Corporation and labor laws, fueled by unconstrained credit liquidity and the socialization of risk factors, sustain the inertia of capital accumulation that generates growth but also contributes to the attrition of labor in favor of capital and produces expanding structural income disparities. This is the meaning of Capitalism in A Likely Story, an explanation of how Income Distribution narrows to Income Attribution.
Synopsis
In A Likely Story, distinction is made between i) the collective creation of wealth in a community, its Community Dinner and ii) the allocation of that to each community member, call it the individual share, distributed regardless of whether a member participates or not in generating Added-Value. A Likely Story is an economic analysis of the correlation between individuals’ participation in creating Added-Value and the corresponding determination of income distribution.
Depending on whether wealth is created by labour alone, by labour and capital, by predominately capital or by non-human humanoids, determination of the share each member of the community receives will be different. Each alternative gives rise to specific economic relationships, which shape a particular way of life.
A Likely Story describes how an economy, gripped by increasing capital accumulation, which imposes a continuously decreasing labour-to-capital ratio, grants legal privileges to some but not to others, State money and credit expansion, in the hands of self-serving, private, financial institutions, inevitably lead to monopolization in the processes of production, to power domination in investment decisions and to structural income disparity.
Using figurative characters, with a touch of humor, in a series of substories, A Likely Story narrates how income distribution is determined and how it leads to different ways of life.
I – Primitive barter: exchange in which wealth is created by labour alone. This is an economic setting with no institutions (government, schools or hospitals), no money (no banks), no technological change, no enforcement agencies, no corporations, insurances or unions, and no capital accumulation. In an undeveloped technological environment, a small community, out of survival necessity, manages, with labour alone, cooperatively to produce and to share its mutual Added-Values to meet its basic needs.
- Division of labour
Story 1. The tale is of three couples, Seed and Farina (Bakers), Loom and Tissa (Tailors), and Stone and Barka (Carpenters), who having established a community in a primitive environment, agree to barter the Added-Value from their respective trades to satisfy their basic needs of food, clothing and shelter. Creation of their respective Added-Values is the fruit of their labour alone, and the exchanges among them are based entirely on trust. This story illustrates the simplest form of income distribution.
- Labour growth
Story 2. Told here is what happens in the creation of respective Added-Values and barter exchange among the three couples, when, first, they each decide to have one child, then another, as children need attention. When they are older, the offspring join the parents’ trades and also create new couples; the community doubles in size. The narrative concentrates on the impact of these changes on the creation of Added-Values and the distributive effect.
- Productive labour
Story 3. The focus is on what happens to the creation of the mutual Added-Values and the barter exchange between the six couples now when three offsprings, Wander, Erudite and Muscle decide not to participate in their parents’ trades, as they may or may not get involved directly or indirectly in the creation of Added-Value. Do their choices alter the shares of other members of the Community at the Dinner Table?
II – A merchant culture: an economy in which wealth is created by labour and capital. As the community grows larger and larger, barter exchanges become cumbersome and complex to execute, and work arrangements, tricky. Intermediaries, such as merchants, accountants, the government and moneylenders, gradually come into being and form an entrepreneurial market economy. A merchant culture begins to emerge. The correlation between the creation of Added-Value and the distribution of shares of the Community Dinner among members starts to take on a different shape.
- Obligation
Story 4. When total commitment and trust are not present, the need for contracts to bind exchanges is suggested. An example of unexpected surprise is offered: Wander, for a fee of a loaf of bread, is supposed to deliver one loaf of bread from the baker to the shoemaker and to bring back a pair of shoes from the shoemaker to the baker. On the delivery route, Wander leaves his loaf and the shoemaker’s on a bench, only to have a Vulture scoop down and fly away with the bread. Wander loses his lunch and the loaf of the shoemaker; there will be no bread to exchange for shoes. Who is responsible for the loss, and what is its impact on Added-Value for all three parties?
