...the Venus Project...

Some comments to their economics (or lack of it): http://tinyurl.com/44drf6

Oooooh…
I'd move there in a heartbeat.

Hey Will…dontcha love the layout of the place? It's sooooo….Urantian :-D

Sorry I can't get past the simplistic and erroneous understanding of economics. Free enterprise gives rise to greed, corruption? Give me a break !! That is found in every economic system. Human nature gives rise to it.

And it has long been argued that automation will reduce standard of living. Hasn't proved out. It's a myth.

I value freedom. Nothing happens without the respect for people that freedom involves, requires, embodies. Anything else is disrespectful. Disrespect cannot be a foundation of anything “good” IMO.

I suggest some basic economic education for that guy, and anyone who finds his arguments plausible. Check out the Foundation for Economic Education, http://www.fee.org/ . Read Henry Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson. http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw/105-3275326-8902020?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=Economics+in+One+Lesson&x=14&y=12

The most foundational spiritual principles of Unity Consciousness to me necessitate that everyone live in freedom, that no one seeks to impose their will upon another. That individual sovereignty within Unity is sacred. That the use of force between people be absent, and if you look long and hard enough, you will find arguments like his always always involve the use of force by some people on others.

This rant is not directed at you, Will. Nor at anyone in particular. I just get distressed at the nearly universal lack of basic education about economics – the shallow thinking, the unexamined platitudes. They contribute greatly to the suffering of this world. We want to end suffering? We must truly understand economics, not the surfacy propaganda about it, but the reality of it. Which is rarely taught.

Blessings, OM Bastet

Thanks OM Bastet! Glad I'm not alone on this…

Hazlitt's book in an online format:

http://jim.com/econ/

Concise Guide to Economics:

http://www.conciseguidetoeconomics.com/

Hey, Peter, waycool !!! Thanks a zillion !!!

For sure “this system” is screwed up, Will. The problem is that most people don't even know what “this system” is. Technically it is not capitalism, and never was. Never. Technically and precisely, it is Fascism.

In capitalism, the government and the means of production and economy are separate except for punishment of force and fraud. In Fascism, the government regulates the economy, to a large or small degree. In Socialism, I forget exactly, it's a mixture of Fascism and Communism as I recall technically. Communism, the government actually owns all economic aspects, including the means of production and distribution, the whole economic life.
 
Pure and simple definitions. There are complexities and more mixtures, but that's the basics. Other aspects of any system are optional descriptions. Capitalism is not DEFINED by its relationship to profit, or greed. Most of the “evils” attributed to capitalism are actually as I said, present in all systems, because human nature.

So the crucial point is freedom, the crucial point is not the problems. And most of the problems in our system if traced out in details, down to the clear roots, show that government regulation is what enables the problem to exist and grow to big proportions. It's just that it takes work to track down actual causes, and most people don't put forth the effort. We are lucky some do.

That's not an answer to the question you asked Peter. A great and a complex question and IMO the answer depends on whether one is imagining the world as it currently is, with all the levels of spiritual and emotional development, or a world in which everyone is living in Unity consciousness, but still in material embodied form.

WRT the world as it is, I think one can answer only with principles, though many many thinkers have wrung out their brains to design the details of a system optimal for people as they are. The Foundation for Economic Education literature points to many of those thinkers: Bastiat, Hazlitt, Von Mises, others. For me, the principle of freedom is foundational.

And if everyone were in unity consciousness, I think the economics would be clear because everyone would be peaceful, honest, forthright, benevolent, stewards of the Earth unto the 7th generation, and treasuring their neighbor as themselves.

What kind of regulation would be needed there? What kind of oversight? Would there ever be anything to punish? Would not Divine Will coordinate everything for the highest good and the optimal good of all concerned? Money would exist to fulfill its rightful function as a medium of exchange and store of value, because barter systems greatly limit quality of life possible, but money would be a private voluntary thing. Not under the control of anyone. In the Divine Flow.

In my church service, at the time of the offering, we say, among other things, The spiritual purpose of money: It is a substance used to facilitate an unlimited variety of exchanges and gifts of goods and services for embodied beings who require certain things for survival and flourishing. Every single word carries significant meaning. I would add: a freely and voluntarily agreed-upon and freely and voluntarily used substance.

And of course on an even higher level of spiritual development, what is the “economy” among Angels? Actually, none. And I think a world of Ascended Masters, who can materialize and dematerialize at will, and need no substances for survival or well-being, would also have no economy.

Well, I didn't intend to write all that. It's a subject I hope to teach more about as spiritually oriented folks evolve and develop and realize they don't know s— about economics. Or more accurately, what they have been led to believe they “know,” is inaccurate.

Blessings, OM

Hi Will and OM,

Great discussion!

I will be brief with my answer. What system will work for all now?

Separate government and economy completely pretty much like religion and state already is. Free banking and private coinage are part of it, and the end of politics is definety essential component of it. I have collected many resources to these two discussions: Basics of Free Society and On the Economy Front. They give the bigger picture with all the benefits and implications what I have tried to indicate here.

Hi Will,

This is my site.

This might answer to your question: The Anatomy of the State.