Note: the following are some very old thoughts of mine that are no longer in keeping with my current thinking on this issue. (These days, I'm more into social democracy.) But I'm keeping this page around just for the sake of posterity or nostalgia or whatever.

Moneyless Capitalism

One of my plans (for when I'm President of the World, which of course is never going to happen) is to eliminate money. Everyone who works (and their immediate families) will have an electronic card with various information, such as you've no doubt heard plans for, everything from medical info to bank info to phone cards to key cards to change for the vending machines. Well also it'll have job info- at least, whether you have a job or not. If you have a job, you have credit, and with it can buy whatever you need or want. (Anything you have had before this change comes into effect will be yours, whether you'd finished paying for it or not, thereby effectively finishing off that last tenth of the law that has long proved so elusive to possession. By this token, the rich will continue to have more than others, at least, they'll have what they already had, and there probably won't be enough of the erstwhile expensive things existing or being made for evrybuddy who wants them, under the new system, to buy them. But if you can't get a mansion, you won't be homeless, either.)

...Seeing as everyone will be able to purchase things, more people buying things than before, there will need to be more things around to buy. Therefore, there will be more jobs producing such things, so it will be easier to find work, so more people will have credit to buy more things. Also, there will be more jobs in construction since everyone will afford a decent home. More people will afford school (whatever school they want, as long as they want, whatever they want to study) so there'll be more teaching jobs. Everyone will be able to train for whatever job they want. There will be more "disposable income" so a greater market for the arts- niches will boom, as manufacturers and distributors of the arts won't be forced to make a profit. If a few people want to buy a book or watch a show or a movie or buy a CD or whatever, it will be enough. ...With greater bandwidth on the net and TV, there'll be room for everything. Your favorite shows won't have to be cancelled. And as everyone will be working, you won't have to work as much, you'll have more free time to enjoy the arts. Oh, what a happy day it will be for all manner of artists! (I'm a writer, you know.) Btw, there'll be no more lawsuits over mp3s and file sharing. If CDs no longer cost anything, why should the artists or industry care that people are getting digital music for free online?

...There will always be more popular or less popular jobs, and there will always be those who don't want to work. But they won't just be handed what they need, at least not when they leave the nest. They need to work, and they may for a time have to do some job they'd rather not. Still, with billions of people, interests vary widely. Even the most unpopular jobs will probably attract a few people. And in time I expect there'll be robots to do some jobs. ...And some people will always be bored if they have no work to occupy them; and, of course, there will always be many people who have a love for a certain kind of work. As I say, they'll be able to do whatever they want in life (as I need to write).

There won't be need of advertising, not so much anyway. So commercials will if they want to be aired be brilliant and highly entertaining, all of them. They'll be fewer, too, and less often run, on tv, magazines, net, and so forth. And sponsors won't control ratings, as I've sort of said.

And everyone will afford health care, and can be assured that those providing it are doing so because it's what they love. And that they've had full access to excellent schooling provided by people who love to teach...

I can't help thinking that this whole plan will be very circular... each benefit will lead to another benefit... Many things that have heretofore been fundamentally impossible will become possible. However, this cannot be implemented in half-measures or anything. The whole world has to come together on this; you can't just have one nation saying they don't use money anymore, the other nations would justifiably object. Globalization may eventually make the plan possible, however. Also, as I say, each benefit will be propping up another, and eventually the circle comes back around. It might be a precarious balance. If not perfectly structured, the whole thing may collapse. But I believe as a whole, it could be quite workable.

...I haven't studied various political/social ideologies & systems as I'd like to, such as socialism, communism, what have you. But I wouldn't be surprised if some folks were to say my ideas aren't all particularly original. But as long as you understand that most any system in the world currently involves money, you'll see that the lack of money needn't suggest something other than capitalism. The important thing is who controls the money, or the credit, or whatever may be used. Even without money, as long as the control is not centralized in the government, you can have capitalism, free industry, all that. The establishment would remain as it currently is in capitalist nations such as America, except for a few changes, hopefully all for the better. One day perhaps I'll actually get around to doing some studying and either write up a better explanation of my ideas, or decide I was wrong on some important facet of the plan....


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