Rethinking Economics

MAKE MONEY

In the circle of freethinkers, it is common to question religion and government as some of the many things that are commonly taken on faith. What I find to be less common, however, is a critical analysis of monetary economics, which is pretty much the fundamental mechanism that is running the world today. I think that it is of utmost importance that we revisit economics with a fresh perspective, given the many different failures that the traditional model has been spitting out these past few years.

The foundation of modern economic models dates back to a time when self-interest, utilitarianism, and profit maximization were the basic assumptions underlying human behavior. However, recent sociological studies have relentlessly shown over and over again that these facets of ‘human nature’ simply do not explain enough about new phenomena that are emerging.

For example, nobody could have predicted the rise of Free and Open Source Software volunteerism a few decades ago. This community violates all of the old rules of economics by volunteering precious time to do sophisticated work on projects which are just given away to the public.

Another thing that the old model failed to take into account is the exponential growth of technology. In the past, as technology progressed and people were displaced from their jobs, it wasn’t too difficult to learn a new skill from which one could earn a living. Nowadays, however, automation has penetrated the marketplace so deeply that people are having trouble looking for things to do in order to survive, especially since technology moves so fast that what one may be studying now could be obsolete in just a few years. The glaring problem here is the direct conflict between employed human labor and technological advancement. Given the primary profit incentive of business, this means that people will continually be laid off and experience difficulty in sustaining themselves due to the creation of new automated machines.

This exhibits a crucial flaw in the system, wherein technology, whose purpose is actually to free humans from drudgery, becomes a problem for the common worker. Therefore when we apply new technologies, businesses end up with greater capacities for productivity, while consumers are left behind with smaller capacities for consumption because of job loss. Therein lies the paradox of having much to offer but not being able to give it simply because the people cannot pay for what they need.

Surprising as it may sound, the current state of technology is actually advanced enough to allow for a virtually complete automation of the basic industrial processes required to sustain human life. This means creating an abundance of goods so high that putting a price tag on them just wouldn’t make any sense. This could spell the emancipation proclamation of all mankind from the paradigm of “labor for sustenance” and possibly the end of money itself. At this point, I would like to introduce the concept of a resource-based economy, wherein the necessities of life are provided to people for free, without the need for employment.

Naturally, a critical thinker would respond with many different questions to this kind of proposal, which is a good thing. Some of the common questions posed deal with the timeless debate of “nature vs. nurture”. However, as can be seen from the links I have provided above, the human species does have a capacity to change and learn to be sociable. Another common question that arises deals with motivation. Simply put, what would motivate humans to do anything if they were provided all of their basic needs without a price tag? The answer is simple: stuff they like. Sure, some people would argue that most people would just lie around all day having fun. But is there really anything intrinsically wrong with that? It’s not going to be as if nobody will ever do science or develop technology as if those were terribly boring activities. There wouldn’t be any problem with someone just lying around for months at a time, although I’m pretty sure that that person would eventually get bored with inactivity and wind up looking for something to do.

Now there are probably tons of other issues that are unresolved in your mind, such as those of how to deal with property, government, crime, etc. Why wouldn’t there? This is a huge fundemantal shift of perspective from mainstream economics and having these questions in mind is simply an indicator of a skeptical, cautious, and healthy mind. However, in the interest of avoiding a tl;dr post, I shall leave you with some links that will hopefully cover a lot of your questions:

The Venus Project – an organization that advocates the implementation of a resource-based economy
The Zeitgeist Movement – the activist arm of The Venus Project; concerned primarily with spreading awareness of these issues (Here are the Philippine Chapter’s Facebook group and page)

I invite you all to join the movement. Like FF, it is open to people from all nationalities, religions, and walks of life, and also highly values reason and science as important tools for learning about our world.

23 comments

  1. hi wes.

    i agree that competition has provided a lot of motivation for humans throughout history. but there are many other leaps and bounds that were not motivated by money and/or competition. einstein, darwin, tesla, bardeen, borlaug, and countless other great people didn't do their work for profit or because of the need to be a step ahead of everyone else. so it would be a fallacy to say that a competitive outlook is the only source of motivation. and if we're going to look at war and competition as sources of positive motivation, we also have to recognize the negative things they promote, such as corporate fraud, profiteering, and slander to mention just a few.

    looking at the space race, it may have been the cold war that brought attention to it, but the engineers at nasa would have gone through with the project whether or not they were competing with the ussr. the main point here is that they were only able to start working on it because they were given the funding and resources to do so by the politicians in power.

