 Hello, dear viewer. This video is long, so ridiculously long, because it tackles ridiculously big questions. Is there an alternative to capitalism that is different from the alternatives that have already been tried? And if so, how would this new system actually work? To answer these questions, this video will explain not one, but two alternatives to capitalism, each of them with no market and no state or central planning, which makes them unlike the economic system of any country on earth. A lot of people are aware that capitalism is a deeply flawed system that is harmful to workers, to humanity, to other species, and to the environment. But most people don't think the alternative options are all that appealing. They look at the former Soviet Union and other such countries, and they are not impressed. Well, I've got good news. There are other choices, and today I will show you two of them. Let's start with a preview of what we will discuss in this video. Topics include How can supply and demand be balanced to equilibrium without a market or state planning? How can an economic system function without money or the profit motive? How can we provide free public goods and free public services, like healthcare, education, and transit, in a society with no state, and therefore no taxation? How can we avoid overconsumption so the amount we consume stays within a limit that's safe for the environment and doesn't cause shortages? How can we encourage people to work, and do the types of work necessary to provide the things we need, even when that work is boring or risky or unpleasant, or requires lots of education and training? Why is the word work maybe not an appropriate word to describe the productive activity that occurs in a post-capitalist society? And of course the question that haunts us all. How can an economic system help us to avoid destroying the environment and causing our own extinction maybe? That'd be nice. This video will discuss these topics and a whole lot more. But as we examine these nitty-gritty and itty-bitty details, let's keep in mind the big picture. What's the goal of finding an alternative to capitalism? It is to create a society of equality and freedom, where every individual has what they need, not just to survive, but to thrive. Not a utopian world with no suffering, but a world where every one of us has what we need to fulfill our potential, to do what makes us happy, and to live a full, free, and satisfying life. Now I admit that is a really big goal. I believe that it's possible, and maybe you don't agree, and that's okay, but I hope that you'll at least hear me out. Speaking of hearing me out, holy shit this video is long. If you can't watch it all at once, that's okay because I've divided this video into chapters. In the video description, I list each chapter next to the time that it begins, so just click on it and the video will jump ahead to that chapter. Or you can also click on the progress bar at the bottom of the video to move between each chapter. Through these magical techniques, you can consume this video in bite-sized pieces rather than binging it all at once. Either way, have a seat and bon appetit, because it's time to eat. Mmm, that is motherfucking delicious. Discarding old tools, neither market nor state. At present, every country in the world has an economic system that combines a market economy and a state planned economy. So what do these terms mean? Well, a market is any place or situation that is used for exchanging goods or services. Markets can be a physical place, like a store or a mall. Or markets can be non-physical, like the website Amazon, existing in the nebulous ether of the internet. In most markets, goods and services are exchanged for money, but markets can also include exchange on the form of barter, such as trading apples for oranges. But this is rare. By the way, when I was writing the script for this video, I did a typo for the word oranges, I spelled it O-R-G-A-N-E-S, and my autocorrect changed it to organs. So my script originally said trading apples for organs, which, wow, those better be some damn good apples. So the buying and selling of goods, that's a market. And a market economy is a system where markets not only exist, but they dominate the economy. So in a market economy, why are goods and services produced? To sell them in markets. And how are goods and services distributed? By selling them in markets. And what about a state planned economy? This is pretty much what it sounds like. An economy planned by the state, by the government. Economic decisions are made by government officials. They decide what to produce, where to produce it, how much to produce, how to distribute what is produced, how much to pay workers, and so on. Another term for a state planned economy is a centrally planned economy, because economic planning is centralized in one institution, the state. So there you go. Those are the basic definitions of both types of economies. But keep in mind that no country on earth is 100% a market economy or 100% a state planned economy. Every country is a mix of both. Usually with markets having the bigger role. Nearly every country is mainly a market economy, but with a state that does some economic planning and regulation. Stuck inside the box, the state, the market, and alternatives to capitalism. Most people believe that markets in the state are the only