order to force people to mindlessly conform to the system of servitude and struggle so that those in positions of power can exploit and abuse those below them for fun and profit. Hell, the entire Labor Movement and the movements for Socialism and Communism both sprung up as powerful reactions to the same types of abuses which are still going on today.
C. The Struggle for Self-Sufficiency is a Wasted Life
1. There is a Better Use for a Human Life
Human Mental Focus – Work to Survive, Skills, Friends, Fun, World (The Venus Project)
With the majority of Humanity having to spend most of their time struggling and working to live (working 9-5 or several part-time jobs) all just to pay for a house or apartment, food, healthcare, a car, student loans, and all of that other stuff just so we do not die in the streets is all wasted time that could have been used for things that really matter to the individual or to society at large such as:
going to school or learning new skills
solving societal problems
engaging in research
innovating
helping others
teaching others
raising your children
spending time with friends or family
being creative
traveling
Valuing the wasting of that significant amount of your life in that struggle for self-sufficiency (not dying in the streets) or scrabbling to get a little bit ahead is the result of that brain damage that we have from monetary systems and Capitalism. Stockholm Syndrome should not be a default societal psychology. No one should value the suffering and struggling through life like that. We should never accept that this is the way things are, when it most assuredly does not have to be this way .
2. Humanity’s Lost Prodigies
This is even more horrific to think of when we take into account all of those millions of people who have suffered or died in poverty when they did not need to. How many children and families were not able to live up to their potential or never even had the chance to even try? This is a literal Crime Against Humanity not only because of the harms and inhumanity inflicted upon the families and the children, and society at large, but also because of the decades and decades (if not centuries) of lost progress that we could have had.
Just think of this… How many prodigies and their potential breakthroughs, revelations, or innovations have we lost? How much farther would we be ahead today? How many diseases would be cured? How many new technological innovations would there be? How many decades and decades (if not centuries) of social and scientific progress have we lost due to Humanity allowing poverty, homelessness, and mass starvation to be inflicted upon its families?
A Selfish Argument for Making the World a Better Place – Egoistic Altruism (Kurzgesagt)
D. The Psychological Harms of Inequality
I have studied psychology some too, as well as evolutionary psychology and evolutionary biology. If you have studied psychology, especially within the political and socioeconomic context, then I am expecting you have really studied the absolutely devastating harms of inequality and poverty. If you have not studied these very important subjects then you really cannot understand the issues we face as a civilization, as well as Capitalism’s place in that, nor how to attempt to fix it.
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and the Biopsychosocial Model are perhaps the 2 most important foundational concepts to understand and which will form the underpinnings to comprehend how the system is broken, how it harms everyone, and what we need to do to solve it.
In 2018 I facilitated a discussion on poverty and collected a bunch of facts and links on this topic which would be good start to understanding the basic harms of poverty, especially the brain damage to children part.
Once you understand those three topics then read the following 2 books: The Spirit Level (2009) and The Inner Level (2019) which are required reading for anyone politically involved because they lay the foundational understanding and statistics for why inequality is so harmful. In the second book they even get into the evolutionary psychology of why inequality causes harm. These are the first two books that are required reading for my policies.
Feel sad and depressed?
Are you anxious?
Worried about the future?
Feeling isolated and alone?
You might be suffering from CAPITALISM!
Symptoms may include: homelessness, unemployment, poverty, hunger, feelings of powerlessness, fear, apathy, boredom, cultural decay, loss of identify, extreme self-consciousness, loss of free speech, incarceration, suicidal or revolutionary thoughts, or death.
In the first book they show that there is a very strong correlation between inequality and a wide variety of societal harms that cannot be dismissed. If given a country’s or state’s level of income inequality, it can be used as a fairly accurate predictor of many things from:
teenage pregnancy
literacy
crime
rates of incarceration
depression and suicides
average lifespans
social trust
and so much, much more.
Perhaps, more importantly, it should be understood that income inequality affects everyone including the rich. Everyone suffers from income inequality not just the impoverished. Rich people in highly unequal countries (such as the the United States) die younger than those in more equal countries.
Their transformative second book was written a decade later as a powerful follow up to their previous book which not only shifts the discussion of the harms of income inequality from correlative (as established by that previous work) to causal even by using a slightly more conservative epidemiological definition. In other words, this means that income inequality causes those problems. The Inner Level also discusses the underlying evolutionary psychological reasons why income inequality has such a powerful effect on Humans globally so that we can understand why income inequality causes those problems.
E. Late Stage Capitalism
Introduction
The annual cost of Capitalism – 20 million people die each year
Capitalism, specifically, has been a useful technological innovation to replace Feudalism as the dominant historical socioeconomic system. Each has done their part in advancing Humanity forward but at a horrible, horrible cost in suffering and human lives, and it is far beyond time we choose to evolve beyond it. We are currently in what is referred to as Late Stage Capitalism where:
This number doesn’t even take into account deaths from war, lack of general universal healthcare, and general poverty and inequality in first world countries; or coups, slavery, sweatshops, and pollution in developing nations which would greatly inflate the numbers of yearly and historical deaths due to Monetary Systems and Capitalism.
2. Eight Point Seven Million People Die Each Year…
The cumulative number of deaths due to Capitalism year after year outshines almost all other historical sources of mass deaths.
We live in capitalism, its power seems inescapable, but then, so did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings.
Ursula K Le Guin (author, Dec 2014))
We change our phones when they have outlived their usefulness. We change our cars when they have rusted away. Why would we not change our economic system too when it is absolutely failing too?
We made the shift from:
hunting and gathering to trading and bartering
trading and bartering to feudalism
feudalism to Capitalism
It is up to us now to complete the circle, and evolve out from Capitalism to Humanity’s next stage of socioeconomic evolution. There are NO reasons not to do it, and ALL of the reasons to do it.
F. Job Opportunity and Historical Continuous Supply?
Robots going into a building’s turn style. People leaving building through the same turn style with empty boxes. Copyright Matt Kenyon
1. “Unskilled Labor”
“Unskilled Jobs” is a classist myth used to justify poverty wages.
As a note on the use of the term “unskilled labor”. I do not like the term because it patently does not exist because it is a myth, but I did not have a better term at the time of this writing, so forgive me for that. I am doing some research on this very topic now so I can try to correct it.
2. Historical Evolution
The primary difference between the last 120 years since the Industrial Revolution and now is the rate of the acceleration of technological advancement. From the beginning of the Industrial Revolution progress was super slow, and then it picked up pace as it went and, yes, thankfully there were other jobs created a long with it, the majority of which are low skilled manual labor jobs as such factory work and the entire service industry which were able to adapt to the slow pace of technological change and its attendant social evolution.
Once we were a decade or so past the beginning of the Information Age (1990+), the pace of advancement has accelerated faster than in any other time in previous history because of computers and the internet which allowed significantly more automation, as well as higher levels of interconnectivity and data gathering, and globalization. As you point out, yes, highly specialized jobs have historically grown as we have progressed through the Industrial Revolution into the Information Age, but they are a much smaller portion of the total job market especially as compared to the vast pool of unskilled labor.
Although, the difference now is that the pool of unskilled labor jobs such as factory, retail, trucking, the service industry, etc… have been shrinking at an accelerated pace due to automation (and online services) and will continue to shrink until those jobs no longer exist because they are being permanently automated – a process which will take decades.
What will happen once Tesla has their fully autonomous semis completed in the next 5+ years? How many millions of truckers will be out of a job with no direct job upgrade path? How about when Telsa completes their fully autonomous car? How many taxi drivers will lose their jobs? Warehouses are being automated. Shipping ports are being automated. Line cooks and chefs are being automated.McDonald’s are being automated(TikTok video). What about all of those many other jobs which will have been automated away too? Why is this happening and why will it continue to happen? Why? Because it is economically profitable to do so regardless of the impoverishment of the masses who will lose their jobs, which is merely a negative externality to which they do not have to care about or deal with. Getting rid of humans greatly reduces long term costs (and increase profits) as well as increases service reliability.
This is especially problematic because the unskilled labor pool is large and the most difficult to upgrade to skilled labor. How many of those people will have the money, time, background, or even interest to just begin a 2 to 4 year program to learn a whole new technical skill like computer programming, AI programming, electrical engineering, robotics, web development, or bioinformatics especially when education, healthcare, child care, housing, etc… are NOT free (here in the United States and in many other places in the world)? Believe me, I, as an American with a college degree, have wanted to go back to school for many years, but could not because of all of those issues. All of those people with all of those jobs that are unskilled labor are going to be jobless, homeless, foodless, and without healthcare, etc and will not have the ability to learn a brand new technical skill without great suffering being inflicted. This is not just something that is coming, this is something that is here today and has been greatly accelerated with the destructive economic effects of CoVID.
Also, not everyone wants to be nor can be a computer programmer, mechanical engineer, or any other specialized form of labor. I say this as someone who has a degree in computer programming where, by the end of my degree path, there were only 2 of us left (out of about 14) in that program.
What opportunity will there be while human civilization is hemorrhaging jobs due to AI and Automation? What else are people going to do over the next 70 years or so, when eventually ~40%+ of the people in the world will literally have no work to do and are jobless, homeless, foodless, and without healthcare, etc? How will they work to survive when there are no real jobs available? This is a bit too Malthusian for my tastes, especially when it is completely unnecessary.
The era we are in right now, because of the hyper-advancement of automation and AI, is far different than anything that came before it. We are entering a new era, a whole new technological and socioeconomic age, and we are no where near prepared for it, and we never will be if we do not acknowledge the problems inherent and visceral to our current system. This should be especially prescient during these times, this transition from the Information Age into the Age of Ubiquitous Automation (AUA).
The AI and Automation section of my post The Cancer of Capitalism talks about this. I have extracted that section below for you: Watch the Humans Need Not Apply video below. The below Kurzgesagt video is also good for this too.
3. The AI and Automation Section From My Cancer of Capitalism Post
i. It is Inevitable
With capitalism and its drive to seek higher profits regardless of the cost to Humanity there is this perpetual and inevitable drive to remove people from the work force to cut costs and to increase efficiency in order to make more profit. This has been the mode of operation of Capitalism and the Industrial Revolution since its inception. However, because of the issues of monetary systems and Capitalism which requires people to work in order to have healthcare, housing, food or anything else required for survival, this inevitable drumbeat of reducing human labor in the workforce is a sentence to impoverishment, suffering, or even death to many, many people. Imagine what will happen once Amazon completely automates its warehouses? How many jobs will be lost? How much profit will be even more concentrated in Bezos as all of those people lose their livelihoods? How much more will inequality increase?
Especially, now with the CoVID19 pandemic and the limitations of having a human based workforce becoming financially apparent there will be a massive drive for more automation so that businesses will not be slowed down by pandemics and the frailties of a human workforce. Not only will this directly result in fewer long term jobs, but because the pandemic caused so many small businesses to close down this means there will be even fewer jobs available when recovery really starts.
Check out this short video (~15 minutes) titled Humans Need Not Apply by CGP Grey which covers the upcoming AI and Automation apocalypse and how it will affect so very many people:
Humans Need Not Apply by CGP Grey
If you want an even deeper dive into the the staggering statistics of job loss from automation then go ahead and read Andrew Yang’s book which is listed below.
iv. The Rise of the Machines – Why Automation is Different this Time (video)
The Rise of the Machines – Why Automation is Different this Time (Kurzgesagt)
v. The War Against Normal People (book)
I am not a Yang fan, but his book is powerful. Read the first 75% (before his policies) of Andrew Yang’s book The War on Normal People which lists in excruciating detail the upcoming mass of losses due to the AI and Automation apocalypse. There is A LOT of great stats in there. I was blown away by it.
vi. It Does NOT Have to be This Way
But, this is not the way it should be. It doesn’t have to be this way.
G. Universal Basic Income (UBI)?
“Is UBI really the solution? That’s likely to just generate a dependency.“
Dependency? “Dependency” in this context is one of those privileged capitalist code words to make exploitation, poverty, and the suffering of others an acceptable end, because it becomes a personal failing on their part (those who are suffering), and not a systemic or structural result of the horribly broken system and the sociopathy inherent to Capitalism and Capitalists themselves. These are the words used by privileged Capitalists to preserve the broken system and to attack true equality and freedom.
You must have not seen the research on how UBI effects people and the economy. It is pretty amazing with a good return on investment in economic spending, poverty alleviation, innovation, job creation, and increasing the quality of life; as well as allowing people to go back to school or to start a new businesses.
At best, UBI is a stopgap solution that is just trying to patchwork band-aid the significant features of capitalism (exploitation, inequality, suffering). As great a potential as UBI has, it is not a long-term solution, although such a program is going to be required to deal with Technological Unemployment. In my economic policies I do NOT use UBI due to it increasing inequality. I use PBI (Progressive Basic Income) which is very useful as a transitional policy because it does not increase inequality.
II. Answering Questions on Resource Based Economies
Scarcity Reduction Inequality Reduction Increased Sustainability Automation – Transition from Labor-for-Income emphasis to Machine Automation emphasis. Goal: Maximize productive capacity; reduce human exposure; increase efficiency. Access – Transition from property/ownership emphasis to strategic Access emphasis. Goal: Maximize good use- time efficiency; Reduce production pressure; increase overall good availability for use. Open Source – Transition from proprietary research; data hoarding and internal development to collaborative commons contribution. Goal: Maximize innovation. Localization – Transition from globalization to localization, emphasizing networked design. Goal: Maximize productive/distributive efficiency; Reduce waste. Networked Digital Feedback – Transition from fragmented economic data relay to fully integrated, sensor-based digital systems. Goal: Maximize feedback and information efficacy/utilization; Increase total economic efficiency.
FIGURE 5C – Conceptual graphic representing five shifts to increase economic efficiency and reduce the scarcity pressure. These adjustments will decrease socioeconomic inequality and the spectrum of disorder and oppression consequential.
A. Introduction
Seriously, you have some great questions on Resource Based Economies! =)
Obviously we do not have 100% correct answers ready, because an RBE has never been done, much like they did not have the magical answers when shifting through methods of exchange such as from hunting and gathering to trading and bartering, to feudalism, and then to Capitalism. However, I can answer most of these from my perspective. My RBE posts go over quite a few of these answers too. When I link to my posts below, please take the time to read them, because those are my words that I have written to try to answer such questions not only for myself, but also for posterity.
B. About a Resource Based Economy?
1. Definition
The term and concept of a Resource Based Economy (RBE) was coined in 1969 (his Looking Forward book?) by Jacque Fresco, the founder of the Venus Project.
A Resource Based Economy (RBE) is defined as: a global socioeconomic system that will utilize existing resources (natural and technological) to provide an equitable method of distribution of goods and services in the most humane and efficient manner for the entire population without the use of money, credits, barter, or any other form of symbolic exchange.
RBE is just the utilization of science and technology for the benefit of ALL of humanity and not just the 1%. We can do it. This whole post is about getting you to believe that. Once I get you to think even for a moment that an RBE is what we need to do even if you think we cannot accomplish this, then my work will be done. The seed will have been planted for your further exploration and consideration.
2. RBE is NOT Utopian
There is nothing utopian about RBE because we have the knowledge, the resources, and the technology to do it all today. We do not in any way have a resource, technology, or knowledge problem that prevents us from implementing an RBE. Our brains are just so broken and wrecked from Capitalism and artificial scarcity that we cannot see this or even think that a better world is possible, which I understand, but that is a human psychology and values problem, and not a resource, technology, or ability problem.
3. New Philosophical Foundations for Humanity
The most important part of any talk about RBE is the fundamental values changes that will be required. We have to undo the absolutely brutal brain damage and sociopathy that we all suffer from in various levels from monetary systems whose only value system is profit no matter the cost to Humanity or to the Natural World. I talk about the foundations of why this is a thing in this post: Tension within Methods of Exchange. Without this necessary tool of a values change no real progress is ever going to be possible or sustainable.
Without a values change to help counteract the inhumane horrors of monetary systems nothing will change.
The first and most important pillar with which all of this is based upon is Interdependence. Please take the time to read the page on the 8 Philosophical Pillars linked to just above. It is smaller and more to the point as compared to my other posts, but these Pillars are absolutely vital to understand the world of tomorrow.
4. Education is a Key Philosophical Pillar
A heavy part of RBE is life long and universal access to free education from preschool to post-doctoral and trades which will carry much of the burden of social and values engineering, and solving the productivity problem; so much so that the core of all cities should be educational and research centers. Although, to make that happen, our education systems will also need to evolve to focus on fostering problem solving, critical thinking, scientific method, systems theory, compassion, communication, and creativity as well as sustainability, and the interdependence of all things, and so much more; much of which is being stamped out by our current school systems (at least here in the US).
