What If We Didn't Need Money?
Watch the video at http://youtu.be/Z20l9ohORN4
What are these law enforcement folks protecting to begin with? The
assets, infrastructure and personal privacy and security of the top 1%,
that's what! The problem with that is the top 1% regard everything in
sight as theirs, as if all the people in the lower income brackets – the
other 99% – didn't deserve one stinking thing. In short, its all a game
of acquiring the most stuff, the biggest collection of material goods
of one kind or another, the fastest or most luxurious car, the most
powerful truck and the biggest house. And for what? If one of us should
die tomorrow, he or she can take absolutely none of it with them. As
Rev. Billy Graham used to preach, “nobody ever saw a hearse pulling a
U-Haul trailer behind it”. It's all temporary, left behind when we are
dead and gone, as all of us eventually will be, including me. It's what
we leave behind that counts.
Maybe we should ask ourselves – if you haven't done so already – what
kind of legacy do we want to leave? Not someone who did great things in
the sight of others or who made a great fortune, but someone who took
care of the needs of the people on a case by case basis. Not someone who
is lauded with praise by men and women, but one who seeks the praise
and approval of Almighty God as I and others like me do. I love giving
some homeless guy a couple of dollars, paying an elderly widow's
electric bill to keep it from being turned off, donating a used computer
to an inner city school kid who needs one, and never mind their skin
color either. Performing volunteer work, giving generously to your
church (it doesn't have to be financial aid, there are many ways to
help), sponsoring a hungry kid overseas, or adopting one here at home
are the things people remember about us after we have passed, and so
will God. We are to be leaving behind the things that people remember
about us long after we are gone, and they must be positive things that
build people up, not negative things that tear us down. We are to be
contributors, being sure to give wherever possible and not living just
to see how much we can earn, or even take. Takers are losers who leave
holes in time.
What if we didn't need money at all? What if we had an alternative way
to buy things without using traditional cash, checks or plastic? What if
we didn't have to work at all, or maybe not nearly as much? Using
profit as a mechanism for the control of liquid assets by and for the
top 1% when the overwhelming majority of Americans have no access to
those assets is obviously an economic barrier that keeps the remaining
99% of us in a bare subsistence mode. This is clearly unethical –
moreover, it is discriminatory and so its constitutionality is
questionable at best! Eliminating the need for money instantly wipes out
poverty while putting the 99% in a favorable position to have all their
basic needs met, such as shelter with a minimum of 500 square feet per
resident, clean and safe food and drinking water, electricity and
internet access. The 3D printing technology already in use – and still
being developed – can be used to manufacture much of what else we will
need. The replacement of money, and of the work that is necessary in
order to earn it, are already being accomplished by computers and
robots.
Technology has eliminated jobs across the board on an alarming scale –
from secretarial positions to auto workers. The resulting crisis is
compounded by our culture's deep denial of the basic problem. I'm old
enough to remember the '60s and '70s when so many pundits described the
coming glories of the "cybernetic age." Then computers would at last
liberate us, they promised, from the drudgery of 9 - 5 jobs. Back then
the worry was, what would we do with all that leisure time? That leisure
time has since proven frustratingly elusive. Instead, most of us are
working harder than ever as our employing firms "downsize."
Alternatively, we're pounding the pavement looking for non-existent jobs
to replace those that have been "outsourced" to Asia somewhere.
Moreover, so many of the "jobs" available to the more recently laid off
labor force are extremely low-paying to a humiliating degree (such as
the current and pathetic minimum wage of $7.25 hourly here in Atlanta;
in rural Georgia it's a paltry $5.25!). In the end, these “jobs” are
nothing more than useless make-work projects that are completely
unnecessary, and in some cases even destructive. Things like weapons
manufacturing, the military itself, many (but not all) telemarketing
companies, most insurance companies and – above all! – Wall Street jobs
connected with financial speculation. None of these occupations are
truly productive. And naming them as I have represents only the tip of
the iceberg.
Still other jobs can easily be eliminated by technology. Think of what
happened to Encyclopedia Britannica that didn't see Wikipedia coming.
Think of the music industry recently involuntarily "downsized" by file
sharing. And what about newspapers, currently in crisis because of
alternative media websites like Democracy Now!, The Corbett Report,
Alternet, Rick Hunter, Op-ed News and Truthdig, among others? Similarly
Web-based education (sometimes called "distance learning") is having its
own impact on higher education as brick-and-mortar campuses find
themselves headed for financial oblivion. Even the oil industry is
sun-setting. Imagine what that means for an entire economy and lifestyle
absolutely dependent on oil. New technology will soon turn every
building into an energy power plant. Surplus energy will be stored in
hydrogen cells. And the energy produced will be shared person-to-person
across a "smart grid". Think of the jobs that will be eliminated as a
result – including those required by the energy wars that will be
rendered superfluous. We are kept from discussing it only because our
"drill, baby, drill" politicians have their heads so firmly stuck in the
tar sands of Canada and the oil fields of Saudi Arabia. Consequently,
the U.S. economy is being left in the dust.
There is an enormous amount of productive work crying out to be done
across our country. The U.S. infrastructure is crumbling at an alarming
rate. Green technologies in general, particularly the “smart grid”, high
speed rail and public transportation are the most obvious needs. The
number of potential jobs connected with them is in the millions. But
there are not nearly enough green jobs to replace the ones that have
been eliminated by technology and those that should be discarded because
they are unsustainable, environmentally destructive and morally
deficient.
So what should be done about all of this? Share the work! None of us
has to work that hard unless we want to. Thanks to new technologies we
could work four-hour days or three-day weeks, or for only six months a
year, or every other year and still make a living wage. We could retire
at 40. And this is possible world-wide. And how to pay for all of this?
For starters, cut back the military budget 60%. That alone would make
billions of dollars available every day just in the U.S. alone Tax the
rich and the corporations – those who make up the "1%" that has ripped
off the U.S. working class on an unprecedented scale over the last 30
years and more. (Remember the 91% top-level tax bracket that was in
place following World War II? We could reinstate that!) Share the excess
wealth or risk losing it. Boldly restructure the economy. Embrace new
technology's promise along with the life of leisure and volunteer
service that it offers. It is all now within our grasp. Since the
government is unwilling or incapable of the restructuring I am calling
for, it is up to us, “we the people”, to get the job done ourselves.
Worker-owned co-ops and factories, little 1 or 2 person
micro-businesses, and non-profits would make up the greater part of the
business world of tomorrow.....
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Watch the video at http://youtu.be/Z20l9ohORN4
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