    if it's true that conflict brings out both the best and worst in people, i'm open to looking for something that doesn't just "even out" and actually does more good than harm.

    your example with mobile services in the philippines is interesting. people usually do not see the underhanded side of "healthy competition". in a nutshell, what you're saying is you're going to try your best to improve your system so that your competitors will be left in the dust so you can have all the market share and, ultimately, become a monopoly. it's pretty clear to me that the market system pits each and every one of us against each other and fails to foster collaboration and cooperation (except maybe in the prospect of a merger and, again, getting a monopoly).

    also, your example does not explain why a monopoly like google keeps on innovating, expanding, and improving its services. i believe that a better explanation would be the culture and attitude of the people in the company. in google, you have people who are truly passionate about problem-solving and development. in contrast, i wonder how many people in meralco can honestly say that they are passionate about efficiently bringing high-quality electricity to the people. XD

    thanks for your reply! 🙂

  2. This is beautiful. I haven't been in touch with the Filipino Freethinkers group and the mailing list as I've been mostly lurking on the forums and on this website. I've waited for a post like this and I'm quite happy that this idea is here, alive and kicking in this group.

    The question though is how do we get from point A to point B say, like here in the Philippines? Are there any politicians or any other influential people who happen to know, all the more like this idea? What are the demographics of us Filipinos who actually know and support it?

    What I do know is that to a lot of maybe middle-class people, the idea sits well with them. What I don't know is whether the rich (business/money-earning) and poorer classes (manual labor/agriculture/working) will find it to be even a comfortable topic to be talking about.

    • hello zachary!

      the question you posed (how to get from A to B in the philippines) is still an open one. there are certain groups who are looking to start intentional communities here by purchasing parcels of land. as for politicians and influential people, i am not sure whether there are any here who are aware of this direction. it says on the zeitgeist movement website that there are 1212 members in the philippines.

      on your point of who could be receptive to this idea, i would have to agree that from experience, the middle class is easiest to engage. the lower class usually take more time to digest the idea since they are not particularly aware of the current state of technology. the upper class, on the other hand, seems a bit difficult to motivate due to a certain air of complacency coupled with their comfortable lifestyles. of course this does not apply to all people within the said classes and we both know that sweeping generalizations are dangerous things.

      thanks for the comment! 🙂

  3. so this proposed system hinges on 2 prerequisites:

    1. the advancement of technology to provide the basic requirements for everyone – food/shelter/sanitation/entertainment.

    however, when we go beyond basic survival requirements (aka. luxury goods) then there has to be a way to ensure that people don't fight among themselves for the best picks, then there's the case of apathy where people would just tend to be couch potatoes the whole day or just take vacations the rest of their lives, halting progress altogether. that's where #2 comes in

    2. total enlightenment which includes elimination of greed, personal ambition, and the whole power-tripping ego yet still have enough drive to improve stuff. that's where it gets tricky. the studies you cited have animals losing their aggressive behavior if kept well fed. it might work on people too, but people who's needs are met will also loose the urge to improve. sure, a few altruistic will, but not at the pace where people have the incentive of carrot and stick. they'll be like those fat slobs in Wall-E who are just content to watch TV all day.

    as I look at it, the prerequisites are approaching the levels of what religion promises us in heaven… land of milk and honey… where lions lie with lambs…

    • hi wes.

      with regard to your first point, it would be safe to say that a huge percentage of jobs needed today simply wouldn't have any relevance in a resource-based economy, such as anything that has to do with money management and advertising. so i don't see any particular problem with people taking vacations for almost the rest of their lives. this isn't to say, however, that everyone will do just that. as you can see today with free and open source software, there are quite a lot of people who enjoy technical work and problem solving enough to the point that they do not seek compensation for it.

      with regard to your second point, this is why we need a drastic shift in culture. and when it comes to motivation, money is starting to prove less and less effective, especially as modern occupations become less mechanical due to automation, as can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc

      so ideally, people wouldn't be content to "watch TV all day", but if it happened that some people were, i wouldn't take it against them. i would look at what the prevailing culture promotes and work on improving that based on what we want it to.

      thanks for your response 🙂

      • having worked in a tech firm, I have to erase the simplistic notion that technology "solves everything". there are more boring jobs in a tech company than ones that people would actually feel inspired to do willingly. for every job that's self-rewarding for whatever reason (creative challenge, fun to do…), there are 10 really sucky jobs needed to support it (inventory spare parts, repair damaged machines, deliver parts, install new machines, tech support). The more machines we have to automate our lives, the more we have to manufacture, fix, maintain, and update.

        so unless something major really happens that will alter our whole psychological work-motivation, I don't see this happening. Its easy to say "when people become more enlightened", but without an actual way to achieve that paradigm-shift, this only remains a theoretical model.