Having access to a lifetime of free education alone may ensure that people will be doing things (especially if we require 5 years of university/apprenticeship for all and not just high school). It is hard for a highly educated person to just sit there when their mind is crunching through their ever-expanding and interdisciplinary understanding of the world, because the more about the world that people understand then the more they can see problems and the solutions to them.
Being highly educated is both a boon and burden to the individual. Because of this, however, when they can see both the problem and a potential solution, then it will be hard to not do something about it or to tell someone their idea for the solution which could be vetted by those who are working on that or a similar problems or solutions, they could start their own collaborative project to gather with other like-minded individuals to work on the viability and/or implementation of that solution, or they can just read the information from those who are already working on that exact potential solution.
An RBE creates a ‘problem‘ with loads of highly educated people and then also gives them the method and unlimited opportunity of solving or sharing the solution to that burden by allowing them to collectively solve that problem. Check the Knowledge Resources section of one of my posts for some of those opportunities.
The other side benefit of a highly educated populace is that they tend to have fewer children, less than 2 per couple, so the overpopulation non-issue will be dealt with, although we might have to deal with a population decline which is only a real problem within Capitalism which requires infinite consumption and production. =)
A culture which supports and expects continuous lifelong education should have questions like “What have you been learning?” as common a greeting and as common a small-talk topic instead of asking about the weather.
5. Global Resource Survey
All global resources will have to be claimed as a Common Heritage to ALL of Humanity – not just one nation or one company, not just one family or person, but of the entirety of ALL of Humanity. This alone will effectively end nations states as competitive entities which are a major source of ALL global problems such as wars, and will focus the global conversation on how do we best use our global resources for the benefit of ALL of Humanity.
Then we will have the Herculean task of performing a Global Resource Survey (GRS) so that we know what natural resources we have, as well as manufacturing, patents, research, and human resources, etc… too. Once we have the GRS then we can start to attempt to calculate the Carrying Capacity of the Earth, and we can work from there to decide how to work with our existing resources not just on a global level, but also on a local level too. My post Some Technical Steps Towards Implementing kind of sets the stage for how this process might be formed on a small scale which could be scaled up module by module, dataset by dataset, and city by city.
How long would it take to do this? No clue. We have never done anything like this. However, I would think that once the above app was created and every community was connected, then perhaps a year to get enough of the pertinent data to start working with the basic calculations and to start some general planning.
6. Where’s the standard starting point to measure equality?
“How do we measure the quality of life that everyone will have?“ That is a very good question.
There is this quote which I use when I talk about RBE which encapsulates it well:
To each according to what we can equitably provide.
The ‘quality of life’ answer will be based upon a Global Resource Survey (see the above section on this), and the math between figuring out what range of living conditions people best thrive in (human psychology and sociology) and what we can afford with global resources (resource management).
There is obviously a crap load more to this than what I am talking about here. This is an incredibly data intensive and math intensive process which will be carried out by people much smarter than I, but creating an environment in which people thrive will be paramount.
“How much of this utopia is predicated on the human race suddenly becoming all happy-clappy, loving hippies?“
I know you are being hyperbolic, but come on, this question is patently ridiculous. Sudden magical change? You know better than to honestly ask such a question. If today, the world would “magically” agree to embark on this experiment in saving Humanity from monetary systems and its features of poverty, war, suffering, and human extinction, then it would take time – several decades of infrastructure change and 4 or so dedicated generations of social change to radically change the face of Humanity and the Earth to a world of peace and progress that would not be recognizable by people today.
It would take decades of infrastructure change especially in the second and third world countries which have been massively exploited by the Global North, especially the United States.
It would take at least 4 generations in each RBE city to eventually evolve beyond the social and psychological damage of monetary systems and to evolve into a fully RBE society and its education and new values system:
The first generation will have the full brain-damage from Capitalism and would be healing. They would be the first peoples to experience a burgeoning life full of new possibilities and true freedom within this new RBE world and this new transitionary phase within Humanity.
The second generation would have had parents who are fully damaged and recovering, but had the advantages of mostly living within an RBE.
Then the grand-children (the third generation) whose parents lived mostly within the transitional RBE world will be the mostly free from the damage of monetary systems.
Then the great-grand children (the fourth generation) would be the freest.
With this we are looking at what at least 80 years of social change, and most likely quite a bit less than that for the infrastructure changes too. During this long process, there will be places which are operating like an RBE, some which are in transition, and some which are waiting for their transition to begin.
C. Root Causes of Societal Breakdown
“No crime, no disputes, everyone sacrifices their own desires for the good of the community? Violence, pedophilia, rape, racism all disappear overnight? Really?“
1. Magic??
Again, you seem to NOT understand that magic does not exist. Please read the above section on “Magic” for more information.
2. Sacrifice for Common Good??
No one will be sacrificing their desires for the good of the community within an RBE. You would be referring to our current lives under Capitalism where there is poverty, homelessness, starvation, mandatory overtime, wages slavery, debet slavery, war, and general global suffering; lack of free access to healthcare, education, information, and free time to grow and learn, especially within the 2nd and 3rd world countries. All of that personal sacrifice and suffering of the 99% is made in the name of profit for a few hundred billionaires (the 1%) while the rest of us suffer while working soul-crushing and back-breaking work. These billionaires combined could solve most global problems, but why don’t they? Could it be their sociopathy and psychopathy, their brain damage from inequality?
It is very hard for an individual within an RBE to “sacrifice their own good” when they have free access to organic food, spacious housing, transportation, education, healthcare, technology, and a plethora of free time because many will NOT have to work. I think our definitions of freedom and sacrifice are starkly different.
3. Root Causes of Social Problems
But, the real question that you continuously fail to ask is “What causes all of those things to happen – crime, violence, rape, racism, etc?“. When you actually care enough to really research down to the root causes of those things you will find one root cause – inequality. If we destroy inequality then we will destroy the primary root causes for almost all of Humanity’s core problems. The destruction of inequality along with a values change such as through the 8 Philosophical Pillars of Peace from above, as well as universal and continuous education, will result in radical, radical levels of peace, innovation, and prosperity the likes of which Humanity has never ever seen. This concept is soo important and powerful that, in my weekly Twitch stream where I discuss progressive politics, I have End Inequality as the first emote available for my subscribers.
I know you may not believe that inequality is the root cause of most of Humanity’s problems, but it is. If you really want to learn the truth about this, and so you do not have to blindly take my world for it, then read the following 2 books which I talked about above: The Spirit Level and The Inner Level which go over the harms of inequality. Inequality is the core progenitor for almost all societal problems. Hell, even the Kerner Report from 1968 which followed the hundreds of race riots in 1967 talked about that too.
Since you are willing to read stuff that challenges your world view, then do also read The New Human Rights Movement by Peter Joseph which has 57 pages of just sources. He hits this concept with a well documented sledge hammer. It is heavily researched with a metric-crap load of studies, science, and statistics. I say this book is worth just for the appendix on Sustainable Energy alone. This is the most important book in the last 50 years and if I could buy this book for everyone in the world I would. I guess, here we will see how open your mind really is. =) =P
D. Life within a Resource Based Economy
1. Housing
Example potential housing interior (The Venus Project)
“Identical housing units (to enforce equality)?“ “Is every person on earth to receive exactly the same conditions – safety, a nice home, running clean water, modern sanitation, reliable electricity, freezers, TVs, internet access, cars?“
I know Capitalist apologists love to cast the RBE concept as Cookie Cutter Communism where everyone gets the same exact thing – same house design and layout, same exact clothes – like humans were to be treated like clones, soldiers, or a hive mind, but that is not at all what RBE advocates for, because that would be a violation of the Pillar of Humanity. Individuality is very important for individual expression, real personal growth, and actual freedom.
People would have the option of quite a range of living conditions from coffin homes for those who are minimalists or who love to a travel and only need a place to sleep, to hostels and communal living for those who prefer shared living environments, to apartments and individual houses. McMansions will be a thing of our shameful capitalistic past because they are a colossal waste of resources and violate Sustainability and Equity.
There is no reason for anyone to live in crowded quarters at all, which is completely inhumane, and violates Interdependence, Equity, Compassion, and Humanity. How spacious will these housing units be? I have no idea. Ultimately, that will, again, be based on human psychology and resource usage math. As a starting point I would think 1,000 square-feet per person is a good start for the math, so a 3 person family (2 long nesting partners + child) would have near 3,00 square-feet of space as starting place for the math.
As a thought too, looking at the phrase “standard floor plans” which I know you will find offensive (well, to be fair, so do I), I would fully expect that the concept of completely modular interior layout walls will be a thing – moveable walls with integrated insulation, pipes, wires, outlets, networking, smart sensors in various layouts and forms as needed, so that you could always customize your floor plan to your liking. I already have a product concept for that exact thing.
You could pick the place that was available to live in, adjust your floor plan through the online app, and then by the time you are ready to move in the bots have already adjusted and realigned the modular wall system and have tested your floor plan.
Read the short Same Housing? section of my Human Nature, Competition, Employment, and Housing within a Resource Based Economy post.
Here is my post The Cities of Tomorrow which shows city and building types by the Venus Project so you could see how houses and cities of tomorrow might look.
“A great many people aspire to do better. Why would most people not want to live in a big house with a large garden and a lovely view? How do you resolve that? Not everyone can have that.“
This very question shows the values difference and shows that damaged Capitalist brain talking. You equate a big house and material things with success which shows how warped we are as a civilization, how absolutely broken our values are. That is the harm of Capitalism and artificial scarcity warping your thoughts and values. Excessive material wealth is NOT true success. It is wasteful, gluttonous, is NOT at all Sustainable; and those who desire such things should be pitied and scorned for believing as such.
Personal growth and expression, as well as providing for societal advancement is “aspiring to do better“. When people have what they need to not just survive, but to thrive, then chasing material wealth becomes a true sociopathy, just like it is today. We can do better. We must do better. As I noted at the beginning with the 8 Philosophical Pillars for Peace, we will need to value other things – Interdependence, Sustainability, Humanity, Compassion, Equity, Justice, etc, and those qualities are NOT found within exorbitant and gluttonous extravagance or in the pursuit of material things.
You will have everything you need and everyone will have access to a wide variety of housing within certain limits. Period – as was mentioned above. A big house is not going to happen, because that is wasteful – no 10 bedrooms homes with 3 bathrooms for 4 people. Keep in mind that spacious housing is going to be the norm because people thrive when they have space. If there is a housing unit that is available that meets their needs then they can just apply to move in and then move in for as long as they like. Depending on local resources and housing needs, they could apply to have a house or apartment built to their liking too.
Imagine it this way – You go into your app where you manage your RBE life. You would like to move to Paris, France for the summer in order to attend this amazing French poetry summer festival to improve your French, so you click on over to Paris, then to their housing portal, and then you look through the 3D virtual tours of various areas of the city. Once you have narrowed down the area of the city you like, you then look through various floor plans for that area just to get an idea. But, you found an apartment on the river that you really liked which had a custom floor plan that was requested by the original occupant. Then, if you wanted to, you could adjust the floor plan within that app too, and maybe even do a virtual before and after tour. You could then check to see when it will most likely be available, and then reserve it for your personal use for as long as you like. If the city was looking to add more housing units, and everything lined up, then you could request to have a new housing unit with the features you wanted built, as long as it fell within the set societal limits.
“A middle ranking family in suburban England? Or a poverty stricken family in a rural environment in the Congo, or rural Pakistan?“ “Most families currently live in fairly small, cramped housing, with less than optimal amenities.“
Those will not be a thing. Why would you ever accept a society with people suffering if it is not at all needed? Only a sociopath would accept such a thing. Any society which has people suffering and impoverished, especially while some live in gross and obscene levels of luxury, is a complete and total failure, period. Every person in the world will have a great quality of life, because that is what will maximize Humanity’s potential, innovation, advancement, and peace; and that is what we are capable of. We have the resources to do so. We have the knowledge to do so. We have the technology to do this, so why should we accept anything less than solving our problems?
“And if I am happy where I live and another family comes along and says ‘oh I like the view here, I’ll just build my new house in your garden’, will you be OK with that?“
I know you are just being difficult for the sake of being difficult here, but you can do better than this question. I am not sure where you live, but even in the messed up country of the United States where I live, we have a technological innovation called zoning plans, and also a thing called property rights. Those will still be needed and will still apply. So, no, that cannot happen. Such a posed situation, if not already invalid through process, will also most likely be put up to those affected for comment and input. Also, all building projects shall require reports and studies to be done to see the effects of the project on Humanity and the Natural World, so most likely such issues will be caught there and dealt with appropriately.
2. Urban Planning
“Do you obliterate every existing city and town and rebuild? With what? And encroach on rural space to accommodate it all?“
What will be build the world of tomorrow with? Well, in the first stages, I imagine we will be building with the same materials that we are building today’s world with where more housing is being built every single day even though there are significantly more empty homes than homeless people (in the US at least), so this is really a sort of ridiculous question to be honest.
Although the key difference in an RBE world is that Sustainability (one of the Philosophical Pillars) will be a key process that will be evaluated for all new construction, so:
perhaps hempcrete, bamboo, mycelial mass will be a larger part of sustainable construction and infrastructure
the recycling of ALL infrastructure – housing, buildings, nails, etc will be an absolute requirement as well as completely rewilding those areas
high levels of modularity will be also required to ensure that recycling, upgrading, and fixing things will be much easier, as well as reduce waste too.
A key part of the resource management is to try to localize things a much as possible to reduce a community’s footprint as well as increase its self-sustainability. Each community with be created from the ground up to support a specific population (with room for population growth) as well as it’s own food production, energy production, manufacturing, recycling, etc. Although, of course, 100% self-sufficiency cannot necessarily be obtained, but this is a goal.
Where we will build? This is a very, very good question. We cannot build the world of tomorrow upon the infrastructure of the past, because the methods and, more importantly, the values with which those cities and towns and buildings were built upon does not conform to that of the world that we want to build – one that is built upon Sustainability, universal recycling, modularity, resource sharing, and Equity. So, yes, we will have tear down and recycle these old inefficient, sprawling, and harmful capitalist cities (which is also greatly symbolic to tearing down our horrible Capitalist past) which will also recover many building materials, and then build new communities that reflect the values, technology, and progress of the Human civilization that we want to build, benefit from, and live in.
A good thing to do would be to build up or down, and to not sprawl out like we currently do. We can replace much of our sprawling cities with buildings called Arcologies or Earthscrapers (links below), then completely recycle those old sprawling and inefficient Capitalist cities and then completely rewild that land. We can reclaim A LOT of natural land this way which is great for the environment and sustainability. The arcologies video below has more information on this concept and potential.
Comprehensive Urban Planning for the World of Tomorrow
Our current towns and cities have come into being through organic evolution and happenstance having developed over decades without a long term sustainable, intelligent, efficient, and walkable urban plan which has resulted in significant negative logistical, social, and health ramifications. This fact makes it difficult to upgrade existing cities or to overlay a modern, intelligent, and sustainable social, environmental, or economic designs within current urban plans (or a lack thereof) that is not conducive to such things.
We cannot manifest the world of tomorrow within cities that have been designed using the values, methods, technologies, and plans of past.
James O’Neill, Interstellar New Deal
Consider trying to:
implement an intelligently managed mass transit system in a large city that is not strongly centralized and is quite spread out
convert to sustainable or even vertical agriculture where the local farms are locally run by corrupt and money hungry agricorps and their insecticides, herbicides, and pollution
setup sustainable energy while battling local fossil fuel companies
In order to really effectuate many of the economic, technological, social, environmental, and sustainability changes that we will require in order to transform Humanity and move us into the future, a completely new, intelligent, planned, and sustainable urban design will be needed, one that will reflect our more modern planning, values, and technologies. We need buildings, houses, and infrastructure designed from the ground up with an urban plan which is conducive to more modern, intelligent, smart, and sustainable designs that such plans to thrive there and a be a logical result of them. We also need to design them to holistically to support a specific population.
We need to redesign and replace our cities through such methods as:
…where each city’s infrastructure will be designed from the ground up with all that it needs to support a specific population size in a healthy, intelligent, and sustainable way. We could start with smaller communities first so that we can mature the process and technology before tackling larger metropolitan communities. Although, if this process is done well, such designs should scale well.