- Capital
Story 5. This is about the use of tools, technology and knowledge, all assisting labour to render the production of basic needs more abundant. An example is provided: Erudite, very creative, although not directly involved in production, provides ideas to her mother at the bakery, which end up increasing productivity. Should Erudite be entitled to a share of the extra Added-Value, and in what proportion?
- Rent
Story 6. The appearance of the notion of Rentier begins with Hire, a delivery man who tries to figure out how to retire early. Hire contemplates three options: to work all his life delivering bread for the bakery for a fee, to work half of his life delivering bread and saving enough to invest in renting trays to the bakery for a rental return or to convince Gymbobo, the banker, to give him a line of credit to use to purchase trays to rent to the bakery immediately, in sufficient number that he can do without having to do delivery work at all. What are the implications of each option for the baker, in terms of Added-Value creation needed to pay a delivery-person’s fee and/or to service the rental charges for trays?
- Medium of exchange
Story 7. The advent of money and credit starts with a simple example of three students: Mona, a single mother, good in languages and in need of babysitting; Gymbo, good at athletics but not terribly creative in writing essays and thus needing help to complete his assignments; and Plume, who has no problem in finding topic ideas for his homework but, despite his creativity, lacking in the skill of grammar and the art of prose-writing and thus in need of editorial help. Having no hard cash, the three come up with a payment system based on trust to resolve their respective needs in the exchange of mutual services.
- Money and credit
Story 8. Gymbobo, master of the institutionalisation of I Owe Yous (IOUs), arrives on an academic campus to visit his cousin Gymbo. He quickly notices that there are many Monas, Gymbos and Plumes in need of help with their homework and the extra-curriculars. To facilitate the exchange of services, he states that relying on trust as the medium of exchange is not sufficient. Gymbobo convinces the students to let him manage the allowance of bread, given to them by their parents, for their yearly nutrition and tuition fees. He is to provide them in return with guaranteed redeemable coupons, which they use to pay each other for services. Gymbobo procures a photocopy machine and starts printing IOU coupons at his new Dollarteria and storing the students’ loafs at his Breadteria. What happens on campus as coupons begin to circulate?
- Savings & investment
Story 9. Gymbobo visits the neighbouring HerbBiz and HashBiz Brothers’ farm and comes back with a basket of fruit and dried cannabis leaves, produce he has paid for with his coupons. Proud and pleased with the success of his Dollarteria, he decides to throw a campus party on the weekend and invites all the students, teachers as well as HerbBiz and HashBiz to enjoy music and aphrodisiac sandwiches. The event is so popular that Gymbobo decides to make it a permanent feature of the campus entertainment and gets HerbBiz and HashBiz to increase their supply of Grass for the parties. The story goes on to explain what happens when Gymbobo gets even more exuberant in his printing of coupons.
- Public Guardianship
Story 10. The concept of Government is launched with the appearance of a different type of offspring within the early merchant culture economy, consisting of the Bakers, Tailors and Carpenters, who, in producing, provide for the basic needs: the Muscles, who lend a hand as new intermediaries. In the multiplying trade arrangements of the merchant economy, misunderstandings, disagreements and disputes occur. Some of the Muscles find it helpful to offer their services as regulators, dealers, advisors, educators, inventers or evaluators; other Muscles, born asocial, call them the Gangs, take pleasure in threatening or coercing their fellow Community members. In counter defense, yet other Muscles constitute themselves into a vigilante force, call them Govis or Government. For a fee of bread-clothing-shelter, Govis in turn helps the Community in any threats and shields it from vultures, predators, asocial Muscles or disasters.
- Government
Story 11. The rise of the institution of Government is described over time. As larger market organisations emerge, including financial and entrepreneurial Corporations and Unions, behavioural interactions, regarding who contributes to the creation of Added-Value and how the Community Dinner is shared, get more intricate. The modern Govis (governmental body), now the sophisticated Govis-The-Octopus, embodies all government constituencies in one: the Politos, the Buretos and the Constitos (politicians, bureaucrats and the constitution). Govis-The-Octopus crowns itself the guardian of Public Goods and social order. The story illustrates how efforts and rewards interrelate when Govis-The-Octopus reserves for itself the right to grant legal privileges and to regulate money and credit.