        • hi wes.

          we don't claim that technology "solves everything", although we're aware that it can solve quite a lot. if it's true that the more technology we create, the more jobs we have, then i don't see why they are running out of things to do in developed countries that are technologically advanced. your analogy of a tech company with what the venus project proposes isn't exactly accurate for a few reasons.

          first of all, we propose to use automation as much as possible. manufacturing has almost been completely automated and inventory keeping is going in the same direction. the same can also be done with delivery and transportation. automation in these areas is particularly stunted because of many factors, including conflict with human labor and underdeveloped road and traffic systems.

          second, even self-repairing, maintenance, and updating can be automated. software in particular is capable of modifying itself according to the latest available version. there is no reason we cannot extend this to concrete robotics with the application of self-awareness and redundant support systems.

          and lastly, goods turned out today are wastefully redundant for purposes purely related to branding and market competition. in the system we propose, there will be far fewer types of cellphones, all of which will be optimized as much as possible for mass production. imagine the top technicians and engineers of the best cellphone companies working together instead of competing. what kind of phones do you think could we get from that? 🙂

          nearly everything starts with a theoretical model, and with regard to the paradigm shift, yes, we have no other means for bringing that about aside from the usual way that paradigms get shifted: that is, by engaging people one by one about the issues.

          thanks a lot for your response! 🙂

          • hmmm, I have to raise an issue on your point regarding market competition. If history were to be the basis, the points in time where technology made the most leaps and bounds were during times of intense conflict and competition. Most of the important tech we have today are commercialized derivatives of discoveries made during the war which first started out as military applications which later found other practical applications. Even the space race was fueled by the cold war, now it's gone stagnant for the lack of urgency brought about by conflict. Its an ugly truth that conflict brings out the best and worst in people.

            Here in the philippines, we got good mobile service because the healthy competition between the service providers force them to keep improving over their rivals or risk getting left behind. Compare with industries enjoying a monopoly like meralco which continually provides substandard service but doesnt care to improve itself because it will have a steady market no matter its performance.

  4. Thanks for the links to some scientific articles about mirror neurons, also apes have them and they were studied extensively at chimps. When hurting another chip in the next cage, it caused also pain to the chimps just watching it. Still despite mirror neurons and empathy, chimps are very aggressive and know for border patrols killing neighboring (male) chimps to gain territory and access to females. Chimps are also known for infanticide.

    Humans were evolutionary selected to be more cooperative and able to life in larger groups, still there is empathy and altruism on one side and there is also greed, aggression, and all kind of atrocities on the other site.

    And the intensity of each instinct or behavior varies with each human : there are still alpha-males striving aggressive for influence, power and wealth and these are usually the tycoons, rulers and managers.
    There are ‘B’ type persons who can take the leader role but can also cooperate and submit to another leader.
    There are ‘C’ type people who just want to have their daily life with not too much stress and just a secured job with limited scope and responsibilities.
    There are ascetics who give up all wealth and life in a monastery or ashram.
    There are ‘nerds’ who live in a small chamber and have fulfillment with their study or technological work.
    There are charity workers donating time and resources to their work, and there are billions of other humans who just strive for a bigger car, TV, the latest gadget, more money.
    There are also Pinoys who just life on sporadic earnings, do not save for bad times or medical needs, but stop working when they have earned enough to eat for the next week or two, and look for another sporadic job later. As backslash every urgent unplanned need has to be bailed out by some family member thou, who is stupid enough to have a regular job and dare to build some financial reserves. Maybe this would be a starting point for the new role model of society without striving for money as proposed here.

    And as WES mentioned in his post above the daily life of the new society is like millions of Pinoys who are sending their children as semi-slaves (OFW) to do demeaning or dangerous jobs abroad, or as GRO to the next city red-light establishment, so the parents can stay at home, give up their job to sit in front of the TV watching soap opera all day, or gambling and drinking at the sari-sari store. The toilet cleaner girl abroad is meanwhile sad and homesick lamenting in local newspapers (e.g. Singapore, HK, …) that their father send them abroad, quit his own job and declares her now the solely responsible breadwinners for the entire family clan.
    So much for altruism, empathy, mirror neurons & Co even inside a tight family clan with a strong family value indoctrinated since childhood : it is not working !
    Now despite this often failure in real life: the vision is to embrace altruism and "family value", no need for law enforcement, no need for money etc… for the human race on the entire planet as one big family. And that’s why I still call it utopia.