It is easier to build sustainable and modular smart cities anew than it is to continuously remodel old and outdated designs and technology, while retaining many of their legacy inefficiencies. Once a new city is built, a population can be relocated there and then the old city can be completely recycled, the local environment remediated, and the area restored to grasslands, forests, etc. Our out-of-date urban spaces then need to be fully recycled and fully transitioned to a new efficient and intelligent model of city design.
If we really, really want to plan for a radical new future for an Interstellar Humanity then we can work towards a combination such as this:
Arcology + Atlas Pillar + Space Elevator + Orbital Ring
Also, in the cities of tomorrow that may be built using The Venus Project ideals, the center of these cities could be an Earthscraper which could act as emergency housing (for those who do not want to live below ground) as well as a full urban space housing aquaponic farms, manufacturing, schools, hospitals, and office spaces, etc to live in as we deal with the horrors and destruction of climate change – fires, flooding, excessive heat, acid rain, droughts, hurricanes, and tornadoes. Such work would also have us developing the research and technologies to build underground cities in other interstellar places such as on the moon or on an asteroid where surface living will be too dangerous for humans too.
It is also very important for your to understand that these are all things we have the resources and technology to do today. Now, I need to you ask why are we not doing this?
3. Possessions?
Prior to the rise of agarianism, hunter-gather societies lived exactly with no real “possessions” or money, sharing almost everything with everyone in their tribe, even sexual partners (the dominance of monogamy was a later result of the rise of agrarianism).
Within an RBE, people will have possessions similar to how they do now, although not as much, because they will have no need for all of that extra stuff sitting in basements and attics doing nothing but taking up space and wasting resources. This hoarding of things is a disease of Capitalism, inequality, and artificial scarcity. I talk about this in my Cancer of Capitalism post. People will have things that they “own” and can trade them in when that becomes necessary. How and when this happens will come down to the Global Resource Management plan.
Think of Public Libraries as a model for Resource Sharing Centers. Most people do not need to “own” all of the things that they use throughout their lives, specifically the many, many pieces of intermittent stuff. I could clean out a bunch of things in my house if we had Resource Sharing Centers. How much waste could we prevent if each one of us did not have all of this stuff and could share hammers and other tools which are not used everyday. How about society wide mass transportation system as another amazing example of this resource sharing which would greatly reduce resource and energy waste. I talk about this in the Hoarding and Wasteful Production section of my Cancer of Capitalism post.
“The basic flaw in this utopian ideology is the assumption that every single human being is satisfied by exactly the same things. Therefore, equality is easy – just share every resource equally. But people’s needs and desires vary significantly, so in satisfying everyone, we build in inequality.“
As we covered above it is not at all utopian because an RBE is completely feasible. We have the knowledge. We have the resources. We have the technology to make this all happen. The only problem we have is our collective Capitalistic brain-damage.
Equity verses Equality
Nope, this is just your Red-baiting-Cold War-Capitalist brain damage talking. RBE explicitly denies humans as clones. This is the ‘equality vs equity‘ issue as you are pointing out. We strive for equity over equality, because that is what concentrates on what the individual needs for the highest quality of life. Everyone will have access to a broad range of quality things within the set societal limits which is covered above, so please review the above sections and read the related sections of the posts I have linked. There will be no rich and no poor, both of which are antithetical to freedom and peace, and to Humanity, Equity, Justice, Compassion, and Interdependence.
Also, keep in mind that in contrast to the extreme harms and waste of Capitalism there will not be too many different qualities of stuff like there is now. Now, you can go to a store and get something super cheap and crappy which will break in a few months (an example of how poverty is expensive), or you can buy something a little more expensive that may last a few years and then break, or buy something super expensive that will last for a life time. There is a significant amount of waste within those various “qualities” which an RBE will avoid. Items within an RBE will be made to last as long as possible to avoid waste. The variety that will be present will be of a high quality. This is also a reason why sharing high quality items will be a good idea.
You want a coffin home, great, do it. You want the largest riverside house you can get (within societal limits), great, do it.
You want all of your clothes to be green, then do it. Only want to wear shorts, fine. You want to wear all formal wear all day long, do it.
You like Tai food a lot? Well, then go ahead an cook it yourself, go to a cooking class, or order it from an automated chef and have it delivered; or just quit fucking-around go to Thailand already.
Do you only like small mobile tech devices, do it. Do you want a desktop computer at home plus a mobile phone and a tablet? Sure, why not.
Want to spend two years traveling to visit ancient archaeological sites and then start an educational program in organic chemistry? Go get your learning on.
If you call what I have described above as inequality and you find it abhorrent, well, you will have some real soul searching to do. Really, sign me up for some of this sort of inequality. My life would be soooo much better.
Those with advanced knowledge or specialized skill sets will have access to offices, labs, or garages with the needed tools. Perhaps a trained mechanic with the appropriate certification may work in the central garage which will maintain and manage the city-wide transportation infrastructure. Maybe this person will share a local publicly shared garage stall. If their need is strong enough or if they create project and their project is big enough, then a public garage space may be reserved for them or they may have a garage added to their home. Perhaps if their skill set is highly advanced then they will work with the university or other research center to further mankind and their knowledge.
“Is there just a remote possibility that some people might take advantage? Take excessive resources for themselves and never do another days work?“
Not really. Everyone has essentially the same range of access to high quality resources, so that is not really possible. The desire to “take advantage of” is part of that brain damage we have from scarcity and capitalism. We will cover the work thing below, so get ready for that. Plus, the values change through the 8 Philosophical Pillars will also help with this too.
4. Other Resources
Transportation will be shared through Transportation Hubs. Tools and other things will be shared through Resource Sharing Centers. Read my the Resource Access section of my post How will a Resource Based Economy work? Seriously, read that section because I go over a bunch of specific cases broken down as such:
Perishable Resources (food)
Knowledge Resources (data, computer clusters, research projects)
Non-Perishable Resources (resource sharing)
5. Jobs?
How it is: Damn, a robot took over my job! Now I have to look for a new source of monetary income. How it should be: Yay! A robot took over my job! I am free to actually enjoy life!
“Even though perhaps many of their choices have been forcibly removed?“
“Forcibly removed?” LOL! To be a bit harsh here, “Forcibly removed” in this context is one of those privileged capitalist code words to make exploitation, poverty, and the suffering of others an acceptable end, because it becomes a personal failing on their part (those who are suffering), and not a systemic or structural result of the a horribly broken system and capitalists themselves. These are the words used by privileged capitalists to preserve the broken system and to attack true equality and freedom.
This ridiculous phrasing is intellectually disingenuous and also completely ignores the real question “How were these jobs so “forcibly removed?”, as your phrased it? The answer to that would be the Technological Unemployment problem through Capitalism automating away human labor based work in order to save money and to increase profits. Remember that AI and Automation Apocalypse thing we have been talking about since the beginning of this post? Using Automation and AI to increase profits is the culprit and not some cruel societal malfeasance as your would like to cast it, but as a natural by-product of technological evolution and progress, and… wait for it…. Capitalism.
No one really wants to work in a factory or in McDonalds. No one wants mind-numbing and useless work, wasting their time working for the sake of working so they don’t die in the streets. These are NOT real choices people want, and these are the choices that you are lamenting about losing. Again, this is your Capitalist brain-damage talking. What people really want is: education, free time, healthcare, and the freedom to grow, learn and explore, as well as work they are passionate about (if they choose to work).
A large part the RBE progress will be to automate as many unnecessary jobs as possible to set people free so they do NOT have to work again if they do not want to. Your Capitalist brain might find this concept patently offensive, but this is what true freedom really is – to not work if you do not want to (and to not have the threat of death and suffering because of it).
We must do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living. It is a fact today that one in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. The youth of today are absolutely right in recognizing this nonsense of earning a living. We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everybody has to be employed at some kind of drudgery because, according to Malthusian-Darwinian theory, he must justify his right to exist. So we have inspectors of inspectors and people making instruments for inspectors to inspect inspectors. The true business of people should be to go back to school and think about whatever it was they were thinking about before somebody came along and told them they had to earn a living.
You may also want to check out the works of the late David Graeber and his many videos, articles, and books on Bullshit Jobs. Here are 2 to get you started:
“Billions of people work many hours every day to enable the world to operate as it does. Would that need just disappear? If not, would everyone just continue to work voluntarily?”
And, as I covered in the section Jobs Opportunity and Historical Continuous Supply? that 40%+ of jobs will end up going away due to AI and automation and that is a good thing, at least it should be in a world with real freedom. All of those back-breaking, soul-crushing, and mind numbing jobs will eventually go way due to technological advancements and most people will NOT have to work, and will be free to do whatever they like.
Are you telling me if you had the choice that you would choose to work a mind-numbing and soul crushing factory job or a job at McDonalds over the possibility of spending time in school, gardening, traveling, or working on a project that might make a difference to Humanity? Would you really make the active decision to preserve these soul-crushing jobs just for the sake of forcing people to work, when it is not at all needed? I thought not.
I want to reiterate the fundamental difference here. Within monetary systems and Capitalism people need a job to survive, which is coercion and enslavement which will be difficult to do when there are not enough jobs, which is an inevitability due to Technological Unemployment. This becomes even more problematic when society explicitly works to end as much human labor based work as possible to increase corporate profits. Remember that Tension issue from my Cancer of Capitalism post?
The fundamental problem as a Capitalist, is the expectation that a person’s worth and survival should be dependent upon working for the sake of working, and making rich people richer. This is the Capitalist brain-damage that you have to get over. A better world is possible, if only you would be willing to not want people to suffer just so that people are suffering.
Within an RBE this won’t be an issue, because people will have what they need to live and to live well, so that they can pursue education, work, and travel as they would like.
In an RBE there will be trade work. There will be jobs. A lot of people will still want to work because there will be a highly educated populace which will drive people to want to solve problems and to used their new learned skills. And, as you point out, people want to work and they will, but they will NOT be forced to, so you will have people truly working in what they want to do and will be passionate and driven to be there. Also, it is one thing to study a topic academically that you are passionate about, but to really understand it you have to go out and do it, ie work in that field. Do you see where this is going – a highly educated populace being driven to work? Reread the section above Education is a Key Philosophical Pillar for a refresher on this great boon to Humanity,
“Are you sure you’re not just setting up a new type of inequality, where some people do all the work and others do nothing? Is there not just a tiny chance that the ones doing the work might begin to feel slightly aggrieved? Why am I working 8 hours a day saving lives as a surgeon for people who spend their time fishing or learning the guitar, yet live in exactly the same conditions with exactly the same resources as I do? Isn’t that intrinsically unfair and unequal? So you might say, well if people behave that way, we will deny them access to resources, or restrict them?“ “Maybe we all have to contribute, compulsory effort in order to qualify?“
Again, this is your Capitalist brain-damage talking, as well as willfully ignoring the upcoming reality of Technological Unemployment as was covered earlier. You seem to think that a person’s value to society is determined by how much they work. You working or not does not define your value to society or whether or not you should arbitrarily suffer and die in the streets.
There is nothing unfair about it. If you will be working as a surgeon then it will be because you have chosen to do so, and because you are passionate about healing people. You made the free choice to do so and you really, really did not have too. It is not inequality if working or not was truly a choice. Within capitalism there is NO real choice to work or not. You either work or you die in the streets. Within an RBE this is not a thing. All choices to work are really choices. Why would you care if others are working or not when you are doing what you love doing? Also, if you want to take that year long vacation to Germany you can still do that, because both are real choices that are really, really available.
Where is the best learning done? That’s right, on the job. A highly educated populace will always be passionate about what they are passionate about, and work – the application of knowledge and learned skills – will be ultimate expression and fulfillment of that. When that happens, you and society as a whole will benefit from it.
“Even worse, you build in a barrier to personal achievement and aspirations. Nobody can rise above their current place in society because they would then be putting everyone else at a disadvantage. Humans, at least some of us, have long aspired to better ourselves as well as others. Denying people that fundamental right and opportunity would be inimical to most people.“
This is exactly and completely incorrect. Your Capitalist brain is again equating material rewards with the quality of your success. Everyone will have a great quality of life which will be much better than it is today. There is much more to a rewarding life than things (to which you will have free access to). This is the cancer of materialism and Capitalism corrupting your thoughts and values again.
Such examples of real rewards for personal achievements and growth:
respect and accomplishment among your peers
making actual change through discovery and innovation
global recognition
leading your own research facility, manufacturing or design facility, or research team
being part of a project you believe in
teaching others
just seeing something you designed or worked on or discovered being used, and being able to say that is my mine – I did that or was a part of that
having your name associated with projects you worked on
There are just as many opportunities for advancement within an RBE if not more so, because everyone will be educated and there will be many, many, many more projects to work on. There will be the whole global (or even interstellar) civilization of organizations, research, and projects, especially when the second and third world countries are finally lifted to “first world” quality of life.
You will want to read my two posts which cover most of this answer:
I really, really want to write a narrative series which goes into more detail so people can really see what sort of world is possible. It would be: A Tale of Two Worlds – and would show the struggling life for a family within Capitalism and what it would be like for them within an RBE; or even a novel or two which would show experiences in all 3 stages (full RBE life, life in an RBE transition, life within Capitalism).
E. How will it all be Managed?
1. Introduction
This is an excellent question. I have not really addressed this in any of my posts in a holistic way. This will be dealt with in 3 basic steps:
Digital Government Infrastructure
Cybernation
Local Control
2. Ubiquitous Digital Government Infrastructure
Below is an example to show that the top interface layer is quite possible today for large scale resource management on a global scale:
Much of the interface into your RBE life will be through your Your RBE Life app. To look at this potential which is possible today we only have to look to Estonia, which has one the most technologically advanced government infrastructures in the world:
Also, honestly, Amazon already shows this is possible on a global scale which we will talk about next.
3. Cybernation
The core concept for resource and data management is called cybernation. The use of computers and big data to manage global resources, data, manufacturing, traffic, etc. If you want a great example of this potential that exists today you will find this within the infamous Walmart (a very efficient supermarket primarily in found the US) and the infamous Amazon. Both manage data heavy logistic chains very, very, very efficiently, Amazon (bordering on precognitive) more so because they truly have a global logistic chain. Here are two short videos about those 2 businesses and their efficient big data logistics:
This cybernated system will manage and track global resource usage, manufacturing and production; energy, food, and other products; sustainability and recycling; goods and transport traffic flow, and all of the other things needed to manage a global civilization. Below is a diagram which kind of puts this concept into perspective:
RBE System Diagram
As a lower level concept to build upon if you like to think of this from the bottom up, if you take the concepts from my post Some Technical Steps Towards Implementing an RBE and expand this to include all of the things, then you can kind of see where we are going. An install of this app for a given city or town will aggregate its data for all local resources and send it up to it to the county, who would then aggregate it and send it’s data up to the “state” entity, who would then aggregate the data and send it up to its geographical area, and then finally to the global data aggregation cybernated system. All data is available to all of society at all levels for education, research, trend analysis, and problem solving.
4. Who will manage it?
“Who sets the rules? Who monitors?”
This is a tricky question and for me and it is not as clear. But, at its core you start with the public facing app with which people will manage their lives and to request and use resources, and then combine that with the global cybernated system which is set to maintain Humanity’s quality of life in a way that is Sustainable while maximizing human happiness. That will be the core of it – computers, AI, and automation.
There will be people at all levels that will monitor the data and evaluate it, and what is happening in their local scope of area (city, county, state, geographical area, terrestrial) and field of expertise. This would, of course, be guided by the 8 Philosophical Pillars of Peace from above. There will be a balance to strike between what is best for Humanity as a globalized civilization and local desires too.
How do we choose these people at the various levels? For many, like today it will be those who are doing the work and have earned their way up their specific fields’ “ladder” – experts in their field as well as how they embody the Philosophical Pillars. For others there will most likely be some sort of democratic process for those who will make “political choices”, although those choices should be few and far between. Mostly experts in their fields will make decisions as needed within the limits of Sustainability and Global Resource Management, etc. To be honest, this will end up being a system of decision making very unlike anything we see today because the values of this world of tomorrow will be so very different, as will be the quality of life, and the level of technological and information access and integration.
If problems come up that the cybernated system was not prepared for then people would have to take action – fixing things, writing new software or AI, designing new robotics or automated bots or sensors, etc. Part of this may include researching different resources because certain resources are no longer so sustainable, and with the right data the system could even suggest new materials based on structural or systemic needs. If it came to it, then global experts in the appropriate fields would do their studies and research and then create a new material or process that meets their structural and sustainability needs, or they will move to an entirely different material. But, in any case we would have access to the entire global brain-trust to attempt to solve any given issue.
