The Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) is ramping up, and with it will come inevitable social, political, and economic changes. As of right now, it is clear that the establishment is mired in status quo thinking. This neoliberal business-as-usual thinking is sure to cause unnecessary pain, and the calcified governments around the world will fumble and futz until political willpower increases enough to change something. This has happened for every prior Industrial Revolution - the establishment always fails to actively adapt. At the same time, we have an opportunity to pave the way for a new model. That new model is Post Labor Economics. The express purpose of this project is to replace neoliberalism in the long run, keeping in mind the systemic and structural changes that advanced 4IR technologies will bring, such as AI, quantum computing, nanotech, and biotech.
This book aims to be a 21st-century version of Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations. As such, it must be robust, polished, accessible, and well-cited. Therefore, I am creating an open-source project to collaboratively edit, cite, and revise this book. Once the drafting is done, I will keep it available for free in digital format here. I will also make it available as widely as possible as an audiobook and paperback. The reason for this is that the most influential and thoughtful people in the world are prodigious readers. A good book, widely read (such as Wealth of Nations) can serve as a bedrock narrative, a coordinating solution. In other words, it gets everyone on the same page.
The goal of this repo is to produce a refined draft of a book with excellent readability and citations. To that end, we will use every relevant tool that GitHub offers for change control, discussion, and so on. See CONTRIBUTING.md for specific guidelines and processes.
The underpinning assertion of this book is simple: machines will soon be better, faster, cheaper, and safer than humans in most economically relevant activities. This will inevitably cause the mass layoffs of humans. Yes, there will be some human jobs that remain, however, the cost-benefit analysis means that most humans will be unemployed. In other words, we are heading for a post-labor world, where we see durable unemployment levels far higher than current economic theory could explain. This eventuality would necessitate an entirely new economic paradigm.
As mentioned above, this repo will be the first output, which is published under the CC0 license, meaning that anyone can use it for anything they want, including to make money. This idea is too important not to share. At the same time, my plan is to package up the final result as a paperback and audiobook for mass distribution, to make it even more accessible. Ostensibly, I'd like to get on Bill Gates' and Barack Obama's reading list, or at least the NPR-recommended reading list. That is the level of quality and impact I'm aiming for. If we can create a coherent and compelling narrative, we can probably work towards that goal.
The strategy for making an impact comes directly from A Brief History of Neoliberalism by David Harvey. As an influential thinker and creator, I already have a rather large, global audience. This is the first step. The second step is to create a coherent, singular artifact in everyone's hands so they can all "get on the same page" literally and figuratively. Everyone from students to captains of industry to politicians, through reading and sharing powerful ideas, will adopt the new narrative. This is exactly how the seeds of neoliberalism were sown. These kinds of economic theories must be planted before they are needed, and then once they catch on, they become the de facto doctrine. This book can influence countless entrepreneurs, business elites, politicians, and educators, thus solving the coordination problem.
PostLaborEconomics.md- This is the manuscript, the centerpiece of this repo.CONTRIBUTING.md- You must read this before contributing to the project.C3P0.txt- This is the community ethos and code of conduct.LICENSE- Creative Commons Zero LicenseREADME.md- This file