10-01 Summary) It is a prejudice to think that the mankind cannot be liberated from labor as long as money exists. We have at least two ways to drive out labor in our lives while maintaining market economy. We can accomplish it through shortening of legal working hours. We can accomplish it through basic income system. Like all other welfare systems, it helps us create a more equal society.
10-02 It is true that money cannot exist in a perfectly abundant society. However, all we need to do for this is to perform our duties in developing the technology and increasing productivity. Increased productivity will reduce prices of goods until they converge to 0, which will become as abundant as water and air. Goods will be driven out of the market. Once price of all goods becomes 0, the market and money will cease to exist without any revolution.
10-03 How can we perform integrated management of resources on earth? Isn't it impossible to manage resources according to plan if we were to leave production of goods to the market? Of course it is not. We can control the use of resources by levying taxes. We can also decide the limit of resource use for each year and allow economic subjects to buy and sell the right to use resources within the limit.
10-04 One day, we might be able to accomplish a perfectly abundant society free from labor. If economic problems caused by scarcity of goods disappear, we would be able to attempt many things we could not attempt before such as the marine city. It might create a society similar to what we are calling 'resource-based economy'. However, even if it is true, we should not follow the path presented by Jacque Fresco.
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10-05 Some says that the mankind must overcome an economy using money in order to be liberated from labor. This argument is invalid if there is an economy using money that does not require labor. But is this really true? Is it really true that no money-based economy can exist without labor? Most of us do not raise such question. We intuitively know that it is an obvious fact.
10-06 Where does this intuition come from? The reason why we must be cautious about abuse of intuition is because it is often wrong. We tend to recall current system when we think about money-based economy or capitalism. This is because current system is all we saw and learned about economic system with money. We really cannot imagine anything else. Most of prejudices about the so-called money-based economy are created here.
10-07 I would like to stress out once again here that introspection is not very helpful in curing our prejudice. It can help cure prejudices that we are aware of, but it is helpless in curing prejudices we cannot imagine. It is not even value neutral. It is biased. Supporters of The Venus Project would not have imagined themselves having some kind of negative prejudice about money-based economy.
10-08 Scientists sometimes use intuition to come up with something, but it must be proved by scientific reasoning in order to become science. How can we demonstrate that there cannot be money-based economy without labor? Someone may have realized such proof does not exist. There is no reason for money-based economy to always require labor. [89]
10-09 Those who claim that automation will generate unemployment tend to forget the fact that automation increases production per hour of labor and leads to increased wage per hour. Once the value created by unit labor increases, competing entrepreneurs would try to employ as many laborers as possible and offer higher wages. Short-term effect of automation is increase, not decrease, in demand for labor.
10-10 Entrepreneurs are not interested in how many hours of labor they are to employ. They are interested in the value they can produce through labor. Wage determined in free market is proportional to productivity, not to labor time. If we can create the same value as we do by 8 hours of labor now in 4 hours someday, the price for 4 hours of labor will be identical to the price for 8 hours of labor now.
10-11 Thus, the essential question is as follows: Will we be willing to continue the same amount of labor under increased wage rate? Are we going to prefer working 8 hours to receive twice as much real wage than working 4 hours? Of course, we might choose the former until our savings reach particular level. However, we will end up reducing labor hours because the utility of added wage does not reach disutility of labor.
10-12 Our prospect includes time during which laborers increase their savings, the time when they do not spend the value they produce. This is the time when productivity increased by automation and non-reduced labor coexist, resulting in greater supply of goods than what can be spent. (In fact, these two are different methods of explaining the same thing.) In terms of economics, it is clearly a temporary phenomenon triggered by sudden change in conditions. However, critics of free market misunderstood it as a permanent state.
10-13 Even if the described process cannot smoothly be progressed for some reason, there is no reason to worry about it. There is a way to resolve the problem of unemployment without overly increasing unproductive labor. It is shortening of legal working hours. This is not a new idea, and this is not an unrealistic idea. Ever since the first enactment of the Ten Hours Act during 1847 in the UK, it has decreased.