5. How about Communism and Socialism? They were great, right?
Ultimately there were 4 primary factors that lead to the failures of almost every attempts at Socialism/Communism (updated 16 Feb 2024 – added #3 Violence Begets Violence):
Our workers have democratically decided NOT to give the fruits of their labor to the rich.
Tension within Monetary Systems – The first, being that the Tension issue which leads to the destruction inherent to monetary systems that ensures that competition, exploitation, corruption, and authoritarianism were going to happen. Full stop.
The economic benefit usually goes to those in charge and not to the people at large. (See, that rhymes!!) This is perhaps the most important part to understand, and the part that makes failure of such attempts almost a forgone conclusion.
Incorrect Societal Values – The second, was that they did not have the history and/or values to support such a transition. Attempting to switch from Feudalism or a heavily Capitalistic society (with high levels of inequality) directly into Socialism or Communism is very difficult, because of the lack of eco-humanistic core values present in either which allowed such conditions to occur in the first place. In order for your society to be ready for a transition like that you need the values and history to support it.
With that being said, perhaps the only current socioeconomic system that might be able to successfully transition to Socialism or Communism (or even a Resource Based Economy) while avoiding the despairing falls into authoritarianism and corruption would be a Democratic Socialist country because their policies tend to be quite strongly humanistic and environmental. In essence, this is what my political policies @ Interstellar New Deal are completely aimed at – shifting Humanity to have the values, history, and socioeconomic conditions necessary to be willing and able to save ourselves from our self-inflicted Capitalistic annihilation.
Violence Begets Violence – Another facet of why these attempts at Socialism/Communism may have failed is because they started with a violent revolution, which in itself does not have the requisite eco-humanistic values to support such movements successfully, so all such attempts which started this way were likely to be doomed from the very beginning, as in the “violence only begets violence” thing.
Did not have the Technology – The third, they did not have the technology to accomplish a national scale planned economy like we do now. In today’s world we have the technology to be able to accomplish a national or global planned economy like there never has been in the past (see 3. Cybernation from above). They did not have the computers, sensors, data, or other required technologies for mass manufacturing or automation and AI, or for big data processing. Check out Project Cybersyn in Chile in 1973 too for an amazing although ill fated attempt at this (Also, see next section for another reason why this failed.).
The US’ War on Progress – The fourth, is that the US absolutely destroys any country that tries to do good for their people by trying to shift to a new socioeconomic system (Socialism/Communism) which may end up threatening the global dominance of Capitalism and the US’ hegemonic empire. The US is the greatest terrorist organization in the world and has engaged in coup after coup to stop any country attempting to end or shift a way from Capitalism. Here is a short video on that: The CIA is a Terrorist Organization.
Perhaps the only country in the world that most closely made the transition to a form of Socialism is Cuba (which is of course being attacked economically by the US), although that still has the authoritarianism and corruption thing going on as well to an extent (because of monetary systems), but there is also a lot of good going on there too. Of course, US sanctions against Cuba have greatly thwarted its potential progress.
All of the others are the plethora of failed Socialist experiments. Again, many of these historical examples of attempts to become Socialist may have some of the technical traits of Socialism, but did not have the requisite eco-humanistic values required for real success which is why they failed and became authoritarian. An amazing and well-meaning process without holistic eco-humanistic values is destined to become a corrupt soulless thing as we have well seen throughout history.
“Well, but didn’t we cover above that planned economies like Walmart and Amazon work though?” Yes, yes we did say that, but you should also know that their logistics and planning may be an amazing feat of technical engineering, but their organization’s values are crap which means they exploit their employees, the government, and harm other businesses and the environment, while supporting unethical businesses and countries in the process. This is the soulless Capitalist process which does not care for anything beyond profit. This is all because of that ever present Tension problem, that complete lack of care for Humanity and the Environment which is core requisite for Capitalism’s existence. Capitalism’s continued existence requires an abject rejection of our mutual Interdependence with each other and the Natural World, and is therefore destined the fail as we are well seeing with Climate Change leading to Humanity’s inevitable extinction.
III. How might an RBE playout, if it ever did?
Here is the a link to the second part of this post:
I talk about my Journey into MMT (Modern Monetary Theory) in this page on my website which is sort my MMT notes page as I write my understanding (or ignorance) of it for all to see. As I have begun my journey into understanding MMT I have come to really appreciate the way that Stephanie Kelton explains things. Her videos and methods of explaining things have been critical to my expanding understanding of federal fiscal policy.
This book, The Deficit Myth, is her first real foray into explaining MMT to the masses in book form. The moment I heard about this book and it became available to preorder I did so through my Kindle account. Once it was finally released (June 2020) I did not have time to read it, unfortunately, but I could hear its despairing cry as its knowledge languished there unread in my Amazon Kindle account until… my birthday week vacation happened. For my birthdays (November) I usually take a whole week of vacation and I usually spend this time to read and write. I spent the first 2 days of my birthday vacation week this week devouring this 283 page book and I took a few notes as I went to update my MMT page.
My Thoughts
I am not going to explain what MMT is in this post. If you want to learn more then you should check out my MMT page for notes and resources to power your learning process. There is a A LOT there, so be prepared to learn and think about national scale economics. I list some amazing resources there too to attempt to ease you into it.
Here is a chapter list for the book in case you wanna know:
Don’t Think of a Household.Â
Think of Inflation.Â
The National Debt (That Isn’t)
Their Red Ink Is Our Black Ink
“Winning” at Trade
 You’re Entitled!
Building an Economy for the People
The book follows Stephanie’s easy to follow conversational style which I have come to appreciate a lot in my journey into MMT. It works well. She gives some great examples much of which you will see in her many videos and other writings, but there is a lot more expansion on areas that I have not heard her talk as much about before such as Social Security and Medicaid.
Although I really, really would have preferred to see visuals for much of this book. For those who are new to MMT you will find that it is a dense conceptual topic and visuals are a powerful way to help people understand. I think because of this missing pieces that the book will not have as broad on an appeal or effect as it could have had. She does such a great job with visuals in her presentations and videos which were important for my understanding, so I found this lack disappointing.
So, with that being said, this book should not be the starting point for most people. On my MMT page there are links to an amazing and short pictured filled book on MMT and well as videos and other articles to get you started, then once you have the basics down then come back for this book for a more in depth read.
If you are one of those few people who would like to do something for me for my birthday, which is coming up really soon (Nov 16), then here are a few ideas for you so you do not have to wonder what to do. <3
I am here to help! =)
I. Support Me and My Political Work Directly
A. Support My Twitch Stream
Subscribe – You can follow me on my Twitch stream where I talk progressive politics and then subscribe to my channel whose emotes are:
End Inequality ($4.99/month)
Pale Blue Dot ($9.99/month)
Resource Based Economy ($24.99/month)
Amazon Prime – Also, if you have an Amazon Prime account you get a free monthly Twitch subscription from Amazon, so even if you do not spend time on Twitch you can take advantage of this freebie and support me in the process, all the while taking money from Bezos! Everyone wins!!
Donate – You can also donate to me directly through this Stream Elements which is also found on my Twitch page’s About tab too.
If you do not want to support me and would prefer to support someone more politically significant then please, by the gods above, support Peter Joseph and his all important work!!
A. Buy and Read “The New Human Rights Movement”
Book Cover for The New Human Rights Movement by Peter Joseph
For me, this is the most important thing you can do for me and it will be the greatest gift you really can give me:
This book is perhaps the most important book in the last 50 years. If I could buy this book for everyone in the world I would. This book is worth just for the Appendix on Sustainable Energy technologies. This book forms the fundamental basis for my political policies on Interstellar New Deal too.
This is one of the most powerful and life changing books I have read. It has changed me and opened my eyes in ways I never thought possible.
When you are done reading this amazing book give it to someone else so they can read or ask them to do the same for you.
B. Watch InterReflections
Once you have read The New Human Rights Movement Then you will want to watch InterReflections which is created by Peter Joseph, the author of the above book. This movie is an avant-guard narrative presentation of the information from his book.
Maximum Wage has been a cornerstone for my Economic Policies @ Interstellar New Deal for quite a while. I tore through this 118 page book, The Case for a Maximum Wage, in half a day as a part of the research to write a policy proposal for Maximum Wage for the Movement for a People’s Party. Its research closely reinforces my policy proposals in so very many ways.
Comments on the Book
The book was amazing and even calls to research from one of the powerful books that I have as required reading for my policies – The Spirit Level -which talks about the harms of inequality. The Case for a Maximum Wage is important enough that I will be adding it to my required reading list which now consists of 5 books.
It goes over the harms of inequality, benefits of a society with low levels of inequality, previous movements for maximum wages, the fraud of philanthropy, as well as the advantages of enacting a maximum wage. There are lots of links to articles and studies for further reading too at the end of each chapter.
I only have 2 super small and rather pedantic problems with the book:
He frames high progressive marginal tax rates as “unsustainable” which is an inappropriate word. They are most definitely is sustainable from an economic standpoint. They are hard to keep on the books within societies with large levels of inequality where the rich and corporations will eventually worm their way into destroying it just like they have here in the US, and just about everywhere else in the world.
There is a level of naivety about the thought that an implemented Maximum Wage as being immune from manipulation, thwarting, and repealing, however, I think his thoughts on its power to reduce the 1%’s ability to affect it are quite seductive.
Unknowingly, he makes a great case for Economies for the Common Good as the method of enforcement and reinforcement for the Maximum Wage which is also key to my policies too.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to understand the problems that we face today. It tackles a very important policy – the Maximum Wage to which I say that “If your candidate or political party does not have a Maximum Wage as a corner stone to their economic policy then they are NOT serious about tackling inequality.” A Maximum Wage is one of the most powerful policy tools and this book makes a great case for it. Give it a read. It is well worth your time.
I first saw this amazing video while watching one of the political streams I follow on Twitch. It really cut to the core for me. Please take the time to watch this heartfelt and raw 6+ minute video where activist and author Kimberly Jones (Wikipedia, Author site, Twitter) unleashes about the harms caused by historical and contemporary racism in America is a speech colloquially titled “How can we win?”.
I have both the video and the full transcript written up below.
Like most transcripts I do I try to clean it up by adding lists, paragraphs, links, etc so that it is more readable. Those are all me. =)
Video Transcript
So, I’ve been seeing a lot of things talking of the people making commentary, interestingly enough, the ones I’ve noticed I’ve been making the commentary are wealthy black people making the commentary about:
We should not be rioting.
We should not be looting.
We should not be tearing up our own communities.
And then there’s been an argument of the other side of:
We should be hitting them in the pocket.
We should be focusing on the blackout days where we don’t spend money.
But, you know I feel like we should do both and I feel like I support both. And I’ll tell you why I support both.
I support both because there’s – when you have a civil unrest like this there three type of people in the streets: there are the protesters, there are the rioters, and there are the looters. The protesters aren’t there because they actually care about what is happening in the communities. They want to raise their voices and they’re there strictly to protest. You have the rioters who are angry, who are anarchists who really just want to fuck shit up, and that’s what they’re gonna do regardless. And then you have the looters. And the looters almost exclusively are just there to do that – to loot.
Now, people are like – “What did you gain? Well, what did you get from looting?” I think that as long as we’re focusing on the ‘what’ we’re not focusing on the ‘why’ and that’s my issue with that. As long as we’re focusing on ‘what they’re doing’ – we’re not focusing on ‘why they’re doing’. And some people are like “Well, those are people who are legitimately angry about what’s happening. Those are people who just want to get stuff.”.
OK, well, then let’s go with that. Let’s say that’s what it is. Let’s ask ourselves why in this country, in 2020, the financial gap between poor blacks and the rest of the world is at such a distance that people feel like their only hope and only opportunity to get some of the things that we flaunt and flash in front of them all the time is to walk through a broken glass window and get it. But they are so hopeless that getting that necklace, getting that TV, getting that change, getting that bed, getting that phone, whatever it is they’re gonna get – is that in that moment when the riots happened, and if they present an opportunity of looting that’s their only opportunity to get it.
We need to be questioning that. Why? Why are people that poor? Why are people that broke? Why are people that food insecure, that clothing insecure that they feel like they’re only shot – that they are shooting their shot by walking through a broken glass to get what they need. And then people want to talk about “Well, there’s plenty of people who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps and got it on their own. Why can’t they do that?”.
Let me explain to you something about economics in America. And I’m so glad that as a child I got an opportunity to spend time at push where they taught me this. Is that we must never forget that economics was the reason that black people were brought to this country. We came to do the agricultural work in the South and the textile work in the north. Do you understand. That… that’s what we came to do. We came to do – the agricultural work in the south and the textile work in the north.
Now, if I’m right now, if I right now decided that I wanted to play Monopoly with you and for 400 rounds of playing monopoly I didn’t allow you to have any money. I didn’t allow you to have anything on the board. I didn’t allow for you to have anything and then we played another 50 rounds of who not believe and everything that you gained and you earned while you were playing that round of Monopoly was taken from you. That was Tulsa. That was Rosewood. Those are places where we built black economic wealth where we were self-sufficient where we owned our stores, where we owned our property, and they burned them to the ground.
So, that’s four hundred and fifty years. So, for 400 rounds of Monopoly you don’t get to play at all. Not only do you not get to play, you have to play on the behalf of the person that you’re playing against. You have to play and make money and earn wealth for them and then you have to turn it over to them. So, then for 50 years you finally get a little bit and you’re allowed to play. And every time that they don’t like the way that you’re playing or that you’re catching up or that you’re doing something to be self-sufficient they burn your game. They burn your cards. They burn your monopoly money. And then finally, at the release and the onset of that, they allow you to play and they say “OK, now you catch up.”. Now, at this point the only way you’re gonna catch up in the game is that the person shares the wealth correct? But, what if every time you share the wealth then there’s psychological warfare against you to say “Oh, you’re an equal-opportunity hire.”.
So, if I played 400 rounds of Monopoly with you and I had to play and give you every dime that I made, and then for 50 years every time that I played I, if you didn’t like what I did you got to burn it like they did in Tulsa and like they did in Rosewood. How can you win? How can you win? You can’t win. The game is fixed.
So, when they say “Why do you burn down the community? Why do you burn down your own neighborhood?” It’s not ours. We don’t own anything. We don’t own anything. There is -Trevor Noah said it so beautifully last night “There’s a social contract that we all have. That if you steal or if I steal then the person who is the authority comes in and they fix the situation. But the person who fixes the situation is killing us. So, the social contract is broken. And if the social contract is broken why the fuck do I give a shit about burning them fucking Football Hall of Fame, about burning a fucking Target.
You broke the contract when you killed us in the streets and didn’t give a fuck! You broke the contract where for 400 years we played your game and built your wealth. You broke the contract when we built our wealth again on our own by our bootstraps in Tulsa and you dropped bombs on us. When we built it in Rosewood and you came in and you slaughtered us. You broke the contract.
So, fuck your Target. Fuck your Hall of Fame. Far as I’m concerned I could burn this bitch to the ground and it still wouldn’t be enough. And they are lucky that what black people are looking for is equality and not revenge.
On an off chance that Peter Joseph might be listening, I Tweeted him to see if it would be OK if I read his life changing book, The New Human Rights Movement (which is one of the 4 books which are required reading), on my Twitch stream and this happened…
Tweet Conversation
Here is the Tweet conversation, the tweets in image, and the text of the Tweets below:
Quick Twitter conversation with Peter Joseph where he is OK with me reading The New Human Rights Movement on my Twitch stream
Here is the text of the Tweets conversation below:
Jim O’Neill:
Peter, I was considering reading The New Human Rights Movement on my Twitch stream. What are your thoughts? =)
Peter Joseph:
I won’t stop you…
Jim O’Neill:
Whoa! A Response!
Awesome! <3
If I am brave enough to do so, I will tweet you to let you know. =)
BTW, really thank you so much for your work and brilliance! <3 You have changed my life!
Peter Joseph:
Thx. But I will only be satisfied when the system changes. Take care, friend.
