Change the world with your money, 'cause how else would you do it?

               On worldwatch.org, under an article titled “The State of Consumption Today”, it is stated that the U.S., with less than 5% of the global population, consumes roughly a quarter of the total fossil fuels consumed globally in a year. Do we need fossil fuels to provide us with energy? Many intelligent people have crunched the numbers on wind, solar, and water power and concluded that we don’t need fossil fuels. Electricity could power the world as we know it now, but as the state of consumption around the world is increasing, what would happen if there were urban centers the size of New York and Los Angeles in every country? What if every city was a raging metropolis? Whether we like it or not, the world wants to live like Americans. For the first time in human history, we could provide every person on the planet with the basic resources they need to survive, while many are still fundamentally opposed to the idea. For most of this post, I’m going to pretend like the Red Scare never happened, and that providing people with food, water, shelter and education would be regarded as a noble endeavor. Could we really support the entirety of the present and future population of earth? The short answer is yes.

                

                Let’s assume that we aren’t just going to give this stuff away; we need some means of exchange, for now anyway. In the 1970’s, a town in Manitoba, Canada guaranteed its citizens a minimum income. As a surprise to free-market fundamentalists, people were still working and applying for jobs. Many people enjoyed lower stress levels and higher standards of living. We have programs like this for people who need it in the U.S., though many that could certainly use some financial help don’t apply or don’t qualify. A guaranteed “mincome” can improve the quality of life for people, and doesn’t deter them from working or educating themselves; in all actuality it provides them with the resource security to do what they enjoy with their lives and still find a way to contribute to society.

                So what are they going to spend this money on? Well we all need food. Traditionally, people needed to devote a huge space of land for food production. Imagine a fifty story high skyscraper filled with rows upon rows of food, with no soil needed. I first heard about hydroponic farms in the context of illegal marijuana growing operations, and I never realized that maybe we could use it for food until I was doing some research on some planet-changing technologies. The suggestion hit me like a ton of bricks. We could grow any crop in any climate using artificially created environments and provide more food with less space. This fits with the general trend of technology; we are becoming increasingly able to do more with less.

                You can’t grow food without water, and without water to drink you wouldn’t be able to survive even if your food was accounted for. Fortunately, our water purification systems are getting better and better, using the process of reverse osmosis to remove impurities from water. Desalination has even made drinking seawater a healthy possibility. We could implement community water purification systems in places where water is scarce, and those billion people who currently don’t have reliable access to clean drinking water would suddenly have a cornerstone of their wellbeing taken care of.

                People need shelter from the storm. In the last few years, minimalists have been coming up with incredible ways of living on a plot of land the size of a parking space. Aside from the new-age spiritual connotations of living on as little as possible that come along with these homes, communities of mini-houses have been used to provide shelter for homeless people. There is sociological evidence that suggests that living in smaller houses closer to your neighbors would increase your sense of community and acceptance; a vital change in mindset that could drastically improve the mental health of a person living on the street. Combine these new communities with free public transportation (the technology for which is now mind blowing), access to information (like in a library), and community ownership of the means of production (like a library for hydroponic gardens and 3-D printers) and you have a whole new portion of the population who can share their ideas with the world. A population where sharing is seen as a benefit to yourself as much as everyone else.

                With all of these basic needs of humans met, I believe there would be more people with a renewed obligation to pass on the academic achievements of our species to the next generation. As I’ve previously stated, education is crucial to the advancement of individuals and society as a whole. I haven’t done much research on education reform, but I’m sure if we spent half as much on public education as we do on national defense, our schools would be flooded with resources. Quite possibly, we wouldn’t need as much national defense if our corporations we more concerned with solving problems than making a profit, and if our citizens were properly educated they wouldn’t be as easily manipulated into being fearful of what they don't understand and desiring protection. If we stop giving our money to people determined to maintain their privilege and power to the detriment of others, we have the technology to create a better world.

                Yes, these technologies developed under capitalism, and when we weren’t sure we could provide for everyone, capitalism worked beautifully to build an incredible world, albeit with some major functional issues. At this point, we can provide for everyone, and many of those issues would likely be solved if we did. At this point, it has been proven that the pursuit of profit limits technological advancements by inhibiting cooperation and exchanging performance for affordability. We also know that our products aren’t designed to last, encouraging repeat purchases and an unprecedented level of waste. It’s been proven that people with more money are less empathetic to those that don’t have enough, and they justify their positions of power by convincing themselves they are more deserving than others. It’s been said that our public education system mostly functions to create docile, obedient workers; not critical-thinking, independent producers. However, with computers replacing more and more careers, the need for mindless worker humans is diminishing.

Capitalism no longer works when people aren’t being paid for labor, and unless you are a human that works with computers to do something that neither could do on their own, your job will be mechanized in the future. Not to mention the fact that what used to only be possible in factories is now possible in your living room, with the invention of consumer 3-D printers. With a little bit of education in the field of design and computer programming, we can make our own products and anyone can become a “job creator”, which really just means you are creating something that used to require humans.

In our society we have been told that humans are naturally competitive; in truth this trait developed at a time when scarcity was the norm and obtaining more than your neighbor was pivotal to your survival. This is no longer the case, and studies have proved that we are happier and more productive when we work together instead of against each other. We also know that we are incredibly adaptable to our environment, and are growing increasingly able to manipulate our environment for our benefit. It is tough to know where exactly to begin when faced with the problems of today, but we do know that there are solutions. Let me suggest that we begin the change by finding out whom these people are that are profiting from environmental degradation and social inequality; this is becoming increasingly easy to do with the internet. Then we stop giving them all of our money.

As a final thought, I recently read on the Wall Street Journal that following the UN Climate Summit, many investors, especially in Europe, are selling their oil stocks. Though the regulations didn’t seem to be anywhere close to the commitment desired by climate change activists, the reactive nature of investors might just help to legitimize the science that so many people have been denying for years. I found the story to be both an ironic anecdote and an elegant synopsis of my point; in our current socioeconomic system, the way we spend our money can literally change the world.