10-14 One day, we will be able to produce the same amount of goods as we do right now using half as much labor. At that time, we are going to reduce legal working hours to half. It is self-evident that this cannot reduce our real wage below the level prior to automation because the value created by 1 hour of labor was increased by a factor of two. (This really is not a principle that needs to be explained twice.)
10-15 Shortening of legal working hours can be applied step by step. We can apply this in societies where only 20% or 30% of labor should disappear. The Venus Project always speaks about 'high-technology resource based economy' where 90% of labor is gone. However, it fails to say anything about transition economies where 20% or 30% of labor is removed.
10-16 Ordinary alternatives like shortening of legal working hours cannot easily satisfy the desire of people who dream of perfect society. But at least we won't have to take a step backwards in order to advance two steps. It will not demand wholehearted revolution for which we are unsure about sacrifices and side effects we need to endure. It does not require an adjustment period so long that will actually diminish quality of life instead of improving it. It is more attractive than Jacque Fresco's plan.
10-17 Shortening of legal working hours is not the only way to liberate the mankind from labor. Another method of removing the necessity of labor in maintaining livelihood on top of reducing pain from labor was proposed: Basic income. Basic income refers to offering of regular income sufficient enough to maintain livelihood to all citizens by the government, regardless of whether or not they work.
10-18 If we can maintain livelihood without working, considerable number of us will not be willing to work under low wage condition. Some may actually stop working. However, we should point out that it is no long an unfortunate event because the purpose of basic income discussed within our context is in preventing oversupply of labor - in fact, basic income is only rational when it is spoken in terms of this purpose -.
10-19 As for shortening of legal working hours, basic income can also be applied step by step. At the beginning, it may be in the form of providing income just enough to barely maintain livelihood. Most people will still prefer working, and supply of labor is not going to decrease by large. This must be so when the technology has not yet been developed enough to automate many things.
10-20 As technological development further decreases demand for labor, we will be able to increase the size of basic income. We would gradually be able to enjoy abundant life without labor. How about laborers? They will be required to sacrifice greater part of their income. This reduces supply of labor. Only a small number of people who need money for special purposes or enjoy working will gladly work. Demand and supply are balanced once again.
10-21 Of course, this can only be accomplished by forcing laborers to sacrifice their income. Future laborers might end up paying most of their income as taxes. Money required to provide basic income to all citizens is not gained for free. [90] However, this sacrifice is still fractional. Even if laborers must pay over half of their income as taxes, their income will far exceed income of those who do not work.
10-22 The fact that laborers need to endure sacrifice for free-riders does not sound well, but it is nothing compared to the overwhelming sacrifice demanded on laborers by resource-based economy of Jacque Fresco. Laborers in resource-based economy are not rewarded with anything except for intangible things like people's respect. Supporters of The Venus Project see no problem in it.
10-23 In fact, the logic of supporting basic income is completely identical to the logic of supporting resource-based economy. Since automation begins to remove the simplest and most mechanical labor, remaining labor works will be more creative and amusing. Jacque Fresco and I share the common thought that no incentive is necessary for scientists and engineers. Of course, I serious doubt whether Fresco really has scientific and technological passion.
10-24 The difference is that the logic of supporting basic income does not need to be doctrinaire. Basic income allows laborers to at least receive some kind of material reward for their labor. This can always be adjusted. Psychological reward may be sufficient to make laborers do some works but is probably not sufficient enough to make them do other works. I think it is rational to use both methods in order to give incentives to labor.
10-25 If the criticism on basic income focuses on the fact that basic income requires redistribution of income through taxation and results in big government than small, it is correct. Redistribution of income through taxation distorts the market. However, we can still compare between positive and negative effects. Big government becomes a threat mainly because it is arbitrary. Individual policies are not always bad, as long as they are not arbitrary.
