GREEDY PSYCHOPATHS

BY Otto Hamlin

When one considers the state of the human condition on Earth, one cannot help but concluding that it is not good.

850 million people suffering from chronic malnutrition. This when the world produces enough food to feed everyone. More than 100 million people are homeless. As many as 1.6 billion people lack adequate housing. In just the United States over 15,000 murders are committed annually, over 90,000 rapes and over 300,000 robberies.

There are approximately 20 to 30 million slaves in the world. The average cost of a slave is $90. Human trafficking is the third largest international crime industry (behind illegal drugs and arms trafficking). One in five adult Americans has a mental health condition.

So the human condition is far from ideal. What is the cause of all this human suffering? What can be done to dramatically improve worldwide human existence?

If you determine the motive behind most, if not all, of the resulting conditions presented above, you will see that its related to money or lack thereof. We live in societies where man competes against his fellow man, companies against other companies and countries against other countries.

Is there a better way? I believe cooperation and collaboration is a far superior way for humans to interact and conduct their lives than competition is. An economy based on collaboration rather than money would provide food, housing and basic necessities for everyone. We merely need to ban the use of money to improve the human condition worldwide.

What? Ban money? It would never work. How could one accumulate wealth?
Man would have no motive to work and produce unless rewarded, right?

Suspend your cherished beliefs for a moment and imagine if you could make all money and banks disappear overnight. There's nothing stopping you from continuing to go to work everyday. Natural resource producers could continue harvesting the world's natural resources for human consumption. Factories could continue producing consumer goods that retailers would make available to the public and service businesses could continue offering their services. We could progress from a money based economy to a resource based one. Governments main function would be resource management rather than security. Why attack a country for their oil when you could just order what you needed from them?

One would merely document their daily contribution to the economy be it doctor or garbage collector. Evidence of your contribution would entitle you to obtain food and other necessities at no cost by simply ordering them to be delivered to your home or by visiting a local service business. Exceptions would have to be made for children, the elderly, the sick, those disabled and those mentally ill.

Such a system would end poverty, homelessness and most crime and would result in a happier, healthier and more mentally stable human population. A resource based economy would provide numerous other benefits. For instance factories no longer motivated by increased sales and repeat business due to planned obsolescence, could manufacture high quality products that last a lifetime cutting down use of resources and on deposits to landfills.

Another huge benefit would be in the area of research and development. Corporations are currently limited by available funds as to how much they can spend on R&D. Imagine the technological advances possible with unlimited R&D budgets. Charities could also vastly expand their operations without the constraints of limited funds.

Immigration to the U.S. and other western nations would drop dramatically. Why leave your family and friends when everything you need can be attained at home.

One familiar objection to the type of system described here is that people would no longer be motivated to excel or to invent without a financial reward. It would be easier to just be a parking lot attendant or cab driver. I believe the human drive to excel is not dependent on financial reward. Some of us are just made that way while others are lazy and always take the easy way out.

Regardless, a number of you reading this will be unable to conceive of a world without money. So for you I have an alternative system. I propose we keep money, freeze all prices at one half their current levels and give everyone an equal pay of $5000 per week. The money to pay everyone will simply be created out of thin air and credited to your checking account weekly which is no different from the way banks operate now when they make loans.The difference is that now the bank needs the loan to be repaid to balance their books and avoid bankruptcy.

Under my proposal banks would no longer be required to balance their books anymore to stay in business. Its all make believe money anyway so what difference does it make if banks balance their books? Its only a man-created rule to start with. As you spend your income that money will end up on the books of some business as gross income. After subtracting expenses the net income will be taxed at 100%. Businesses would no longer be required to pay their employees wages or provide any benefits. Normally all that money creation would create inflation but not when prices are permanently frozen!

As a guaranteed universal income recipient your labor may not be required freeing you to enjoy days of leisure and socializing. Automation techniques such as robots, AI and computer operated machines will eliminate aroud 2/3 of all jobs in the near future, 20-30 years hence.These lost jobs will be replaced by nothing leaving millions unemployed. Much human labor will become unneeded in the future.The government would be faced with two choices. Let us starve and kill each other or give us all a guaranteed income.

Our economy is a mess serving only the upper 10% turning everyone else into welfare parasites or debt slaves. The multinational corporations and banks control everything and these greedy psychopaths and their relentless quest for more wealth causes everyone else to suffer.

My proposed plan, if enacted, would change everything. It would eliminate class structures which have existed for eons. It would permanently freeze prices, eliminate the destructive profit motive, tax all businesses at 100%, provide guaranteed income equality for all, encourage collaboration and discourage competition. It would restructure our economies to benefit all. Almost all crime would end. Stress related mental disorders would be diminished.

This proposal essentially accomplishes all the goal of the resource based economy with no money while preserving the illusion of a money based system.The benefits to humanity are the same either way. Abundance instead of scarcity and social equality instead of division.

With our sheer numbers the 90% has the ability to change everything but unfortunately not the will. They have us dumbed down, distracted by tv, sports and movies, and consuming large amount of alcohol, pharmaceuticals and illegal drugs . It would take a massive social movement to throw the bums out and confiscate the wealth of the rich and powerful and to reorganize society. Will this movement ever form? Who knows. Doubtful.

Further reading:

UBUNTU Liberation Movement
The Venus Project
The Zeitgeist Movement