The repercussions, ethics, and morality of a post-scarcity society

Employers are definitely the hardest obstacle. They have no reason to adopt a system that is against their own interest. The goal of a corporation, ultimately, is not to create a better world, it's to make as much money as it can for the corporation. Convincing billionaires to give away their massive profits so that other people can have some is a losing battle, because why would they?

The question that's going to be asked is, "What's in it for me? How does this benefit me and mine?" For a wealthy person, this entire conversation would just sound like poor people whining because they think they deserve a pat on the back for failing. That's the hardest part about any plan to redistribute the wealth: it's not yours to redistribute, so how do you get your hands on it? Because the rich aren't going to volunteer their own.

edited 2nd Apr '14 7:39:21 AM by TobiasDrake

Take it?

That could get very nasty, very quickly — especially if the taken money then gets siphoned off or stolen...

Well I don't see anyone else with any other ideas

There's nothing wrong with saying there might be a few problems with major changes — or that the people taking the money might be (or become) corrupt.

Either way, what might happen if a post-scarcity society stops being one?

Ask the French how well that worked out for them once their revolutionaries got accustomed to being the ones with all the wealth and power. Or ask the same of the Mexicans. ...hell, ask the Americans how that whole land of freedom thing is going.

Violent revolts tend to change the face of the king more than they do the policies. Even if it succeeds, just up and seizing all the rich's money creates a situation where the kind of people who will use violence to enforce the idea that they should have the right to tell you what to do with your wealth, are now the ones with all the money and power.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

Basically, either businesses would have to see that it's in their own best interest to redistribute the wealth somehow to keep it flowing and preserve the capitalist model (rather than wind up with most of the population in cheap "housing" projects eating rationed foods) or the governments would have to legislate the changes and increase taxation of the rich/corporate entities on the grounds of "well, you increased the level of unemployment to point that we lack sufficient resources to look after it and besides, you're the only ones left with any money for us to take."

While the governments serve the interests of their rich cronies and the corporations, they primarily serve themselves, so they will make moves to protect the politians' own extravagant lifestyles - even at the expense of the corporations.

The only way the corporations will survive would be to temper the government's actions to preserve the capitalist market model (prevent the government from just shoving the vast amounts of poor into cheap housing).

We're going to have to rely on their own greedy self-serving natures to get them working to protect the status quo - no, they're not going to give us enough money to live like kings, just enough to keep about the same amount of money in circulation.

It'd no doubt mean a drop in income for those who were on a really good wage before their jobs got automated, but it'd mean a boost in income for those on low-paid jobs - everyone would get "the average" to make it "fair" and give everyone an equal opportunity to pay exorbitant prices for mediocre food at Mc Donalds if they so desire.

edited 2nd Apr '14 12:24:11 PM by Wolf1066

Try to throw off the old dialectic, please. It had plenty of time to get working. It doesn't.

Billionaires give away huge sums of money all the time. It is practically the billionaire sport. Show any corporation how its bottom line profits go up when an action is taken, and you guarantee that action. In fact, you guarantee a gold-rush competition to get that action going as efficiently and quickly as possible.

Dealing with the actualities rather than the rhetorical boogey-men of the last 100 years is the only way to effect change.

edited 2nd Apr '14 3:25:10 PM by FastEddie

I'm fairly sure I've posted this quote before, but whatever, I'll post it again.

I'm not sure that we're ever going to see a dispersal or diffusion of power.

No one's going to be keen to relinquish that and no one who wrests it from those people is going to be keen to let it go once they've got it.

Every single so-called "Power To The People" movement that has ever succeeded merely replaced one King/Czar with another.

What we can hope for, though, is that technological and resultant sociological changes occur so that our lifestyles improve.

We may have improved access to personal manufacturing with developments in 3D printing, but someone's still going to control supplies of certain raw materials that we'd need to make things and other people may well hold copyright on some designs; there are still going to be many things we cannot provide for ourselves as individuals (you can't just go out and throw up a place to live in wherever you like, not everyone can provide their own food) that others are going to control access to - if not the current captains of industry, then whoever takes their place.

There will always be people who desire to lead the population as a whole - if not the current bunch, then their successors, however that succession may be effected.

We may never be totally divorced from those "in power" but we may well get more choices.

If we don't have to (or can't) work, then we've got better choices of where we live, what we buy - he might enjoy living in the heart of Manhattan, even now he doesn't have to be within easy commute of work, she might be only to glad to head for a more rural retreat now there's nothing keeping her in the city.

She may decide to spend her large amounts of spare time travelling the world, he might decide to learn a craft, just for the sheer joy of creating something with his hands.

edited 3rd Apr '14 2:35:17 AM by Wolf1066