    • hi roland!

      good points. however, i have something to say regarding the following statement of yours:

      “So much for altruism, empathy, mirror neurons & Co even inside a tight family clan with a strong family value indoctrinated since childhood : it is not working !”

      of course we don’t realistically expect people to suddenly act in the ways that we are suggesting. even if you continuously preach “share with your neighbor”, you can’t expect people to follow you if they don’t even have enough to go around for themselves. underlying their behavior will always be the basic needs for food, shelter, etc. we recognize that these kinds of people behave the way they do because of (for the most part) their living conditions. it’s hard to be giving, understanding, and patient, when you yourself are subject to the pressures of survival in the midst of real and/or artificial scarcity. this is why we propose the maximization of technology for creating sustainable abundance.

      also, even chimps can change: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_3

      all in all, there is probably more hope for humanity than you think 🙂

      thanks for the response!

  5. that's a lot to digest in one go, so many points raised there.

    but I agree with the point raised on technology affecting blue-collar workers. Automation has largely replaced jobs that are menial or repetitive in nature which is what the bottom of the labor pyramid covers. Japan is the best example of this, they're the fore-runner in automating every menial job out there from vending machines to automated cleaners. Yet they have a very low unemployment rate largely because everyone is well schooled and trained for higher-up jobs and Japan being one of the most high-cost-of-living countries in the world, you cannot afford to not work.

    But if you suddenly gave everyone the basic necessities for free, what's to keep a big chunk of the workforce from spiraling down to apathy? In a worst-case scenario, it would be like those bunch of un-employed tambay-sa-kalye folks, doing nothing but drinking beer at the sari-sari store or watching telenovelas all day, waiting for their OFW relatives to send them money. God knows we have plenty of those here. In the meantime, their poor families are working to the bone as nurses and care-giver abroad, doing unsavory jobs because they have to earn a living.

    So that leads to my question: we cannot automate every un-"fun" or dangerous job out there. Like the healthcare industry, sure there would be a few altruistic souls out there who are willing to study and train for years, collect stool samples and see disgusting diseases but there won't be nearly enough to meet the demand if everyone had the option to just spend a nice day in the beach learning to surf.

    A system like the one you are proposing should have a mechanic to reward doing the jobs that are necessary to make society function properly but no one wants to do unless you pay them lots of money.

    • hi wes.

      i agree, it's dangerous to suddenly put people into a new economic structure when the social climate and consciousness isn't ready yet. that would be like putting cavemen in a modern city. you can only expect confusion and problems. we recognize that it's therefore also important to educate people first and help them align themselves with these new ways of thinking. the goal is to make people motivated to do these socially important tasks by helping them realize that the better off other people are, the more constructively they will contribute to your own environment, therefore improving your own quality of life. when enough people are made to realize that this work is in itself rewarding, there would be no need for any other synthetic incentives.

      so we can't just go cold turkey on money. modern society would break down because a lot of people still do their jobs only for monetary gain. so one of our goals is to weaken first the monetary incentive and make people realize the true worth of their undertakings. social change has always been a slow and painful process, so complete transformation seems to be a long way off. i, however, do not find this to be a compelling reason to drop this direction altogether.

      i agree, your proposition of another mechanism for reward could help in the transition. if you could put more details into the idea i'd be very much interested in exploring its possible implementation.

      thanks a lot for the comment! 🙂

      • I think we touched on this topic before in an older thread when discussing the merits of an "enlightened" anarchy-based society with no monetary system and got stuck in details like this too. here's a recap:

        2 things come to mind which would be problematic in a setup like this but could actually be the solution to each other:

        – how do you determine who should do the crappy but necessary jobs no one wants
        – how do you determine who gets first pick in limited non-essential resources? (live in prime real estate, eat gourmet food…)

        …so you reward the garbage-man by giving him the opportunity to live in the best location. the problem then becomes if some people don't want to play fair or take more than they give back to the community. since we don't have money anymore, there is no quantifiable basis for what you can or can't have and we're left with endless arguing and debating on how much of the non-basic luxury items a person may enjoy.

