Practical Post-Scarcity: Principles and Strategies for Civilization Reconstruction
Abstract
OSE's work aims to integrate civilization - to facilitate human growth required for a collaborative, transparent, and inclusive mindset and thus economy of abundance. This is a rigorous goal, as it relies on integrating all human knowledge and practice to create a civilization, which first and foremost, transitions to an economy of abundance. This is opposite of the scarcity-based economic system of today, which relies on enforcing various mechanisms of scarcity, such that many people and even entire nations are left in poverty and deprivation. This is quite opposite the possible scenario of Universal Basic Assets which gurantee prosperity without exclusion, so that true self-determination and freedom is introduced for the first time as a possible norm in civilization.
OSE is a practical experiment aimed at the above. Here we discuss our principles and approach, which drive our culture and actions. Universal Basic Assets (UBA) above is used in the general sense. Execution must be specified. UBA merely refers to an economic infrastructure for civilization which allows for so-called financial independence for everyone. It is an economic playing field where everyone has food and shelter and other needs guaranteed, such that they have the self-determination to pursue what is really important for them in absence of economic pressure and political manipulation. It seems that foul politics can be traced pretty clearly to economic pressure in most cases, where it becomes really easy for bullshit to prosper when people are insecure. The leveling of the economic playing field to universal financial independence appears to be a prerequisite to a peaceful society - and much more - in that innovation can be unleashed only in a self-determined society - according to Self-Determination Theory which is the currently-accepted theory of human motivation.
Summary of Approach
To summarize our overall approach - we believe that transformation can be practiced simply by what people do for a living. Therefore, the general principle of OSE remains the mass creation of right livelihood. This means the universal access to livelihoods which follow principles of the economy of abundance, such as sharing, not stealing, nonviolence, etc - a legal code that can be summarized in merely a few lines. Right livelihood is implemented partially as the triple bottom line concept in mainstream business, though it lacks elements of true environmental integrity and social justice because it does not address the distribution of wealth at a fundamental level.
Creation of right livelihood at scale by comprehensive substitution of 'business as usual' would be a significant endeavor at the $100T scale. This means the substitution of the economy - almost 100% of it - to collaborative abundance. The cost of developing Distributed Market Substitution across all sectors - including economic, social, and political - appears to be approximately 1000x lower, a figure of $50B. This is known as the Knowledge Kernel. The $50B figure is derived at Knowledge Kernel.
In order to create right livelihood at scale, we propose Integrated Education delivered by Extreme Learning. This leads to Integrated Enterprise, which enables Distributed Market Substitution.