Q and A

Questions and Answers

How will goods and services be produced and supplied without an economic system?

With no-one demanding payment for anything, the same as now but absent any costs.

Why would anyone be bothered to work?

Because it is obvious that if people didn't work, everyone's, including, of course, one's own, standard of living would deteriorate rapidly. In no time at all there'd be little to no food, water, shelter, electricity, transport, health care—the list goes on; we'd be living in a new Stone Age. People would not tolerate such a state of affairs. Then there are people whose prime motvation to work is passion for the type of work they do, such as scientists and health care workers. Talking of health, remember that there is a constant dilemma for health-care providers. Doctors and nurses provide essential services and need to be rewarded fully but the more money that goes into the pay packets of these people the less there is for medical equipment and drugs. How sad that, for example, the UK's National Health Service (NHS), the country's universal health service, funded by taxpayers and free at the point of use, has to constantly juggle limited resources, availability at the mercy of political ideologies. Such difficulties would not occur in an economy-free society. Without an economic system there'd be unlimited resources for training and employing doctors and nurses as well as for drug, therapy and treatment research and development. Imagine biochemists showing up at their laboratories knowing that they're not held back from pushing at the limits of knowledge.

Wouldn't people just stockpile resources for themselves, selfishly greedily?

With every good and service in plentiful supply for anyone wanting them, completely free of charge, there would be no point at all in selfish greediness.

Would people have personal possessions?

Yes, but that would not take the form of the afore-mentioned stockpiling. People would be perfectly entitled to have personal possessions. Most people wouldn't want to share their home, for example, and why should they? Maybe communnal habitation would evolve but there is no necessity for it in an economy-free society. And there'd be unlimited resources to build homes.

Wouldn't there be lazy people who wouldn't work and simply freeload from everyone else?

Probably. There are people like that today but they would be far fewer in a society without an economic system. Opportunities to learn, train and be employed would be unlimited, including teachers, and available to all. Forget about unemployment; there would be no unemployment. But if a relative few wished to do nothing and live off the rest then so be it. Good luck to them.

With unlimited opportunity to exploit the planet's natural resources, wouldn't the Earth become a ravaged, polluted wasteland?

No, becasue there would be unlimited progress in all areas of human endeavour, including science and technology. There would be no stopping the development of the most efficient, cleanest, greenest energy and for cleaning up the world. Today, these things cost money and are therefore limited, with the ever-present temptation to cut corners and act irresponsibly, favouring profit over funding to mitigate negative social and environmental effects. Today it costs to do the right thing; to be good.

What about policing and national defence?

Unlimited opportunities for citizens to persue their dreams and the free availability of whatever goods and services anyone could ever want is the recipe for a happy, harmonious society, a society in which there would therefore be far less crime. Obviously, there could not be any financial crime but neither would there be any need for anyone to steal, or sell their, or anyone else's, body for sex, for example. And a world like that would be far less likely to be one admitting of conflict and war. Poverty could not exist and there would be no need for anyone to migrate to a foreign land for a better life as all countries would be as well resourced and as attractive a place to live as anywhere else. Today, millions starve despite there continuing to be, since the end of WWII, enough food for everyone; the cost of it is more than those people can afford. But, in any case, there would still be people prepared to uphold the law and defend their country just as there would still be scientists and doctors.

Economic systems are not heaven-sent, neither are they a law of nature; they are man-made schemes. Given the horrendous problems they cause, why, then, have them?