Hard economics of oneness?-Part one
Traditional economics has certain assumptions built in from the start, it thinks that it is jungle out there and that a polite death match is taking place in the world where people use game theory to co-operative collectively out of personal advantage. Whereas the oneness model of the world makes contrary observations of our world through the personal sensory experiences of being a human. It does not have scientific backing because science can not directly observe thought, instead we have to rely on the observers of the mind who have spent tens of thousands of hours watching their mind. However the first rule of science is that you can only contradict the evidence of the senses with extraordinary proof
Through the experiences of these observers, we have been given a different view of the world where everyone is not just connect in an interdependent way of working together for shared wants and goals soft kind of a way. Instead it replaces it with the hard idea that we are fundamentally part of the same thing (and we only have poor words to describe this, as it is an experience) that is a shared consciousness, that we are part of one giant whole of a single humanity being, and when we hurt another part of it, we hurt ourselves, and when we help, we help ourselves. This is hard because it means that every action carries with it a responsibility towards yourself and others, whether the action is directed inwardly and outwardly, every beat of the butterfly wings matter, you just do not know how much.
It leads to a radically different starting position for how we view economics, which is how we share the resources of our societies, and how to create more so that everyone can have more, it is how we bake a bigger pie so that we are all fed. The classic argument between the capitalists and socialists was basically on the point whether it was more important to share or make a bigger pie. In practice every country in the world, has decided that the answer has been that it is a mix of sharing and free market economics to one degree or other. What oneness drives at is that the worst consequence of the free market, where people who not have an effective demand, are downsides that must be avoided because they cause real harm to everyone not just the individual suffering it, that the downside for the individual is magnified exponentially to a collective harm and when we hurt others we hurt ourselves. We can witness this in real life, a single drunk at a wedding can ruin the entire thing, one person's pain and suffering is contagious.
And it is easy to see the worst of the free market, it is not just the children dying in African because of a lack of food, shelter and basic healthcare, education and knowledge. We see it on the streets of the modern cities, homeless people who are suffering from mental health issues and hopelessness, dying forty year early. There is a certain crucial point in your effective demand where scarcity turns into abundance, and it is not that high, whilst there is little extra happiness to be gain from earning huge amount of money, there is marginal happiness to be had for every extra thousand dollars up to seventy thousands dollars, there is a definite floor where the fear and effects of scarcity is devastating. There is also a benefit for the rich, when there is an effective insurance policy to ensure you can never hit rock bottom, most people are three bad decision away from the streets, loss your partner, job, home, assets and you will be out of the game.
When you do not have the basics, food, home, safety, security, fairness, you are suffering from scarcity, and that is the problem that oneness economics focuses on. It should be made clear that the tools are not important in and of themselves, free market are amazing at getting simple things done in the most efficient manner possible, there is no argument there. The problem lies in ineffective demand, that is where you have a
demand but not the money, when you have no way to buy your bread. The feeding of the five thousand was a miracle, we have the ability to feed eight billion people (and more like ten with the overeating of some and waste of others) and yet a billion people go hungry. It is not just morally wrong to let people starve to death when you have a surplus on your plate, but more than that it hurts you directly, when you allow a world that lets people suffer from scarcity, part of your internal world feels that scarcity and fear, is injured and we share that suffering.
Where else can that pain that is inside you come from, that sense of wrongness, that there is not something quite right in this world, and at a time when we should be overjoyed with the possibilities that the world offers. We live at a moment in time when we have more resources, more potential, and yet we feel the fear of the bottom, we know our lives are dependent upon our action and that there a scary bottom where real people are really dying and that however remote the possibility, it is still a real possibility. Who would not carry that fear around with them, it is the rational thing to do when we see people being publicly and slowly executed for their failure to be good economic citizen, that is what economist call a motivation to work.
How can that not be damaging to your well being, knowing if you fail, they might kill you in the most polite way that they can, without it really being anyone's fault, they will just let you slip through the cracks, but when it is thousands of people every year, it is not an accident, it is a design flaw in the system. It is also plain wrong, you do not have to threaten people with death to make them work, people are desperate for purpose, they trade away money for it all the time, they choose to care rather earn, they do good at every opportunity, and the only exceptions are the damaged and fearful. The free market also fails to reward social capital, and as we are finding out without social capital (that is mothers, carers, people who just do the right thing because it is) a society can collapse in days, we deserve to be rewarded for this, not punished with scarcity.
Anything we do to reduce scarcity and replace it with abundance is good, however the most effective way is to introduce a floor to how far you can fall, is by universal basic income, a simple payment to every adult in the country, then everything you do is for your own benefit except no one has to die or fear scarcity. In an abundant society people then have the freedom to take risks, start business, families, invest their social capital without the risk of complete failure. By taking away the fear of the stick, we stop hurting ourselves, we free every aspect of society to work for all our goods, they get to exchange value, be creative, make a better world and they do with risking everything, they get to fail more and as a society we get the benefits of an even bigger pie that is not baked in the suffering of others and ourselves. Whilst paying for it by a higher consumption tax in the short term and a wealth fund in the long term that will be paid for by the higher productivity made possible by greater and more advance capital (robots, AI, scientific advancement, etc), which is basically the ability to do more with less.
It is not a cure all, we have to work on more difficult problem, such as how to give purpose, responsibility and a mission to those who want it, to give stability and the chance for everyone to develop and grow as being of consciousness. We have to overcome environment issues, bring peace and safety, learn how to live without fear, these are all good and real problems to deal with, after we have solved the easy ones, and not have a billion people living in absolute poverty should be an easy one, we have the resources it is just about sharing efficiently. Basic income does that in the simplest manner possible, fairly but without removing the incentive to work, and it does so because by removing the possibility of scarcity, is an insurance policy that protects everyone, for the reason that if leave behind one person we are all poorer for it, the marine never leave anyone behind, why would you accept less in your life and in your world.
