I just finished uploading a video of Alan Watts to my Youtube channel, for which I translated the original English subtitles into Dutch, having both as an option. I think the video touches on a very true idea that I would love to see happen, and therefor I wanted it on my channel. It's about a half hour long but it's a very interesting listen, and Alan Watts tells it with humour too. So if you have the time, listen to it and maybe it will be an eye-opener and more people will agree!
Basically it comes down to the idea that money in a general sense is not real, in the way that right now the amount of money in circulation is based on the amount of gold we have in the world, while goods and services increase in amount. Therefor there isn't enough money in circulation to pay for all the goods and services, and we end up in an economic crisis. In essence money is accounting, simply figures. A way of tracking what you owe someone, and what that someone owes you. It is information and not anything tangible. Furthermore he goes into the idea that people ought to 'suffer' to get money, and that this idea is holding back the industry from realizing it's potential: automatisation which makes stupid labour unnecessary, and allows us to focus on things we actually want to spend our time doing. But the system of money and our perceiving of guilt about it (the idea that we shouldn't get it 'free' and that we ought to suffer in order to get it) as it is right now is standing in the way of that future. But ofcourse Alan Watts explains it much better.
Money has always been a concept, it's stored in currency. That idea isn't new at all, he's practically stating the obvious. I'm not entirely convinced automation is being held back either. Japanese scientists have stated that they will have something along the lines of 20,000 humanoid robots ready to work alongside people by 2030.
But that currency as we know it is outdated, because as it is now it will be outpaced by the amount of goods and services available. There simply won't be, or isn't enough money to pay for all the products in the world, there is no way of paying for it all. And that problem will continue to grow worse and worse as time goes by. This is why there needs to be cutbacks in healthcare, in education etc. because there is not enough money to properly pay for it all, and there isn't enough money to pay for it all because the value of our currency is based on gold instead of just being statistics. And who pays for all of that now? We do, by way of taxation which is another outdated concept put in place as a result of the way we look at our currency. But if we change the way we look at money, the way it is being valued, that would not be necessary. As for automation being held back, do take into account that Alan Watts has been dead since 1973, and even then we had possibilities of using machines to do people's work, and even more so now. We don't have to wait for Japan to finish building 20,000 humanoid robots for us to automate factories, we could automate them now. Trust me, it could be done but it simply isn't being done. We don't need humanoid robots for that. There aren't any good jobs around in the Netherlands right now, none that I would apply for, and because of that I end up in every conceivable **** job that can be found. One of them has been boxing products at a factory line, the most mindnumbing job in human existence. Monkeys could do it but people would be in an uproar about the inhumanity. It is the simplest work around and it definitely could be automated, but it isn't simply because those jobs need to exist for the economy as we know it to work. And it barely works, because we use an antiquated system. Now what Alan Watts talks about is not simply just his idea, others have thought about it too in the same way as he points out during his talk. It's the idea that if we change the way we look at money, we ditch gold as the currency and we simply make it figures again. Taxation falls away because the government doesn't need us to come up with the money, they can do it themselves. There won't need to be any cutbacks because they can simply issue the money required for proper healthcare, proper education etc. and every human being could be assured of a basic income, not as a social welfare policy but as a basic human right. That means people won't need to be working **** jobs because they can be automated, and the money will be there to circulate the goods the factories produce. That won't work in our current system, because people with no income can't afford the factories products. And this also means that homelessness wouldn't be a problem, or at least much less so. There will be less reason to steal etc. All of that is ofcourse an ideal and I'm talking about the 'perfect' outcome. But it is a workable ideal in my opinion.
You know, that sounds all just fine and dandy when he tells it but don't forget that he is a philosopher. He's basing his theories on thought experiments instead of facts. And guess what, if he was right we would have deflation, always deflation. In reality it's the other way around, a healthy economy always has a tad inflation. That makes it worthwhile to spend money and invest. So how the feck does it work? We have more goods but even more money to buy them. Credit and debt. Money can create more money out of thin air. (Well, out of time really...) So all you need to do is make sure is to create slightly more money than goods. The Federal Reserve does it for the US by adjusting the federal funds rate. Same thing happens over here in the EU. The system works great as long as you don't ask too many questions. Like: when are the US ever going to pay back their debt. And with what? ;P
