IT'S NOT ROCKET SCIENCE, TAX BILLIONAIRES ↓

We should raise taxes on the Amazons, Bezos’, Trumps and Gates of the world. We should invest this revenue into regenerative agriculture, sustainable infrastructure, healthcare, family leave, and education. Taxing wealth and not simply income is the only way to prevent the accelerating concentration of power that threatens democracy.

UNIVERSAL BASIC SERVICES ↓

On a deeper level, just raising taxes on Amazon is not a long term solution. The ultra rich still have the means to buy politicians to lower taxes at the next election, and/or hide their wealth from the tax collector, not to mention raising their taxes incentivizes the ultra rich to speed up the process of automating the work force.

If the economy proceeds in the direction it’s going, the trends in automation, monopolization, and globalization will make it impossible to ignore the question, “What does an economy without jobs for most people look like?”

Presidential candidate Andrew Yang brought the concept of a Universal Income (UI) to the table in response to this question. I appreciate Andrew and I think the attention he brought to this issue was of enormous value.

$1000/month, as Andrew suggested, is enough to ensure people continue to work, but they’ll probably take more risks, be more creative, and have more time for quality of life.

The problem is, Yang’s proposal requires raising ~$3 trillion in new taxes, (the entire discretionary budget of the US government is around $1.8 trillion) and I don’t think we could raise that much and have room for any other spending, not to mention that I think most of the ultrarich would take there wealth to other countries if taxes were raised that much.

I believe the benefits of a UBI are instead best pursued as part of a more comprehensive and elegant shift to a focus on universal public services. Much of the same benefits of a UBI can be achieved via a federal work guarantee, federally funded (and locally controlled) health clinics, federal funding for 0% home loans and public transportation.

Please read the next section on Transitioning Away from Central Banks to put this shift in greater context. Warning, it has a bit to do with monetary policy. :)

public investments without inflation ↓

We can’t create an economy that works for everyone if there are far fewer jobs, without reimagining how money is created, who creates it, and the role it plays in the economy. If you want an introduction to the kind of comprehensive change I’m talking about, I invite you to read this article. Warning, it involves monetary policy, so it might be boring or dense, but I found it inspiring.

To boil it down to a quick summary, our current economy is based on creating money through bank debt. Debt creates a treadmill that encourages endless expansion (like cancer), bullshit work, and the conversion of all of existence into consumerist buying and selling that generates interest for the already ultrarich. In the (not too) long term we need a monetary framework that decentralizes power, mitigates runaway feedback loops of wealth, and yet does not engage in a totalitarian/utopian quest to prevent all inequality. Therefore, transitioning the power of creating money from central banks to individuals’ is core to a society that functions ethically as we transition, inevitably to more automation and fewer jobs.

We can create stability (avoiding inflation) by setting pricing in terms of the Universal Dividend- the payment created by citizens instead of central banks. Or, even without these large innovations, we can still use money creation to far more public advantage than most economists and policy makers ever believed possible. Modern Monetary Theory, (MMT) is a framework that offers profoundly important insights into the role of government spending and money creation in the economy.

In short, money creation simply does not de facto cause inflation. Throughout history, where there has been the most deficit spending does not even correlate to where inflation has become an issue. Meaning, as long as careful choices on spending are made in recognition of where actual resources are available, large deficits can be used to make important public investments with little impact on inflation. This is clearly validated by a cursory look at economic history. Where there has been inflation, like there is right now, it is almost always a result of a lack of supply for needed resources

Remember, money is just a symbol that has value because we agree it has value. We agree it has value primarily because governments demand we pay taxes with it. We can create it however we want, no divine authority said it has to be created by unaccountable central banks, and governments do not obey the same set of rules that private actors must. As long as the way we create money does not cause instability (inflation or deflation), then there is no reason to not at least experiment with new methods if they have potential to solve urgent challenges.

Public Service Corps and Federal Jobs Guarantee ↓

I support creating a large public service corps that is used to build needed public infrastructure like public transportation, housing, education, healthcare, and regenerative agricultural resources.

Support and Transition Toward More Workers Cooperatives ↓

I would like to see a massive tax incentive, and other public subsidies for businesses offering meaningful avenues for employee ownership. And disincentives for companies that offer no such pathways.

We live a huge portion of our lives at work. These should be democratic ins