options for a modern, complex, industrial economy. You either need the market, or you need central planning by the state, or a combination of the two. And so, when people propose new economic systems, systems that are supposed to be alternatives to capitalism, the systems they propose usually fit within the boxes of market or state. Ah yes, market and state, the two genders. Some people think that we should have a system similar to the Soviet Union under Stalin, a system of central planning by the state. Others propose a system called market socialism, which combines a market economy with businesses that are owned and run by workers. And others propose a social democratic version of a mixed market economy, like what exists in Sweden or Norway or Bolivia. But that's not actually an alternative to capitalism, it's just capitalism with a bigger public sector and better social welfare policies than exist in mainstream capitalism. These three proposals are what dominate the conversations about alternatives to capitalism, state planning, market socialism, and social democracy. So, either a state economy, a market economy, or a blend of the two. Their dominance in the conversation on this topic is so great that it can seem like there are no alternatives outside of the bounds of the market and the state. It's like the economic equivalent of a two-party system. And that sucks because market economies and state-planned economies have both been disappointing, to say the least. Well fuck that shit, it's time to break out of the box and imagine something completely different. One note to skeptics. Now there's one last thing I should say before we put on our speedos and dive in, just a quick note to the skeptics in the audience. As you watch this video, if you're skeptical about some of the things I say, then good, skepticism is an asset for anyone concerned with creating a better world. But equally important to skepticism is open-mindedness and the two go hand in hand. Unfortunately, some people believe that being skeptical means being close-minded. But a closed mind is not a skeptical mind because a closed mind means that you have no skepticism towards that which you already believe. Skepticism requires questioning. It requires considering new possibilities. It requires a mind that is open, though as the saying goes, not so open that your brains fall out. So if you're skeptical about alternatives to capitalism, that's totally fair. I ain't mad at you. But if you believe that no superior alternative to capitalism could possibly exist, that's not skepticism, that's dogma. So my dear skeptics, if you have any doubts or criticisms or disagreements with anything I say in this video, leave me a comment telling me. I care very much about finding viable alternatives to capitalism. And if these alternatives have weaknesses, I want those weaknesses exposed so that we can look for solutions. And if something just doesn't make sense to you or you have any questions, pause the video, ask me in the comments, and I'll try to answer your question in a future video. Sound good? Yes, lucky black cat, that sounds great. Okay, glad you think so. Now let's get into it. Key features of both economic systems. Just as I promised you, this video will describe not one, but two alternatives to capitalism. But before we talk about the unique features of each system, let's talk about four key features that both systems have in common. One, egalitarian slash libertarian political system. Although we're talking about an economic system, this isn't so neatly separated from the political system. And in my opinion, an egalitarian economic system should be paired with an egalitarian political system. So what is an egalitarian political system? It's a political system with no rulers, no dominance hierarchy, and no state. A political system where power is shared as equally as is practically possible, where we strive to give everyone decision-making power over the decisions that affect them. An egalitarian political system is also a libertarian political system. Because if no one has power over others, this enables freedom. Now the word libertarianism or libertarian has been co-opted or stolen by the far right, but they don't deserve that word, they've made a mockery of it, and we should reclaim it from them. Because libertarianism is at its core a philosophy of freedom. And we shouldn't allow the far right to steal that concept from us. No country on earth has an egalitarian political system. The closest we come is when governments are democratically elected. But that's not egalitarian. There's still a gross imbalance of power between the government and the people. It's still a system where the few rule over the many. And we don't want that. We want no rulers, no masters. We want people to be free. Two, the means of production belong to everyone and are owned by no one. You may have heard that in socialism there's no private property, but this only refers to the means of production. People still have personal property, so don't worry. Nobody will take your toothbrush. Well, I might take it, but not because of socialism, just because I like stealing people's toothbrushes. Don't kink shame, just stop. I can feel your judgment seeping through time and space. And I gotta say, it's hurtful and prudish. In socialism the means of production belong to everyone and are owned by no one. They're the