If he's not advocating for more taxation, great. That wasn't my impression.
But in general, I find the idea of kindness via coercion to be very problematic, so even if there's no change in taxation the rhetoric is troubling.
Discussion
Oh yea true, I forgot that he is going to raise taxes for the top 1-5% richest I think.
Anyway, I do understand the idea - whenever things are forced, we don’t like it and also makes us dislike things that indirectly cause this forcing (poverty, inequality, food subsidies, etc etc ) and thus reduces kindness in the world.
But also, as long as the concept/tool of “taxation” exists as a system balancing act, guys like him are needed.
Discussions to usurp forcing tools completely from our systems is a different topic - this has been my main point that we should not misplace our disappointments or anger.
but - fun fact- income taxes in the US were also introduced as only for the richest Americans (upper 3%)
Humans don’t seem to let go of money but the system needs money to be redistributed to keep the consumption economy going.
And so Taxation (and UBI in future) will exist to keep the monetary economic system alive. The only freedom in my opinion is to evolve the system into something non-monetary resource based system.
How do you envision a resource-based system working?
This is hard to answer because
1. I don’t exactly know how it will function.
2. It will loosely be based on gift economy values.
What I am mostly confident of is the path towards such an economy which will inevitably take us towards a new system and reveal it’s exact workings.
The path I have in mind is an application of an ancient meditation method called Vipassana to the economy. Basically in this meditation, the root cause of suffering is identified to be our cravings and aversions.
I think the economic system suffers from the same (Cravings for infinite growth).
When I apply it to economy I got this : Start zero-profit business in the food sector. And hence I have a plan document here if you’re interested:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tlFSN8bUQ3IQ__h3kct83hqF8pH8pNhGpAU5IMPNKGg/edit?usp=drivesdk
This is incredibly sweet. I read the whole thing!
It seems to me that something like this might work in a small community and in fact is probably not too far in spirit from how some tribes organized activities and goods.
Thank you :)
It’s a simple grocery store idea and so, I think it will work anywhere. This is more like a consumer food coop and when Food coops can exist why not this everywhere?
Normal stores - Try to Maximise & keep all profit
Coops - Share it with members as dividends
Zero profit store - Gives it back to customers it took it from.
Simple unexplored business model and doable I think.
And thanks for read it 🙏👍
It just seems to me that you'd need a lot of people on board to not take advantage of it. I'm not quite sure how someone would take advantage of it but it's hard to imagine it working at scale.
This is in fact pretty close to what co-ops do, right? employees are paid but there's no owner that profits.
Someone who organizes it would take a salary?
(ironically, I believe that grocery stores are one of the lowest-margin businesses out there so even though I like your analogy of breath in vipassana to food in society, groceries are not actually a very high-profit business)
On the subject of money: one of the things that's interesting when you study the history of currencies is that humans didn't use them in very small groups. There was just no need. But with trade among tribes, currencies tended to emerge naturally as a way to facilitate exchanges. You might find the study of money quite interesting.
It was hard for me to imagine how Vipassana Meditation centers which don't charge a penny, still exist and not only exist , they grow, Now they have 267 own centers world wide offering 10 day courses for free. The surprising part is once you finish a course, there is no one "asking" you to donate. Sometimes people have to really ask around where the donation counter is. That is the effect of something that is offered selflessly and we living in a system built upon selfishness have forgotten that power. And a selfless organization isn't playing the game of "who is taking advantage of whom" - that game is only true inside a system based on selfishness.
Yes, there are paid employees and also volunteers in co-ops. Both are possible.
You would be surprised regarding margins. This is the recent report on retail sector / Supermarkets in Germany (As its in German, maybe some AI can answer your questions once you upload and ask it): https://monopolkommission.de/images/PDF/SG/SG%20LLK%202025/Sondergutachten%20Lebensmittellieferkette_Monopolkommission.pdf
In summary, there is a kind of monopoly happening in Germany, these supermarkets squeeze the farmers, food processors and also charge customers a lot as they don't pass on the savings. And guess who is the wealthiest person in Germany, owner of a grocery chain, Aldi.
I have read the history of money and those examples. Somehow the assumption is that we would go back to that era when the topic of a moneyless economy comes because it is hard to imagine one and so as I said it is hard to describe for me the final evolved form of the economy without money.
I just try to kickstart this simple zero-profit grocery project and see where it goes 😄 .. I know it wont transform the entire economy in my lifetime, but maybe after 75-100 years - just laying the foundations, sowing the seed for a different kind of economy :-)