Beingism: Rational Means to Emotional Ends, for the Benefit of All.

Conservatives often point to badly designed governmental systems as evidence that government in itself is by necessity a bad thing and that some relatively unregulated form of capitalism works better. These conservative critics are certainly correct that capitalism is very far from the worst possible system that we could create. They are also correct that there many possible systems that would use government to do even more terrible things than generally occur under laissez-faire. However, it is a giant leap from this position to the notion that no systems can use government to benefit people, or indeed the position that no system can use government to serve the interests of people better than capitalism. It would be far more reasonable to say that we should be wary of the many forms of government that are ineffective even as we embrace evidence-based systems of governance that actually function to benefit people.

Obviously, creating good systems that ensure people have the resources to take care of themselves while continuing to motivate productivity is not a simple matter. Despite this, believing that a better society is possible if we are willing to do what it takes to create it is in no way mere wide-eyed idealism. Self-interested or not, people can learn to meet their own needs in compassionate ways, and even to value compassion so much that some of their own needs are met to some extent just by helping others. Life is not a zero-sum game where some people win and everyone else must lose. Cooperative effort can result in a scenario where everyone wins.

We create this society by applying some of the vast amount of wealth we have to scientific, research-based initiatives toward compassionate ends designed to improve quality of life and empower people. By using the wealth that is currently doing little more than unfairly making extremely rich people even richer, we remake society in a way that helps everyone. One could even look at this as a process of using government to shrink government, for in this process we also free up a tremendous amount of additional resources. For example, people who once lacked education become capable of getting jobs, and resources once devoted to prison systems, rehabilitation, police work, and countless other short-term societal band-aids become much less necessary. At the same time, people who would otherwise be using up resources within these systems will be increasingly likely to be creating resources of their own.

It is clear that such a state of affairs is not likely to be possible anytime soon, and an extremely specific outline of what a truly free society would look like is not feasible in the absence of a context in which it would be possible. Doubtless there are many ways to make it work, but the specific solutions we will need to devise depend on the details of the prevailing situation.

In general terms, we can imagine that such a society might work like this:

• Everyone would have full access to all universal necessities, including food, shelter, education, and health care. We already have the wealth to make this happen. Whether things other than this were defined as luxuries or necessities would depend on what it takes to motivate people to produce a standard of living people deem acceptable and the total amount of wealth available to society.

• Everyone who wants to work can work. So long as there are social problems, there is work to be done—we merely need a system that incentivizes solving them. Even if all social problems could be solved, plenty of work would still be needed—governing ourselves, exploring and understanding ourselves and the universe, improving ourselves, developing technologies, and continuing to ensure that existing technologies are used appropriately for the benefit of beings. If the equitable use of advanced technologies made work unnecessary, people would simply begin spending the time they had formerly worked in structured play.

• Methods would exist for motivating people to work. Some work incentives would come from the need for meaning and structured activity, but should this not prove sufficient, desire to work could also come from the desire for luxuries (at least so long as scarcity exists). Alternative methods of incentive, such as reputation-based currencies, could also be considered. If more more equitable resource distribution and advanced technology made resources practically unlimited, alternative currencies like this might become increasingly important.

• The system does not intervene in the lives or choices of individuals except when they coerce others (in the full sense of the meaning of the word coercion, where economic coercion is as real as literal kinds of force).

• Accordingly, so long as scarcity exists, markets probably still exist as well, as they can be an efficient method for administering ownership of certain types of goods and services in a manner consistent with the wishes of both the buyer and seller. However, markets exist in a context where the costs and benefits of the transaction to society (not just the buyer and seller) are considered, and where all traders are able to make uncoerced decisions about their goods and labor from a fundamentally equal bargaining position.

• Income disparities exist only to the extent to which they are needed to motivate people to contribute (inheritance as we know it does not exist).

• Society contains some means of adjudicating value and allotting fair and reasonable reward to all people for efforts with a collective benefit, the absence of which would eliminate much of the incentive for positive behavior. This may be money or something else.

Here are some places we can start to create a society like this:

• We can eliminate or virtually eliminate poverty and create a society where income disparities exist only to the extent to which they are required in order to get people to perform tasks that are difficult or less pleasant to perform. Ask yourself what happens to phenomena like violence, theft, abortion, and murder in a society where everyone has what they need to survive.

• More generally, we can end scarcity. Between more equitable distribution of resources and future technologies, this is perfectly possible if we prioritize the fulfillment and happiness of beings and and if we base our choices on research and scientific knowledge.

• We can research the causes (other than poverty) of abuse, domestic violence, assault, and crime in general, and then systematically undermine them. In the meantime, we can take care of the people who have had to experience these things.

• We can educate people to be more capable of taking care of themselves, take more responsibility for their lives, delay gratification, think rationally and solve problems effectively, regulate and manage their emotions, make smart financial choices, have healthy self-esteem, communicate effectively, find (and excel in) careers, understand themselves and the world, and respect others. We can even teach them to find value in helping others such that they are capable of meeting their own needs by doing so.

• We can save lives. We can fight (and cure) diseases, invest additional resources in other medical problems, make sure that people who are currently incapable of receiving health care are able to get it, and create better transportation systems (imagine if cars were computerized and programmed to decelerate automatically when approaching another car too fast). Imagine an efficient infrastructure, where our bridges don’t collapse because we fund systems that maintain them, where our cities are protected from natural disaster, and where there are programs to seek out and address problems before they happen.

• We can continue to improve the efficiency of our systems for ensuring that there are minimal conflicts of interest in government and society as a whole. We can identify problems, from politicization and irrational legislation to crime and systemic conflicts of interests, and find ways to prevent them.

It’s not really all that radical a notion. People who are physically and emotionally healthy are more productive. People who have good problem-solving skills are more successful at things they attempt to accomplish. People who feel empathy for others are more likely to work together with other people and treat them with respect.

Something better is possible, and we can create it—by understanding ideas, educating others, and fighting for consistently applied, scientifically based compassionate ends.