common inheritance of all humanity. But why? What's the reason or benefit of this? Our life and our quality of life depend on production. The production of food, the production of housing, the production of electricity, clean water, healthcare, and novelty chiapets. To produce these goods and services requires factories, machines, natural resources, land, infrastructure, and so on. These are what we call the means of production. Since we depend on production for our survival and our well-being, whoever owns and controls the means of production literally owns and controls the means of life and quality of life. If only some people control the means of production, but everyone else doesn't, then these people who do own and control it have a dangerous amount of power over everyone else. If someone owns and controls something that you need, that person has incredible power over you. This is true whether the owner is an individual, a corporation, or the state. In a capitalist society, most of the means of production are privately owned by individuals called capitalists, though some of the means of production are owned by the state. In the alternative economic systems that we'll be discussing, the means of production belong to everyone and are owned by no one, not even the state. However, it's okay for individuals to own personal possessions for their own personal use, even if these are small-scale means of production. For example, a stove is a small-scale means of production that you can use to cook food, bake pies, and so on. Since a stove is for your own personal use, it's okay for you to own it, but you can't own the factory that makes that stove. The basic rule is that you can't own more means of production than you can use by yourself. So, having a workshop in your garage to make furniture is okay, but having a furniture factory is not. Also, you can't own the things that other people depend on for their life or quality of life, such as a lake or other freshwater resource or an apartment building. If these things are privately owned, then the people who don't own them will be at the mercy of those who do own them. Private ownership of things that people need creates extreme inequality of power and extreme inequality of wealth. Not a good situation. And even state ownership allows the state to dominate those who depend on those resources that the state owns. Again, not a good situation. This is why the means of production should belong to everyone and be owned by no one, because it helps make a more equal balance of power between people so that no one can dominate anyone else. 3. No profit or profit motive According to lexico.com, which is operated by Oxford Dictionary, profit is, quote, a financial gain, especially the difference between the amount earned and the amount spent in buying, operating, or producing something. In other words, profit is the financial gain that occurs after costs are subtracted from income, so the way to make more profit is to reduce costs and increase income. Maximized income minus minimized costs equals maximized profit. In the economic systems that I'll be describing in this video, profit does not exist. Production for profit is replaced with production for use. Later, I'll explain how each system is able to abolish the existence of profit, but first, let's understand why profit is something that we would want to abolish. In capitalism, business owners are driven by the profit motive. The goal is to maximize profit, and business owners also operate by the profit imperative. A business must make profit in order to survive. This might sound like an innocent recipe for incentivizing production and efficiency, but it can also be a toxic recipe for incentivizing all sorts of devastating harm. The evidence is all around you. Just looking at the headlines in the news on any given day will reveal some horrific examples. On the very day that I wrote this section of the script for this video, there was a news story about a court case for the corporation Johnson & Johnson, and the fact that it sold baby powder laced with asbestos, which is toxic and proven to cause cancer. So, you know, not the kind of thing you'd want to give to your baby. Or any baby, I would hope. Well, unless that baby is crying in a movie theater, then it's fair game. If a baby is crying in a movie theater, you should be allowed to just get some of Johnson & Johnson baby powder and just toss it at the baby. They should sell it in the concession stand alongside the popcorn. Johnson & Johnson's baby powder was made from talc, a mineral found in the earth alongside the mineral asbestos, which causes cross-contamination between talc and the toxic cancer-causing asbestos. Since the 1970s, Johnson & Johnson knew their baby powder has asbestos, and knew that it could cause cancer. But they also knew that it was profitable, and so they continued selling it for decades. Because why stop poisoning babies when you can make profit instead? Putting concern for profit above concern for people is not unusual. News headlines are littered with stories of corporations causing illness and injury, death and destruction, violating workers' rights and human rights, all for the sake of profit. The biggest threat to the creatures of this planet, and human beings included, is climate change. And to a great extent, climate change is caused by the profit-maximizing behavior