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Human history is defined by our struggle to overcome scarcity, the idea that there
are only a finite amount of resources to satisfy infinite desires. Whether it be ancient
civilizations sacrificing people to gods in hopes that the gods will grant them better crop
yields, or modern governments tweaking fiscal and monetary policies to promote
economic growth, creating an abundance of resources has been a common goal of all
societies.
The idea of scarcity has always stood undisputed and rightfully so. In the past, it
was common for societies to fail to provide for everyone. With only primitive technology,
societies of the past required massive amounts of labor to create what we can now
produce instantaneously and thus, could produce far less than we can today. Labor saving
devices like plows and refineries were created to increase a workers output and free their
labor for other tasks. While labor saving devices made the lives of most people easier,
workers whose labor was being replaced by these advances lost their jobs, a phenomenon
called technological unemployment by the founder of Keynesian Economics, John
Maynard Keynes (Keynes 1930). While the adoption of labor saving devices has always
met backlash from the victims of technological unemployment, objections were never
successful in halting technological progress, evidenced by the fact that those protested
technologies are in use today (Huffington Post 2014). Ephemeralization, a term coined by
designer, Richard Buckminster Fuller, describes how technological advancement allows
us to do more and more with less and less until eventually you can do everything with
nothing. Fuller predicted that ephemeralization was an inevitable trend and so far, his
theory has been vindicated.
As indicated in the graphs below, ephemeralization exploded with the advent of modern
technology, namely computers.
decades.
those who can afford resources, get them. The capitalist system grows and contracts
based on how many goods are consumed. In order for individuals to sustain themselves,
they must work to generate the income necessary to consume. If resources become
abundant, the system falls apart because there is no reason to exclude peoples access to
resources, as there would be no scarcity.
Scarcity, in the economic sense that goods cannot be recreated at a whim with no
costs incurred, will always exist. However, the resources needed to meet general human
needs are no longer scarce. The earth already produces enough food to feed ten billion
people (Seufert, Ramunkutty, Foley 2015). There are plenty of vacant homes and
resources, which can be used to build more homes. In the US, there are six unoccupied
houses for every one homeless person (Huffington Post 2010). The environment is
abundant with clean and renewable energy. Given that resources necessary for survival
are abundant, why do we obsessively cling to the idea that, everyone needs to earn a
living? However, regardless of the ever increasing supply of resources that comes with
technological advancement, under a capitalist economic system, people will have less
resources because there will be less work.
Why is it that, despite the level of abundance we have today, people are still
underserved? The answer boils down to tradition. We have become obsessed with
capitalist culture and the capitalist tradition of earning a living. We have imposed rules
upon ourselves that make life unnecessarily difficult for ourselves. We insist that people
must work to receive their fair share even when current technological trends show that
getting work will become unbelievably difficult in the coming decades (Shontell 2014)
(Frey, Osborne 2013). We insist that people must work to receive their fair share even
when we will soon have robots producing enough to justify doing away with human wage
labor as a whole. Capitalism is not a system that economizes, but a system that restricts
access. Capitalism was meant to restrict access to scarce resources to those who did not
work but now resources necessary for survival are not scarce and people cannot work.
Holding onto these reactionary traditions without reason should be seen as an act of
violence as it allows people to unnecessarily suffer.
Technological advancement has brought us every single comfort and luxury that
we know today. It is not something that should be feared but accepted as unstoppable and
celebrated as liberating. For the first time in human history, the workers of the planet will
not be torn from their families to spend the majority of their day toiling in dangerous and
dehumanizing conditions. For the first time, our needs will be met without human labor,
freeing our time to pursue our passions. Experiments in guaranteed income have already
shown the positive effects of providing people with their basic needs. A study of a Basic
Income Guarantee experiment in Canada showed that providing people with a basic
income increased physical and especially mental health and correlated with an increase in
adolescence completing their schooling (Forget 2011).
Our current, restriction-based economic system cannot be saved. Instead we need
to move towards access-based systems, which provide for people according to their needs,
not because we should, but because we can. There is no reason to hold onto to these
antiquated notions of earning a living if it means that people have to suffer
unnecessarily because of it. Instead of trying to reform a system facing a 50%
unemployment increase in the coming decades, it is time we evaluate the idea of working
all together and do away with traditions of the past.
Works Cited
Bronson, Richard 'Skip' "Homeless and Empty Homes -- an American Travesty." The
Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 24 Aug. 2010. Web. 29 Sept. 2015.
The Economist. "Coming to an Office near You." The Economist. The Economist Newspaper,
18 Jan. 2014. Web. 29 Sept. 2015.
Forget, Everly L. THE TOWN WITH NO POVERTY Using Health Administration Data to
Revisit Outcomes of a Canadian Guaranteed Annual Income Field
Experiment. Duke.edu. Duke University, Feb. 2011. Web. 29 Sept. 2015.
Frey, Carl Benedict, and Michael A. Osborne. THE FUTURE OF EMPLOYMENT: HOW
SUSCEPTIBLE ARE JOBS TO COMPUTERISATION? Rep. Oxford University, 17 Sept.
2013. Web. 29 Sept. 2015.
Gregoire, Carolyn. "A Field Guide To Anti-Technology Movements, Past And Present." The
Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 17 Jan. 2014. Web. 29 Sept. 2015.
Keynes, John Maynard Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren1930.
Yale.edu. 29 Sept. 2015.
Koomey, Jonathan G., Stephan Berard, Marla Sanchez, and Henry Wong. "Implications of
Historical Trends in the Electrical Efficiency of Computing." IEEE Xplore. The George
Washington University, n.d. Web. 29 Sept. 2015.
Seufert, Verena, Navin Ramunkutty, and Jonathan A. Foley. Comparing the Yields of Organic
and Conventional Agriculture. Nature.com. McGill University, 25 Apr. 2012. Web. 29
Sept. 2015.
Shontell, Alyson. "The Next 20 Years Are Going To Make The Last 20 Look Like We
Accomplished Nothing In Tech." Business Insider. Business Insider, Inc, 16 June 2014.
Web. 29 Sept. 2015.