10-26 As Hayek wrote in The Road to Serfdom, "The question whether the state should or should not 'act' or 'interfere' poses an altogether false alternative, and the term 'laissez faire' is a highly ambiguous and misleading description of the principles on which a liberal policy is based… The important question is whether the individual can foresee the action of the state and make use of this knowledge as a datum in forming his own plans."
10-27 Therefore, size of arbitrary power which determines what is the best policy for the greatest number, not size of the government, is dangerous. It is obvious that redistribution of income through taxation will not threaten our freedom only if it does not permit any discretion to the bureaucrats executing redistribution and we can predict all details based on law.
10-28 Basic income is superior to other welfare systems requiring redistribution of wealth. [91] For example, basic income is the only system that can predict without error how much budget must be used. This means that we do not have to create funds like pension fund in order to respond to 'elastic' demand. As the ratio of basic income in the budget increases, residual fund operated by the government is reduced.
10-29 Shortening of legal working hours and basic income are not automatically given to us when we sit around doing nothing. They are close to something we need to gain through ceaseless struggle. Also, they are political struggles. Some people claim that political struggles are useless. However, almost everything we accomplished is an outcome of political struggle. The fact that we have labor laws allowing us to work less than 18th century British people did is not because of mercy by capitalists.
10-30 Jacque Fresco would say we should give up all efforts to rescue the money system. The money system will collapse because of its hypocrisy, for example the large scale unemployment caused by automation. However, we should rather welcome this instead of regarding it as unfortunate, because we will be able to construct a true paradise.
10-31 But if we need to endure the pain of unemployment and famine that have never existed in the history during collapse of the money system and we must hand over the right to use technologies, which might permanently fall the mankind into slavery, to small number of planners, should we really welcome it? Is it valuable enough for us to give up on the way to liberate us from labor through basic income?
10-32 Supporters of The Venus Project would answer that death of the money system cannot be avoided. They might say that since politics is fundamentally corrupt, it is impossible to accomplish good political objectives such as basic income and legal working hours. Death of money-based economy cannot be avoided. We can only reduce accompanied pain. Such fatalistic view about the history agrees with what Popper referred to as historicism.
10-33 It is hard to find something that supporters of The Venus Project are not doing among things Karl Popper warned not to do. Since behaviors of collectivists have not changed much for hundreds of years, it was probably not a surprise that the warning of an intellectual given 50 years ago is applied to collectivists of today. Popper's criticism on historicism was intended to refute Marxism, but his logic of criticism is applied as is to Jacque Fresco.
10-34 Most of his criticisms as a scientist-philosopher were scientific criticisms. The argument that one found the law of historical development is not and cannot be an outcome of scientific thinking. [92] However, we need to focus on his criticism about conclusion of historicism, not his criticism about non-scientific aspect of historicism. Historicists claim that all efforts to alter the society are useless, except for efforts 'permitted' by the law of history.
10-35 There is no doubt about the fact that historicism of Marx was wrong. Today, we are living in a society in which free education is provided to all children and most of communication and transportation means are controlled by the central government, which were considered by Marx as impractical to achieve without abolishing capitalism. What resulted in failure was the attempt to rebuild the society at once, not the political struggle to progressively reform the society.
10-36 You can laugh at people who support The Venus Project when they claim that basic income and shortening of legal working hours are fanciful dreams that cannot be accomplished. In terms of practicality and possibility of accomplishment, basic income and legal working hours are incomparable to resource-based economy. What determines possibility of accomplishment for something depends on how many people agree with it, not how well it accords with the abstract law of history.
10-37 Can other goals promised by resource-based economy be achieved through piecemeal method? For instance, can we create an abundant society without scarcity of all goods using piecemeal method? It is true that money is unnecessary in a society without scarcity of all goods. If so, shouldn't we bring the current money-based economy to an end in order to create a society without scarcity?