of companies in the fossil fuel industry, the animal agricultural industry, and other industries too. It's normal for companies in any industry to choose business practices that are environmentally harmful rather than environmentally sustainable, because harmful practices are usually cheaper and therefore create higher profits. Because why stop poisoning the planet when you can make profit instead? The profit motive is THE motive for all sorts of horrible things, and on top of that, profit is also a major cause of wealth inequality. Profit is obtained by those who own businesses and other forms of capital, which is why the capitalist class is so much wealthier than the working class. Profit is also something that businesses must compete for, and this competition creates winners and losers. The biggest winners become obscenely rich and the losers go into poverty or go out of business, causing whoever works in those businesses to become unemployed. And it's not like competition is always a bad thing, but it is a bad thing if that competition causes harm, as it does in capitalism. It's like the difference between playing red light, green light for fun, and playing it in Squid Game. So the bottom line is that an economic system based on profit is doomed to be destructive, harmful, and create extreme inequality, which is why profit must be abolished. 4. Enterprises and industries are self-managed by workers. Okay, so first of all, what do I mean by enterprise? No, not that enterprise. An enterprise is an organization that produces goods or services. Examples include a factory, an office, a school, a power plant, a restaurant, or a grocery store. In capitalism, we call most of these things a business, but the goal of a business is to make money and is therefore incompatible with socialism, hence we're going to use the word enterprise instead. An enterprise is part of the means of production, and so in socialism it belongs to all humanity. But although an enterprise can belong to all of humanity, you can't really have all the billions of people on this planet managing a single enterprise. That would be a bit unwieldy. For this reason, each enterprise or workplace is managed and controlled by the people who work there. A factory is managed by the factory workers, a farm is managed by the farm workers, a mine is managed by the miners and the engineers, and so on. The reason this is important is because whoever has control over a workplace also has control over the workers. If capitalists control a workplace, then capitalists also control the people who work there. If government controls a workplace, then government controls the people who work there. But if workers control their own workplace, then they're liberated from external control. This is called worker self-management, and there are many different ways that workers can manage themselves. Workers can share or rotate management duties, big decisions can be made by direct democracy, either majority rules or consensus, or by delegate democracy. There's also liquid democracy, holocracy, and other options. Every enterprise can choose its own way to do things. Workers can also manage their industry in general. This can be done if workers from the various enterprises in an industry choose delegates to be part of a democratic workers' council. Each industry would have its own workers' council. There would be an agricultural workers' council for the agricultural industry, a construction workers' council for the construction industry, a healthcare workers' council for the healthcare industry, and so on. And the delegates on these councils would be people who work within the industry. So, for example, the council for the construction industry would consist of construction workers, engineers, architects, and whoever else works in the construction industry. The purpose of these workers' councils is not to be at the top of a management hierarchy. The councils are not overlords of the industry. They don't give production orders to the enterprises, and they don't dictate quotas. Instead, workers' councils deal with things that extend beyond the boundaries of individual enterprises. This can include things like designing job training and education programs, creating professional standards for the industry, or organizing research and development to make the industry more environmentally sustainable. Some people worry that workers don't have the necessary skills to self-manage their enterprise or industry. Shouldn't decisions be made by people with the knowledge and expertise needed to make those decisions? Well, yeah, obviously. But let's remember that the people who have that knowledge and expertise are also workers. Engineers, architects, scientists, doctors. These people are workers. And in cases where none of the workers in an enterprise or workers' council have the necessary knowledge for something, they can just reach out for help from those who do have that knowledge, and then get the help that they need. Want your factory to lower its carbon footprint, but don't know how? No problem. Just contact your local council of environmental engineers, and someone will be ready to help. Now, although workers control production, this control can and, in my opinion, should be shared with consumers, service users, and the community. At least whenever it's appropriate to do so. Like, if a factory dumps toxic waste