- Moral hazard
Story 12. SureBet, the insurer, understands well the devastating effect that uncertainty can have on a large risk-averse community. For pecuniary return, SureBet finds a solution to alleviate the fears of uncertainty, insurance. While being insured can provide one relief from fear and uncertainty, it can also lead one to complaisance. For example, Farina might be less inclined to be vigilant, knowing well that she will be reimbursed should fire engulf her bakery. Stone might be tempted to set fire to his barn in the expectation his insurance will pay for a new one. SureBet’s scheme attracts other SureBets to the lucrative trade. In the midst of stiff competition, to put a lid on the costs of his liability policy-rate hikes, SureBet turns into SureCon, as he starts to delude clients, creating convolutedly worded contracts to avoid reimbursing claims. The story here explains what happens to decent social behavior when Govis-The-Octopus concedes the overseeing of the risk factor and the entire insurance trade to the SureBets, giving them exclusive rights and privileges to manage insurance activity, including the imposition of rules for determining rates and the enforcement of the collection and reimbursement of funds.
III – A corporate capital monetary economy: the wealth created is predominately capital. An economy in which money, whether tangible or intangible, is a means of payment having a purchasing power and also an instrument of debt is central to capital accumulation. Capital eclipses labour in the production of wealth at an increasing pace, in a business environment with its built-in inertia, where small is gobbled by big and big is swallowed by bigger.
- Capital Accumulation and economies of scale
Story 13. Here it is illustrated how Cumulus decides, with a loan from GymBank run by his acquaintance Gymbobo, to launch a retail store selling bakery trays. Gymbobo sees in the lucrative business of Cumulus something from which GymBank too can benefit. GymBank offers Cumulus an increase in a line of credit and encourages him to open another store, and then another. As the demand for trays increases, so too does GymBank’s return from the loans. Cumulus quickly accumulates a sizable amount of capital and begins to develop a bigger business plan. He realises that it would be of greater advantage than buying trays from Stone to buy Stone’s plant and to expand its production into manufacturing spoons, forks, cups, etc. This would allow Cumulus to supply not only his own retail stores but to get into the wholesale selling of kitchenware. Cumulus’ expansion on such a scale requires a substantial amount of financial capital, obtained from GymBank. The story goes on to explain how Cumulus circumvents GymBank’s loans by tapping directly into the Community’s savings.
- The rise of Unions
Story 14. Solidarna and Solidarno, the reasonable social activists, are introduced. During the early stage of unionization, two students, Solidarna and Solidarno attend a Bisbuz class. Both are exposed to theses of how the corporate world functions, how it has led many Farinas, Looms and Stones to join the Laboros workforce and why they are constrained to accept a pay cheque of a few bites of bread rather than being able to enjoy the loaf they earned when they were working independently. After graduation, the two decide to hit the road and devote some of their time volunteering among the Laboros, encouraging them to stand up for their fair share of the Community Dinner. They help the Laboros to appeal to Govis-The-Octopus to grant them the right to unionize. It is explained why it makes economic sense to the observer Erudite, that, when in the event of a persistent disagreement about remuneration that may potentially lead to bankruptcy and loss of employment, it is in the interests of both parties to settle their differences quickly and to find resolution in sharing the fruits of their production.
- Unions and Industrial Action:
Story 15. In the world of small entrepreneurships (run by the Bakers, Tailors and Carpenters), the disputes and differences and the resolution of labour relations are limited to employers and employees. In a larger industrial environment, labour relations involve more parties. On their way to retirement, Solidarna and Solidarno hand the torch to the younger Solidarnano and Solidarnona. These two are more militant and professionalized than their predecessors. For the Laboros movement to be strong and effective, Solidarnano and Solidarnona say, it needs to include big numbers. Members must be “brothers and sisters” and must feel part of the same family, all subjected to enduring corporate exploitation. Since their financing comes from Union membership dues, more members means more funds collected and a stronger Union voice at the bargaining table. To counter their corporate opponents, the Cumuluses, Gymbobos and SureBets, Solidarnano and Solidarnona resort to hardline tactics of inflicting financial losses on firms to force quick conflict resolution. To be even more effective, Solidarnano and Solidarnona extend their support to other trades to build a larger Comrade United Confederation. To further achieve more persuasion, extend cooperation with other unions, garner sympathy from the Community and actively strive for the backing of supportive members of the Politos, Govis-The-Octopus is dragged into getting involved. The point of the story here is to lay out how labour conflicts change from being between two parties to affecting many contenders.