10-38 The meaning of the term scarcity was one thing that Jacque Fresco and his supporters never understood properly. If we had sufficient iron to construct all railroads we need in the future, does it mean there is no scarcity of iron? Of course it doesn't. Iron must be used for other purposes. Quantity of iron may not be enough to satisfy all purposes.
10-39 However, if we were to declare a planned economy and decide to only use iron for construction of railroads, does it remove scarcity of iron? This might seem plausible at the first sight, but this is far away from the truth. The planners probably chose what to satisfy among various uses of iron. We simply cannot recognize the fact that there were other possible choices because the choice was already made by someone else.
10-40 The reason why we agonize to use something according to plan is because it is scarce. Nobody would agonize to use sunlight according to plan. However, Jacque Fresco's claim about resources is exactly opposite. Resources are limited, and we must always choose where to use them. Choice is an act of giving up on a demand in order to satisfy another demand. So, what in this world does not have scarcity? [93]
10-41 Anyway, it is absurd to think that market system creates scarcity that does not exist. The market exists because of scarcity, not the vice versa. As the market cannot create non-existing richness, it cannot create non-existing scarcity. Such misunderstanding is caused by supporters of The Venus Project who mysticize money without recognizing it as a simple tool for exchange.
10-42 If an entrepreneur wishes to increase price of a good he produces using the law of scarcity, he needs to reduce its production. Such thing does not happen except in small number of monopolistic markets. It can only be good for his competitors. Unless all capitalists around the world are colluding, capitalism cannot create a non-existing scarcity. Nobody would seriously make such argument.
10-43 If we really were to create an abundant society, what we need to do is simple. It is to develop the technology and increase productivity of the society. Increased productivity will reduce prices of goods to 0. Many goods have already gone through this path. Books and watches were more expensive than vehicles and personal computers today in the past, but they are no longer the subjects of serious economic trouble.
10-44 Where does this path lead to? One day, this path might be able to drop prices of most goods to 0. A good with price of 0, as most of good except for public goods are in the completed resource-based economy of Jacque Fresco, can be picked up in the market without price tags. Money will cease to exist without any revolution when price of all goods becomes 0.
10-45 Of course, this is only an analogy. Considering the incentives for capitalists, price of a good cannot be 0 even if there is no cost involved with production of the good. However, capitalists who produce the good would at least reduce the price so that it is converges to 0. Unless they do so, other capitalists will take away their remaining profit by providing the good at a lower price.
10-46 But the lessons we learn from this are clear. First, expulsion of money is the result, not the condition, of limitlessly abundant society. Our economic troubles created by expensive prices of some goods will be naturally resolved by developing the technology so that their prices can be reduced. Compulsory expulsion of money is as unnecessary as pulling the limbs of a child to turn him into an adult. This would only result in side effects.
10-47 Second, money can be partially driven out. If a good is no longer our economic trouble due to technological development, we can say we drove out half of the money about that particular good. We may someday succeed in completely removing necessity of money about the good, but money would still be necessary to distribute other goods.
10-48 Therefore, even if it is true that we can accomplish abolishment of money system one day, it does not have to be accomplished by radical revolution. We can allow the government to produce and distribute for free important goods for which price has reached 0. For example, if energy can be supplied in renewable way without limit, we can make the government produce and distribute it for free, leaving distribution of other goods to the market.
10-49 How about resource and environment? Wouldn't it be impossible to perform integrated management of resources on earth by leaving production of goods to the market? Of course, it is not. Sustainable management of resources on earth requires plan, but this plan is only a comprehensive plan. The plan we need is about total amount of each resource. There is no need to give instruction for specific use of each resource.
10-50 We can control the amount of resource used by changing its economic environment. For instance, we can control the use of a resource by levying tax on its use. At first, it would be difficult to obtain intended result. However, an advantage of this method is in that it can be consistently readjusted. If a resource is not being used enough, we can adjust it simply by reducing tax on it.
