I’m sorry, I must apologize for my recent digression, but I’ve come to realize that, aside from my first post, I haven’t really been addressing the overall issue of this blog, and while my other posts are related to this issue, they do not tackle it directly, or in any great depth. So let us take a closer look at what I began to touch on in my first post, the false resources which we so blindly rely upon. The first of which, perhaps the greatest, and certainly the least questioned, is the monetary system.
Almost all economies in the world today use a monetary system. This system uses an “intermediary exchange medium, known as money, as the means for facilitating employment, production, distribution, and the consumption of goods and services” (AOG 5). There are differential forms of this system however, varying according to governmental control and regulation upon the system itself. There are three main versions of the monetary system in use today. They are Communism (maximum state control), Socialism (partial state control), and Capitalism (little to no state control). It is important to note that Communism in this sense is the realistic, historical form of Communism, not the idealistic vision outlined by Karl Marx, which held all citizens as equals and removed money from the equation.
Capitalism is the most popular and widespread system in today’s world. In this social system, the means of production are privately owned and operated strictly for profit. This system operates under a theoretical concept known as the “Free Market.” The “Free Market” is an “unregulated trading orientation” (AOG 5) where the prices of goods and services are determined by the supply and demand inherent in the system, driven by the interaction, and thus consent, of the buyers and sellers, without government intervention. The most extreme interpretation of the “Free Market,” in practice today, is the Austrian notion of “Laissez-faire.” This concept condones absolutely no state intervention on economic issues; from this perspective, state sponsored, “social,” programs would be considered inappropriate.
In this economic system, the “value” of a product or service is derived from its availability (or scarcity) and the amount of human labor involved in the production process, or service rendered. We now understand today that there are plenty of natural and renewable resources out there, that are practically infinite, and with our current technologies, these resources can be more easily mined or harvested. Furthermore, with the implementation of the machine, during the Industrial Revolution, the labor involved in the production process has steadily declined. As a quick and effective example, farmers can now work 1000+ acres of land, on their own, through use of industrial machines. As I previously said, in my first post, this is also how we have been able to increase our food supply to the point of providing for billions and billions of people.
Now, what if we modified our current economic system to apply to our modern understanding of resources and our modern level of technological innovation? We could rid ourselves of this idea of scarcity altogether, and reduce the need for human labor as well. Renewable energy theorists have already declared that there is really no limit to how much power we could draw from the sun, as well as another equally powerful, but almost unknown, source, in geo-thermal energy. As far as a practical elimination of manual labor, we have to look no further for an example than a modern day automobile manufacturing plant. This production line has been totally automated. The only human involvement consists in the technicians and operators who work on or with the machines. If we would simply adapt our technologies to our economic system, in a sense, we could evolve our society.
“Regardless of your opinion, the fact is, the pattern of constant technological improvement coupled with automated machinery can theoretically create an economic environment where the abundance of materials and production mediums are so high and efficient, most humans will have little need to ‘purchase’ anything let alone ‘work for a living’, in the traditional sense” (AOG 7).
--- All of this information can be found in, and has been taken from, The Zeitgeist Movement, Observations and Responses: Activist Orientation Guide, which can be found on http://www.thezeitgeistmovement.com/ and http://www.thevenusproject.com/.
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