Have you ever played Civilization, the turn-based strategy computer game? Because it’d be a hoot to watch you start from turn 1 (at the beginning of human civilization) and see how you could employ all of these intriguing ideas to create a simulated “utopia” through the centuries.
I love this vision for our economy. You bring up an interesting vocational evolution of not working “full time” in one field. I think the transformation of the gig economy and continued investment into side hustles is only a natural progression of dismantling the one role society member as well as traditional class jobs (blue collar vs white collar).
How cool would it be if your hobby for cooking could be shifted to part-time work at your local diner? Or a line cook’s investment into coding school could be supplemented so they didn’t have to do it after working 40 hours a week at a restaurant?
I think having different roles in benefitting society besides a standard 40 hour a week will make our economy and society more fruitful and, hopefully, more understanding as a species.
If « the same thing » is God meeting the need of each individual in the way appropriate to them, then yes, it’s a matter of words. But there is an absolute divine Love and law that stands behind it all, and that’s more than just words.
OK. I apologize in advance for the somewhat long essay to come…
Divine laws are the laws of God that hold the universe in harmony. The Bible describes some of the initial struggle of humanity to understand and apply those laws, culminating in Jesus, who understood the laws so thoroughly that he could demonstrate them fully in healing every sickness imaginable, walking on water, stilling storms, feeding thousands with a few crumbs, even negating death.
Fast forward to today, and it’s our task to understand and demonstrate those laws ourselves. We have the wherewithal to do it, in part through ideas that are coming all the time from God, which one of the main characters in my novel calls angels. A small example of how these angels appear to everyone with healing effect is in last week’s New Yorker, in an article by a long-time prisoner named Joe Garcia (“Listening to Taylor Swift in Prison” September 2, 2023):
“There was, in [Swift’s] voice, something intuitively pleasant and genuine and good, something that implies happiness or at least the possibility of happiness. When I listened to her music, I felt that I was still part of the world I had left behind.”
God’s angel, an idea that illuminates God's law, has lifted Garcia to feel something of God’s love, even while incarcerated for murder.
There are people who strive to practice these laws every day, and they find healing. These aren’t my ideas, by the way, but I have lived with them for a long time, and they are very real. I believe that in understanding and practicing these laws we will also find the ideas, patience, courage and everything else needed to create a world economy that sings.
Ahhhhh interesting. So really it's a matter of terminology?? (As in, the Christian bible is calling something an "angel," that Joe Garcia experiences as "goodness"?) Is it just a matter of using different words to describe the same thing from the perspective of different groups of people?
You are definitely right, it's not impossible. One way or another we have to get to a future of hope rather than despair. I love your spirit. We need that.
What I mean by a scientific and provable God is a God that operates under laws that can be proved. Most religions do not believe such a God exists. They believe that material law is the last word, which means that in the long run it's mostly doom and gloom for humanity, at least in the scope of a human lifetime. There's a lot I could say on this, but I don't think this is the forum. But what Jesus did, for example, in his healing works and overcoming of death, was not perform one-off miracles but demonstrate divine laws that are still active and can be proved. To me that's the most reliable route to the kind of future you envision. (It's what I'm trying to explore on my own Substack site, at the moment through fiction.)
Hoo boy, does this sound excellent. Admitting that this is way too broad a question to answer in a comment section, how would you envision getting us on the track for this, if you had to pitch it? Does the free market lead us, or maybe the government, or possibly some particularly-calibrated balance of those two? No right or wrong answers, I imagine; just curious how you're imagining it.
I personally don't believe a free market will get us anywhere except for Carnegie-era capitalism. BUT I think the government could incentivize certain industries to make it economically beneficial for entrepreneurs to want to launch a science or tech startup.
There are several scientifically focused venture funds that will gladly invest in biotech startups that are trying to solve specific human health problems—that those exist, means scientific researchers don't have to stay in academia for the duration of their careers. They can launch a startup, have it funded, and immediately start figuring out how to tackle the problem.
Government tax breaks and subsidies could really boost the science and technology sectors. And heavy taxes levied on retail companies that need to use new materials and certain banking industries could decentivize those sectors. With those parameters in place, capitalism can have "free" reign to go after all the opportunities to make money, but those opportunities are all in the science and tech sectors, and it will be too expensive for new companies to want to start a new retail business....