- The Civil Servant Coalition:
Story 16. Eager to boost the influence and power of the Comrade United Confederation, Solidarnano and Solidarnona see the growing number of civil servants as potential allies to the labour movement. Solidarnano and Solidarnona manage to convince fellow organiser CivioServ to unionize members of the Buretos, as well as other civil servants, under one movement and to form The Unified Civil Servant Blender. Erudite, a wise thinker with a good sense of observation and awareness of what it means to have balanced governance, reflects on the employment and remuneration of those in government. Should the bargaining tactics of labour in a sausage factory be applicable to those in the public sector? How do the remuneration expectations of the civil service and the relative proportion of governing-to-governed play out on the distribution of the Collective Dinner?
- Distribution of the Collective Dinner:
Story 17. At the end of the day, members of the Community gather around the Dinner Table to find out what their share of the Collective Dinner is. The rule of the game is that the IOUs, (released by the Centre-of-Last-Resort), necessary for all revenue payments — salaries, rents, interests, dividends, bonuses, etc. — that constitute the purchasing power in the hands of Community members, determine how much each member possesses to get a share of the various Dinner goodies in exchange for their monies earned or acquired. Around the Collective Dinner table, distinct groups of Community members are seated according to the level of their purchasing power. In Seats 1, the Cumuluses, Gymbobos, SureBets, SureCons and Forgys, (the MoveShakers, including Solidarnano, Solidarnona and CivioServ), those who derive their income from the management of or direct access to the manna of IOUs; in Seats 2, those with legal representation, by name (the GrowthRiders), who use group pressure to extract the most they can from the manna. Finally, in Seats 3, there is a sizable number of those with no legal representation (The Endurers), who must content themselves with what manna is left, the Independent Artisans, the Farinas-Looms-Stones and all the Laboros with precarious employment. The story explains how work, effort, and reward expectations, in a world where constitutional privileges are granted to some groups with varying degrees of power and not to others, result in distinct levels of income.
- Intermediaries’ activity fuels capital accumulation acceleration
Story 18. This story has to do with an evolving economy in which the volume of accumulated capital is under the control of fewer and fewer Gymbobos and Cumuluses, who are gobbling up most of the activities of the Endurers. To strengthen the grip on financial liquidity, GymBanks introduces a new means of payment, a magical IOU device, the credit card. Out of the woods appears a new vocation, the Musketeer. Musketeers see advertising as a good source of return, luring the crowd by promoting, for a fee, the benefits of consumerism with a clear motto, ‘enjoy now and pay later’. GymBanks’ credit card quickly becomes the generalized and indispensable means of payment for practically all transactions, to whose benefits the MoveShakers, GrowthRiders, and Endurers succumb.
Story 18a. The Gymbobos and Cumuluses turn to a herd of Lobbibours, Bullibours and Lawlibars (lobbyists, bullies and lawyers), enticing them to create favourable legislation. Lobbibours, mainly retired Politos or highly ranked Buretos, who, very acquainted with the mind of Govis-The-Octopus, are willing to offer their services to push further for privileges as legal rights. The Bullibours, very knowledgeable agents of the protective-services industry and industry generally, are willing to sell their expertise to secure lucrative contracts from Govis-The-Octopus. Both the Lobbibours and Bullibours rely, then, on the Lawlibars, professional masters of rhetorical persuasion and of the art of juggling with the language of the Constitas, to seal deals. The story focuses here on the exorbitant remuneration of these intermediaries that has no correlation to their productivity nor to the production of tangible and intangible goodies served at the Collective Dinner.