10-51 This of course is not the only way we can use to prevent waste of resources. For example, we can decide limit of resource use for each year and allow economic subjects to buy and sell the right to use resources, just as we do with land properties. We have many legal devices to prevent monopoly of land. It can be applied to preventing monopoly of resource use.
10-52 The essence is that we do not have to control movement of all water molecules in order to pull water out of a piston. Finite goal can be accomplished by finite adjustment. If we wanted to control volume of a balloon, we can apply heat or add more air. Such adjustments affect all air particles in the balloon and change their physical environment, but they do not control each particle. Our attitude towards resources should be the same.
10-53 Of course, there is a limit in managing global resources and environment this way because the stakes of different nations conflict each other. I expect this problem to be resolve through international treaties. Someone might argue that there is no promise about this. However, it would be ridiculous for supporters of The Venus Project to claim the same. International treaties are still easier than uniting all nations. [94]
10-54 The same logic is used to prevent conflict and warfare between nations. War between nations will disappear after we unite the world as a single nation. The problem is that uniting the world as a nation is even more difficult than eradicating wars between nations. However, even this is nothing compared to difficulty of making a single ideology to govern the entire world. It is a deception to argue that we can resolve a problem using solution more difficult to apply than the problem itself.
10-55 The truth is such beliefs always resulted in horrible massacres. Collectivism gives birth to war. The grand pretext will justify any wars and massacres. For instance, if resource-based economy dominates most of the world and a few small nations are resisting it and spreading their dangerous ideas, imagine what the virtuous planners would do to improve psychological environment of the mankind.
10-56 Jacque Fresco's wish to remove conflicts by turning all people into truth-seekers who realized unity of all things is as immature as the wish of Christians to remove conflicts by turning people into 'children of God'. What we need is a rational alternative. It may be an international organization or treaty on prevention of war. Existing organizations are not perfect and maybe unfair. However, we can at least place efforts to make them fair.
10-57 What about humanness? As Jacque Fresco says, our environment affects formation of our personality. Wouldn't human beings be forever unable to overcome egoism as long as they live in the money system? My answer is the opposite of that. All collectivistic societies, whether or not they have money, reinforced negative aspects of human beings instead of removing them.
10-58 It is a fact that comparing the merits between different cultures is wrong. However, there is no reason for me not to do so if collectivists were to start on it. Scientific studies on ancient people or today's hunting-gathering societies suggest that the truth is exactly opposite of what most of romanticists believe without evidence. I doubt whether there was a past generation richer in emotion, sympathetic and conservationist than the modern civilization. [95]
10-59 People were most virtuous when they were grown under the most individualistic environment. [96] It is uncertain as to whether this was caused by the general material abundance that accompanied individualistic environment or by the individualistic environment itself. But no matter which of the two is true, there is no reason for us to select collectivism in order to make people good or fundamentally eradicate crimes.
10-60 Grand collectivistic experiments always start out by promising they will turn people into virtuous and altruistic beings. They always end by turning everyone less virtuous and altruistic. It is uncertain as to whether this was caused by the poverty and inequality resulting from economic failure of collectivism or by the collectivistic environment. But no matter which of the two is true, there is no doubt about the fact that it is insane to repeat such experiment now.
10-61 The conclusion is obvious. Most of problems that Jacque Fresco claims to be irresolvable unless we accept resource-based economy are not irresolvable at all, and some of them can be easily solved by not accepting it. I did not mention problems of money-based economy suggested by Jacque Fresco in this Chapter, but they are the same.