Your vision seems impossible, given the obstacles we face to get there, but of course, anything that has moved humanity forward has seemed impossible, until it wasn’t. The main problem, as I see it, is not economic or technological or political but human nature, manifesting itself in hope and generosity but also greed and fear. For every step forward, it seems we take a step back. The only way to find permanent solutions like the ones you imagine is to lift human thought to grasp the eternal laws that transcend nature. This means bringing religion into the equation. It’s evident from your essays where you stand on religion, but maybe it’s a religious revolution that we need – an entirely new way to think about God, one that’s scientific and provable.
I definitely don't think it's impossible (especially considering what we have been able to achieve with our economy the last 100 years!) Even the fact that we are so drastically and quickly changing all of our energy sources to renewable ones gives me a lot of hope. Because for a long time it was much more profitable to use fossil fuels and pollute, but we decided we wanted something different and made a very expensive pivot which will be much better for humanity in the long term! The fact that we have been able to do that, and many other pivots, just shows how we can use our economy for good!
I am very curious though what you mean about a scientific and provable God??
"In the United States, healthcare contributes very little to the economy (it’s not even on the above pie chart!), but it makes up a very large percentage of the government’s budget (26%!). "
As always, I’m captivated by your vision. I’d love to live in a world like you’ve described.
However, it seems to me that work is antithetical to this vision becoming a reality. I think as long as most people have to sell their labor (their time, their life) for necessities, esp for the sake of someone else’s profits, then too many incentives to retain our current tyrannies remain.
Related, I think right now we have the resources to live in the kind of plenty you’ve described. The reasons we don’t, in my view, are the profit motive, private property, and the kind of fiat currency we have.
To achieve the utopian dreams you’ve deliciously laid out, I think we need to do more than redesign the economy: I think we need to do away with work and money entirely.
Right now *some countries* have the resources to live in the kind of plenty I've described. And they mostly do—the only thing that could make them better is better wealth distribution, which we absolutely do need to figure out. But we don't yet have the resources for the *whole world* to live in that kind of plenty. (The global economy is worth $105 trillion and there are 7.8 billion people on the planet—evenly divided that's only $13,461 per person.)
The way I see it is that there is no way to remove money, or to remove work. Because even if we have don't have money we will have resources (food, land, the things we own). And even if we don't have capitalism, people will have to work to get those things (by farming, or by making them, etc). And because of that, the profit motive will always exist. People will always want more or different things (That's when people start bartering for goods between themselves). And they will always want things they can't trade for (That's when people invent currency so they can trade something they have to get something they want.)
So to me the profit motive isn't the problem, it's just how people naturally behave. They work to get more for themselves and their families. And when systems allow them to get WAY more for themselves and their families, much more than anyone else, THAT is the problem. But we can fix that by regulating what people are able to work for, and what they are able to earn. And that, to me, is the solution. A better distribution of resources, not the inability to have them.
I've yet to see a system that allows people to have plenty with no work and no money! That's just poverty! (Though if you have any reading materials that say otherwise please send them my way, I will gladly read them!!!!!)
It’s a good point about the global economy, but I always wonder to what extent money reflects our real material situation. For instance, the African continent is generally the poorest economically, but everyone knows it’s incredibly rich in material wealth. Why the discrepancy? Well, foreign powers have been stealing that wealth for centuries and continue to do so today. In fact, without colonialism and the slave trade I’m not sure the European powers, much less America, could have “developed” the way they did.
In terms of human nature and how we’ve always behaved, I understand the reasoning behind describing all modes of exchange as economical, but from what I’ve learned it’s not the case that exchange has always been driven by the desire for profit. Many systems that are now called “bartering” were really gift economies. David Graeber’s The Dawn of Everything is a real game-changer on this topic.
Well yes, that's very true about our past (and the past of Africa). But I think that Africa's success now will come from its ability to economically develop. There are still many "gift economies" currently in existence in Africa, and they are overwhelmingly poor and destitute. I doubt you could find one gift economy in Africa that wouldn't trade it for jobs and an economy. But it's worth researching more to see if that's true!
And yes, I've read a lot of David Graeber, but haven't read The Dawn of Everything yet! I'm about to delve into my anarchist literature phase so I'd love to talk with you more about all of that! Just emailed you!!!!
Hey, forgot to respond to this, I didn't see an email from you? I use a different name on my email accounts than on here, maybe something got mixed up?
Have you ever played Civilization, the turn-based strategy computer game? Because it’d be a hoot to watch you start from turn 1 (at the beginning of human civilization) and see how you could employ all of these intriguing ideas to create a simulated “utopia” through the centuries.