        • hi wes!

          with regard to your first question, there is no fixed system of "compensation" for the transition period, which is why we're open to ideas. the vision, however, is to be able to make people internally motivated (autotelic) to do necessary volunteer work when it is needed. at the same time, we put effort into continuously reducing the need for volunteer work by developing automation.

          on your second point, here's an excerpt from the movement's newsletter:

          "The problem is that people today, mostly in the west, have been indoctrinated into values which are ostentatious, extreme, and physically unsustainable, hence illegitimate from the angle of social survival and stability. Not everyone can have a 100 room house on a 5000 acre property. This is an irrational (status driven) value because it is void of logic with regard to the state of the human population and the finite resources/landmass. In a Resource-Based Economy, there will emerge an average level of resource consumption per person, which, as Jacque points out, will exceed the standard of living of the current system extensively for 99% of the world’s population, likely virtually eliminating most crime. The distorted value of extreme "luxury" as seen with the movie stars and rich elite will be looked upon with disgust in the new values which will emerge in the future, for the pattern of the flamboyantly rich today are simply unsustainable/wasteful from multiple angles. Also, for a person to want "more" than another is an unsustainable, conflict invoking value which serves only a selfish conditioning generated by the current cultural climate of "survival of the fittest" via the Market System of Competition. TZM seek to remove this system, hence removing the distorted values that coincide and are hence imposed and reinforced. Human values can only be held as valid if they are sustainable/reduce conflict over time. We must not impose our values on the natural world… we must extract our values from it. If we as a society claim to value the goal of having peace, balance and good overall personal and social health, we must be prepared to change our values based not on what we have been traditionally taught, but through objective reasoning based on actual physical referents/performance."

          so, as you can see, it's very tricky to talk about because it entails a shift in culture. it envisions a society that appreciates and encourages volunteerism while looking down upon extravagance, greed, and selfishness. we recognize that this cultural leap is the next step for the evolution of human behavior.

          thanks a lot for your response 🙂

  6. [blockquote] syk0saje says: "but like i said, new scientific evidence is showing us that we aren’t genetically predisposed to be hungry for power and status" [/blockquote]

    Do you have any internet link to this scientific study ??

  7. [crazy dude says: “It is from Germany, the place of fascism, communism, and socialism. A new breed? “] The word ‘Zeitgeist’ – is an original German word meaning like Spirit of the time – used since many years also in English language.

    And as German – at least citizen (e.g. passport holder) since 13 year no more resident – I find the general association as fascist, communist, socialist – quite uninformed for the ‘Zeitgeist’ e.g. current political system and mindset in Germany. Even the Social democrats are not the ruling government party any more but now again (the not much different) Christian party and the government is run by the chancellor (Angela Merkel) the daughter of a protestant (Lutheran) priest.
    But back to the topi
    c here: as this is not an environmental movement like Greenpeace, Germans are quite low represented, but lots of Canadians seems to be enrolled.

    [ syk0saje says: “ the more civilized people become, the fewer laws we need.” …. “everyone is riding on technology” ….. “and cheating, at least in the financial sense, would be impossible because there wouldn’t be any money” ]

    No more (or very few) laws, no more money, no free riding on others, everything is fully automated ergo no need to work and earn money … nice dreams.

    But as it is against all genetic predisposition of the species homo sapiens as power hungry, status oriented primate, the idea is what is usually understood as utopia, whether the Zeitgeist movement thinks they are realist not utopians or not.

    The whole staff sound very much like Marxism re-written from a science fiction author to me ! Would be nice to life in an egalitarian, crime free, stress free, work free etc. utopia thou …

    • hi again roland!

      yes, it's a nice vision for the future isn't it? but like i said, new scientific evidence is showing us that we aren't genetically predisposed to be hungry for power and status. this is actually quite a discovery that would greatly help people break free of the mentality that we (as a species) can't unlearn recurring harmful behavior.

      a lot of people share your initial impression of the movement sounding like marxism in modern packaging. true, there are similarities, but i wouldn't agree to dismissing it due only to first impressions since there are many big fundamental differences as well. plus the originator of the venus project is actually an industrial designer and social engineer who has spent nearly his whole life working on developing a sustainable system for society. you'd be a bit closer with a guess of 'science fact author' though 😉

      thanks again for your response 🙂

  8. Following the Zeitgeist link: Well sounds like the proposal of a Neo-Marxists utopia.

    Humans have evolved to be greedy and power horny animals, they can never get enough. Some business tycoons are still working like hell and taking (often unethical and unlawful) whatever resources they get, especially in the most corrupt country in Asia the R of P. Like the then richest tycoon of the RP Mr. ’SM’ (or actually his wife) as Ms ‘BDO’ still have to acquire EPCI bank from SSS for half the price 14 B Peso from SSS, which acquired it under pressure from the ‘movie actor turned president of the poor’ to please his supporting tycoon. This deal leaving the 10 million poor SSS pensioners with 1400 Peso loss each member, to make the richest person even more richer and the poor pensioners more poor. Humans are power animals, power corrupts, wealth is power and power & money makes the rich guys sexual attractive. Overcoming this evolutionary selected trait will be very difficult.