10-62 Problems created by debt can be resolved through the commodity standard or greenback system. Inequality can be adjusted by welfare system or basic income. Inheritance of wealth can be removed by heavy inheritance tax and transfer tax. If electric vehicles were not produced because oil companies have patents for battery technology, it is the negative effect of patent system instead of money-based economy. We can settle this problem by amending the patent law. [97]
10-63 If you wish to eliminate the government, consider the method of reinforcing the rule of law. It practically gets rid of the government by withdrawing the authority on policies from the government bureaucrats. Do not be deceived by Jacque Fresco's play of words to directly abolish the government. His plan requires a gigantic provisional government which has never even existed in the history. Size of the government demanded by planned economy is beyond imagination. As we saw in Chapter 4, there is extremely small number of functions that a computer can replace.
10-64 I do not want readers to think about the purpose of this Chapter as perpetuation of money-based system or market system operated by the logic of profit. If we can one day supply all goods without scarcity using sustainable resources and not doing unwanted labor, it is self-evident that money and market system will no longer be necessary. I am not trying to claim or even to believe that such future cannot come true.
10-65 The reason why I oppose argument of collectivists to immediately abolish money is simple. They always talk about radical abolition of money, but market system and money system can also be abolished partially. Of course, it must be demonstrated through the experimental method proposed by piecemeal engineering. If it is successful, we will be able to gradually expand the scope of money abolishment. I do not oppose any of these. [98]
10-66 One of the methods for understanding piecemeal solutions is to consider it as an intermediate process. Natural decrease in price caused by technological development may be one of steps needed to reduce price of all goods to 0. The system in which tax is collected from laborers to provide basic income may be a step towards a perfectly egalitarian system - these two can be exactly identical when tax rate is 100% - in which no laborer has any privilege and everyone earns same income.
10-67 What we really need is the alternative for such intermediate process. Conditions of the intermediate process require an alternative for the intermediate process. While necessity and scarcity of labor today are smaller compared to the past, they have not completely disappeared. We should only eradicate parts of labor, not the whole. When technological conditions of the society progressively change, there is little need for radical change. [99]
10-68 We cannot create the optimal social system through a single revolution. The truth is that even the optimal social system is changed by changing conditions. We must continuously experiment and change our social system. Of course as often pointed out, this experiment can be disrupted by people who benefit from existing system. We must ceaselessly fight in order to further shorten working hours or introduce and expand basic income.
10-69 Individual experiments may turn out to be a success or failure since our social engineering knowledge is insufficient. Sometimes, hardly acquired outcome can turn out to be something that impoverishes our life instead of improving it. However, we can at least obtain knowledge. As the same mistake is accumulated, the possibility of repeating the same mistake will decrease. Piecemeal social engineering makes it possible.
10-70 However, we would be deceiving ourselves to believe that we can skip this difficult process of readjustment and experimentation by fundamentally changing the society through a single revolution. Resource-based economy in transition period is as distant from completed resource-based economy as the current system. It cannot remove the government, and it cannot eradicate labor. We must acknowledge that even it can only get closer to completed resource-based economy based on continued experimentation and readjustment.
10-71 Therefore, the choices given to us are not about whether we will momentarily eliminate labor and scarcity through revolution or go through the difficult process of struggle proposed by piecemeal engineering. We can only choose between taking the responsibility to continuously struggle and experiment for better society and leaving it up to people who claim to be engineers with a solution.
10-72 Our first enlightenment comes from this. Our desire for utopian engineering does not originate from courage and sense of responsibility but from our laziness of shifting our responsibilities to someone else. Piecemeal engineering demands endurance of difficult struggle for which we cannot predict success and failure in order to reduce one hour of labor. We simply try to avoid it because we are already too tired and have no courage to continue this path.
10-73 However, the consequence of such escape is frightening. It demands the right for planners promising the best society to exclusively use all sciences and technology, and the right to educate anything to us which may remove our ability to think as we wish. It is most probably going to be used in creating their utopia, not a utopia for all of us.
10-74 Those who acknowledge this and are willing to select piecemeal engineering will suddenly realize that we are already in the middle of this path. Our ancestors had to shed blood and fight to gain the rights we now regard as trivial, such as the universal suffrage. Quality of life we enjoy today not only resulted from development of science and technology but also from such piecemeal struggle.