No, but that does sound really fun.......
I love this vision for our economy. You bring up an interesting vocational evolution of not working “full time” in one field. I think the transformation of the gig economy and continued investment into side hustles is only a natural progression of dismantling the one role society member as well as traditional class jobs (blue collar vs white collar).
How cool would it be if your hobby for cooking could be shifted to part-time work at your local diner? Or a line cook’s investment into coding school could be supplemented so they didn’t have to do it after working 40 hours a week at a restaurant?
I think having different roles in benefitting society besides a standard 40 hour a week will make our economy and society more fruitful and, hopefully, more understanding as a species.
I love these ideas! You should write an essay about how this could work!
That's a great idea!
My pleasure. And thank you for sharing your perspective as well. I look forward to reading more.
If « the same thing » is God meeting the need of each individual in the way appropriate to them, then yes, it’s a matter of words. But there is an absolute divine Love and law that stands behind it all, and that’s more than just words.
Well that's very beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing your perspective with me!
OK. I apologize in advance for the somewhat long essay to come…
Divine laws are the laws of God that hold the universe in harmony. The Bible describes some of the initial struggle of humanity to understand and apply those laws, culminating in Jesus, who understood the laws so thoroughly that he could demonstrate them fully in healing every sickness imaginable, walking on water, stilling storms, feeding thousands with a few crumbs, even negating death.
Fast forward to today, and it’s our task to understand and demonstrate those laws ourselves. We have the wherewithal to do it, in part through ideas that are coming all the time from God, which one of the main characters in my novel calls angels. A small example of how these angels appear to everyone with healing effect is in last week’s New Yorker, in an article by a long-time prisoner named Joe Garcia (“Listening to Taylor Swift in Prison” September 2, 2023):
“There was, in [Swift’s] voice, something intuitively pleasant and genuine and good, something that implies happiness or at least the possibility of happiness. When I listened to her music, I felt that I was still part of the world I had left behind.”
God’s angel, an idea that illuminates God's law, has lifted Garcia to feel something of God’s love, even while incarcerated for murder.
There are people who strive to practice these laws every day, and they find healing. These aren’t my ideas, by the way, but I have lived with them for a long time, and they are very real. I believe that in understanding and practicing these laws we will also find the ideas, patience, courage and everything else needed to create a world economy that sings.
Ahhhhh interesting. So really it's a matter of terminology?? (As in, the Christian bible is calling something an "angel," that Joe Garcia experiences as "goodness"?) Is it just a matter of using different words to describe the same thing from the perspective of different groups of people?
You are definitely right, it's not impossible. One way or another we have to get to a future of hope rather than despair. I love your spirit. We need that.
What I mean by a scientific and provable God is a God that operates under laws that can be proved. Most religions do not believe such a God exists. They believe that material law is the last word, which means that in the long run it's mostly doom and gloom for humanity, at least in the scope of a human lifetime. There's a lot I could say on this, but I don't think this is the forum. But what Jesus did, for example, in his healing works and overcoming of death, was not perform one-off miracles but demonstrate divine laws that are still active and can be proved. To me that's the most reliable route to the kind of future you envision. (It's what I'm trying to explore on my own Substack site, at the moment through fiction.)
Oh that's very interesting. What are divine laws???
Hoo boy, does this sound excellent. Admitting that this is way too broad a question to answer in a comment section, how would you envision getting us on the track for this, if you had to pitch it? Does the free market lead us, or maybe the government, or possibly some particularly-calibrated balance of those two? No right or wrong answers, I imagine; just curious how you're imagining it.
I personally don't believe a free market will get us anywhere except for Carnegie-era capitalism. BUT I think the government could incentivize certain industries to make it economically beneficial for entrepreneurs to want to launch a science or tech startup.
There are several scientifically focused venture funds that will gladly invest in biotech startups that are trying to solve specific human health problems—that those exist, means scientific researchers don't have to stay in academia for the duration of their careers. They can launch a startup, have it funded, and immediately start figuring out how to tackle the problem.
Government tax breaks and subsidies could really boost the science and technology sectors. And heavy taxes levied on retail companies that need to use new materials and certain banking industries could decentivize those sectors. With those parameters in place, capitalism can have "free" reign to go after all the opportunities to make money, but those opportunities are all in the science and tech sectors, and it will be too expensive for new companies to want to start a new retail business....
