Capitalism is exceptional at finding ways to provide value when there is a new market. The issue comes when capital gets accumulated and concentrated in the hands of a few.
We’ve seen it dozens of times throughout history where a healthy merchant class with lots of opportunity for upwards mobility ends up in an oligarchy as the market becomes saturated then monopolies, duopolies, and cabals (guilds) form.
The state needs to use the “P” and “L” in PESTEL forces (Political, Economical, Social, Technological, Environmental, Legal) that businesses (from single to large multinational) to identify new markets that need investment.
An examples would be new clean renewable electricity and one way of giving preferrence to this green energy by minimally taxing profts on this energy sold in the national market or international market via grid-interconnect networks (“Gridternets” if you will) with a clear plan to increase the tax to a normalised amount slowly overtime as the green share of the market approaches 100%.
It also has to be used to more aggressively dissuade markets that are more harmful than good now. An example of this is dirty power.
Coal, Oil, and Gas have done wonders for increasing people’s quality of life because they unlocked a new energy density previously unattainable. Now we have alternatives that are by every metric better; more efficient and less polluting.
Therefore, these industries need to be taxed out of existence by using a logarithmic energy carbon tax that keeps increasing year on year. Corruption needs to be rooted out like a weed as much as possible using a politically independent organ of the state to keep it healthy.
Then there’s markets that are stagnant in some state of capture: crumbling infrastructure, food retailer hypermarkets, etc. Windfall suprise taxes on incumbents and grants / zero interest loans for new competitors would reignight competition in those markets and the additional tax revenue can be used to fix the crumbling infrastructure these markets rely on.
And finally, I’d like to see a strong preference for co-operatives where ownership in a free market is much more evenly distributed by making them the least taxed commercial entities with businesses that have a higher concentration of ownership are taxed more through some sort of profit tax multiplier.
It’s much harder for a business to act in a pure profit motive to the detriment of society if the employees have more ownership as it allows morality to be expressed through political power within this business. These employees also then benefit from the profit share as well which gives stability and upward mobility in exchange for their labour.
There, that’s three proposals that could help towards decarbonisation, investing in underfunded infrastructure, and reducing inequality.
I am not a policy expert and there’s bound to be problems with each of those proposals that I haven’t thought of, but we have so much more to gain by working cooperatively together to build a system that aims to better humanity as a whole by using the best tools correctly and safety.
Until we reach an energy density which unlocks technology that enables things like a resourceless economy (a la Star Trek luxury space communism), we’re stuck with the tools of money and capital as the ways to transfer value.
I personally can’t wait for the day where “reputation” rather than money becomes the currency of society, I am willing to work with the tools we have right now to build that future, and I have faith that others are willing to build it with me.
I agree with this 100%.
Capitalism is exceptional at finding ways to provide value when there is a new market. The issue comes when capital gets accumulated and concentrated in the hands of a few.
We’ve seen it dozens of times throughout history where a healthy merchant class with lots of opportunity for upwards mobility ends up in an oligarchy as the market becomes saturated then monopolies, duopolies, and cabals (guilds) form.
The state needs to use the “P” and “L” in PESTEL forces (Political, Economical, Social, Technological, Environmental, Legal) that businesses (from single to large multinational) to identify new markets that need investment.
An examples would be new clean renewable electricity and one way of giving preferrence to this green energy by minimally taxing profts on this energy sold in the national market or international market via grid-interconnect networks (“Gridternets” if you will) with a clear plan to increase the tax to a normalised amount slowly overtime as the green share of the market approaches 100%.
It also has to be used to more aggressively dissuade markets that are more harmful than good now. An example of this is dirty power.
Coal, Oil, and Gas have done wonders for increasing people’s quality of life because they unlocked a new energy density previously unattainable. Now we have alternatives that are by every metric better; more efficient and less polluting.
Therefore, these industries need to be taxed out of existence by using a logarithmic energy carbon tax that keeps increasing year on year. Corruption needs to be rooted out like a weed as much as possible using a politically independent organ of the state to keep it healthy.
Then there’s markets that are stagnant in some state of capture: crumbling infrastructure, food retailer hypermarkets, etc. Windfall suprise taxes on incumbents and grants / zero interest loans for new competitors would reignight competition in those markets and the additional tax revenue can be used to fix the crumbling infrastructure these markets rely on.
And finally, I’d like to see a strong preference for co-operatives where ownership in a free market is much more evenly distributed by making them the least taxed commercial entities with businesses that have a higher concentration of ownership are taxed more through some sort of profit tax multiplier.
It’s much harder for a business to act in a pure profit motive to the detriment of society if the employees have more ownership as it allows morality to be expressed through political power within this business. These employees also then benefit from the profit share as well which gives stability and upward mobility in exchange for their labour.
There, that’s three proposals that could help towards decarbonisation, investing in underfunded infrastructure, and reducing inequality.
I am not a policy expert and there’s bound to be problems with each of those proposals that I haven’t thought of, but we have so much more to gain by working cooperatively together to build a system that aims to better humanity as a whole by using the best tools correctly and safety.
Until we reach an energy density which unlocks technology that enables things like a resourceless economy (a la Star Trek luxury space communism), we’re stuck with the tools of money and capital as the ways to transfer value.
I personally can’t wait for the day where “reputation” rather than money becomes the currency of society, I am willing to work with the tools we have right now to build that future, and I have faith that others are willing to build it with me.
Yes, definitely, but I think you mean an exponential energy tax law, not a logarithmic one.
Yes, correct I do. Engineer brain working in dBs constantly.