in the lake, the local community should not have to put up with that shit. No, no. The community should have the power to make the polluters stop. And likewise, although a hospital would be managed by the doctors, nurses, and other hospital staff, patients and their loved ones should have a say in setting standards for how they're treated. But generally speaking, the day-to-day management of a workplace is in the hands of the people who work there. Work is no longer a dictatorship where bosses give orders and workers obey. Workers control their own work. They are their own boss, and are not under the control of some other class. And the fact that workers control production has other benefits too, because it means that workers have the power to improve their working conditions, to improve workplace health and safety, and to make all kinds of changes that will make their work a more pleasant and enjoyable experience. And let's face it, if a workplace is controlled by capitalists or by the state, they're not going to have the motivation to make the kind of changes that workers want. Only the people who work in a workplace will be the ones who are truly motivated to make that place a better place to work, which is why it's good for those people to be the ones in control. Workers have the power to make their work a more pleasant and enjoyable experience. Pleasant and enjoyable experience. So there you go. Those are the four key features shared in common by the alternatives to capitalism that we'll discuss in this video. One, egalitarian slash libertarian political system. Two, the means of production belong to everyone and are owned by no one. Three, no profit or profit motive. Four, enterprises and industries are self-managed by workers. And now we can move on to discussing the unique features of each economic system. And by the way, I'm going to go into an unusual amount of detail as I describe these systems. So much detail that you might think, wow, this lucky black cat sure has some balls. Who does she think she is making blueprints for what a future society should be like? But chill, that's not what I'm doing. First of all, these economic systems are not of my own design. They're mostly a lot of borrowed ideas I've patched together. In second of all, I don't think there's one particular way the future society should be like. There's not a one-size-fits-all economic system. I'm sure different communities and different regions will have different ways of doing things. Socialism is not and must not be a blueprint that is imposed on society. It's something that people must create together, doing so as free and equal individuals liberated from the divisions of economic class and united in a human community. So these economic systems are not blueprints for a future society. These are just ideas and possibilities. Not blueprints, but sketches to help us imagine a vision of what might be. So we're going to get into the deep and dirty details. But first, let's start with short overviews. As you can see before you, the title for this section of the video is an extremely brief overview of two alternatives to capitalism. And that's exactly what it will be. And because this overview is extremely brief, it will raise a lot more questions than it answers. But just hold on to your horses, your ponies, and your Pokemons. Because as this video progresses, I will give more information on each system and hopefully your questions will be answered. For this brief overview of two alternative economic systems, we'll start by calling them the very uncreative names of system A and system B. And just so you know, system A is less radical than system B. So if it seems too moderate for you, then maybe system B will be more to your liking. System A. In system A, our basic needs are guaranteed. This is achieved by providing free public goods and free essential goods. Free housing, free medicine, free healthcare, free dental care, free childcare, free elder care, free education, free public transit, free meals and communal kitchens, and so on. If we choose, we can also supplement this with a universal basic income. But if you want more than your basic needs, you gotta work for it. But there are exceptions. People who are retired, people getting the education or training they need for a job, and people with a disability that prevents them from working, even though they don't work, they still get an income equal to that of the average working person. Generally speaking, people would earn an equal amount for every hour they work, regardless of what type of work they do. But if there are labor shortages for a particular type of job, then the income for that job can be raised. At first glimpse, this might sound like capitalist social democracy, but there are huge differences. Huge difference number one. In system A, the means of production belong to everyone and are owned by no one. They cannot be bought and they are not for sale. Huge difference number two, the means of payment can't transfer from one person to another. I'll repeat that because it's both extremely important and also a hard concept to grasp. The means of payment can't transfer from one person to another. It can't transfer between people or organizations. In capitalism, when you buy something, you give money to the person or business that's selling what you buy. The money or means of payment transfers from