A reformed economic system

In 2014 I started to argue for a reformed economic system. A new system that could meet the challenges of the future. The reason was logical according to me. It was based on a few points of probable future facts.

1. We will in the future we will be able to build robots that are smarter and physically more flexible than humans.

2. These robots will be able to build new robots.

I have so far not met anyone that doubt that these two statements will occur. The only dispute has been about when it will happen.

 My conclusion was that if these two things happen, then there will be no work for anyone. And in the current economical system, no work means no pay.

That means that we WILL need a new reformed economical system. So why not start to discuss it now?

How will this future look?

In this future almost all the money will go to the owner of the world's assets. Some of them will have so much wealth that they can even change the political direction of a country because money buys media time.

Since development of these new technologies isn't instant the decline would be gradual. The good paid middle class jobs will slowly decrease and a big part of society will only be employable for easier work with lower pay. Automation will slowly kill the jobs that kept the middle class growing in size and strength.

The production lines will be automated and demand less staff to run. The people that run the lines will not be paid well since they will have short work instructions and limited responsibilities. These instructions will be made by the few highly educated people in the factory.

Wait a minute.... This is already reality!

Irreversible under the current system

The company is an essential part of today's economical system. The company employs people and pay their salaries. We have all heard politicians talk about supporting business for the good of all society.

There is however two things that we need to understand about companies.

1. Companies are not a democracy. The CEO is King and the employees are his subjects.

2. The company's main obligations are to its owners and not to society or its employees.

This set up in society, where companies are essential and employees salaries are booked as a cost in the ledgers, there is no wonder that we get a gradual decline of the middle class. Especially since the owners of the companies (asset owners) have a big political sway in today's society.

This will cause an irreversible downgoing spiral until we get civil unrest. When society get pushed into poverty eventually there will be an uprising. History is proof of that.

Is an unstable, violent and segregated society really the future we want?

What should a reformed economical system look like?

3. The system must be constructed so that there is a limit to how much wealth a single person can accumulate and send on to his/her descendants. If we don't do this step, then the power concentration will return and we will be back where we started.

4. If there are no meaningful jobs available then citizens should be paid to educate themselves. Lets see citizens that have no job as an asset. If they are to fill the basic steps of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, then they need income. So they need a salary no matter what. Why now give society a population that is constantly improving. Not only in math but also in art, social studies and philosophy. Let's keep education wide :)

I know that this issue is almost impossible to solve in today's political climate. But I do think that in the near future we do have to deal with this issue whether we want to or not.