10-75 Jacque Fresco, probably except for engineers like him, asks us to hate ancestors. [100] He asks us to think of all struggles and outcomes by ancestors as useless. Utopian engineering must be so. We cannot start with utopian engineering without turning back on the path of piecemeal engineering. The path to utopian engineering requires us to give up not only what we can acquire through piecemeal engineering but what ancestors have already acquired.
10-76 Jacque Fresco does not speak about the long and tedious process of transition period. He always talks about completed resource-based economy. He creates a fantasy that his plan must be self-evidently accepted if we were to accomplish resource-based economy. Is this really true? Do we have to hand over the right to decide everything from production and distribution of goods to education to the provisional government uncontrolled by laws and democratic devices in order to achieve resource-based economy?
10-77 The truth is that Jacque Fresco's plan has great possibility of bringing horrible oppression rather than creating resource-based economy, regardless of whether we have enough resources and technological capability to realize his plan. We have to reject Jacque Fresco's plan not because it pursues a wrong goal, but because his plan is inferior in terms of methodology.
10-78 We may one day be completely liberated from labor. We may one day accomplish a perfectly abundant society. Once economic problems caused by scarcity of goods disappear, we can attempt many things we have never attempted before like the marine city. This might be considerably similar to what we refer to as 'resource-based economy'.
10-79 However, such future cannot be obtained by applying utopian engineering. We must continue the duty we inherited from ancestors. We should fight for small things rather than throwing ourselves into large stakes, and we have to consider the outcome of such struggle as precious. This is the only way we can prepare a foothold for the best society, whether it is resource-based economy or something else.
10-80 There is nothing in the alternative suggested by piecemeal engineering that we need to wait until the time comes. In fact, there already are various movements having the purpose of each. You can participate in the movement to stop wars, receive basic income, or limit power of the Federal Reserve Bank right now. As long as the desire for collectivism robs the driving force from all these things, the future of such movements is more hopeful than ever. This text is intended to explain this.
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[89] Somebody might say this: "We have to use money in order to maintain money-based economy, but we can only earn money through labor. Therefore, labor is necessary in money-based economy." Of course this is wrong. There is no ground for the argument that we can only earn money through labor in money-based economy. This is not even true in the current system. Some people make a living with dividends from equity, and others make a living with government subsidies.
[90] Whether the tax for basic income should be collected from laborers or capitalists is not an important problem. If all taxes are collected from capitalists, supply of labor will be increased. This allows capitalists to slightly reduce wages of laborers. At the point where demand and supply reach equilibrium, where the taxes are collected does not change anything Of course, this is not the result wanted by people who believe that the tax for basic income should be collected from capitalists. They want the profit of capitalists to be sacrificed for basic income. The essence of what I am saying is that collecting taxes from capitalists is not helpful in doing so. We cannot accomplish it without making the government directly intervene in the price decision process of labor market. Such intervention does not always bring desirable outcome.
[91] In fact, welfare nation models until now have not been successful unlike what is commonly known - mainly by the propaganda of anti-marketeers. For instance, as pointed out by a Swedish politician, success of Sweden was possible because of economic policy that began in 1990s, not welfare. Read an article of Wall Street Journal at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704698004576104023432243468.html?mod=googlenews_wsj.
[92] Especially on prejudice, Popper wrote, "The poverty of historicism, we might say, is a poverty of imagination. The historicist continuously upbraids those who cannot imagine a change in their little worlds; yet it seems that the historicist is himself deficient in imagination, for he cannot imagine a change in the conditions of change." There is no better explanation about supporters of The Venus Project who frequently emphasize imaginary power but cannot imagine more than what they saw and learned about money-based economy.
