Talk:Holistic Problem of Manufacturing

"Fiddling while Rome burns"?

To stop this do the First Things First

All this erudite talk, although based on reliable facts, bury the need for an immediate and fundamental response to to a post-scarcity world.

That response is the institution of an unconditional basic Citizens' Dividend. Without that the people will not have the time and energy to fulfill their role as units of evolutionary change.

At the moment the compulsory employment system continues to steal these two basic personal resources from us.

Janosabel 14:13, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

From certain points of view things are simple

The raw reality of things in life is that we want to live. In order to do that we work for a living. And therein lies the most basic of social issues.

Society tells us that we have to earn a living by selling our labour to our fellow human beings. If we are offering something that no one wants to pay us for we are stuck.

So here is the next level step towards complexity: understanding how the economy works and why it is less and less possible to get a living wage through work (60 % of working people have to get subsidized via various welfare entitlements). So the problem of manufacturing is way above the basics of economic reality---methinks :-).

Earning a living

So no one finds the daily grind of "singing for supper" problematic?

Response by Nathan Cravens

Hi Jano, apologies for the late reply. I will make a habit of looking at talk pages.

Bertrand Russell is the first person I know to have proposed a Basic Income based on collectively owned resources as a dividend in 1916 in the 'Principles of Social Reconstruction'. My view is that mechanisation is such that the way assets are measured does not properly account for its value and therefore should be ignored altogether.

The ethic of 'work for money to get stuff' needs to be declared as one of slavery; that everyone should have a rich person's material standard of living without exploiting people or natural ecologies. The reason why money is still in use is because we need human slaves to move and make stuff and that has been the best way to motivate them without other more aggressive forms of treatment. I agree a basic income is needed to

Al Sheehan, from the USA, has compiled the most pursuasive arguements from various people like Martin Luther King and others for a basic income. Al contacted national politicians for the first Basic Income Guarantee Bill, HR 5257, 'Tax Cut for the Rest of Us Act of 2006' introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives by a congressman from San Diego. The Carter administration had a similar bill to provide a basic income under the guise of Family. A book was written about the rise and fall of that Carter Basic Income bill by a senator that tried to get it in. And further back in US History was Thomas Paine's 'Agrarian Justice'. The Alaskan Fund is a good existing example to draw from as it shows if all corporations were taxed properly and those funds went into a basic income, people could live a middle class lifestyle without working at all.

Richard Cook's 'Bailout for the People' seems like a good basic income strategy, because it doesn't tax anyone, it just prints. The current trend in Asia now is to devalue currency, so what better way than to put in a basic income plan? ;) After the greatest glass ceiling of the work ethic is finally broken, the next step is rounding-up international support of wealthy nations to agree they will implement basic income policy, meeting at the World Economic Forum and other venues. If one nation puts in a basic income without other following, this could put that country in danger. Richard Cook might say there is so much printing going on, if one country gave to the poor or the rich, inflation would remain the same. With investors seeing that a basic income would increase demand in consumer markets, it might be the investors rather than the basic income itself, that inflates prices. So the goal must be to provide the resources for free without money.

Geeks and tinkerers everywhere are working on alternatives, (i.e. the Open Hardware Movement) not having a basic income hasn't prevented them from doing so, but a basic income would certainly help speed up the process, giving more time to focus on solutions, having money to distribute production and infrastructure, with the outcome of a post-scarcity world system that surpasses even commercial means.

One good protest campaign would be 'WORK IS A LIE', 'END WAGE SLAVERY', 'BASIC INCOME NOW'. I believe a focused protest effort would be more effective than Occupy, but Occupy should remain to incubate particular interest groups. I was very fortunate to be involved in the Occupy Movement in London, usually stationed at the Library / Tent City University. In talking with people that came to the camps for nearly four months, I noticed two distinct groups, 'Capital Reformists or Ethical Capitalists' or 'Anticapitalists or Money is Evil'. A basic income would appeal to both, but few spoke about the option. Those that did were usally of pensioner age. The young were usually more concerned about the Banker's exploits and the government not doing anything about it; and they would usually never speak to me first. When I mentioned my own views, they were considered too simple to work, or too outside 'the dialogue', which is to extend the features of Freecycle by establishing a public resource system where people can easily track and share materials for free. Where tasks are repetitive or boring, moved and made by robots.

We have the technology, what is missing are properly detailed visions, promoting them, and most importantly, the will and determination to see them through.