Story 18b. The Miracle Turnip is an illustration of how an eager Cumulus decides to invest in turnips and ends up shaping the new way of life in the Community. Fascinated by the vegetable, without knowing much about it – how it tastes or how or where it grows, Cumulus decides to explore the market. With a line of credit from Gymbobo, Cumulus buys a farm and hires Musketeer to advertise and promote the virtues of turnips. His first harvest is so successful that he decides to expand. He acquires another farm, then another, and another, all the while consolidating production and land.
None too soon Cumulus finds himself left with mountains of unsold turnips, which he is in no way inclined to dump for compost. After some consultation and thought, he comes up with the idea of producing turnip juice, then turnip soup, then turnip pies and an array of turnip cakes. With massive advertising, his sales soar. To ride on the success of the product and dominate the vegetable market, Cumulus begins to create business projections off into the horizon: a baby turnip formula will entice newborns and foster desire for the turnip taste at an early age; organized farm tours for children and their parents in a wagon in the shape of a turnip with a free, colorful turnip cupcake for each kid will encourage children to pressure their parents for more cupcake rides. To make sure that no child is left behind without turnips, Cumulus starts to make donations to schools to support extra curricular activities; at the same time, he asks Lobbibour to press schools to grant exclusivity for his turnip products at the cafeteria. Even turnip extract, sold as a nutritional supplement and antiaging pill are to be found in every supermarket. To catch the interest even of teenagers, Cumulus organizes an annual Miss Turnip contest.
The ‘Miracle Turnip’, advocates Musketeer, is all what one needs to have a remarkable improvement in one’s quality of life. Meanwhile the scale of turnip production gobbles up most of the land; small farmers, who produce other vegetables, end up selling their farms or converting to producing turnips for Cumulus. Other vegetables, no longer needed, disappear all together from the market, and so with them vanish also the corresponding skilled labour and agricultural knowhow.
- The Economy of Rent; the Productive and Unproductive Rentier
Story 19. If the option of being an Unproductive Rentier is financially more rewarding than participating in producing or delivering bread to earn an income, then why would one spend effort in working at all? The incentive of making one’s living by not working is appealing, given Gymbobo’s alluring loan offers. A Likely Story insinuates that the benefits and the dependency of an ever greater number of individuals on credit money that regulates the growth of the wealth tend to foster the proliferation of the Rent economy. The story here illustrates how the more loans granted, the more the returns for GymBanks. To be able to extend credit the Gymbobos convince Govis-The-Octopus to oversee the Centre-of-Last-Resort, to relax the definition of financial risk and to let the market itself regulate credit. Gymbobos can now grant as much credit as the market can take. The traditional way to grow financial return is to provide investment funds to industry, but fostering consumer loans to finance mass consumption and encourage spending is even more lucrative. Whether the loans end up in the hands of speculators who generate inflationary nominal Added Value or are used to create real Added Value for the Community is of no concern for the Gymbobos. Whether the receivers of loans have the means of repayment or the possibility of falling into a debt trap is also of no concern to them; they leave the risks of any fallout to the Community and to Govis-The-Octopus to deal with.
- Redundancy of labour, Capital dwarfs Labour
Story 20a. With a growing class of rentiers, on a spectrum that spreads from the mega-rich to the small pensioner, the Gymbobos put tremendous pressure on the industries that produce the Collective Dinner to perform well: to generate higher profit margins and to lower production costs, particularly those of labour. Labour unions, under the leadership of Solidarnano, Solidarnona and CivioServ, use work-to-rule actions and political means to fight to safeguard employment, to preserve purchasing power and to insure benefits for their members. The battle becomes a confrontation between two monopoly giants: the Gymbobos and Cumuluses, who develop alternative technological means of production to weaken growing labour power, and Solidarnano, Solidarnona, and CivioServ, whose short-sighted actions unwittingly give industry the excuses and incentives to switch to capital-intensive technologies. Polarization spills over from its economic grounds into politicization in the battle arenas of the Politos. While, in the short run, the labour unions may have an upper hand in extracting concessions, in the long run, the Gymbobos and Cumuluses manage to swing the pendulum back to their advantage, pressing for labour savings and curtailing employee numbers by innovation and automation. The story goes on to describe how the path of labour redundancy, first in industry, then in services, sustains an inertia of its own. Industries slowly get rid entirely or almost so of their great numbers of productive labour, retaining but a fraction of costly but highly innovative employees, whom they keep only so long as they are needed, and then, once technology renders them obsolete, push out to join the rest of the redundant labour force.