Learn More About Peter Joseph
If you want to learn more about Peter Joseph and the Zeitgeist Movement check out these links:
So, yesterday (Friday, 10 Jul 2020), during my Twitch stream (Saturday ~11:00am – 2:00pm CST) and once on my Facebook feed I had people bring up the the statistic that the black on black murder rate is higher than the white on white murder rate:
l think a major problem that goes under the rug is in 2019 235 black men were killed by cops . in 3 or 4 months max 235+ blacks die due to black on black crime and that is ignored
Quote from Twitch Stream
Yeah, because pointing out the fact that African Americans make up approximately 13% of the population, yet commit over 50% of violent crimes would be a racist thing to do because they are facts.
Quote from Facebook Feed
Now, typically this sort of statistic is specifically brought up to support racism as in “See this cherry picked statistic? Black people bad! So, there! I am NOT a racist!” which makes me want to slap some bitches up! However, also each time I hear people talk about that statistic I have a high level of dissonance, because it does sound bad, and I did not have any idea how to understand or to deal with that.
The Twitch incident had come first in the day and I had effectively called my new chatter that brought this up (who wasn’t at all aggressive) a racist because of bringing that statistic up. The Facebook one came in the evening after I had figured it all out.
Now, in my limited defense, when people check my channel rules or pop into my stream’s chat they do receive a a chat message like this:
This channel is radical left political channel.
* We are LGGBDTTTIQQAAPP+ and feminist friendly. * If you do NOT know what the above letter soup means then check here: https://lggbdtttiqqaapp.us/ * Most people will disagree with me on many things, but we can disagree and be civil. * We will NOT tolerate racism, sexism, or other such bigotries. Such things can get you banned. * Rage spamming will NOT be tolerated. Such things can get you banned.
I like my ban hammer use to reflect my politics – so I use it liberally.
My Twitch Channel Chat Rules
Also, every few weeks I usually have a racist ass-hat pop in and try to show how smart and woke they are by informing us all of how they intellectualized their bigotry so that they can sleep at night. They do get banned fairly quickly for I do have a low tolerance for such things. Albeit, because of all of this I am a bit sensitive to racism and other bigotries.
After the first incident I had the rest of the day to think about and to formulate a response which had me already starting feeling bad for calling him a racist which is why I am here – to record this response for me, him, and everyone else and so that we all have a chance to understand the significance of that statistic. =(
Also, keep in mind I have done NO research for this post like I would for most posts. I just wanted to get this thought out quickly so I can get into my stream today to apologize and to have this conversation.
B. Background Reading
To really have the background needed to understand what I am about to explain you will want to read the first two books of The 4 Books You NEED To Read from my policy site:
These two powerful books thoroughly explain the harms and predictability of inequality, and why it happens. Please, please take the time to read these. These will radically change and increase your understanding of the problems we have, why we have them, and how to fix them.
I. How to Understand that Statistic
Introduction
I am going to try to keep this short and I am not going to go into great detail here because I do not have the time and have NOT done the research. I just wanted to make this a quick post to make the point for my benefit and everyone else’s and then move on, so, if you want hard data and a more thorough explanation, then you will have to do the research yourselves. Perhaps, in the future I will have more time to do the research and write up a full post on this.
A. Systemic and Structural Racism
I know most Americans are NOT going to like to hear this, but this is fundamentally true as I will try to show below, but the first thing you need to understand is that the entirety of the history of the United States is built up systemic and structural racism. It is apart of every single facet of the United States from its culture to its laws.
Even prior the United States being a thing, the then British colonies in the New World had at least 100 years of slavery already under their belt as well as all of the laws, policies, and religious and social customs to support, promote, and reward this horrific practice. The colonists were already culturally desensitized to it because it was a fact of life in the colonies – slaves were were seen as less than human – barely animals, were bought and sold in full public eye in the markets. This slavery as a fact of life is what set the social, cultural, legal, and religious stage for the new country that will become the United States.
Let us also keep in mind that much of the industry, farming, and much of the construction that built the New World, especially in the South, was done on the bloodied and scarred backs of slaves. Quite a few of our Founding Fathers had slaves such as the revered George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. THE Jefferson who penned those famous words from the Declaration of Independence:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.-
United States’ Declaration of Independence
This was written in the time where this did NOT include people of color such as African slaves and the First Peoples either (because they were NOT seen as Human). It also basically ignored women (misogyny) and those men who were not land owners (classism).
After the American Revolution, and during the formation of the US Constitution and the first 10 Amendments slavery was a huge issue, which included such policy items as:
the Electoral College
the 3/5ths compromise
the Second Amendment
Let us also not forget that during the formation of the British colonies in the New World and the evolution of what was to be the United States the colonist very purposefully engaged in genocide against the First Peoples. This is a bloody stain that we still see today in many, many ways. The dehumanization, exploitation, and genocide of peoples of color was as American a past time then as it is today.
Check out this really long post about the economic and historical foundations for racism and slavery:
Slavery in the New World starts around 1619 Colonial Slavery found between ~ 1700 – ~1865 Segregation found between ~ 1865 – ~ 1954 Racism and White Privilege ~1954 to today
As time goes on we had the following historical items based on the systemic and structural racism in the US:
slavery (1600+)
political, social, cultural, and media support for racism
slave patrols (militias) which then formed the beginnings of the police as we know it today
The Underground Railroad
The Civil War (1861-1865)
Homestead Act of 1862
The Civil Rights Movement (1954+)
police brutality
Segregation
Brown vs Board of Education
The murder of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Jim Crow Laws
redlining and white flight
Race Riots All throughout history
Riots all throughout the Long Hot Summer of 1967
Riots of Tulsa
Riots of Rosewood
white supremacy and neo-nazis movement infecting our law enforcement and political structures
War on Drugs (1971+)
Mass Incarceration (1973+)
Three-Strikes Law (1993+)
The cold-blooded murder of George Floyd by 4 police officers here in 2020, as well as all of the murders of other people of color that preceded it.
There are sooo many more examples of this all throughout our horrific racist history in America, but this is all that I can quickly list off the top of my head.
But wait! There’s more! =(
Now, as deplorable as all of that is, there is still so much more that is going on within our contemporary history and laws all of which are a direct result of our barbarous and inhumane history of abusing, exploiting, and actively casting people of color down making every day a struggle just to walk or drive without being murdered, or just trying to get out of the poverty which our systemic and structural racism has cast them down into.
Kimberly Jones’ Full Speech – “How can we win??
B. Harms of Inequality
1. The Poverty of Racism
OK, so I covered a quick history lesson on how horrible and racist our country is which will set the stage for this section – the Poverty of Racism.
In addition to the systemic and structural racism that is a visceral part of our country, society, and laws which inflicts social and psychological harms upon people of color in their everyday lives, people of color also have do deal with being cast down into poverty which is very, very hard to get out of. Because of this they also have to struggle against inferior access to:
education
healthcare
jobs
upward mobility
and so much more
We must also understand that poverty is an intergenerational disease too, which means if you are born into poverty that you will most likely not be able to escape it, which condemns most people of color to a miserable existence, and this is a direct result of our social and political actions to sure that this is a thing. In other words racism creates and exacerbates the already great harms of inequality which is very, very difficult to transcend.
More importantly, people of color are disproportionately cast into poverty as compared to European Americans (white people). This fact here is what really matters.
Remember, the two books above that I said you should read? This is where they come in. We have established that the US is systemically and structural racist and, because of that, people of color are disproportionately cast into poverty and suffer greatly from it. This will be the baseline to remember in order to frame the ideas for this section.
In a nut shell this is what those 2 required reading books talk about:
If we know a given a country, state, county, or city’s level of income inequality, then it can be used as a fairly accurate predictor for many, many things from:
teenage pregnancy
literacy
crime
rates of incarceration
depression and suicides rates
average lifespans
social trust
and so much, much more.
Now, an important part of this discussion is how inequality relates to the bad things which is can be simply stated:
The lower inequality is, then the better life is for everyone – lower crime and depression rates, etc.
Conversely, the higher the level of inequality then the worse things are for everyone.
And, by virtue, this all creates predictable results that are easy to follow.
Now, lets slap that concept over the United States which has the highest level of inequality in the developed world! Yea! We are number one!! =( Prior to CoVID19, overall we had something like a 14% poverty rate and a 22% childhood poverty rate. For black people, being a racial minority in the United States and suffering powerfully from systemic and structural racism, this means that their poverty rate and other numbers are going to be higher, so they are disproportionately suffering. And now we know that with increased inequality and suffering this means that rates of crime and incarceration, as well as teenage pregnancy rates go up; and literacy and life span numbers go down, and so on for people of color in the United States.
C. What the Black on Black Murder Rate Really Means
I know am speeding through this, but I hope you were able to to keep up with the chain of logic I am following here. I will try to summarize it below and then explain how all of this ties together so we can have a better understanding of what that statistic really represents.
Racism is a systemic and structural part of the very core identity of the United States.
Racism casts black people (and all people of color to an extent) down into poverty which can be very difficult to escape from.
Black people are disproportionately cast down into poverty as compared to European Americans.
Therefore, this results in higher levels of poverty and other stresses within those demographics as well as all the horrors that go with it such as higher rates of crime, depression, suicide, and incarceration, etc.
Is the black on black murder rate higher than it is for white on white crime? Honestly, I have no idea because I have not done the research, but let’s assume that it is. If so, then that means that this statistic is merely a reflection of the socioeconomic disparities between the two demographics (white vs black). Higher levels of stress and poverty in an already highly unequal society, especially with racism exacerbating everything, means higher murder rates. Or, in other words, that statistic is a direct reflection of how the US socially, economically, and politically has completely and totally failed people of color through being a systemically and structurally racist country. It is a direct reflection of the levels of inequality inflicted upon them.
We created this higher murder rate by ensuring that people of color have a more difficult life through systemic racism and being cast into poverty. Poverty is a political choice that politicians choose to allow and to inflict for fun and profit. This can be ended or greatly limited. There is NO reason we cannot. We, as a society, just have to stop being a bunch of racist assholes and we have to stop electing racist assholes into office too. This is something for both parties to listen to, because both are horrifically guilty of racist policies.
Corporate stock buybacks/dividends in last 15 years benefited white people 72x more than Black people ?? (can someone find a link to the article which covers this?)
I was not planning on this post being so large (~13k words and 37 pages). I was expecting it to be a few thousand words at most. I mean, how complicated could Lesser of Two-Evils Voting really make things? This is most likely the second largest post that I have written, although there are quite a few more long quotes here than I normally use, so that might not count because it is not my own writing. Well, take that for what it is and decide for yourself where they stand. =)
My Calendar Reform post is my largest post at 13,500 words (55 printed pages). I have a post on Daylight Saving Time I have been working on which will most likely end up taking first or second place for post length when I finally finish it. Yea, surprisingly, that one is a doozey!
So, strap yourself in and get ready to do some learning, because here… we… go!
B. My Bias
Here are some notes on my bias and background so that you know the political frame of reference with which this post will be written from:
I am a radical leftist (miles may vary on the radical) who has thought of and has written a lot about electoral politics (links below in Background Reading). My first political policy page was on Electoral Reform too (link below in Background Reading). I am a member of the Green Party and supported Bernie Sanders for president in 2016 and 2020, but voted Green in both elections. I am writing this post specifically targeting the pernicious harms of the Vote Blue No Matter Who movement.
If you want to find out more about me you can check my About Me page. There is a A LOT there.
C. Overview
For far too long have the American people been held hostage by the 1% and their ownership of:
our political process
our elections
our candidates
the media
and everything else
…while We the People (the 99%) struggle for survival and have zero representation or electoral power in OUR government.
As a byproduct of this control and its propaganda systems, sadly, most of the electorate is completely unaware and politically ignorant (as I was many, many moons ago). They know enough that things are messed up because of the struggle present in their lives and their family’s and neighbors’ lives, as well as from the constant stream of negativity that they see on the news each night, but they do not know why, and don’t know enough to even begin to ask how to fix it all. They even don’t even understand that they keep voting for the problem and against their own interest… each… and every… election. I know I was like this when I started my journey into politics ~15 years ago.
Once you understand this very harmful concept, I hope that it fills you with an unbridled rage for a real democracy and real change, and to have you join the revolution to save America from the 1% by finally voting for a government and policies which actually takes care of and represents the 99%.
In this rather large document I am hoping that once you see how pervasive, insidious, and powerful Lesser of the Two-Evils Voting is within “progressives and liberals” that you will understand how extremely harmful it is to democracy.
Also, think of this post as a primer on controlled opposition which is one of the most insidious and powerful forces in the 1%’s toolbox of social and political control and manipulation that sets us against each other when we should be fighting against them. I will breakdown in detail the psychology and manipulation of these these two phrases, to help lay bare their pernicious harms so we can begin to move beyond them and reclaim our country for the 99%.
A controlled opposition is a protest movement that is actually being led by government agents. Nearly all governments in history have employed this technique to trick and subdue their adversaries. Notably Vladimir Lenin who said ”The best way to control the opposition is to lead it ourselves.”
Count Mirabeau was part of the controlled opposition, because although everyone thought he was supporting the revolution, in reality he supported the monarchy and was a personal friend of the king. He was a government agent.
Controlled Opposition definition from the Urban Dictionary
The core sentiment of controlled opposition within the context of US Politics is this: The rich and mega-corporations (the 1%) fund and control two seemingly opposed parties (Democrats and Republicans) which serve as a method of controlling the opposing narrative, policy, and power, while helping to push truly dissident and change movements and figures to the powerless fringe (Democrats).
There are two different phrases within this concept of opposition control within US politics which I will cover:
Lesser of Two-Evils Voting (LTEV) – This is descriptive of the form of controlled opposition as applied to electoral politics.
Vote Blue No Matter Who! (VBNMW) – This popular command slogan is a specific example of controlled opposition which makes a call to the Lesser of Two-Evils Voting method of manipulation.
…however, for simplicity during this post I will just use the phrase ‘Lesser of the Two-Evils Voting’ to identify this singular ideal, but will specify the use of the slogan when needed.
E. Background Reading
Below are some of my posts and policies to which I will draw from for this post. There are points throughout this post where you will be given background enough to really appreciate my below linked posts and you will be asked to read them then. Read them now or then, either way, but please to do read them.
In the beginning of Systemic Suppression with America’s Two Party System I talk about how the two-party system is a even a thing. Also, in the second post, Why you need to vote in EVERY ‘Single’ Election!, there is a small section on controlled opposition and one on identity politics too which you may find informative as well. You will want to save my Electoral Reform policy until you have finished this post and the other two posts, because they really give you a decent background in order to be able to understand why some of those reforms are needed.
I. The Harms of Lesser of the Two-Evils Voting
Introduction
In this section I will break this down piece-by-piece explaining how and why these two seemingly innocuous electoral phrases are so very destructive to democracy and how they are a powerful part of the 1%’s arsenal to manipulate you and to maintain control of our candidates, our votes, and of our country.
This section will be broken down into 3 sub-sections which should build upon themselves as they go until we come a to a final crescendo towards the end:
Emotional Manipulation
Reinforces the One Party System
Prevents Actual Change
A. Emotional Manipulation
Author’s Note: This section is not as well written and can be a bit hard to follow because of the nebulous nature of the topic – the emotional manipulation of the electorate. I wrote this whole post in about a week, and could have easily spent a whole month on it like I would normally do for a post that is this important. So, make it through this section and glean from it what you can, because it is very important to understand, and then get to the stuff that is better formulated in the following sections.
1. Electorally Useless and Empty Statements
Those two phrases (LTEV & VBNMW), one of which imperiously commands you how to vote, are not arguments or even a discussion about who to vote for or why, and, therefore, they are electorallyempty and useless.
2. Emotionally Charged Manipulation
a. Plays on Psychological Need to Please
Because, “Vote Blue No Matter Who” is set forth as an imperious command which taps into Humanity’s evolutionary psychology as social creatures, our instinctual desire to please others and to follow the group, it gives us a subtle and gut level drive to comply, and a level of cognitive dissonance if we consider not complying.
b. Social Censorship
You have criticized the Democratic Party. That makes your a Republican, a Trump supporter, and a Russian operative. Take her away!
Being a tool of controlled opposition, they are a clever form of emotionally charged censorship using social and fear based psychology that creates an environment which is outright antagonistic towards conversations and questioning of candidates, their values, or their policies (especially any outside of the two corporate parties). No vetting allowed as long as there is a (D) next to their party affiliation.
The visceral level of contempt and disdain generated towards honest vetting effectively shuts down valid conversations and critiques of candidates and policies, especially once nominees have been selected, while also shaming people for wanting to cast an educated and honest vote instead of blindly and ignorantly voting for whichever corporate approved candidate they were told that they had to vote for (or the other party will win).
