Sometimes I write to get some thoughts out, to see how things work together, and this might be one of those times. They aren't fully developed thoughts and are just more a work in progress or a type of personal sounding board, so I can feel how pieces fit together. I do this because sometimes, it just takes so much effort to develop a concept that it seems overwhelming to even start. This way, I can chunk it into pieces and see where it leads, often I end up with a lot of other thoughts that spin off that I can build upon at other times.
So come for a free-write ride.
Firstly, I think it would be fantastic if the world ran more smoothly and the outcomes for humanity were better. I think that wellbeing of humanity should be the number one goal for all people on earth, because this would mean that we would have to work out the environmental challenges, the economic challenges, the health challenges, and the living together challenges. We would all be better off when we invest into building the best version of humanity we can possible develop.
Let's roll.
The biggest challenge facing humanity today isn't the environment, because we would be able to solve that issue relatively easily given the resources. Even energy isn't a problem, because we could solve that too and would have to, in order to solve the environmental issues. Living together and health aren't too difficult either, it is just a question of putting resources into the right areas. The biggest problem we face,
Is economic.
The economic problem isn't an issue of "not enough money" because money is not really about amounts. What money is about is resource allocation, but because we have developed a world where collecting money for the sake of having more of it is the goal, resource allocation has become severely skewed with most of it going to the wrong places. In order to fix all the issues humanity faces, we have to be efficient, not in saving money, but creating positive impact with the resources we have.
Now currently, the money (and therefore resources) is being extracted from the masses and used to make more money, without giving anything back to the mine. We are the mine. This process is speeding up to the point that it will eat itself and collapse, but those in power to do anything, don't care about that, because they are wealth addicts and all they think that matters is money. Money solves the problems, but without resources going to fix those problems, no it doesn't.
The main place I want to explore a little here is in corporations and companies, which are obviously manmade entities that are structured on a set of policies and rules. The problem is, that those rules are not robust enough to keep them in line, they are easily manipulated and circumvented, and they do not dictate that the governed entities need provide value to the people at all. Thus, they have become master extractors of resources from the masses, and are celebrated by the minority investors.
The problem is that they have broken a social contract now. In the past, while there was always loopholes, the economy was pretty simple. A company had to make something useful-ish to sell, and in order to do this they needed a host of people to create that thing. It created a kind of circular economy where people earned so they could consume. And the governments supported this in several ways, where the social contract becomes clear, as they used tax money. They trained people in schools and universities, they built healthcare systems and social support for families, and they developed infrastructure for communities to live.
And they did this with tax money.
But, to encourage the circular economy, they gave corporations and investors lower tax rates than employees. They did this so that companies would in return hire the people that could then become customers of the companies and taxed by the governments to keep the systems running. But this was developed at a time where truly global corporations didn't exist, taxes couldn't be done in tax havens, and products had to be developed using a lot of people power. That is not the case now, so the corporations are using the mechanisms from the past to extract at an increasingly fast rate, driving wealth gaps, and resource gaps.
Wealth gaps don't matter as much as resource gaps.
Because as I stated above, those resources are required to be used in the right way at the right places in order to improve humanity. But currently, they are being used where they make more money. The economy for humans should have very little to do with maximising wealth, it should always focus on wellbeing.
The problem is that we aren't doing that, which means that the corporations are finding ways to increase wealth at the cost of wellbeing, extracting more and more for themselves and shareholders. Shareholder wealth isn't determined by how much wellbeing the company created, nor is the salary of the CEO and executives, it is all about monetary profit.
But this might be easy to adjust heavily with a few policy changes. When it comes to corporate taxes, they should be paid where the money is made and they should be higher than the tax employees pay. Essentially, employees should pay no tax, since them being there has already been paid by tax payers due to the education system, healthcare and whatnot. But, let's say employees pay 20% (no matter earning) and companies pay 30%. But on top of this, investors and investments will be taxed as companies, paying more than if they were working. After all, it is a return on doing nothing.
Okay, but after cleaning up the taxes a bit, something more important should happen, because the current system is designed for only some people to benefit a huge amount. Yet, what could happen is that all people benefit a lesser amount. For instance, while the taxes are paid to underpin schools and healthcare systems, all companies should have every person as a shareholder of the company. For instance, Let's say that the population had a 20% stake in all companies, so whether they are profiting or not, every person gets dividends paid, like a salary. This would pretty much be the only way a universal basic income (UBI) could work.
But while I haven't thought out all the impacts, by having everyone automatically stakeholders in all business, it also adjusts what people demand as goods and services. And what it also means is that if a company like Apple or SpaceX does incredibly well, everyone will benefit from it, like a rebate, because we are the reason they do incredibly well. Apple fails without us as customers. But it also fails without us as employees along the supply chain.
Essentially, that guaranteed and unsellable stake in the index of all business that is guaranteed to be paid in full by policy, means that while a founder and investors could get very wealthy from their idea, it won't be able to go to extremes, because the more they make, the more the index fund returns. And I believe that over time, this system would start to shift business offerings at their core, where the focus of resources will shift into wellbeing across the board, which will translate into resources being spent developing clean renewable energy, repairing and enhancing the environment, and improving the wellbeing of humans.
And of course, a simple system such as this future-proofs humanity from work-based irrelevance, because even if robots and AI do everything, that rebate percentage can grow to ensure there is always a solid income for everyone that can be spent to not only survive, but thrive, which would be a far better way to organise resource allocation for humanity.
I get that a lot of people might find this a radical idea, but over the last couple days I have been thinking about how stupid the economy is, if it isn't making our lives better - which is the only reason for it to exist at all.
As I see it, we could all be doing very well in our daily lives, having rich relationships and innovating in ways that are highly valuable for humanity, - where everyone benefits and everyone is also rewarded for taking part. But everyone is also looked after. With the technology we have today, we can make it work right now and start reversing all the damage we have done to ourselves by focusing on wellbeing creation, instead of wealth creation. And I believe that once it got going, the return on investment in terms of meaning and purpose would far outstrip what even the wealthiest business owners and investors get today.
All it takes are a few policy changes. And another mindset shift for humanity.
Before money was invented, we still had economics.
We have to build the social contract back into all economic processes, so that the continuous improvement of focus aligns directly with what is best for human wellbeing - now, and sustainably into the future.
Taraz [ Gen1: Hive ]
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