No revolution will be needed to...

Good engineering uses evolution.  Consider the Japanese car designs that are 
improved, not replaced, when better designs are available.  Here's an outline 
of goals and policies that I advocate.  We have the components of a successful 
economy, as I define it below, already in place.  Small changes can make a big 
difference.

In my humble opinion we want our economy to provide sustainability, an 
abundance of goods and services, economic security for everyone, and leisure. 
These goals are synergistic and are hard to separate or rank.

Various economic arrangements could provide those wants, and the economic 
designers, who ever they are, must choose between those alternative 
arrangements.  That is the hardest part of the design process.

The easy part is knowing the things that can not work.  To be sustainable an 
economy must not need growth in scale, because any rate of growth in scale will 
finally make any economy un-sustainable.  All the sustainable alternative 
economies will not need to grow in scale.

Also, leisure will require the acceptance of automation into every possible 
part of the economy.  Economic arrangements that don't use technology can't 
meet the want for leisure. All the alternative economies will use technology, 
and they will not need to grow in scale.

Economic security requires some arrangement to provide basic food and shelter 
to everyone without qualification.  With a little bad luck anyone can end-up 
needing help, and automation will finally cause widespread unemployment. Pure 
market capitalism, private charity, and "opportunity" can not provide economic 
security.  Some form of transfer payments (welfare or guaranteed income) will 
be part of any economic arrangement that provides economic security.  All the 
alternative economies will use technology, they will not need to grow in scale, 
and they will care for the poor.

Caring for the poor in an economy that values leisure will not focus on making 
jobs for them.  Wage dependence leads to the need to make jobs, the need to 
compensate for automation, and the need for growth in scale. Unearned income is 
basic to capitalism, but it's not democratic capitalism when most people are 
dependant on wages.  A guaranteed income could be adjusted to stabilize wages 
in an economy that doesn't need its full productive capacity. 

The need for growth and waste of our consumer economy will finally make 
providing an abundance of goods and services impossible.  When we make jobs and 
tolerate waste to be busy, or to avoid the need to provide welfare, we are in 
denial about the power of today's automation to replace human labor, and where 
we going.  The waste of the consumer economy will not provide abundance, 
security, or leisure; not for long.

If it weren't for politics even today's economic arrangements could work, for a 
while. We could stimulate demand so effectively that our wants for abundance 
and security, at least for workers, could be meet.  That's why our want for 
sustainability is important. It's not enough to nurture the market, to end 
corruptions, to implement the most advanced policies in pursuit of 
unsustainable levels of  hyper-activity.  The short-term fix is not a long-term 
fix, but any long-term fix applies now.  For sustainability the long-term fix 
is to cut resource consumption, not to increase it.

When we combine the known requirements of our engineered economy we get 
something that would seem unworkable without consideration of additional 
details.  For example, an economy that doesn't grow requires a stable 
population, and an economy that is sustainable avoids waste.  So, if we make 
all products long lasting many goods can be provided by inheritance.  
Long-lasting houses combined with population stability will provide houses 
without much labor, without economic growth,  without excessive resource 
consumption, and without a need for large income.   Security, abundance and 
leisure are all supported by such arrangements.  

Last time I checked no revolution will be needed to institute inheritance, or 
family planning, or automation, or even transfer payments.  We already have 
those things in our society.  It may take a revolution to get the media to 
explain how those existing social features can make the goals of 
sustainability, an abundance of goods and services, economic security for 
everyone, and leisure a reality.  If  we could agree we could just use the 
internet and forget the corporate media.

Barry Brooks