Erikos Andropoulos

We're already in the post-scarcity era

Throughout humanity's existence the course of people's lives has been dictated by the struggle to survive in a world of material scarcity. Prevented from pursuing their deepest wishes and desires, folks have been forced to toil their lives away doing work in no way of their choosing just to keep a roof over their heads and food in their stomachs. Thanks to the development of technology for the first time in human history we have the means to generate food and housing for everyone with no appreciable sacrifice in anyone's quality of life.

Really?

This seemingly miraculous state of abundance mired in artificial scarcity can be demonstrated with two simple, entirely uncontroversial observations.

More empty homes than homeless

The first proof of post-scarcity is that America now has several times more unoccupied homes already built than its number of people who have none. News agencies of conflicting ideologies currently agree that about three million Americans are homeless, many of whom are pregnant women or with severe illness, while about eighteen million homes currently built have no one living in them. Thus we find forced homelessness entirely the result of scarcity of imagination and organization rather than scarcity of resources or technological ability.

More food than hunger

Artificial scarcity is also proven by our second observation, that enough food is wasted everyday that could easily feed everyone regardless of how little they may be giving back in return. We see this food wasted as a routine part of both its production and consumption.

Abolishing forced labor through abundance

Public money that is newly taxed or printed can easily be provided to everyone as food stamps and housing vouchers so that no one again must worry about being forced into unwanted work, sometimes also known as slavery, just to maintain their immediate physical safety. The entire world likewise is now showing America that even the poorest countries can provide the highest standard of medical care to all its people free of cost. Just as Americans unconditionally provide fire protection freely for all, nations around the world have also proven the feasibility of tuition-free college and childcare for anyone seeking them.

Printing money distributes the goods

It is a long known fact since the dawn of civilization that new money can always be printed to distribute goods and services if production is physically able to meet the demand for them. Since we are physically able to house and feed everyone it can only follow that new money can be printed to purchase it. As long as max productive capacity is not yet reached, producers will avoid raising prices in order to not lose business to competitors. Indisputably every historical instance of hyperinflation to be found has been due to collapses in productive capacity rather than frivolous money-printing policy, most often related to preoccupation with financial speculation and military adventurism. With our current abundance of unemployed workers and basic goods we can afford to give right now newly printed money as a universal basic income to give the workers who produce them jobs. Americans will continue to work for the same reason they always have, they want more than just the bare minimum in their lives. Those who will not work can give their new money to those who do while maintaining the most basic level of security till their situation changes. Since taxes are only necessary to prevent hyperinflation and the hoarding of resources, and not to fund spending, taxes on income should immediately be eliminated for anyone making less than the amount needed for emotional stability, currently estimated at about seventy thousand dollars per year. Meanwhile the taxes of incomes above that threshold can be adjusted to any level voters deem best for the economy. During the conservative paradise of the Eisenhower era, taxes on the richest Americans were never less than ninety percent. These measures could be used to immediately shut down the Covid pandemic by allowing nonessential workers to stay home. Knowing that public action has already succeeded in fixing the ozone layer, curing Hepatitis C, landing on the moon, and making people walk again with stem cells, it seems entirely reasonable that we could provide all with the most basic quantity of food, shelter, schooling, and medicine, and downright bizarre that we have not done so already. A simple explanation why we haven't is because we have too often delegated policy-making to politicians entirely bought and paid for by the ruling class. Any differences between viable political parties is kept at a minimum that this class chooses to permit, so long that actual change never really be considered by voters. Unfortunately this arrangement is now threatening the total destruction of all life on this planet, as we are already seeing in the acidification of the oceans and increasingly extreme weather sparking mass extinctions, agricultural collapse, and atrocities against those displaced as a result. Fortunately history has provided us two principal strategies to reclaim our policy-making power from these tyrants without any need for bloodshed: direct democracy and progressively escalating acts of public pressure onto those currently wielding power.

What Needs To Be Done

We need to join together with our friends now to pass propositions and pressure politicians. All successful movements have depended upon friends sharing the same values joining together to form affinity groups, largely informal groups of two to ten people each that function to support and empower each member to develop and utilize their skills to the fullest extent to effect political change. Mobilized by this foundation of support these close-knit activists can then join together into confederations as well as other larger political organizations, again with the goal of passing propositions and pressuring politicians to effect true liberty, equality, and solidarity for all. Until each proposition passes and each politician relents, however, we must turn to our own people, educating, agitating, and organizing each other into action. If you are not yet able to start or join an affinity group with anyone there are still plenty of larger organizations already available to explore, including the Industrial Workers of the World, the Socialist Rifle Association, and the countless credit unions that give each of their members an equal vote in their decision-making. Fighting together nothing less than the laws of physics can stop us from finally inheriting the future we deserve and desire. Let us activate and mobilize each other before we find ourselves in a world more horrifying than anything we could ever imagine in a life we might never have a chance at again. I'm confident we can get there, but we must take our first steps now!

-Erikos Andropoulos, July 25, 2020 blog.erikosandropoulos.com facebook.com/erikosandropoulos