Your vision seems impossible, given the obstacles we face to get there, but of course, anything that has moved humanity forward has seemed impossible, until it wasn’t. The main problem, as I see it, is not economic or technological or political but human nature, manifesting itself in hope and generosity but also greed and fear. For every step forward, it seems we take a step back. The only way to find permanent solutions like the ones you imagine is to lift human thought to grasp the eternal laws that transcend nature. This means bringing religion into the equation. It’s evident from your essays where you stand on religion, but maybe it’s a religious revolution that we need – an entirely new way to think about God, one that’s scientific and provable.
I definitely don't think it's impossible (especially considering what we have been able to achieve with our economy the last 100 years!) Even the fact that we are so drastically and quickly changing all of our energy sources to renewable ones gives me a lot of hope. Because for a long time it was much more profitable to use fossil fuels and pollute, but we decided we wanted something different and made a very expensive pivot which will be much better for humanity in the long term! The fact that we have been able to do that, and many other pivots, just shows how we can use our economy for good!
I am very curious though what you mean about a scientific and provable God??
"In the United States, healthcare contributes very little to the economy (it’s not even on the above pie chart!), but it makes up a very large percentage of the government’s budget (26%!). "
I'm just stopped right there. Oh. My.
As always, I’m captivated by your vision. I’d love to live in a world like you’ve described.
However, it seems to me that work is antithetical to this vision becoming a reality. I think as long as most people have to sell their labor (their time, their life) for necessities, esp for the sake of someone else’s profits, then too many incentives to retain our current tyrannies remain.
Related, I think right now we have the resources to live in the kind of plenty you’ve described. The reasons we don’t, in my view, are the profit motive, private property, and the kind of fiat currency we have.
To achieve the utopian dreams you’ve deliciously laid out, I think we need to do more than redesign the economy: I think we need to do away with work and money entirely.
Right now *some countries* have the resources to live in the kind of plenty I've described. And they mostly do—the only thing that could make them better is better wealth distribution, which we absolutely do need to figure out. But we don't yet have the resources for the *whole world* to live in that kind of plenty. (The global economy is worth $105 trillion and there are 7.8 billion people on the planet—evenly divided that's only $13,461 per person.)
The way I see it is that there is no way to remove money, or to remove work. Because even if we have don't have money we will have resources (food, land, the things we own). And even if we don't have capitalism, people will have to work to get those things (by farming, or by making them, etc). And because of that, the profit motive will always exist. People will always want more or different things (That's when people start bartering for goods between themselves). And they will always want things they can't trade for (That's when people invent currency so they can trade something they have to get something they want.)
So to me the profit motive isn't the problem, it's just how people naturally behave. They work to get more for themselves and their families. And when systems allow them to get WAY more for themselves and their families, much more than anyone else, THAT is the problem. But we can fix that by regulating what people are able to work for, and what they are able to earn. And that, to me, is the solution. A better distribution of resources, not the inability to have them.
I've yet to see a system that allows people to have plenty with no work and no money! That's just poverty! (Though if you have any reading materials that say otherwise please send them my way, I will gladly read them!!!!!)
It’s a good point about the global economy, but I always wonder to what extent money reflects our real material situation. For instance, the African continent is generally the poorest economically, but everyone knows it’s incredibly rich in material wealth. Why the discrepancy? Well, foreign powers have been stealing that wealth for centuries and continue to do so today. In fact, without colonialism and the slave trade I’m not sure the European powers, much less America, could have “developed” the way they did.
In terms of human nature and how we’ve always behaved, I understand the reasoning behind describing all modes of exchange as economical, but from what I’ve learned it’s not the case that exchange has always been driven by the desire for profit. Many systems that are now called “bartering” were really gift economies. David Graeber’s The Dawn of Everything is a real game-changer on this topic.
Well yes, that's very true about our past (and the past of Africa). But I think that Africa's success now will come from its ability to economically develop. There are still many "gift economies" currently in existence in Africa, and they are overwhelmingly poor and destitute. I doubt you could find one gift economy in Africa that wouldn't trade it for jobs and an economy. But it's worth researching more to see if that's true!
And yes, I've read a lot of David Graeber, but haven't read The Dawn of Everything yet! I'm about to delve into my anarchist literature phase so I'd love to talk with you more about all of that! Just emailed you!!!!
Hey, forgot to respond to this, I didn't see an email from you? I use a different name on my email accounts than on here, maybe something got mixed up?
Oh wait, I just checked my spam folder -- for some reason it was in there!