Post-capitalism

Robert Heinlein

Heritage check system, a socioeconomic plan that retains a market economy, but removes fractional reserve lending power from banks and limits government printing of money to offset deflation with money printed being used to buy materials to back the currency, pay for government programs in lieu of taxes, with the remainder to be split evenly among all citizens to stimulate the economy (termed a "heritage check" for which the system is named). As presented by the original author of the idea, Robert Heinlein, in his book For Us, The Living: A Comedy of Customs, the system would be self-reinforcing and eventually result in a regular heritage checks able to provide a modest living for most citizens.[5]

Economic democracy is a socioeconomic philosophy that establishes democratic control of firms by their workers and social control of investment by a network of public banks.[6]

In his book Of the People, By the People: The Case for a Participatory Economy, Robin Hahnel describes a post-capitalist economy called the participatory economy.[7]

Hahnel argues that a participatory economy will return empathy to our purchasing choices. Capitalism removes the knowledge of how and by whom a product was made: "When we eat a salad the market systematically deletes information about the migrant workers who picked it".[8]

Paul Mason

Michael Albert

Socialism often implies common ownership of companies and a planned economy, though as an inherently pluralistic ideology, it is argued whether either are essential features.[9] In his book PostCapitalism: A Guide to our Future, Paul Mason argues that centralized planning, even with the advanced technology of today, is unachievable.[3]

In UK politics, strands of Corbynism and the Labour party have adopted this 'post-capitalist' tendency.[10][11]

Permaculture is defined by its co-originator Bill Mollison as "The conscious design and maintenance of agriculturally productive systems which have the diversity, stability, and resilience of natural ecosystems".[12]

David Graeber

Technological change that has driven unemployment has historically been a result of 'mechanical-muscle' machines, which have reduced the need for human labor. Just as horses were once employed but were gradually made obsolete by the invention of the automobile, humans' jobs have also been affected throughout history. A modern example of this technological unemployment is the replacement of retail cashiers by self-service checkouts. The invention and development of 'mechanical-mind' processes or “brain labor” is thought to threaten jobs at an unprecedented scale, with Oxford Professors Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael Osborne estimating that 47 percent of US jobs are at risk of automation.[13]

Post-capitalism is said to be possible due to major changes information technology has brought about in recent years. It has blurred the edges between work and free time[14] and loosened the relationship between work and wages. Significantly, information is corroding the market's ability to form prices correctly. Information is abundant and information goods are freely replicable. Goods such as music, software or databases do have a production cost, but once made can be copied/pasted infinitely. If the normal price mechanism of capitalism prevails, then the price of any good which has essentially no cost of reproduction will fall towards zero.[15] This lack of scarcity is a problem for our models, which try to counter by developing monopolies in the form of giant tech companies to keep information scarce and commercial. But many significant commodities in the digital economy are now free and open-source, such as Linux, Firefox, and Wikipedia.[16]