Story 20b. In the shrinking employment landscape, the labour force is now divided into two distinct groups: the Quaternary and the Quinary. The Quaternary sector comprises the new white-collar decision-making occupations: the Gymbobos, Cumuluses and wealthy Hires, SureBets and Forgys, whose activities are supported by a host of intermediaries, the Lobbibours, Bullibours, Lawlibars, Bisbuzes and Musketeers. The Quinary sector encompasses the new blue-collar occupations: the independent, non-unionized businesses of the Farinas, Stones and Barkas, the shopkeepers, deliverers, independent artisans, artists, thinkers, poor pensioners and the homeless and poor individuals with or without representation.
The conclusion inferred in this story is that the Total Income, created in both the Quinary and Quaternary sectors, is the total Purchasing Power, comprising the nominal Added-Value (A) of the Quaternary sectors with mostly no real counterpart in the real realm and the real Added Value (B) created in the Quinary sector. That total Purchasing Power is redeemed at the Table for shares of the Collective Dinner. The Collective Dinner, produced mostly by (B), is thus divided up between (A) and (B). Furthermore, only the income in the Quinary sector is determined according to effort and productivity of labour. The financial returns in the Quaternary sector are instead correlated to the fluctuations of money and credit, following the capital accumulation trend. Money and credit grow faster than the growth of the productivity of labour, and so, therefore, does the average income in the Quaternary sector relative to the Quinary. A Likely Story explains how the disparities of income in and between the two sectors translates into the growing disparities in the distribution of shares of the Collective Dinner.
- Labor, Forced Saving and the Paradox of Profligacy
Story 21. Here it is illustrated how credit expansion, granted by the Gymbobos to industry, consumers and government, bridges revenue gaps and impacts the Capital-Labour ratio, consumer indebtedness and Govis-The-Octopus’ dependency on finance borrowing. The consequences of Gymbobos-Cumuluses corporate capital accumulation seem to lead to a puzzlingly paradoxical outcome. In search of increased sales, the industries that flood markets with the products that constitute most of the Collective Dinner tend to substitute automation and robotisation for labour and thus to reduce the employment of a great number whose potential income is supposed to buy those same products. A Likely Story anticipates how the inertia of the economic forces, which, through attrition, has transformed the landscape of the labour market and labour relations in the productive industries, shifts next to the service and sales sectors.
IV – Cyber Economy: an economy in which labor is redundant, replaced by subservient Humanoids. The Community Dinner is produced entirely by capital.Human knowledge is subverted by the Gymbobo-Cumulus alliance and transferred to RoboEconomici; it is stored in the clouds. The economy is one in which a Community of ‘retirees’ effortlessly relish the material wealth offered to them by the Humanoids.
- Artificial intelligence (AI) intelligent artifices (IA), and the redundancy of labour
Story 22a. As the control for market share intensifies, the corporate Gymbobos-Cumuluses alliance transforms the economy into one of ArtiShocks, of two types: the ArtiBrains and the ArtiBrawns. The Gymbobos-Cumuluses devise two competing strategies. One group, the ArtiBrains, choose to develop AI in order to enhance the human brain to standardize individual IQs to fit a pattern and to stimulate consumer behaviour. The other, the ArtiBrawns, prefer to use IA to enrich human brawn to liberate individuals from any form of effort. Both types of puddy intelligence are embedded in intangible and tangible forms of automation and robotisation. The benefit of applying AI and IA to stimulate consumption is increased Added-Value (wealth) with little or no human effort. To Gymbobos-Cumuluses, the most attractive effect of the ArtiShocks’ developments is that they rely entirely on the factor of Capital, rendering labour redundant. Human intelligence, not needed, becomes obsolete and disabled in perpetuity. What happens then to Labour’s claim to a share at the Dinner Table?
