- Eat the rich
- Luxury gay space communism
You joke but post scarcity anarchism is probably the only truly viable post capitalist society where the state actually has a real chance of withering away. That means good praxis is anything which reduces scarcity - both in the form of technological developments and sustainability/ecology. And yes, harm reduction measures which foster collaboration and social cohesion and create actualized humans with real agency and a real stake in their own communities.
The problem with so much leftist thought is precisely that it denies agency to those it seeks to liberate. “Luxury gay space communism” is a meme, but it’s based on a post-left idea which is actually far more rooted in reality than a lot of ML orthodoxy.
When democratic governance withers what fills the power vacuum is feudalism.
Technofeudalism is feudalism with computers.
Ironically, to create a space that selects for and protects distributed decisionmaking (the desire of most sane anarchists), you need a strong government!
Anarchism is a project. It’s not just a matter of eliminating the state. That would just result in Mad Max.
You need people to work together to help each others needs. I help you because I might need help someday, too. That builds a real community. And then maybe, just maybe, we solve each others problems enough that the state is unnecessary.
Is it a pipe dream? Maybe. But the steps towards that are worth doing, anyway.
Of course the power dynamics cannot ever be eliminated (either by breeding or enculturation) from the interpersonal relationships.
Instead, power can be regulated and managed, to maximize distributed decisionmaking, and to protect those decisionmakers who could not or would not protect themselves.
In a free for all, feudalism will always result. The strong and the willing will rule over the weak and the unwilling.
There have to be limits to the power dynamics. Those limits will have to be enforced to protect the vulnerable, the gullible, and the unwilling (those who have the capability to exercise power, but refuse by choice), etc. This requires advanced democratic governance with a very strong government.
Doing away with the government is just a speedrun toward technofeudalism.
Working to create a protected space that selects for distributed decisionmaking is the actual project. That’s an actually sane, worthwhile and achievable goal.
“What then?”
“Same as it ever was!”
We all fight over resources that actually matter (like food, water, shelter and security) instead the previous things (money), for the enjoyment of our overlords.
Seriously, the people who have power to change the outcome of the future seem to either straight not be planning for this future scenario, or are planning for a horribly distopian version of this future scenario.
Same as ever…was that money wasn’t needed.
Do you need money within your neighborhood or your family? Do you pay people for giving a favor?
A favor is just a form of debt, and debt is money. It does not matter whether it’s written down on paper, or just remembered.
It does matter. How much worth is helping a friend? Or how much money for your neighbors for caring your pets while you‘re in holidays?
Don’t you think they will refuse to take money for this favor? Not everything in humankind can be paid for.
Money is a way to get people to do things they wouldn’t otherwise do.
If you don’t have automation you either have to have money or slavery. One of the other is required to keep society going otherwise no one’s going to do the crappy jobs. Since someone has to do the crappy job you have to find a way to incentivise them and that’s money or whips. Don’t kid yourself into believing that money isn’t necessary, it is.
I wonder how human societies survived without money, if this is so essential for the crap.
I wonder why people do crappy jobs for money? Is it because they need much money for things such as car, smartphone, playstation? For some food, you do not need much money. Actually you can grow it for yourself if you do not live in a big city.
Sure, if one got in this consumption trap, one needs a constant inflow of fresh money.
I think you’ve answered your own questions. Money doesn’t have to be actual cash it can be bartering, I.e. I’ll give you five carrots in exchange for your help to build this barn
But what if they don’t need carrots right now, well you can give them a IOU for carrots whenever they want, and now you’ve invented money
Sorry but this is a primary schools‘ view on money. I know this is how it been taught at school and this is entirely wrong.
Oh no, money will keep being money. We will just never see a penny and finally be doomed to be full slaves. As intended by the system and those that designed it.
AI isn’t going to take anyone’s job.
We will fire a bunch of workers while delusion nepo babies try to figure out why an autocomplete bot can think critically or do any complex tasks, then they will close their buisness or rehire people after a few years of failure, and it won’t impact the owner’s quality of life in any way because they have more wealth then they will ever need
We should absolutely have a UBI that’s funded by taxing 100% of wealth over a set number and redistributing it perpetually.
