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When you have manufacturing moving almost to the other side of the globe in order to increase profits I think it is hard to see how there is a transportation an

When you have manufacturing moving almost to the other side of the globe in order to increase profits I think it is hard to see how there is a transportation and logistics scarcity. Most of the scarcity I see is artificially induced by the people that want more profits. Removing money from the equation and just leaving the resources, I don't see much scarcity.. maybe in some battery components and such, but certainly not in housing, electricity, food and water. It's just that under the current system, if there is no profit to be made, then it doesn't happen. Same reason we haven't colonized the moon and mars.

bhupy 6y ago
> Most of the scarcity I see is artificially induced by the people that want more profits There's just no empirical evidence for this. The general profit margin for most enterprises in competitive markets is between 5-10%. For food it's actually much, much less than that, but let's use the higher figure for the sake of your case. Even in a world with 0 profits, if you produced everything at cost and redirected profits to more production, you would only be able to meet the needs of 10% more people, at best. And that also ignores that without profit, there's no incentive for people to actually start the enterprises that have resulted in our current levels of production. > Removing money from the equation and just leaving the resources, I don't see much scarcity The scarcity is in the labor. We absolutely have the raw materials to make stuff for everyone, but you need to convince the factory worker to show up everyday, the ship operator, the strategic planner, high skill workers, etc to all move where needs aren't being met and actually show up to work. In that regard, we absolutely have a scarcity. > It's just that under the current system, if there is no profit to be made, then it doesn't happen. Same reason we haven't colonized the moon and mars. This is a bit of a self-refuting point. You're exactly right, it doesn't happen if there is no profit to be made, because the profit is the incentive for the enterprises to produce and distribute the goods & services. Insofar as there exists people whose needs aren't being met, it's because they are unable to provide the incentive, I.e. the revenue, for the profit-seeking producers. The UBI is the cleanest and most straightforward solution to this problem.

bhupy 6y ago

> Most of the scarcity I see is artificially induced by the people that want more profits There's just no empirical evidence for this. The general profit margin for most enterprises in competitive markets is between 5-10%. For food it's actually much, much less than that, but let's use the higher figure for the sake of your case. Even in a world with 0 profits, if you produced everything at cost and redirected profits to more production, you would only be able to meet the needs of 10% more people, at best. And that also ignores that without profit, there's no incentive for people to actually start the enterprises that have resulted in our current levels of production. > Removing money from the equation and just leaving the resources, I don't see much scarcity The scarcity is in the labor. We absolutely have the raw materials to make stuff for everyone, but you need to convince the factory worker to show up everyday, the ship operator, the strategic planner, high skill workers, etc to all move where needs aren't being met and actually show up to work. In that regard, we absolutely have a scarcity. > It's just that under the current system, if there is no profit to be made, then it doesn't happen. Same reason we haven't colonized the moon and mars. This is a bit of a self-refuting point. You're exactly right, it doesn't happen if there is no profit to be made, because the profit is the incentive for the enterprises to produce and distribute the goods & services. Insofar as there exists people whose needs aren't being met, it's because they are unable to provide the incentive, I.e. the revenue, for the profit-seeking producers. The UBI is the cleanest and most straightforward solution to this problem.