We, the human race, accomplished a lot. It is an undeniable fact. We are builders, creators to achieve our goals. Our goals are to live ...
We, the human race, accomplished a lot. It is an undeniable fact. We are builders, creators to achieve our goals. Our goals are to live a good, safe, our need satisfying, still a never fulfill-able but constantly better life. And we, as a society are doing it. If we look back in history, even with drawbacks sometimes, still we are continuously improving our quality of life.
What is the engine, the driving force behind this continuous development? We are social animals, we can't live without society. The driving force behind this development should be positive social interactions, the help to each other, the altruistic-kind behavior. The altruism is a viable effect in the relation of the people, but mainly in small communities like in a family or closely related groups.
To achieve more in the broader society, not the altruism is the engine, the main driving force. It is greediness. In a nature-bound, diverse society, greediness helps the genes to spread more successfully. Greediness helps the evolution to find the most suitable species to survive.
Altruism and greediness are antagonistic behaviors. Still, both have advantages and disadvantages. Closed and connected society sees more benefit from the altruism. Loosely bond diverse society has more benefits from greediness. Both are needed, but the benefiting weight depends on the structure of society.
The early societies were those where greediness helped more. It provided not just evolutionary advantages but created strong motivation as well. Greediness motivates us to earn and have more by becoming better, stronger, smarter. It is a strong driving force for the whole society too.
Later, the most recent societies started to be more connected by building technical civilization and getting farther from the evolutionary base. This shift did not start today. It started early with the treading of goods. And since then, connectedness is accelerating. Today's information revolution provides the ultimate field of this. We never were such a closed society as we are today.
How about the main driving force of society? Is altruism or greediness gained space? Did they follow the path of societal development? It can be seen: they did not. Altruism remained on the level of small groups and the main driving force still the greediness on the level of the wide society. This may work well in early societies, but in today's society, it can be a holdback effect for the development. In today's connectedness, we would need more altruism in society to function better.
However, greediness is not a completely negative behavior in any society. It has its purpose. It is a motivating force of development. Sometimes it is hidden, but behind any development, always hides the get more, earn more, have more effect.
The good side of the greediness is the motivation, the bad side is the divergence which it creates. Greediness creates a divided society. It creates different groups, the successful, and the laggards. Sometimes enough to born in one of a group to define the person's future. In a diverse, less connected society, the difficulties created by the divergence may be tolerable. It may not endanger the society, especially if the different groups are not visible by each other as it happens in a less-connected society, or if there are chances of the transition between the groups in a well-connected society.
If we look back in history, every society produces and reproduces a greediness-based divergence. According to the society, this divergence can cause significant drawbacks in the development and sometimes painful "solutions" to ease divergence. Our today's society is not exempt from this greediness effect. Behind the greediness's advantages curtain, we are building a divided society. Hard to learn from history. Our genetically determined ancestry of personal greediness rules over on the societally needed altruism. It motivates to be better, stronger, smarter, and by this, to earn and to have more. However, at the same time, it exploits and represses others.
We do not know the ideal proportion, or how to find it between greediness and altruism. Our history is full of experiments with different societal structures trying to handle this problem. All of them resulted in a divided society. No social model, no governance system handled this problem well. Our personal greediness is so deeply rooted in our personality, no societal effort resulted in a working model to suppress greediness and support altruism necessarily to keep the benefit of both and yet get rid of their negative effects.
The necessity to find the necessary and healthy balance between greediness and altruism is emphasized by our historical situation, we are approaching a defining societal intersection: in the age of the intelligent machines. These machines can work more and more independently from human. Fewer and fewer people needed to create the necessary products or services. In this situation, if greediness remains the defining driving force in our society, it could destroy the whole civilization. We must find a healthy balance between greediness and altruism to survive. If we can find it, it could result in an ever desired well-working welfare society. The solution must be an agreement on the society level, must be a structure of laws, and must be enforceable. The desired and required behavior of the members of the society cannot be just voluntary cooperation, as it usually happens today. The solution must enforce altruism and limit greediness without abolishing it. It should prevent, reduce, and limit divergence, differences in the society instead of ceasing it, in an agreed way on the level of the whole society.
In the next, there will be a list of proposed requisites for an economic governance model whose goal is to create a balance between greediness and altruism for a thriving society. It tries to prevent arising extreme differences between the members of society and still keeps the motivation of them to be competitive.
The elements of the economy:
Companies: create goods and provide services
Government: creates rules and provides community services
Workers: people working for companies or government
People: all the members of society
Economic operational rules of the companies:
The economy based on the companies. Their effectiveness is crucial for a thriving economy, but at the same time, the companies create the most fundamental base to be the society divergent. Still, their competitiveness is essential.
- Rule 1. Companies must divide evenly and pay all the profit is made to the workers of the company on a regular base. It is the wage of the workers. This way, the wage is not an expense but a made profit in the economic process of the company.
- Rule 2. The workers of the company voluntarily may payback of any portion of the wage to the company. It is a monetary source of the company for development. The workers gain ownership in the company according to the proportion of the paid back money.
- Rule 3. The members of the governing body of the company, the leaders, are the workers with the highest ownership.
- Rule 4. Any people can buy ownership in a company, but only workers can become members of the governing body. The gained ownership and the paid money for that by the people depend on the negotiation of the buyer and the company's governance body. The company's profit is not divided to non-worker owners, but in the case of selling the company, the selling price is divided according to the ownership.
- Rule 5. Companies can loan money to get capital. The loan represents a special kind of ownership. It may or must pay back by the company according to the agreement of the loan. The loaner cannot get permanent ownership of the company, the company may pay back the loan in any case. The government's loan is interest-free (community money), bank loans can have an interest.
These rules prevent unnecessary workers, maintain competitiveness, and limit differences in wages at a company.
Economic operational rules of the government
The government keeps society together. It provides common services. Its income came from taxation. Governance is a multi-level structure: global government, and multi-level local governments. This hierarchy does not represent dependence, every level can act independently and has its own responsibility.
- Rule 1. The government provides and responsible for community services, services that every member of society use.
- Rule 2. The government provides free access to education and healthcare to the members of the society.
- Rule 3. The government is a non-profit organization. The leaders of the governments and the wages of the workers of the governments are decided by the community. Wages do not depend on a title, only depend on the field where the worker works.
- Rule 4. Global government income comes from the excise tax (according to the consumes of the products) and from the company's taxation (according to the sales of the products or services). No income taxation for the people. The level of the taxation must balance the expenses of the government.
- Rule 5. Local government income comes from taxation of the local residents, and it is a local community decision.
- Rule 6. The global government provides general basic income for all the members of the society independently of age. This income must be enough to cover minimal living expenses at least but can be higher if the government's income is suitable for that.
These are the basic rules, which may look necessary to create a sustainable society with a healthy balance between altruism and greediness. These rules limit the effect of the self-reinforcing greediness and limit the appearance of the positive feedback of difference accumulation, but still maintaining competitiveness even in the new age of smart machines.
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