These statements are also condescending and demeaning to those who are serious about democracy, the right to vote, their privilege and duty to cast an honest and educated vote, and to have their voice heard.
c. Turns Off People’s Brains
Because of how powerfully these statements trigger negative emotional responses (fear), their manipulations turn off people’s brains pushing them to vote blindly and fearfully (and to follow the group) which disempowers and undermines the very fundamental core of democracy – the educated voter and their honest vote – without which democracy cannot exist. This weaponization of fear makes each election a referendum about who are you voting against and NOT who are you voting for. The election is a referendum on fear and not on hope or values or policies. An unthinking, fearful, or ignorant vote is a vote that the 1% did not have to earn or defraud. These are the tastiest electoral morsels which powers our self-selected enslavement and exploitation.
d. Coercion
Through stifling real conversations about the candidates, their values, and their policies while railroading people into voting for a candidate that has not truly earned their vote, they are stealing our votes through coercion which is destructively undemocratic.
Voting out of fear is coercion and not choice!
James O’Neill (Why you need to vote in Every ‘Single’ Election!!!, Nov 2018)
Here is my specific experience as an anecdotal example of this electoral coercion. Keep in mind, at this time of this experience (2012) I am still early in my political journey (~7 years staring from completely ignorant), so please do NOT hold this against me! =)
Several years earlier I had taken the I side With test which cast me as a centrist. Now, in 2020, with as far as I have learned and grown since then, I pale to even think that was a thing. =) Anyhow….
In 2012, after having previously voted for Obama in 2008, I had taken the I Side With test again just to see where I stood. I blogged about that experience in 2013. Through taking that test again I found out that my views very closely aligned with the Green Party. I was floored because I had never heard of them which had me saying to myself ˜Who the hell are these people and why did I not know about them?˜; which in-and-of-itself is a crime and had me potentially waste my previous vote to vote for the candidate that really did not really represent my views.
However, in 2012 it was a heated race between Obama and Romney. I remember that night so very well. I voted for Obama out of fear that Mitt Romney would win, even though I really wanted to vote for Green Party. I stayed up until a little after midnight with my stomach upset and in knots, especially because Romney took an early lead. I was pressing F5 over and over again to see the updated election results, just waiting, hoping, that Obama would pull through which eventually happened late into the night.
I will never forget that vote. I voted for Obama out of fear and not because I wanted too. I was a victim of controlled opposition and fear (as well as my own political ignorance). I vowed from that day on to never ever allow my vote to be stolen from me, to never allow my voice to be suppressed.
Desperate people make ideal workers and distracted citizens
Lesser of THE Two-Evils Voting subtly sets up a social, intellectual, and psychological expectation that the Democratic Party is somehow entitled to our votes because they are NOT the other party (and other parties should NOT be looked at either or you will be punished). This also taps into our evolutionary social psychology and our need to please. The brainwashing of this is especially powerful with a time strapped, ill informed, fearful, and struggling populace. Because of this, the Democratic party is still resting on their previous historical political reputation as being the party of the people which is a fact that has long since gone. We give in and accept that their extreme sense of entitlement to our votes is real, truly earned, and is the way it is supposed to be; otherwise, why would they present themselves as entitled to our vote?
2. Sets the Bar So Very Low
A long history of emotionally charged empty statements which has goaded us to be contemptuous towards questioning their candidates, and their policies, or even considering outside parties and policies has set the bar for the expected quality of candidates very, very, very low by reducing the core candidate requirement to merely be – “Just not as bad as the other guy.“.
Over the decades we have become complacent through accepting such a very, very, very low bar for the quality of our candidates which is severely disempowering and has us making significant and ill informed compromises by NOT fighting for real change or demanding real candidates with real policies bringing real change that has truly earned our vote.
The only voting rule we are allowed to use is:
“Just a smidge to the left of the other guy.“
3. Shifts Each Party to the Political Right
Effects of Lesser Evil Voting
This has resulted in the continuous shifting of each party to the right year after year, decade after decade. Sure, the Democratic candidate is (in some cases) not as bad as the Republican one. But, are they really left leaning? No, not at all, especially after all of those years of shifting to the right. Well, just as long as they are not as bad as the other guy, right?!? =(
This has effectively shifted the political center farther and farther to the right, election after election, decade after decade, so that the political left within the duopoly no longer exists and has been effectively shut out of the conversation and out of political and electoral representation.
This right-ward shifting effect is also referred to as The Ratchet Effect:
The Ratchet Effect – How you are being duped by the fake two-party system. Republicans turn everything to the right. Democrats block movement back to the left.
Within the Democratic Party, this movement has been powerfully amplified and radically accelerated by Bill Clinton (the Clintons in general) who transformed the party completely into a neo-liberal corporatist 1% party (moderate conservative party) and the people have not still caught on to this betrayal, but are beginning to wake up to it and the significant harms and betrayals inflicted by this new moderate conservative “unDemocratic” Party.
Here are 3 graphics which show real continuum of American parties.
The Republican and Democratic parties, or, to be more exact, the Republican-Democratic party, represent the capitalist class in the class struggle. They are the political wings of the capitalist system and such differences as arise between them relate to spoils and not to principles.
Eugene V. Debs (The Socialist Party and the Working Class, 1904)
There is only one party in the United States, the Property Party … and it has two right wings: Republican and Democrat. Republicans are a bit stupider, more rigid, more doctrinaire in their laissez-faire capitalism than the Democrats, who are cuter, prettier, a bit more corrupt – until recently … and more willing than the Republicans to make small adjustments when the poor, the black, the anti-imperialists get out of hand. But, essentially, there is no difference between the two parties.
Well, there used to be a kind of a quip that “The United States was a one-party state with a business party that had two factions – the Democrats and Republicans.” and that was pretty accurate. But it’s not anymore. The U.S. is still a one-party state – the business party, but there’s only one faction and it’s not Democrats. It’s moderate Republicans. Today’s Democrats have shifted to the right.
“The brilliance of Bill Clinton was that he transformed the Democratic Party into the Republican Party, and he pushed the Republican Party so far to the right it became insane.” – Chris Hedges in conversation with Cornel West (October 2015)
As you can see, the rightward shift has only gotten worse and is even accelerating as time goes on.
4. Reinforces the Two-Party System
It is your civic duty to vote for the candidate that best represents you and: not the lesser of two evils; not out of spite; not out of fear; not the most electable. If you fail in this duty you are responsible for the decline of democracy.
These phrases put the spotlight on and the focus of the conversation on only 2 of the possible plethora of parties and candidates for consideration which reinforces the 1%’s control, and forces third parties and other more progressive policies from being considered through fear of the other party winning. A convenient byproduct of this is that it shifts the conversation away from policies and values and over to just who needs to beat who.
The conversation and “competition” becomes limited to:
Really Evil Candidate
Plain Evil Candidate
…instead of the collection of:
Really Evil Candidate
Plain Evil Candidate
Middle of the Road Candidate
Good’ish Candidate
Great Candidate
…or, preferably, instead of the collection of:
My values and needs vs the:
policies, values, voting record, and money trail of the Really Evil Candidate
policies, values, voting record, and money trail of the Plain Evil Candidate
policies, values, voting record, and money trail of the Middle of the Road Candidate
policies, values, voting record, and money trail of the Good’ish Candidate
policies, values, voting record, and money trail of the Great Candidate
Lesser of the Two-Evils Voting effectively means – “Hold your nose, turn off your brain, and then vote for the party’s corporate approved candidate regardless of how bad they are just because we just need to beat the other party.“.
So, yes, you know, your candidate might be better on, I don’t know, healthcare than Joe is, but you’ve got to look at who’s going to win this election, and maybe you have to swallow a little bit and say, ‘OK, I personally like so and so better,’ but your bottom line has to be that we have to beat Trump.
Jill Biden (Aug 2019)
I am hoping by now you are starting to see the Controlled Opposition present through her calls for:
voting blindly
compromising your values and your needs to “swallow a little bit”
vote out of fear for who we tell you to vote for
just because we just need to be afraid of the other guy
just because we need to beat the other guy! =O
No mention of policies or values (which is what really matters) while trying to convince us to vote for Biden. Are you beginning to see how we are being manipulated, yet? Are you beginning to see the control and the harm?
5. Radically Limits the Electoral Conversation
This artificial limiting of the conversation and consideration to just the 2 parties and candidates prevents a real conversation and a real vetting of ALL of the potential candidates, issues, and policies by the voter. This prevents an honest discussion and exploration about how good or bad the candidates really are, especially when we are socially and politically forced to disavow comparing them to the candidates, issues, and policies from other parties which harmfully limits voter education, voices, and representation.
The conversation becomes limited to “Which of the two candidates (neither of which I like) is LESS WORSE?” or “Which of the two candidates(that does not at all represent me or my values) is the Lesser of THE TWO-EVILS?“. This severely limited conversation is NOT useful for the voter, for progress, for our country, or for a REAL democracy; verses a conversation such as “Which of the plethora of candidates and parties most closely represents my views and values?” which results in a voter that becomes empowered, educated, and actually feels like they have representation and like their vote actually counts. Can you start to see why the largest voting block in America is non-voters who are 40%+ of the electorate?
A voter’s conversation and the journey towards individually vetting a candidate against their values is required for a real democracy. The 1% does NOT ever want you to have access to that journey, because that would undermine their control over you and the electoral process, and it would be the beginning of a truly representative democracy.
6. Class Warfare (The One-Party System)
a. Class Warfare
Oligarchs 538 – People 0
Because both parties are controlled by the 1%, Lesser of Two-Evils Voting is also a powerful and clever class warfare tool. It sets the 1% values (Republican flavored – far right – the party of regression) against 1% values (Democrat flavored – moderate right – the party of stagnation) where the values and the needs of 99% (which includes the ENTIRE left – 50%+ of America) never ever enters the policy conversation.
Here is some coverage which talks about how our representatives do not care about public opinion unless you are rich:
The 1%’s control over both parties (Democrats and Republicans) as well as main stream corporate media allows them to control the Overton Window (which policies and ideas are acceptable political discourse), and therefore controls the range of acceptable conversation on political policy to be continuously within the comfort zone of the 1% and corporate interests, while stigmatizing anything outside of that range.
Diagram of the Overton Window
This fact makes control of the Overton Window a powerful tool that allows the 1% to antagonize, shut out, and destroy actual leftists, third parties, or other dissident voices which tend to want progress and change, and therefore makes it very difficult for policies which are good for the people (and therefore NOT 1% friendly) to gain any traction. They can use emotionally charged labels such as crazy, radical, socialist, communist, or pie-in-the sky for policies that fall outside of that carefully placed 1% approved Overton Window. Remember what I said about emotional manipulation and turning off your brain?
This is especially powerful and effective because of the significant bias and vested interest of corporate media which gets to frame the entire election including the conversation of candidates, candidate platforms, and policy viability; and, by virtue, will reinforce, support, and will only provide serious coverage for the corporate chosen candidates and their policies while destroying, not covering, or discrediting other candidates, especially dissident voices that tend to support the people, the 99%.
Lesser of the Two-Evils Voting reinforces and limits the conversation to support their Two-Party System and therefore powerfully reinforces the power and control of the 1% while suppressing all other voices (the true voices of the people).
Something you may have noticed over the last few election cycles (2016-2020) is that when Bernie Sanders ran for president starting in 2015 he booted that Overton Window far back to the left (from its completely 1% controlled far rightward placement) which had political discourse discussing potential policies (healthcare, minimum wage, environment, education) that have NOT been heard of or seriously suggested in decades. This is one of the most important benefits that Bernie Sanders has had in his run for the Presidency – shifting that Overton Window to the left, which has also empowered others to run for office (like myself) with such polices and ideas on our lips and as a main part of our policies, which also works to maintain the Overton Window’s leftward shift. We will see for how long we can keep it toward the left. With the absolutely corrupt system we have today (as this whole document is trying to show), that without a continuous war to keep it to the left, that it would quickly shift back to the right, year by year, election by election, news cast by new cast, until universal healthcare would be a campaign killer again. I hope with this example you can see how important control over the Overton Window is to political discourse
The power of the 1%’s control and reinforcement of the Overton Window can be powerfully seen within the disease of centrism, people who are so radically brainwashed (and/or ignorant) that they become so proudly entrenched in their programmed belief and fear of change that they are willing to fight to prevent real progress and change. They are the 1%’s sleeper agents responsible for manufacturing social complicity in stopping change dead in its tracks and for fomenting the people’s enslavement. Centrists become one the most effective social barriers to real change and progress for themselves and for society at large.
Also, because of the incremental nature of the incremental of change which centrists will programmatically tolerate, any incremental change can be effectively thwarted politically through these 5 methods:
placating the masses through rhetorical platitudes and theatrics to delay it, hoping that the movement will lose steam or move on so that no change will be required
They can prompt a party member who is under NO electoral pressure to vote against and take a stand against the measure en toto when there is a danger of its passing because it is not the right time or some other bullshit excuse. Some recent examples might be the Parliamentarian or Kyrsten Sinema. These in-party actors are referred to as the Rotating Villain (Urban Dictionary, The Democratic Party’s deceitful game).
negotiating and amending it into almost nothing while in Congress (i.e. Bipartisanship)
then the resultant barely existent incremental change can be incrementally implemented into ineffectuality by being delayed and/or spread out through many, many years
also, later on following it being passed into law, the thread-bare version of desired change can be amended into effectivelessness or be completely removed through policy.
The harms of centrism are considerably compounded because of how very, very, very low the bar has been set for our expectations for potential progress and change which also has the people to be accepting, expectant, and even excited and willing to fight for non-change.
The devastating effect of the disease of centrism results in a subatomic form of pseudo-incremental change which effectively means that real progress and change are essentially impossible which means:
By virtue of Lesser of Two-Evils Voting being a form of Class Warfare, they reinforce the control of the 1% which tends to be white, male, cisgendered, heterosexual, monogamous, and Christian, and therefore, serves to perpetuate the Patriarchal and Christian White Privileged 1%’s power and control to limit, oppress, exploit, and tyrannize various class minorities such as:
women
racial and ethnic minorities
sexual and gender minorities
religious minorities
the impoverished
hell, even the middle class
…in order to to maintain their power, control, and their stable of yachts and private jets. If they keep the 99% divided and distracted, fighting amongst each other, then they keep us from understanding who the real enemy is and from creating a united front against them.
It is a class war! This country has been in a vicious war against the poor since its inception. It created white supremacy to create and uphold a class society. It is a class war with racism at the very core.
Rev. Claudia de la Cruz
Lesser of the Two-Evils Voting reinforces the systemically and structurally racist, sexist, and classist system by forcefully pushing (and socially punishing and ostracizing) the voter into blindly voting out of fear and ignorance for whatever corporate whore they put in front of you. This gives you the illusion of choice through two seemingly opposed parties, but in all reality, they are two wings of the same right leaning party, the party of the 1%.
f. White Privilege
There is also a significant level of middle class white privilege (and ignorance) laid bare for all to see because they believe that their lives will get better, or at least not get worse no matter which Democrat wins. See how low the bar and our expectations have fallen?. This shows a level of privilege and ignorance, not only in NOT being able to discriminate between the various candidates and their policies, but also because they are doing well enough that they do NOT care about the candidates’ platforms, or how their policies could harm themselves or the various minority groups.
This is a privilege that racial, ethnic, and other minorities never have. Those who have this privilege live with it everyday and it is a visceral part of their warped world view. They think that everyone else’s life is this easy (or at least not so difficult), that others are not being held back because they are a racial, sexual, religious, ethic, etc minority. It is hard to imagine or empathize because they have not suffered with it themselves.
g. The Disenfranchised Voiceless Majority
However, in all actuality, for the majority of Americans this couldn’t be farther from the truth. Due to the historical rightward shift and the insidious infection of corporatism within both parties, and the infection of centrism within the populace, there are many, many voiceless demographics to which a Republican candidate and a Democratic candidate are indistinguishable on the issues that matter to them.
Are the people who created and those who advance this slogan unable to discriminate between the various candidates, some of whom are barely indistinguishable from Donald Trump and everything he stands for, and who certainly no better? What this says to me is that they ”the Democratic Parry and its supporters” have no consciousness or awareness about the true state of the Union (U.S.), or the true state of the world, or if they do they just don’t care. There’s the privilege: people of color, poor people, women and children, and many other demographics that have historically and routinely denied that space to exist on this earth don’t have such privileges.
