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yallerdawg

(16,104 posts)
Mon Aug 7, 2017, 06:59 PM Aug 2017

It's Time to Shift the Economy into Fourth Gear Capitalism with Basic Income

(On the road to Fifth Gear Postcapitalism!)

Source: Medium, by Scott Santens

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The Gears of Capitalism

First gear was made possible by the invention of the steam engine which allowed for the beginnings of industry and the bridging of great distances with trains and steam-powered ships.

Second gear was made possible by the invention of electricity which allowed for industrialization to go into overdrive while bridging even greater distances with the telegraph and telephones.

Third gear was made possible by the invention of the computer which allowed for full globalization and the connection of everyone to each other all over the world with information technology and the internet.

So what is fourth gear?

Fourth gear is the handing over of labor to machines, and that does not only include muscle labor as was already true in lower gears, but mental labor. It is the long awaited freeing of humanity to pursue human interests, paid or unpaid, as payment is of less concern when machines are working for us… that is as long as we humans are earning the machines’ paychecks to purchase what they’re producing.

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Read it all at: https://medium.com/basic-income/its-time-to-shift-the-economy-into-fourth-gear-capitalism-with-basic-income-f13e0d6ec057




Nobody ever said on their death bed, "I wish I could have worked more."


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It's Time to Shift the Economy into Fourth Gear Capitalism with Basic Income (Original Post) yallerdawg Aug 2017 OP
Leisure time is the most precious time! It's yours to do with what you want. CrispyQ Aug 2017 #1
Interesting that the US is increasing its hours while the other countries are decreasing. BigmanPigman Aug 2017 #2
"Why are we working 100 hours more per year in the US... yallerdawg Aug 2017 #3
I agree having experienced it myself for the past 30 years. BigmanPigman Aug 2017 #4
Reaganomics was a dike to hold back history--and it needs to be broken yurbud Aug 2017 #5

CrispyQ

(36,231 posts)
1. Leisure time is the most precious time! It's yours to do with what you want.
Mon Aug 7, 2017, 07:34 PM
Aug 2017

The ruling class is just fine with the masses having no leisure time in their lives.

yallerdawg

(16,104 posts)
3. "Why are we working 100 hours more per year in the US...
Tue Aug 8, 2017, 09:59 AM
Aug 2017
despite productivity doubling in that same period of time?"

Known now as the Great Decoupling, our productivity entirely detached from our earned incomes in the mid 1970s, skyrocketing upwards with the advance of technology while the great majority was left behind. Where all incomes once rose with productivity, now only the incomes of those at the top do. For the rest, there is instead an increasingly dangerous cocktail of growing inequality, falling security, increasing precariousness, and an anger whose source can’t quite be pinpointed.





yurbud

(39,405 posts)
5. Reaganomics was a dike to hold back history--and it needs to be broken
Tue Aug 8, 2017, 12:28 PM
Aug 2017

Our work produces far more wealth than work a hundred years ago, but we don't reap the rewards.

If we did we would have far more leisure time, more civic engagement, and for those worried about depleting our resources, those with a higher standard of living have fewer kids, so it would even slow population growth.

Instead, we have been funneling more money upward to the already wealthy than they could spend in a dozen generations, and screwing everyone else.

It can't hold for much longer.

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