    So after the short intro of the ‘IS’ not the ‘ought’ of human society now back to the utopia. I agree to a few points made there, even they are unrealistic/utopist.

    However I do not agree to
    1) The myth that unchecked population growth is fine, humans just need better technology. In a lecture from Dan Dennett, he mentioned that currently humans with all the life stock animals for food supply of humans, plus pets are already resulting into 98% of mammal species weight mass of the planet. Only few wild animals are left which are not serving humans needs.

    2) The myth that criminals are made not born, e.g. neglecting the genetic predisposition of homo sapiens behavior. A huge percentage (hope I remember right 30% ?! ) of US long sentence criminal prison inmates are psychopaths, they have no feeling of being wrong because a malfunction of their limbic brain system (non functioning amygdala – no emotional reactions). No measurable blood pressure or skin moisture reaction if lying or scary pictures are shown (lie detector useless). Symtoms are : after rape handing their calling card to the victims ‘if she likes the fun again just call me’, murders eating in the kitchen of their victim, when she is still alive break her skull some more until she is not moving anymore and continue eating …etc… that is not learned behaviour from the bad society, bad childhood etc… as liberal utopians like to claim, this is based on dysfunctional brain functions.

    3) Even mainstream conservatives and (moderate) religious people acknowledge that egoistic greed is not the ultimo ratio. The golden rule (tit for tat) and cooperation are still beneficial, and game theory shows that a society still works if free riders remain less than 15%. So punishment of cheaters and free riders increase the cost for cheaters, so even predisposed egoism is resulting to fall in line to avoid punishment.

    But to give some hope: a good society with a functioning (usually democratic) state who is strong enough to punish cheaters and free riders, can break the vicious cycle. A more egalitarian society where good deeds are a measure of achievement — has less pressure to show off the (with whatever unethical or illegal means) accumulated wealth as only measurement for status and sexual attraction.

    • hi roland! just some points.

      i have to agree that humanity truly has built a society that rewards greed and corruption. like you said, overcoming this would be difficult, but not impossible, which is why we could use everyone's help.

      i have to disagree, however, that this new system that we advocate is a utopia. we recognize that, honestly, there are no utopias. there will always be worlds to explore and new problems that come with them. we're not trying to build a "perfect world". we're just trying to make it a whole lot better.

      i agree, unchecked population growth is problematic. however, we do not propose suddenly repealing all laws and policies. that would only result in chaos. we recognize, however, that the development of populations should come hand in hand with the removal of regulations, as the people slowly reveal themselves to be capable of self-regulation. the more civilized people become, the fewer laws we need.

      true, there is a genetic factor to criminal behavior, we do not deny that. but what is the current system doing about it? when criminals are just sent to prison for a long time, are we really preventing the crime from happening again in the future? in the system we propose, they would be engaged by psychologists, neurologists, sociologists and the like so that we can find out exactly what measures we can take to prevent the crimes from recurring.

      on your third point, i find that it would be very difficult for anyone to be a "free rider" when, like i have mentioned, everyone is riding on technology and nobody is riding on anyone else. and cheating, at least in the financial sense, would be impossible because there wouldn't be any money.

      thanks for the well thought-out reply! i appreciate your comments. 🙂

  9. I am not quite sure what socio-political system zeitgeist are advocating. It is from Germany, the place of fascism, communism, and socialism. A new breed?

    But a socio-economic-political system conducive for human existence have not yet come. That is capitalism. The USA and the West are not really pure capitalism but a mixture of freedom and control by the government.

    • Just chiming in here – last I checked, Germany isn't a fascist state any more, and nor is it a communist state.

      As for socialism, well, public organizations such as law enforcement, the fire department, and emergency medical services are technically socialist constructs, so I'm not quite sure what you're trying to say here.

      So either you're talking out of your ass, or you're reading from a history book published in the 50s

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