Vote Blue No Matter Who! (Counter Currents, Mar 2020)
If my main concern is press freedom for whistleblowers, Donald Trump and Pete Buttigieg are indistinguishable to me. If I care about prison reform, what’s the difference between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris? The education policy of Cory Booker and Donald Trump are virtually the same. I can’t tell the difference between where Joe Biden and Donald Trump stand on foreign policy. These examples are some of the issues which truly affect the world’s most disadvantaged: the non-American, non-white, non-wealthy human beings around the globe. By ‘voting blue no matter who’, I am telling the Democratic Party that it does not have to worry about such issues (or such people). I am sending the message that as long as one pays lip service to my reproductive rights, puts queer people in a commercial, or says the wall wouldn’t properly keep all those horrible illegal immigrants out, they have done enough. And, as a white person, despite being queer and female, my life would probably not change. It might even get better.
The Ungodly Privilege of ‘Vote Blue No Matter Who’ (Jun 2019)
To the majority of Americans, the 99%, there is only one party, the party of the 1% which means that there are NO candidates which really support their values or the policies which could make a real difference in their lives, resulting in the majority of the electorate powerfully feeling:
disenfranchised
disillusioned
voiceless
powerless
hopeless
depressed
rage filled
This is especially present because the Democratic Party, the 1% party with better marketing, at least deigns to offer theatrics of empty gestures and platitudes to assuage the masses while they rob them blind. However, we must specifically understand that “Theatrics are NOT defiance or representation.“. In addition, the Democratic Party still maintains the deceptive and so very micron-thin veneer of being the party of the people from their history in the decades prior to the Clinton’s corruption. The people still remember and hang on to that hopeful and yet delusional past, and have not yet completely awakened to the reality of the party’s abandonment of them over 30 years ago.
Here is an amazing rage storm from Nour Hantouli, (although I am not sure if this is the original source of this text) which talks about many of the points and feelings of abandonment I am talking about:
“Blue No Matter Who” people are already blaming the Bernie Supporters in advance for not voting for Biden in the general election. They need to sit down and understand something.
We (people like myself) were never Blue No Matter Who. We were never Blue to begin with. Blue has, for decades, been a source of disappointment, neglect, deceit, betrayal, and collusion with the people who actively persecute us. Y’all never had us to begin with, yet you’re acting entitled to our votes and support.
You need to understand this: This election season, you all have been inundated by our generosity as we put our discomfort aside for the off chance of salvaging your shitty Party. Your cup of our compromises runneth the hell over. You are not entitled to a single damn vote, and we sure as hell are not responsible for wrecking your mediocre ass dreams.
I think NOT
There’s people out here committing suicide over the student debt they’re drowning in, debt that they acquired by putting faith in your bullshit promises of work-hard-get-paid. We’re out here GoFundMeing chemo treatments and drinking poison water because your billionaire buddies wanted to save a dollar. And what did y’all do?
Actively and OPENLY sabotaged the only candidate who bothered to care.
I don’t owe you ANYTHING
You want Trump out? Wow. What ambition. Don’t pull a muscle reaching for the stars there. Thank you for really coming through when things finally got bad enough that they started to affect YOU.
Maybe if YOU learn how to compromise we can do that.
Erase crippling debt no matter who. End police brutality no matter who. Abolish ICE no matter who. Free Palestine no matter who. Stop people from dying of preventable fucking illnesses no matter who.
SCREW your Party loyalty. We want People loyalty. When you show up for that, then we can talk about what you can have from us.
Nour Hantouli (Facebook, Mar 4 2020)
h. Harm Perpetuation
Saying that Lesser of THE Two-Evils Voting is “harm reduction” or “harm mitigation” is misleading and is a very, very sad thing to have to say or even think. This is another powerful example showing how very, very, very low the bar has been set, how low the depths of our expectations for our government really are – as in “We know they are going to harm us, just, maybe, can we have a smidge less this time around?“. How many decades of a continuous cycle of inflicted harms and betrayals are required to pass before the people awaken and realized that we are in an abusive relationship or a hostage situation? =(
Harm mitigation is a clever way of reframing the horrors of Lesser of the Two-Evils Voting which softens the blow and emotionally manipulates people into accepting our complete lack of representation and that our sad, sad state of expectations should be to merely be happy to just settle for something less harmful. We are being manipulated into being complicit in supporting and perpetuating our abusers, our hostage takers – the duopoly, the One Party System – and those all too expected harms. In a real democracy Stockholm Syndrome should never be a voter stance or perspective.
If voting is the democratic participation in our own oppression, voting as harm reduction is a politics that keeps us at the mercy of our oppressors.
Voting is Not Harm Reduction – A Indigenous Perspective (Feb 2020)
Lesser of Two-Evils Voting is NOT really about preventing harm. It is about convincing us to be OK with merely perpetuating the harms from both parties and their 1% owners. Both parties are criminally responsible for perpetuating the vast exploitation and harms inflicted upon the American people (and the world at large), because no true work is being done by either party to truly stop the harm, especially against the various vulnerable minority groups talked about above who have no electoral voice or power. Why is it this way? Because the politicians, their parties, and their 1% owners benefit greatly from sacrificing the poor and innocent for fun and profit.
With all of that being said, lets be real and let’s reclaim and reframe this phrase to actually reflect the true reality of harm and voting for the Lesser of the Two Evils Voting :
“Lesser of the Two-Evils Voting is at Best: harm perpetuation or incremental harm, or at worst: harm maximization.“.
As voters in a supposed democracy, our eternal and unwavering expectation for any candidates we consider should start with ending the harm (putting an end to the harms en toto) and healing the damage done, and nothing less than that.
Malcolm X Poster by Michael OCHS Archives – Getty Images
Lets take a quick look at a quote by Malcom X which encapsulates this idea:
If you stick a knife in my back nine inches and pull it out six inches, there’s no progress. If you pull it all the way out that’s not progress. Progress is healing the wound that the blow made. And they haven’t even pulled the knife out much less heal the wound. They won’t even admit the knife is there.
Malcolm X (TV interview after 90-day moratorium, March 1964)
Like a master illusionist using subtle redirection, they turn off your brain using emotionally charged language to focus the conversation on the other party – “Look at the big bad orange man!” or “Vote Blue NO Matter Who!” – to distract you from the actual wars that are going on:
the Class War – inequality, poverty, wage slavery, the debt crisis
The Race War – the Drug War, White Supremacy, Racism, and police brutality
the War Against Women, and Gender and Sexual Minorities
healthcare and education crisis
climate change
and, of course, the The US Machine for Global War and Terrorism for corporate profit
…all of which which rages around us, racking up a massive body count of the innocent while destroying our families, our neighbors, the environment, and our futures while the 1% gleefully profits from the devastation.
This is the blood price we pay for the 1% owning and controlling our government and yet we keep voting for it each… and every… election. We must begin to stop being blinded by their obfuscation of the truth, and to see the forest (class warfare) before the trees (Lesser of the Two Evils Voting).
j. Political Commentator Kim Iverson Talking About Vote Blue No Matter Who
Watch the whole thing below or read the transcript below:
Here is the transcript below in case you would rather read it:
I keep hearing over and over that the most important thing is to beat Donald Trump, that we must Vote Blue No Matter Who. The Democratic Party is hyper focused on this. The left-wing media obsesses over it. Candidates start off their speeches with it. This is how it always goes: “Evil will win unless you vote for us. The world’s morals are at risk. The only thing that matters is defending our values.” And you know what? They’re right, but they’re wrong about who we have to defeat.
It is becoming increasingly clearer and clearer that who we have to beat no matter what is the establishment. The establishment on both sides of the aisle have turned their back on American values and have sold us out to billionaires and international corporations. The American values we have cherished for generations, the value of the American Dream is gone. It’s been destroyed by greed. My generation and younger have had to kiss goodbye the idea of owning a home with a white picket fence, having multiple kids, two cars, the college education we were able to pay for by working a summer job, even the idea of having a stay-at-home parent is long gone. Instead, younger generations have had to create a sharing economy where they don’t own a thing, and a gig economy which will leave them with nothing to retire on.
Our political leaders keep us focused on emotional moral issues such as immigration, abortion, racism, misogyny so that our attention isn’t on what’s really happening. The people in Washington and those who fund their campaigns are running off with our money. They are robbing us and stopping them is the only thing that should matter. They don’t represent us. They squabble back and forth with each other saying “Democrats want to destroy us so vote for us!” or “Republicans want to destroy us so vote for us!” meanwhile they’re both destroying us all together. they distract us with things that we do care about but that aren’t really affecting our day to day lives. Communists aren’t coming to get you. Your guns aren’t going to be taken away. And me being a minority female, am not being held back because I’m Vietnamese nor because I’m a woman.
What holds us back is the increasing inflation on basic necessities which is intended to siphon money from us to distribute to the already wealthy. Many of us are riddled in student loans, have to be careful about going to the doctor so we don’t rack up bills, are priced out of the ridiculously high housing market, and the thought of having a kid and paying for daycare? Forget it. The establishment and the rich oligarchs they are in bed with have turned the middle class into serfs in their fiefdom and have completely ignored the poor. Our poor are living on the streets, many are addicted to drugs just to escape their terrible reality, and even more unable to compete with immigrants or automation for jobs. These are real issues yet we hardly hear about them.
There are a few candidates who actually attempt to offer solutions. Bernie Sanders, Tulsi Gabbard, and Andrew yang all have ideas that are tangible – Medicare for All, end the extremely expensive wars, the freedom dividend. And when they talk about Trump just being a symptom, and when they court voters on the other side of the aisle, they’re smeared as apologists, communists. Yang and Gabbard neither of whom are white actually get confronted about having white supremacist as supporters. It’s all gaslighting in an attempt for you and I to not see what’s really going on.
The establishment is corrupt. They are bought off and We the People need to do everything we can to get them out of office. It can’t be Vote Blue No Matter Who. It’s got to be vote anti-establishment no matter which side of the aisle they come from, because our true American morals and values depend on it. Turn off FoxNews. Turn off MSNBC. Turn off the propaganda that keeps us fighting with one another to the benefit of the ruling class. We need to join together and defeat the establishment. They tell us to put our differences aside and Vote Blue No Matter Who to defeat Republicans, but what I’m saying is if you’re a Republican or a Democrat we need to put some of our differences aside and vote anti-establishment no matter what in order to get our nation back.
I will not vote for an establishment candidate even if it means Trump wins again because the war we are fighting is bigger than that. If an establishment Democrat wins the left becomes complacent, people think “All is well with the world.” and they no longer have to pay attention to the continued corruption that has plagued both parties. People actually think “Trump is gone. Democrats are in control. They’re the noamgood guys.” meanwhile they continue to march us into wars, bail out the banks, keep migrants in detention centers, get their family members multi-million dollar jobs, and somehow make even more millions upon millions while they hold public office.
They want you to Vote Blue No Matter who So you don’t have a clue But what we need to do is Stand up and say “Nope. We’re on to you.”.
Kim Iverson (Don’t Vote “Blue No Matter Who”, Vote Anti-Establishment No Matter Who, Feb 2020)
C. Prevents Change and Progress
1. Prevents the Creation of an Educated and Active Electorate
Keep in mind that the whole system (political, social, economic, educational, etc) has a self vested interest in keeping you from being an educated and informed voter who can engage in activism while holding the government accountable. The 1% has engineered the system against you, to enslave your mind, emotions, and your time through such methods as:
Desperate people make ideal workers and distracted citizens
wage slavery
debt slavery
attacking education
attacking healthcare
voter suppression
controlled opposition and the duopoly
racism, sexism
drug war
police brutality
attacking worker’s rights
and so much more
…so that you do not have the time, emotional energy, or education to understand the issues, and to cast an educated vote. But, this is NOT a bug in the system; this is a feature of the system, the way it is intended to work as a tool of control.
By falling prey to Lesser of THE Two-Evils Voting WE act as the most powerful intellectual, emotional, and conversational barrier which greatly limits our ability to educate ourselves, to have meaningful discussions, and to actually cast an educated vote. We are the most powerful force creating our own enslavement and victimization.
2. No Leverage for Change
a. No Reason to Listen to Us
If we consistently and blindly vote for whoever the two corporate parties put in front of us regardless of how antagonistic, abusive, or deaf to our cries they are, then we have exactly ZERO leverage to demand change because we do not force them to listen to us, there is no credible threat of not voting for them, nor do we give them a reason to listen or to earn our votes.
We suffer in a self-inflicted and ineffectual electoral silence through our blind votes which perpetuates the one-party system, the 1%’s control over our elections, our policies, and our country; as well as our collective enslavement to their system, all for their profit.
Below are some pertinent and powerful quotes from various journalists and media personnel to help underscore this point, so you can see that this is not just me spouting these thoughts:
Lawrence O’Donnel (former Democratic Party Insider)
Krystal Ball (Newscaster)
Glen Greenwald (Journalist)
Chris Hedges (Journalist)
b. Quote from Democratic Party Insider Lawrence O’Donnel
If you want to pull the party “the major party that is closest to the way you’re thinking’ to what you’re thinking, You must, you must show them that you’re capable of not voting for them. If you don’t show them you’re capable of not voting for them, they don’t have to listen to you. I promise you that. I worked within the Democratic Party. I didn’t listen, or have to listen, to anything on the left while I was working in the Democratic Party, because the left had nowhere to go.
Krystal: But, if Joe Biden is the nominee I think we’ve also got to realize that this whole Vote Blue No Matter Who thing is a complete con. Because what do we see? Biden’s already on TV with Lawrence O’Donnell saying he’d veto Medicare For All. I mean they spit in the faces of this movement of young people and working class people who believe in these principles. They call them Brown Shirts. They say they’re toxic Bernie-bros.
And then demand that they just all turn around and pledge to vote for Joe no matter what. Well, I don’t think that we should be so easy in giving up our votes like that. Look, these young people have organized around the Green New Deal, were organized around Medicare For All. The moment that they say “You know what Joe? It’s fine. You can spit in our faces. You can promise to veto Medicare For All, but we’re still going to turn out and vote for you.” is the moment that you lose any kind of power in this situation.
And look, it is a grim situation if Joe Biden is the nominee, but the least that this movement can do is hold on to some modicum of power to say “No, you don’t just get our vote. You have to at least try to earn it!” and I think that’s a really important message moving forward.
Cenk: But Krystal, I gotta ask what’s our alternative? I mean, are we are, I don’t think it’s tenable for progressives to threaten to vote for Trump. I think that’s nuts. I would never do that.
Krystal: I would never vote for Donald Trump either, but you can leave it blank. As of today I’m an undecided voter because here’s the thing, Cenk, Donald Trump is awful. The next Republican will be awful, and if they always can say look you’ve got to vote for us no matter what, you’ve got no other choice. Then they’re always going to treat us like this because you have no power in that situation if you’re just going to show up and vote for them anyway. So, I know people aren’t going to want to hear that but i think that is the reality of the situation that we face right now.
Glenn Greenwald on Noam Chomsky Favouring Biden Over Trump & Voting for Lesser of Two Evils (Apr 2020).
I think it’s a generational divide now where a lot of people on the left are looking and saying “Wait a minute. We’ve been doing this. We’ve been following this advice for decades, right. We’ve been following this advice. It says “Even though we can’t stand the Democratic leader, the Democratic Party leadership. Even though they believe in things completely anathema of what we believe in, it’s still our duty at the end of the day to pledge our unconditional support to them.” And I think what people are starting to realize – two things:
Number one – when you pledge your unconditional support to politicians, meaning when you say like Chomsky does – no matter who you pick, no matter how adverse he is to my political ideology and my set of policy preferences, I’m going to vote for you. I’m gonna support you. They start to realize that you have no leverage. There’s no reason for them to do anything but ignore you with contempt because you’re basically in the subservient position you put yourself in where you say “I don’t care how much you trample on my values I’m still gonna vote for you”. Why would anybody listen to a group of people who say that and you say “Oh, we want concessions!” Why would I give you concessions if you’ve already told me that at the end of day you’re gonna vote for me anyway. I’m not gonna give you concessions. I’ll give concessions to the people who may not vote for me meaning centrist or Republicans or disaffected suburbanites or whatever. So, that’s one problem with that strategy is it guarantees your own impotence.
And the other problem with it is where does that end? What’s the the exit strategy for that if you continue to empower and support and fortify this neoliberal corporatist militarist wing of a party over and over and over again. You know now we’re supporting Al Gore. Now we’re supporting John Kerry. You know Barack Obama who ran on a different platform than his presidency became. Now we’re supporting Hillary Clinton. Now we’re supporting Joe Biden. What is the point of politics if that’s what you’re doing.
