An Abundance Manifesto, Abridged, v0.2.0

What you're about to read is subversive as fuck.

Our current society disenfranchises many. People who are thoughtful towards a kinder culture are unappreciated by society. If the vast majority of human beings truly wanted things to be worse in the future, humans would not have cities and spacecraft and computers-- humanity have destroyed everything long before that, perhaps with exactly those tools. That said, this idealistic outlook then becomes tainted and warped by ideology. Scarcity-thinking-- the idea that humans do not have enough; exceptionalism-- the idea that "we" are special and only "we" get the best, and only if "we" work hard enough; in addition to old-school commodity-fetishism, could perhaps be said to be society's means of making us care about things that don't necessarily have inherent value. Capitalism has means and ways of convincing us of all such social constructs. Anyone good enough at selling their viewpoint will be able to "program" society.

Capitalism is also terrible at quantifying values that cannot be commoditized directly. Suffering, extinction, harm... Often times these are written off with a zero value in the logbook of industry. It's what makes many harmful industries profitable. If the true cost were amortized over the generations it would take to pay for it, society would not do the things it does in the way it does them. Our system is built upon extravagant lies to convince ourselves that certain things have value, when otherwise, with clear minds, it would become clear that they are valueless. Much of the service industry is this way. Manufacturing is done incorrectly, as well. Efficiency is not the goal. Abundance for everyone without doing harm. That is the real goal.

What do I mean by abundance? It's certainly an outlook on life-- a privileged one, to be sure--, however, it's also an outlook on the world, and humanity. It's freeing ourselves of the lie of exceptionalism, of realizing that one can, indeed, through intellect and innate generosity as an intelligent species, provide for every member our species and others, all the the things they need to live full and happy lives, as everyone cares to define that, without doing harm.

But first, if any progress is to be made, one must first eschew any notions of nationalism. It's also been called "patriotism", which is just gussied-up nationalism steeped in colonialism. The nation-state is an outdated model, is incredibly territorial and wasteful. It will ultimately become quaint and vestigial, but for now, one can pay taxes and abide by local laws, surely.

The Means of Decentralization

Capitalism is predicated upon scarcity due to the simple fact that if nothing was scarce, nothing would need to be traded upon a market, and thus, nothing would have value. This is the fundamental reason why capitalism cannot co-exist with economic systems built upon sustainable abundance. So, how, then, can things be made not-scarce, without governance or a centralized means of production? Read on!

Centralization is the enemy. It is a massive wealth-concentration mechanism for the wealthy, exclusionary to the many, to the rest of us. It's sold to us under the guise of efficiency from mass production, automation, and lowered expense. One way to achieve that is to re-define the term "efficiency" from an abundance perspective, instead of a capitalist perspective, one will realize that centralized manufacturing is actually incredibly wasteful and harmful.

Much of what could be done as private citizens, corporations are permitted to do so as well. Among other things, corporations are a social construct that allows us to conduct business under the toxic guise of professionalism. Is business, corporatism, or even a means of organization, truly needed in order to conduct economic activity? This then falls under the question of organizational governance. When one feels compelled to govern or be governed, this is the time to worry. Much as with the concept of nationalism, organization and consensus are unnecessary for building the economy of the future.

It is not necessary to work together to create great things. What is necessary is to create things that are useful, to socialize and culture these ideas within communities seeking to use these tools. If needed, these tools will be used to build the great things. Society is often built upon a punitive mechanism; do not do your work, you will be fired and cannot pay rent. However, if things are created that are useful, they will be used. One might argue this is less efficient, as much work may be lost; the counter-argument to this is that. Another counter-argument is that work might not be compensated. Businesses do work that isn't compensated all the time! Stale loaves of bread on the counter, unfashionable clothes not given away, etc. The only reason inefficiency is bad is that it can result in waste in resources, and while this is true under a system predicated upon scarcity, abundant systems do not share this flaw.

Sustainability is the first step towards abundance. For, if things are not sustainable, any measure of abundance would surely consume all resources. This is where arguments for scarcity-based systems fall flat.

The Fully-Automated economy of the future will be built upon a massive network of code. At one time, they were called "smart contracts", built with cryptocurrencies. In many ways, blockchains can be problematic data structures; they can be incredibly inefficient, can consume a great deal of electricity, and are often predicated upon wealth and value. It's also questionable if blockchains are even necessary for organizations that do not seek to establish consensus.

Capitalism is just an interface that can be used to build mechanisms of economic activity upon, but it need not be the only one. In order to maximize efficiency, the factories of the future shall demonetize goods by having fewer workers building the goods necessary for society to live upon.

The economics of abundance is dependent upon closed-loop systems. Systems that account for and their cost accounted for in the economics of negative externalities. A non-market value, but a quantitative value, such as grams of material used in creating and recycling the thing, must be accounted for, and this is the real value cost of that thing. Markets are a terrible way to value things in this regard. They are subjective and subject to influence. Instead, products that close the loop enough to become sustainable, also become abundant, and thus, free. Things built upon external waste streams become more than free. They become abundant, as if creating things by magic.

Imagine a network of decentralized and forked maker-spaces capable of participating in this new decentralized economy; TODO explain forking, clarify magic

Imagine a grocery store that yields produce in such high quantity, it can be given away for free.

Makers can then produce beyond cottage industry. Early distributed communities can arise, until local ones can flourish. Greenhouses, homes, technology of various kinds, it will be possible to develop abundant varieties, free from the excesses and wastefulness of our capitalist insanity.

Definition of 'bad'

What about individuals who seek to cause harm? In a system not based upon punitive measures, such as losing one's job, not being able to make rent, living on the street, and being picked up by cops and put into jail, and instead on reward mechanisms, a lone bad actor, or even group of bad actors could surely be a concern. However, one could also argue that, cops are also the very thugs that are feared, and are justified using a flawed social construct that seeks to give power to the wealthy in a scarce system. One could argue that a society without cops is safer than a society with cops, for the mere fact that cops are not here to protect you. They are there to enforce the law, and laws are unjust, as they are enforced with punitive measures.

In capitalist society, theft is a very serious crime. Theft is not a crime in an abundant society. It would be the same as copying a file; if it can be replaced with such little effort, and even falls under the scope of human rights, such as housing, food, even healthcare, then there is no act of theft.

Murder is a very serious crime, but in this case, it is better to die free than live a corralled existence under authoritarian society. Further, one might argue, moving into the future, what causes loss of life today may one day not be the case. If it will be harder, if not impossible, to murder an individual, then why need laws or cops or prisons at all?

Conclusion

Ultimately, any individual possesses the means to wrest control from harmful and wasteful capitalist practices. Anyone can have all the tools necessary to do so by shedding capitalist thinking and assumptions, and scarcity-based fears and boundaries, simply by tackling the non-obvious and shaking our foundations.

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An Abundance Manifesto, Abridged, v0.2.0

The Means of Decentralization

Definition of 'bad'

Conclusion

Further Reading