[93] Fresco is mainly conserving resources by driving out specific goods from the market or turning them into public goods. His argument that there is no scarcity in resources is probably correct about goods except for public goods and goods driven out, or goods to be freely distributed in his system and resources used to produce such goods. I am pointing out that it is illogical to discuss scarcity after excluding a part of demand. Refer to the discussion in the latter part of Chapter 9 about the argument that scarcity will disappear because Fresco's system uses all resources more efficiently. From the beginning, it is mathematically obvious that the market cannot select production processes in a way that all resources are wasted at the same time. There is no price structure that can make the process using resource 3a+b cheaper than the process using resource a+2b, while simultaneously making the process using resource a+3b cheaper than the process using resource 2a+b.
[94] Even if it is true that we must unite all nations in order to manage resources and environment on earth, there is no logical reason for us to accept other suggestions of resource-based economy. We do not have to rebuilt all cities in round form, abolish money, or devise plans on specific use of resources in order to manage resources and environment on earth.
[95] Arguing that modern people are less of conservationists than natives of Amazon and people in the past because they are destroying the nature more than natives of Amazon and people in the past is wrong. As Matt Ridley wrote in The Origins of virtue, this is simply because they do not have as many means to destroy the environment. Look at Human nature written by Allyn M. Stearman, especially volume 5 Only slaves climb trees.
[96] Let's first clarify what individualistic environment means. Many people consider this as a synonym of egoistic environment. However, this is not true. Individualistic environment refer to an environment in which individual independence is respected. That is, unless wanted by the individual, with whom he forms human relationship, what he loves and hates, and what kind of ideas and beliefs he has cannot be intruded by others. Collectivistic environment is the opposite. It is an environment that shares the belief that there an optimal idea and belief, and that the idea and belief of all human beings must accord with the optimal idea and belief. For instance, you are living in a collectivistic environment if someone forces you to salute to the national flag. The modern United States described by Jacque Fresco is not an individualistic environment.
[97] We have nothing to worry about the future of electric vehicles without making any improvement in laws. Since the patent will expire in 15 years, oil companies cannot permanently monopolize battery technology. One day, vehicles that run on petroleum will have to compete with electric vehicles in the market. However, if electric vehicles are really cheaper and safer than vehicles run on oil, there is no reason why they cannot dominate the market.
[98] In fact, Jacque Fresco is a true ideologist. The system of partially introducing money and market in resource-based economy is one of the things for which Jacque Fresco will never apply the method of substantiation and experimentation. He believes that money and market will self-evidently fail, whether they are fully or partially introduced. Such conviction made without experimentation is exactly what we decided to call ideology - in narrow sense.
[99] As phase transition exists in many models of statistical physics, it is true that phase transition can also exist in the optimal social environment. For instance, the optimal social system may discontinuously change according to technological development. My point is not in that necessity of such discontinuous change cannot exist. It is that there is a tendency for this to be exaggerated. We are not familiar with brainstorming about the intermediate process between social systems on the two ends. We hastily believe that it does not exist. We fail to recognize that many problems of our society can be resolved by minor adjustments. We are too hasty in believing that they are fundamental problems of our social system. Imagining a grand utopia covered up by contradictions is always easier than imagining detailed adjustments.
[100] If we accept Jacque Fresco's groundless declaration that quality of life can only be improved by technological development, we cannot respect any of our ancestors except for engineers. In fact, Fresco quite directly asks us to detest all figures of the past excluding scientists and engineers. He says we must care less about intellectuals like the founders of the United States, independence fighters, Locke and Adam Smith. The truth is that we cannot evaluate figure of the past without considering the environment - it is symbolic that Fresco, who prioritizes environment more than anyone else, did not recognize this. It is much more difficult to become a cosmopolitan in 1800s than in 2000s. Most of their ideas were closest to freedom and equality at the time, and some of their ideas are still closest to freedom and equality now. As far as freedom and equality are concerned, we owe a lot to their struggle.
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