And, I think that a lot of people are now reaching the point where you know they supported Bernie Sanders because he promised a political revolution against the Democratic and Republican establishments, so – now tell those same people it’s time for you to get behind the very establishment who you thought you were launching a revolution against is a message that is not landing well for millions of people who probably all vote for Trump but may just stay at home or vote for a third party.
Glenn Greenwald on Noam Chomsky Favouring Biden Over Trump & Voting for Lesser of Two Evils (Apr 2020).
Zain Raza: There’s a huge debate taking place on the left. Even European viewers are watching this. And it’s between voting for Joe Biden or voting for Donald Trump. Who is a lesser evil? For example, Noam Chomsky has repeatedly stated that small differences in huge power can have large effects. And with that I’m trying to say that he thinks that Joe Biden is the lesser evil because there is more channels available to the public to influence policy under a Biden presidency. Biden signed the Iran deal under Obama, and even things like that Trump did was not done, under the Obama administration which includes arms treaty INF which was signed to limit nuclear weapons with the ranges of 500 to 5,500 kilometres, and we also saw the complete dissolution and abolishing of the climate change treaty. How do you see this? Do you think that Biden, given this track record that I mentioned, is a better president than Donald Trump or do you view them as being part of the same point.
Hedges: Look the the ruling elites made it very clear during the election and there were a series of articles in The New York Times where they stated this, that if, primarily Sanders but Warren or Sanders – but primarily Sanders, was the Democratic Party nominee they would vote for Donald Trump. This whole notion of the least worst only applies to us not to them. They ensure that whatever candidate is in there Trump, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama protects the interests of the global oligarchic elites and corporate power. Of course they prefer Biden just as they preferred Clinton.Trump is patently inept and a narcissist and an embarrassment to the Empire. But they know full well that the maintenance of Empire will be carried out whether it is Trump or Biden.
I, of course, known Chomsky is and I know Noam and like Noam very much. He is our most important intellectual, but he has for you know always repeated this mantra of voting for the least worst. In fact, what that has done in terms of those of us who care about an open society and equality and racial justice has rendered or neutered our effectiveness because the Democratic Party knows full well that it doesn’t matter what they do we will comply. We will surrender whatever values we have. You know the whole anti-war movement which I was part of collapsed once Kerry ran, was the Democratic nominee, because we had to get Kerry elected.
And so if you don’t pit power against power, if you don’t put pressures on the center of power you just move irrevocably further and further to the right. I mean the Democratic Party in Europe would be considered a far-right party. And this is the problem that I think that the Democratic Party, or those who care about the working-class within the Democratic Party, should have walked out of the party when Bill Clinton signed NAFTA in 1994 which was the greatest betrayal of the American working class since the passage of the 1948 Taft-Hartley Act. So, we didn’t. We didn’t stand with a working class. We betrayed the working class.
We busied ourselves with a kind of boutique activism, inclusiveness, and multiculturalism. I’m not denying that that’s all important. It is important that people have rights whether that’s gender rights or anything else, but you can’t divorce that from economic justice. And so now you have given rise to these proto-fascist forces gathering around Trump largely comprised of a betrayed white working-class and they have been betrayed, and their vitriol is especially fierce towards the Democratic Party which traditionally had at least taken into account their interests.
And, so that’s the problem. So, if you look at it in the short-term would Biden be better than then Trump? Yeah, but the fact is the mess we’ve gotten into is because progressives and the left didn’t stand with the working class as it was being decimated and that working class found its voice in a demagogue like Trump. And that isn’t gonna change. I mean Trump is the symptom. Trump is not the disease. I saw that in the former Yugoslavia when we vomited up these figures like Radovan Karadzic, and Slobodan Milosevic, and Franjo Tudjman. That’s what happens when society seizes up and a cabal takes power. You can go back and look at Weimar – exactly the same kind of situation.
I’m not saying that Trump is Hitler or the Nazis, but there are lessons to be learned from a dysfunctional, decayed society and everybody forgets, which is also true in the United States, that the erosion of the rule of law in Germany was carried out by Ebert because of the negative majorities within the Reichstag, the inability to function, the legislative process didn’t function. Ebert had decree after decree after decree. Well, this also happened in the United States and of course it’s what the Nazis used to consolidate power, but they weren’t the first to use it. It had been normalized.
So, the problem is that the the political system no longer functions. It’s dominated by corporate money. The legislation is written by corporate lobbyists including the latest “stimulus package” was directed and written by corporate lobbyists. And the whole consent of the governed is a joke. Politicians need such massive amounts of money in order to run and stay in office. Where are they going to get it? It’s just a form of legalized bribery.
And so the danger, and Noam is not doing this, but the danger with reducing it to who do you vote for is to personalize a dysfunctional political system. And I, you know I have two disagreements with Noam and one is on this mantra of the least worst, which just frankly hasn’t worked. And of course I’m a strong supporter of the BDS movement which he is not. But otherwise I admire him immensely.
Chris Hedges on Noam Chomsky Favouring Biden Over Trump & Voting for Lesser of Two Evils (AcTVism Muich, May 2020)
3. Forestalls Actual Change
The GOP is much too dangerous right now. If we defeat them, we can work toward progressive change next election.
Each time we vote for a Lesser of Two-Evils candidate we forestall change and progress for decade after decade. We keep saying “Just hold your nose and vote for the shitty candidate now, so we can just get that other guy out of office. We can vote for a real candidate next time!“, but strangely, that next time never comes. In a similar fashion to fusion – that technology which is always 20 years away, that mythical “next election” is always one election way, not this election – next election – that elusive and forever moving goal post of unobtainable political change.
This is especially powerful, because it gives false hope that change is always one election way, even though our 1% selected choices are always:
Really Evil Candidate
Plain Evil Candidate
…while the 1%’s control over us, the policies, and the electoral process remains unthwarted which was allowed to happen because we do NOT have an educated and principled electorate which demands that the politicians earn our vote, that they have to have our values, that our vote is NOT a guarantee.
The Stealing of your vote through Controlled Opposition!! 2002: I know, But you have to vote against Bush Maybe next election we can have real change. 2004: I know, But you have to vote against Bush Maybe next election we can have real change. 2008: I know, But you have to vote against McCain. Maybe next election we can have real change. 2012: I know, But you have to vote against Romney Maybe next election we can have real change. 2016: I know, But you have to vote against Trump. Are you beginning to see the cycle of control? www.FreeXenon.com
At what point do we decide to take a stand? At what point do we finally say “NO! NOW, you have to earn our votes!” after decades and decades of falling in line and Voting Blue No Matter Who out of fear, out of controlled opposition, out of ignorance, which results in us never having a good candidate to choose from because they all get destroyed by the corporate machine, the servants of the 1%. You voted for them to get into power, to get entrenched into the system, and to mold the system to their benefit. You voted for them to ignore you and to serve their corporate masters.
When is that moment where We the People matter and where we start voting as if we are supposed to matter, where we start voting as if our children are supposed to matter, where we vote as if the political systems is supposed to serve We the People and NOT just the 1%?
How do you change the corrupt system that you voted into power year after year, decade after decade? How do you get all of those seats back and filled with people that represent you and your values while the corporate and big money candidates that you voted into office control everything including the electoral process and the media? How long will it take to undo the electoral damage you have inflicted upon yourself through Lesser of THE Two-Evils voting? How long will it take for there to be enough good politicians (that you will never have the chance to vote for) present in Congress, the presidency, and all of those other offices to finally pass something that matters to you?
II. Then How the Hell am I Supposed to Vote?
Great question. =) Thanks for asking!!
A. We are All Victims
First, do not feel bad because we are all victims of a broken system, a system meant to enslave your mind, emotions, and your vote to the will of the 1%. Even I had to learn this over years and years of studying and research, through the agonizing experience of having my vote stolen from me in 2012, as well as the brutal and blatant slathering of electoral fraud, voter suppression, money laundering, and collusion during the 2016 and 2020 Democratic primaries.
We all have a lot to learn to be able to tear the veil of ignorance and delusion away, and no one can do it for us. We have to have the strength and resolve to do that ourselves. Hopefully, now you are beginning to understand your duty and responsibility to start YOUR journey into democracy so that you may break the chains of the 1%’s manipulation of and their stealing of your vote.
B. The Parties are Supposed to Serve the People.
You will take our Corporatist pick and you will like it, peasants! DNC: Our corporate pick doesn’t think it’s time for single-payer; we think the Green New Deal is too extreme; a $15 minimum wage is too high, unless we implement it over a ten year period; and we must wage war the world over ” to prevent the enemy from coming over here. People: OUR pick thinks it’s well past time for single-payer health care; the Green New Deal is critical to the survival of our species (and all other living things); the minimum wage would be $33/hr if everything had remained equal and the corporations hadn’t decided to keep all of the profit for themselves; and we want PEACE, no more corporate coups and endless wars. DNC: Too bad! We’re going to make that choice for you. But we do expect you to support that choice and not be sore losers. Because Trump!!! www.FreeXenon.com
It is not our job to compromise and vote for whoever the 1% finds acceptable. Why should it always be that the people are the ones who have to compromise and vote for 1%’s chosen candidates and not the other way around? We do NOT serve the party. The party is supposed to serve people. It is the job of the party to put forward candidates that we really want to vote for, a candidate that actually supports the issues we care about and that really inspires us.
Isn’t the government supposed to be “of the people, by the people, for the people“. The government is supposed to be public servants and its about time that they remember that. We the People are NOT supposed to bend the knee to corporate interests. This is something that our system has robbed us of knowing. It is now that we should remember. It is now that we should take the system back, because it IS ours to command.
Every single election is the time to remember this, so that finally we can make the political parties our bitches, to serve as our voice in our government, and NOT just be the mouthpiece for the 1% and the class warfare inflicted upon us. This is even more difficult because of the corporate media framing the election and issues to the benefit of the 1% and the corporations, and against you and against democracy. But the fight is worth it. The fight is necessary, because your vote and your unique voice deserves to be heard, cast, and counted honestly. Without that there is NO democracy.
We the People, the 99%, are losing horribly and that has to change. We have to open our eyes, to look beyond our delusions and our illusions, to see who the real culprits are – both parties which are controlled by the 1%. There is much more at a stake here than just the fear of the other party winning, because there really is only one party. The real war is between those who control both the political parties (the 1%) verses the voices of the people (the 99%), the voices they work so very hard to manipulate and suppress. The war here is much larger than Republican vs Democrat. It is the 1% verse the 99%. Until you realize that nothing will change, nothing will ever get better.
C. How to Vote Honestly and Responsibly
I wish I could end evil. It won’t end until YOU step out of line.
If you want real change then you need to discard your fear and emotional attachments, declare now that you will educate yourself on the issues, and begin to really take a good look at the candidates, their rhetoric, their policies, their records, and, perhaps more importantly, their money trail. You must then compare all of that honestly against your values. Your journey into becoming an educated and informed voter begins now. Democracy succeeds or fails based on the your decision to be an educated voter or not.
I have a large section of a post just on this topic – what to do and NOT to do when voting:
Here is the Table of Contents for that section of that post so you can see what you are getting into:
Make Sure You are Ready and Able to Vote
Arm Yourself With Knowledge Before You Start
Make Sure You Can Vote
Gather Your Voting Support Group
Have Your Voice Heard
What Not To Do When Voting:
Never Ever Vote Out of Fear
No Lesser-of Two-Evil Voting
Do Not Succumb to the Manipulative Force of Identity Politics
Do NOT Rely on Debates for Your Analysis
Do NOT Allow General Polling OR Exit Polls to Influence You
NO, It is NOT Obvious who is Going to Win!!
What You NEED To Do When Voting:
Cast Your Vote Based on Issues
Consider All Available Party Options
Check the Candidates’ Historical Voting Record
Follow the Money
Jump over there and give it an honest read and then join us in taking back our country from the 1%!
If everyone did this then the electoral landscape would change radically, and it would send a massive quake of fear throughout all of the oligarchs who have stolen so much from us all over the decades. We don’t necessarily need guillotines. We need a compassionate, educated, and informed electorate.
D. Policies to Reclaim our Elections?
Yup! I got ya covered there too! =)
So, the next question you might ask is “How do we fix our horribly broken electoral system so that we are not tools of the establishment? How do we break the chains of our electoral enslavement?” First, the most important and effective method honoring your duty to educate yourself and vote honestly.
Beyond that, there is a metric crap-load of things that need to change – everything from constitutional reforms to infrastructure upgrades, and sooo much more. I have a whole page dedicated to electoral reform on my policy site – Interstellar New Deal. Go ahead and check it out:
Here is the basic table of contents to give you an overview of what you will find there:
1. Constitutional Amendments
2. Financing of Elections
3. News and Media Reform
4. Voting Reform
5. Ethical Reform for Parties and Process
6. Supporting Electoral Reform
7. An Inclusive America
Documentaries to Learn More
Conclusion
A 2 Party system, the lesser of 2 dangers, the illusion of choice. A veiled form of fascism where nothing really changes and you never had a voice. – Prince
By Voting Blue No Matter Who we become the engines of our own enslavement by virtue of voting out of fear and ignorance. The very first moment the first person voted out of fear is the moment that We the People lost. We cannot change things for the better by voting out of fear. We can only bring change by casting and voting that represents our hopes and our values. Voting out of fear means our leverage and our values are left at the door and therefore we ALL lose and the 1% wins every time.
The symptoms (Trump, Biden, and the corrupt Republican and Democratic Parties) are all really, really bad – just two different shitty flavors of a fascist and oligarchic cancer. This Lesser of the Two Evils Voting is what brought us to this horrible state in the first place. It is what has the Democratic Party being owned by the corporations while it shows no real policy-based or statistical evidence that it cares or listens to us, the 99%, at all.
Voting out of fear and hostage taking for just one… more… election (Vote Blue No Matter Who) is what has been done for waaaay too many decades and which has resulted in the continuous right-ward shift of both parties so that now there is NO major party with any left (or even center) leaning tendencies.
But that is OK, right? Because you have been voting for it. We will vote for who we want next election, right? Because there will be no scary Republican running that will scare you back into the deaf, exploitative, and abusive arms of the Democratic Party. We are the abused electorate going back into the arms of our abusers. That is what we are.
Lesser of the Two Evils voting leads to harm perpetuation and the continuous devastation of the vast numbers of powerless and voiceless minority communities, as well as allowing the controlling power to entrench themselves within the process, system, and into your mind. It never ever leads to any real progress or change, never leads to a candidate that represents you and your interests because you never really had a chance to vote for one. You keep voting for their candidate, the 1% candidate, because the big bad Republican is scary! You are a tool. You are a tool of the 1% and they have you right where they want you. Mindless, fearful, and blindly voting against your interests and your values. What could be sweeter to the 1%? I can’t think of much else.
If we continue the cycle of voting for them even though they never listen to us then we have zero leverage to demand change. If we do not vote our values and principles then they will be nowhere to be found within our candidates, their policies, or within our government. If WE do not stop this vicious cycle then it will never stop, because there is too much money to be made by the politicians their 1% owners by perpetuating it.
The time is now. We have an acceleration of change happening with the massive movements that sprung out from Bernie Sanders, The Squad (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Pramila Jayapal), Black Lives Matter, the Green New Deal, the Sunrise Movement, Justice Democrats, and of the other progressive movements who are demanding real change, real progress for the people. We also have the rise of the Movement for a People’s Party which is spearheaded by the Bernie surrogate, Nina Turner. (2023 edit – so much of this paragraph turned out to be a dud, sadly)
But, now we have no excuse. Now we know better. We know that we have the ability to have our voices heard, to claim our power, to cast the usurpers of our government down from their gold wrought chairs drenched in the blood of the innocent that they have sacrificed for their large corporate paychecks, and to claim our government for our own – for the benefit of everyone and NOT just the 1%.
We can only change the system by voting our values and our hopes, and NOT our fears. Until we break free of the delusion that the two party system presents us with a real choice and that we have a democracy things will not ever change.
I have a new blog post on my policy site, Interstellar New Deal talking about the Defund the Police Movement. Here is a quote from the Introduction section:
In response to the coldblooded murder of George Floyd by 4 police officers (3 white, 1 Asian) in Minneapolis, MN there is a large call to Defund the Police and people are freaking out about this because they do NOT understand what this movement is about, so let’s try to figure this out so that you know what it is and what it isn’t.
From the Introduction of the Defund the Police? post (June 2020)
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