Editor’s note: We had a visitor ask a question and thought others might have the same or similar questions.
How does Copiosis addresses [wealth] inequality is unclear since property can be transferred and currently less than 10% of the people own more than 80% of the resources. How do you get the 10% to distribute the resources they own for free given a vague promise of future benefit?
There is no need to “get the 10%” to do anything actually.
The redistribution of everything (except actual cash) occurs naturally in Copiosis Economies. Despite what the 99% (or the 90%) claim, the 1% – 10% know exactly what is happening and are suffering as much as everyone else. In some cases they are suffering more (see this post for more on that). They want a solution just as much as the next guy. These people will not have a “choice” to give up their ownership of the 80% of resources because the Copiosis Economy will do it automatically. This will be explained in a future post on what happens to Corporations in Copiosis.
Copiosis doesn’t deal with “inequality” the way we think of it today. What it does is it neuters the power such inequality creates. The very rich will still be very rich in a Copiosis Economy, but they can’t use that wealth to do the things they do today that create power inequality, suffering, poverty and the rest. They can’t pay people crappy wages, because they aren’t responsible for determining what people earn. They can’t threaten people with economic ruin by firing them or ruining their careers because people no longer work for others in a way that gives “employers” economic power over the “employed”. The concept of “employer” and “employed” disappears after transitioning to a post-scarcity Copiosis Economy. The wealthy can’t coerce people through poverty or the threat thereof to work in terrible and life threatening conditions mainly because people no longer need work to survive….essentially, they can’t force anyone to do anything.
Most importantly, they can’t use their money to coerce or influence government, the courts or the financial sector because these institutions don’t exist after the Transition. The Courts do, but they don’t operate after the Transition the way they do today.
What’s more, after the truth and reconciliation process – similar to what went on in South Africa after Apartheid – the very rich may have a hard time finding a community willing to support them. Copiosis becomes a great leveler in regards to ill-gotten gains of the past because all the power now rests with the people who actually do the work and produce stuff – not the people telling others what to produce, where to work and how much they get paid for that toil.
So a wealthy person pre-transition, still has his wealth, but it’s not very powerful.
Copiosis Alchemy: making wealth admirable again
New wealthy people in Copiosis can only become that way by producing massive positive Net-Benefit, meaning they have created something or done something or enabled something that produced benefit to massive numbers of people and the planet. In effect, for the newly rich, wealth is a sign of respect and praise. Old wealth will be a sign of shame and disgrace probably.
So there will still be wealth disparity in Copiosis Economies, but the story of wealth changes. What that means is how people think about the wealthy changes too.
By the way, everyone in a Copiosis economy is “wealthy” by today’s standards, because they are no longer earning a living. Their lives are freed from earning an income to pay mortgages and other bills, taxes, paying off student loans, food, and utilities. With all that gone, all people can pursue their passions – just as the wealthy do today. I guess what I’m saying here is the meaning of wealth is transformed through our innovation.