Agreed for the most part, but I disagree about the 100% taxes thing. I think we should instead cap inheritance/gifts, not income. You can be as wealthy as you want, but once you die, it all goes back to the common pot.
I don’t care about rich people, I mostly just care about generational wealth.
You can be as wealthy as you want, but once you die, it all goes back to the common pot.
So that 18-year-old that loses both his parents will inherent nothing? So he would have to live on the street or something? Or that women who lose their husband, so inheriting the other half of their combined income? Which will cause her to lose the house etc?
Inheriting a couple 100k or even a mill isn’t really the issue. Do tax it, yes, but 100% tax on anything is unreasonable, or at least if that happens at once. That’s why we have multiple different taxes.
I think we should instead cap inheritance/gifts, not income.
The cap wouldn’t be zero, it would probably be in the low millions. If your parents were wealthy, you’d have a head start, but you would still need to work. There could be a separate exclusion for spouses, where maybe they keep half of the wealth or something as a one-time transfer (i.e. if they get remarried, that wealth wouldn’t transfer to the new spouse).
As part of this, I also want to rework corporations and trusts. Basically, the only legal entity that gets special tax treatment are corporations with low valuation, once you go public or report net income or revenue over some amount, the legal protections go away. So mom and pop shops would get bankruptcy protection and whatnot, but large corporations wouldn’t.
But all of that overcomplicates what I wanted to communicate, which is that generational wealth shouldn’t be a thing. Property should be community owned and exclusivity agreements should be temporary (i.e. real estate should be owned until death).
You still wouldn’t want to do any taxation at 100%, make it 70 or 80% sure, but 100% is just bullshit and 70-80% will be enough. The way to get people to accept higher taxes is to explain it to hem. People will also do everything in their power to not pay that 100% tax, including just stopping their Dang business for that year if corporate income would be taxed at 100%
The spousal thing is generally solved in the world by giving an exception, in NL it’s like the first 800k is tax-free when your legal spouse dies.
Money inside companies is just money that will be taxed at a later date, the issue is that billionaires in the US put their stocks up as collateral taking out loans. It would be taxed again if they dividend it out or pay themselves somewhat of a wage.
The issue with companies is that evaluating them is something that you just cannot easily do every year for the tax report, unless you just go look at the equity = company value. We do have some designation for small, median and large companies based on revenue, balance total and FTE count, well at least in NL it is based on those 3.
Small companies need some tax breaks and larger companies don’t, but a lot of companies are split up to multiple different companies to be able to benefit from tax breaks.
Property should be community owned and exclusivity agreements should be temporary (i.e. real estate should be owned until death).
Owning a single property is not the issue, every family should be able to own one. It’s the fact that people own multiple properties. You want to make it so it is not a good financial decision to own multiple properties, either you as a business or you as a person.
generational wealth shouldn’t be a thing. You mean massive amount of generational wealth, but in my example that kid that lost his parents should still inherent that house right?
Just increase the inheritance tax for everything after a mil or so. It’s still a couple taxation, but hey
The idea is rooted in the same ideas that Georgism is based on, which is the idea that people should own the value they create themselves, whereas things like property should be communally owned. Inheritance money isn’t created value, so I think there’s a good argument that it should be capped, and any excess should go to the people…
I don’t believe in inheritance tax to fund the government though, it should merely be redistributed either as cash or donations to unaffiliated charities. The only tax used to fund governments should be land value taxes.
100% inheritence tax will go to the government though.
Still it’s basically stealing from families anyway.
I’m saying it shouldn’t, it should instead be distributed to the people. It should be used for something like UBI.
Ever had an “AI” show up at 2AM on an emergency call to fix a gas leak? How about an “AI” to cook a breakfast sandwich? Maybe an “AI” is taking over babysitting while you’re out of town…? No?
“AI” doesn’t do anything. But if your job primarily revolves around words or pictures on a screen, maybe “AI” can help you with that.
I get what you’re saying but an AI cooking me a sandwich (also what’s “cooking” a sandwich) is like the easiest thing in the world. That could very easily be automated.
