Maybe communism, or something, is the way to go. The economy is the lifeblood of our society. Surely we don't want its form to be dictated by something as whimsical as a marketplace.
Since ‘society’ flat out isn’t going to do that, and it isn’t clear it could even afford to do so (or how), what do you propose to be the next most practical option?
We have room for worker owned cooperatives and decentralized social networks already.
A world where profit is not the motive, honestly sounds great to me, but it’s not a real counterfactual unless someone explains how it would work.
Without such an explanation it’s like talking about a world where nobody needs to eat. You can imagine it would be good, and somehow possible in some sci-fi future, but there are no actual examples.
This idea has been explored before. Reminds me of a bit from Brave New World - they had originally tried to create a society where nobody had to work, but it broke down.
Someone has to provide necessities to society. In absence of government directly providing it, we force companies to do it. What you want is, essentially, socialism, with a little bit of the market carved out for market capitalism. Sounds good to me!
Sure, this is the premise behind the entire current economic system. I'm asking what if that is not possible? What would a society that is by brute necessity based on voluntary cooperation look?
Income-less, post-scarcity society, where the limits of what goods/services you can access are so much higher than you could ever need that the only limitations put in place can be set democratically?
That, or just increase typical socialist democratic welfare state principles, tax the hell out of the .01% and invest in public goods.
I draw the line at things that people need in order to fully participate in society. If a good or service doesn't meet that threshold, a private market only solution is likely just fine. Otherwise there ought to be at least some socialized option available.
My list would include: non-elective healthcare, food, housing (same as for food), electricity, water, local/regional transportation (e.g. for commuting to work), internet access and possibly basic internet-capable mobile phones.
Basically "natural monopolies" are certainly all candidates for complete socialization.
Or a loose-kind of cooperative based on social networks. An online market of goods and services, similar to Ebay and AirBNB but not owned by a corporation. People, even if they receive BHI, should work directly for themselves (or indirectly, by providing services to other people), in order to multiply the value.
There is no purpose in industrial production other than to serve human society. If capitalist industry gets rid of human employees to a large degree, it becomes detached from its very own purpose. So, a large company should contribute to BHI or hire people, otherwise how will people have money to buy products from corporations?
An idea would be to invent a human-centric currency, paid to each individual as a BHI. The state should require a part of the taxes be paid in this currency at a sustainable rate, thus forcing companies to subsidize BHI.
In the meantime, people need to organize in order to bootstrap a human-based economy, where automation could still play a role, with the crucial difference that it would be regular people who are the owners of the capital, and not just a select 1%.
Or someone could invent a self replicating factory that only uses common materials, thus becoming virtually free to multiply and serve humanity wherever it is needed. At this moment, the self replicating factory is economy on the whole. But we can do better, we might compress it to a small size and make it more independent of rare/expensive raw materials, and make it open source. Then it could bootstrap human population out of scarcity without work.
You can have an economy without capitalism. Capitalism is defined by private property and shareholding. But you could have a modern society based on consented cooperation.
Have everyone who wants help in the fields (more people like that than you think), and if my neighbors think it's useful we'll have a grocery store but without money. We'll just take turns to feed the shelves and clean the floor and worry about the logistics. And if we grew too many potatoes for our local consumption, the people from other neighborhoods may well enjoy them and have some other stuff to send in our direction as well.
Hmmm...so you are an anarchist (so don't want government) but also think profit seeking is unethical?
I'm genuinely curious what mechanism you would like society to function under? Like why would people...do stuff if not for value in exchange?
Honestly the only thing I came up with is basically if you forcibly modified humans in one generation, making people want to help each other for no benefit to themselves. Then, abolish the government I'm the next generation so this group of modified-humans runs with no profit motive or government. So it's like super dark and authoritarian, but only for a little bit?
Anyway, this was a fun thought exercise for me so thanks!
> producing things without economic incentive is essentially the argument for anarchosocialism.
Which could work if we were to implement something like universal basic income, or progress to an agalmic economic society. I'm not optimistic on either of those.
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