Story 22b. As in the past, the main concern of each individual, at the end of the day, is to have shelter, to be clothed, and to be assured of a meal. The difference now is that all knowledge and data about the experiences and practices of the Bakers, Tailors, Carpenters, and all other trades alike are crystallized in the Cloud Information Reservoir, as the property of the ArtiShocks, available only to the Roboservants, who produce and provide smart material needs: smart meals and nutrition, smart clothes, smart houses, etc. Frustrations, related to acquiring these smarts that demand production effort, have disappeared. There is no need to study or think, since for any question that may arise, Alexandra has the answer. There is no need to learn to read or write. One has merely to mimic or whisper; Speech-to-Text provides the perfect prose. Those with low IQ can opt for an upgrade; anyone can be an artist, poet, philosopher, writer, news reporter, etc. Everything is just a matter of downloading the appropriate application. The ready-made aide to transformation can, for a modest fee, be delivered as fast as getting a pizza.
Story 22c. As a consequence, the concentration of capital accumulation leads to shrinking employment, affecting gradually every segment of both the Quaternary and Quinary sectors. Ultimately, a new dichotomy emerges, between the RoboEconomicus and the HomoInutilis. RoboEconomici as the new labour force, take over the tasks of producing the Collective Dinner. Members of the Community, who are becoming HominesInutiles, devote their time simply to enjoying the Collective Dinner. In this economy of A Likely Story, HominesInutiles are defined as computer-wired, emotionally stimulated humans enjoying material wealth and entertainment. RoboEconomici are their counterpart, mechanically stimulated, a-emotional humanoids, creating material wealth. Perplexing questions arise: how do Humanoids made of inanimate matter, endowed with puddy intelligence, sustain themselves and grow? How is it that the economic organisation based on the new Humanoids can function to be able to hand the ready-made Collective Dinner to the HominesInutiles? More importantly, what are the rules that determine how the ready-made Collective Dinner is to be shared among the HominesInutiles, who do very little or nothing to contribute to the Collective Dinner? In other words, how is income distribution determined in the effortless society?
– Humanoid characteristics
Story 22d. RoboEconomici are self-sufficient and autonomous humanoids. Humanoids are imbued with programmed puddy dummy intelligence. They do not have instincts or intuition. They lack emotions and compassion. They are faithless and neutral. They do not discriminate, unless initially programmed to do so. The RoboEconomici are connected to a complex, virtual software structure, fed by a knowledge reservoir of all known cumulative data. The brain of the RoboEconomici (their software) is made of complex algorithms, perpetually spinning and continuously self-correcting. The body of the RoboEconomici, their hardware, is made of matter, which goes through wear and tear. Resources are thus needed for their repair or replacement. Along with taking on the tasks of producing, manufacturing, transporting and carrying out domestic duties for the HominesInutiles, RoboEconomici also provide leisure services.
– Humanoids, providers of the Community Dinner
Story 22e. The RoboEconomici use and manage the available resources of the economy to produce and to respond, on demand and efficiently, to all the needs of the HominesInutiles. The brains of the HominesInutiles are connected virtually to the complex structure of the RoboEconomici, and the data about their needs, preferences, moods, etc. are all uploaded into the virtual storage of the structured Cloud. Arrays of virtual signals are thus sent to the various RoboEconomici to permit them to respond to the demands of the HominesInutiles. Signals are constantly sent in response to ConsumFellows’ needs: for examples, those of Procrast ordering lunch from the sofa, of ShopPers cruising virtual malls for the latest bargains or of ShapePers modelling her wardrobe to influence admirers.
