

The call for rational economy - yuhong
http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2012/12/19/the-call-for-rational-economy/

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chipsy
The comments, for me, are more interesting than the article, because they
proceed to prescriptions.

Guaranteed income(aka basic income) is the major topic of discussion. It has a
lot of qualities that make it more appealing than present-day welfare systems
in an attack of capitalist inequality, but the open question is whether it's a
sufficient measure on its own.

What I find particularly interesting is that the nature of software as a way
to build a lot of value cheaply _also_ comes up. If software "eats the world"
in coming years, then it follows that GI would become increasingly more
"correct" as the way to give people a fair shake, since wealth creation
wouldn't be predicated on having a large pool of private capital, but on pure
creativity and social organization. (Within the "core" software technologies
this has definitely happened - open-source has gained a weighty influence on
computing, and the whole HN "startup scene" arose from low capital costs.)

