[ExI] socialism

[Stuart LaForge]

It is my observation that neither capitalism nor socialism is capable  
of managing the markets of the 21st century. As people have pointed  
out in the past, pure socialism is unproductive and inevitably runs  
out of other people's wealth to redistribute. And as the wealth gap  
increases, pure unregulated capitalism will likely run out of  
consumers able to afford the goods and services that the market has to  
offer.

Simply put, this is because while robots make great workers, they make  
very poor customers. So in accumulating wealth and denying social  
spending in the process of ensuring that that they are the last to  
starve, the rich have nonetheless ensured that they will eventually  
starve.

Now more than ever in our history, capitalists and socialists need to  
sit down with each other and stitch together the best welfare state  
that a robust healthy market economy can afford. And by welfare, I  
mean welfare for everybody and not just subsidies for factory farmers  
and oil companies.

Unfortunately, these days capitalists and socialists and more likely  
to punch each other at Trump rallies than have a meaningful  
conversation with one another. But ultimately no matter how passionate  
the proponents, both of their ideologies are obsolete. Both socialism  
and capitalism are outdated socioeconomic pardigms because we are in  
uncharted technological territory right now.

Economists like von Mises and Marx that died over a century ago have  
very little to say that is relevant regarding the effect of the  
Internet, robotics, AI, life-extension and other H plus tech on the  
economy. So we as a society need to shelve those outdated ideas and  
come up with a sustainable economic model that fits the modern reality  
we find ourselves living in because we are running out of time and the  
political divisiveness threatens to kill us all.


Stuart LaForge