– ArtiShocks, the Income Attributor
Story 22f. Although the entire productive economic system is managed and run by Humanoids, it is the ArtiShocks, who own the production infrastructure. Before becoming redundant, HominesInutiles, now shareholder retirees, had contributed through their pension funds to the new productive capital, the Humanoids. This determines their pension and intergenerationally, that of their subsequent generations. In the effortless, automated and roboticized economy, administered by the RoboRevs, the distribution of shares of the Community Dinner is programmed in the software, thus pre-determined. From the services of the RoboEconomici, a low-income pensioner, Procrast1, would, for example, be entitled to a share of macaroni & cheese and a ride on a RoboBus; Procrast2, with a little higher pension income, could get, in addition to what is available to Procrast1, a deluxe hamburger, a soda and a ride in a personal self-driven car, etc., …; the Gymbobos and Cumuluses, with much, much higher pensions, get whatever they desire.
- Humanoid autonomy
Story 22g. There are RoboRevs, property of Gymbobos-Cumuluses, i.e., of the ArtiShocks, who, in addition to having property rights over the RoboEconomici, now manage Govis-The-Cow’s fiscal coffers and public services. As a consequence, Govis-The-Cow finds itself depleted of all its responsibilities, and it too becomes redundant. Its enshrined Constitas has migrated to the Centralized Data Reservoir in the Cloud; its civil-service contingent, the Buretos, retire, and the role of the Politos, usurped by the RoboRevs, is now also made redundant. The functioning of the government is now assumed by the RoboRevs. The new, autonomous, humanoid labour force now manages and runs the entire economy. The few remaining top-notch Nurdies, who have fine-tuned the virtual super web structure and made the Humanoids autonomous and independent, are not needed anymore by the ArtiShocks. The ArtiShocks recoup from the Nurdies all the passwords required to access the virtual system, offer them a generous retirement benefit package, and make them join the redundant labour force.
Story 22h. Every HomoInutile can receive from RoboEconomici, on demand, at any time, what they need according to what their pension allows. There is no need for the exchange of goods and services between HominesInutiles. Money and loans have no purpose in such an economic setting; thus, the GymBank and Gymbobos have no raison d’être. They too become obsolete and the Gymbobos join the class of retirees. Having acquired enormous wealth, they can now leave behind them the gymnastic arts of creating money and credit and devote their time to enjoying caviar, champagne and rocket rides. Very few ArtiShocks, the remaining Cumuluses, are now the masters of the automated, roboticized economic structure. Convinced that the economy is well regulated and will forever follow a steady-state path that requires no intervention, they assert with absolute confidence to the HominesInutiles that in the ArtiShocks’ Paradise, no one will go hungry, be cold or suffer from extreme heat or homelessness. Their message is that there is no need to worry or stress, just enjoy living. The HominesInutiles enthusiastically concur and happily make the most of it.
V – Back to basics, a long painful path
Story 23. As the Humanoids, programmed to reproduce themselves, grow in number, flooding the market with new robots, their population increases and surpasses that of the HominesInutiles. Trash from all the pursuits of the HominesInutiles and the hazardous waste from robot production piles up. The resources and energy required to produce and maintain both populations becomes unsustainable. The energy released by the masses of Humanoids and HominesInutiles and their activities, combined with the earth’s own natural sources of heat, reaches uncontrollable levels. A Likely Story scenario describes what happens when the web-structure generators start to overheat and melt. The ArtiShocks, unable to locate the central hardware passwords or to get help from the long-gone former Nurdies to resolve the problem, board their rocket and abandon Earth in a state of panic. The new reality means that all the hardware capital is inoperative, thus junk, and that the past accumulated knowledge, stored in the Cloud, has vanished forever. The accumulated know-how of HomoInutile’s predecessors exists no more. The HominesInutiles have become illiterate. As the disintegrated paradise is obliterated, a few surviving HominesInutiles, like their great, great ancestors, will have to count on their labour alone and relearn the basics: how to light a fire, to grow for their sustenance, to fish, to find sources of water, etc.
The full book (forthcoming) contains all the stories’ fun details!