What if your 70-year-old mother never had to choose between heating and eating? What if your autistic brother could contribute to the world on his own terms, at his own pace, in the hours that work for his nervous system and still live with dignity? What if the night owl who does her best thinking at 2am didn't have to betray her own biology five days a week just to pay rent? What if disabled people could contribute on their own terms?
Our current financial system requires participation. We aren't free to choose our lives. We built the current economic system. We can build a different one. The question isn't whether it's possible, it's whether we have the courage to try.
Economic coercion
The current system runs on a threat. Do your job or face hunger, homelessness, and everything that follows from those. Some call this "incentive." I call it coercion, and I find it morally objectionable.
I understand the counter-argument. Without the pressure of consequence, why would anyone do the hard, unglamorous work that keeps society running? It's a fair question. But I think it mistakes fear for motivation.
The people doing their best work, the ones who are genuinely contributing something, are almost never doing it because they're afraid of starving. They're doing it because the work matters to them. Because they care. Because they'd do it anyway.
Fear produces compliance. It doesn't produce excellence. And compliance is the floor of what we should want from each other, not the ceiling.
A Sovereign Wealth Fund
You are entitled to exist and exist without worry about where your next meal will come from or where you'll sleep. We need a financial system that takes care of all of us. The richt don't work, why should you if so choose? "Their" money works for them. The People should have access to the same knowledge that makes all of that happen.
The Norwegians have access to what I call a 'sovereign wealth fund'. It's the largest public fund in the world. They use it to fund their people's education, pensions and whatever else they can think of to take care of their people. Every country should have access to a fund like that. The fund grows through reinvestment and taxation.
You should have the freedom to choose your own life. Don't want to work? Fine. But you'll choose a different way to contribute. I think the people who are good at making money should make all the money and then taxes should take most of that money. People don't need much to thrive. Everyone becomes disabled at some point. We need a system that takes this fact into account.
Objections
People will balk. I get it. Let me try to persuade you.
Transition: How do you get from here to there without everything collapsing in between? Honestly, I don't know. What I do know is that the current system is already strained to breaking point by climate, by automation, by inequality that has reached levels historically associated with social collapse. We are going to face a hard transition regardless. The question is whether we design the new system intentionally, or wait for the old one to fail on its own terms. Choose your hard.
Corporations and billionaires would lose leverage under a system where taxes eliminates their billionaire status. That's the point. The billionaire class is a moral failure. Every homeless person is a moral failure. Nobody needs to live on the streets. It's a policy choice.Billionaires won't give up their grip on society so easily. They'll come up with any excuse and entire playbooks to not have to relinquish control.
But I'd ask them to read a history book. Extreme inequality doesn't end with the wealthy quietly staying wealthy. It ends with revolution. The question the powerful should be asking themselves isn't "how do we protect what we have?" It's "what are we willing to give up in order to not lose everything?" My pitch to them is this: you can participate in designing a better financial system, or you can resist until the people who have nothing to lose decide they're done waiting. That's history for you.
The world I want
I want to live in a world where contribution is possible for everyone, not just those who were born into the right circumstances, or whose minds happen to fit the current template.
I want a world where the 70-year-old woman can rest. Where the autistic brother can work when his brain is ready. Where the genius who currently stacks shelves gets to find out what she's actually capable of. A world where people don't have to worry about money or housing anymore.
That world is buildable. We just haven't decided to build it yet.