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Re-evaluating Restriction-Based Economic

Systems
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.

Source: Implications of Historical Trends in the Electrical Efficiency of Computing. 2010

During the mid 20th century, technological advancement began increasing


exponentially to the point where any of todays generic smartphones run over one
hundred million times faster than the guidance system used on the Apollo 11 mission.
This exponential growth, named The Law of Accelerated Growth by futurist, Ray
Kurzweil, will inevitably lead to the greatest threat of technological unemployment
humanity has ever faced. Talks of reforming the current system and a lack of growth
overlook the inherent contradictions of the system and the systemic crisis at hand. Instead
of trying to reform a system ill equipped to deal with the looming threat of technological
unemployment, we must re-evaluate the economic system as a whole.
There is no denying a coming tidal wave of technological unemployment; only to
what degree it will take place. According to Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael A.
Osbornes The Future of Employment: How Susceptible are Jobs to Computerization?
47% of todays jobs have at least a 75% chance of being computerized over the next

decades.

Source: THE FUTURE OF EMPLOYMENT: HOW SUSCEPTIBLE ARE


JOBS TO COMPUTERISATION? 2013

Technological unemployment should come as a surprise to no one. Market forces


will punish businesses if they continue to use more expensive and less reliable human
labor. Not only do firms wishing to retain competitive prices have to automate their labor,
there is a huge incentive for firms to automate before other firms to undercut the prices of
competing firms.
The automation of labor is a reality but neither intrinsically good or bad; the
consequences of automating labor depend on whether or not we are adequately prepared
for this dramatic shift in labor markets. In fact, technology is intrinsically good as it
almost always improves our quality of life. It is the technological unemployment aspect
of rapidly growing technology that must be dealt with. Taking into account The Law of
Accelerated Growth, it is unreasonable to believe that labor markets would re-adjust, that
is to create new jobs requiring human labor, before even more jobs are automated.
Currently, we are overwhelmingly unprepared for this coming unemployment
crisis at best (The Economist 2014). This is not an issue that is discussed in mainstream
political discourse and is only beginning to get attention in academic circles.
The concept of unemployment is closely tied to the concept of scarcity. Different
economic systems deal with scarcity in their own ways. Capitalism, the economic system
we currently have, allocates resources through a doctrine of property rights. Capitalist
ethics assert that individuals have a right to control their bodies and the possessions one
owns. Because the resources necessary for survival were once scarce, capitalists asserted
that only those who justly acquired property, either by purchasing it or by making it
themselves, were entitled to property. Thus, work is inherent to a capitalist system. Those
who didnt have the means to buy property or accumulate capital had to become laborers
to survive. The capitalist system is designed to prevent people from consuming scarce
resources without earning them through some kind of labor or sacrifice first. Resources
are distributed based on who works and how much they work. While this system of
resource allocation may have been considered fair or necessary in the past, it is no longer
relevant or in touch with reality.
Capitalism is diametrically opposed to abundance; the two cannot coexist. The
capitalist system of resource distribution utilizes price as a restriction on resources; only

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.

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