you to the seller. But in system A, when you buy something, that transfer does not occur because we use a non-transferable currency. It's like when you use a movie ticket, it doesn't transfer to the ticket collector, it just goes in the trash. Okay, but how can we make sure that the means of payment don't transfer? The easiest way to prevent this is to use a debit card with virtual currency that disappears as it's spent. But why is this important? Why should we prevent the means of payment from transferring? Because if we can prevent this, then we can also prevent profit, which means we can prevent the horrible side effects of profit and prevent a market economy. Huge difference number three. In system A, the income we earn by working isn't paid by a business owner or employer because those don't exist. Instead, our income is paid by society as a whole. It's a public expense, like education or healthcare. How can we do this? It wouldn't be done through the state, because that doesn't exist either. Instead, we can create some sort of organization responsible for distributing payment, but it wouldn't have any special power. It would just be like a payroll department for society. And finally, huge difference number four. Prices are measured in real world costs, such as labor time and environmental impact. Though scarcity can also be factored into price. There are other differences that we'll explore later, but that's enough for now. Okay, so that is an extremely brief overview of system A. And now it's time for system B. In system B, there's no money or even anything remotely like money. No means of payment at all. There's no need for barter either. No need to trade apples for oranges or apples for organs. Instead, every single product and service is totally free. We're not paid for working and we're not punished for not working. Work is a voluntary choice. We are free to contribute to society according to our abilities and receive from society according to our needs. If particular types of goods are in short supply, they're rationed, not by central planners, but by democratic workers councils or by committees of community members. And of course, the delegates on these councils or committees are kept accountable to the public through mandates and instant recall. Workers can calculate efficient methods of production without abstracted quantifications of value, but instead, by using real-world costs or calculation in kind. So that's an extremely brief overview of system B, even briefer than the extremely brief overview of system A. Did these extremely brief overviews raise more questions than they answered? They did, didn't they? See? I told you that would happen. Very good at predicting what will happen in my own video. It's almost as if I wrote it myself. Now let's look into each system a little bit deeper so we can answer some of the questions you probably have. Names. First question. What are these systems actually called? System A doesn't have an official name. It's clearly some type of socialism, but I'm not really sure what name to give it to differentiate it from other types of socialism. Let's see... Arthur is a cool name, but maybe something more gender-neutral, like Alex? Nah. Fuck it, okay. The key feature of this system is non-transferable currency, so let's just call it non-transferable currency socialism, or NTC socialism for short. As for system B, half of you probably already recognized it as communism, and the other half of you are probably saying, what? Communism? That's not communism. Communism is centrally planned by the state. Most goods are not free, they cost money, and those who don't work are punished, all the opposite of what you said when describing system B. Unfortunately, the word communism has been distorted so badly that it's widely understood to mean something far different than what was originally intended by the original communist theorists who lived way back in the 1800s. Now there's no time to get into it here, but as you watch this video, please remember that the communist society that I describe has absolutely nothing to do with what existed in countries that have been labeled as communist. These countries were or are governed by a communist party, but they never had a communist system. Think of it this way, North Korea is officially called the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, but we know it's not democratic despite that word being in the name. Just because something's labeled democratic or communist doesn't mean that it actually is. Okay, so now that we know what to call each system, let's learn more about them. Starting with NTC socialism As a quick reminder, NTC socialism, which stands for non-transferable currency socialism, is a system that guarantees that everyone has their basic needs met so that no one lives in poverty. Public goods and public services are free and we can supplement this with a universal basic income. But if you want more than that, you gotta earn it by working. Exceptions are made for retirees, for those who are focused on getting education or training for a job, and for those with a disability that makes them unable to work. They receive the same income as the average working person. So that was the review, now let's dive deeper. NTC socialism question one, is there money or markets? So earlier I mentioned that NTC socialism has a means of payment, but I didn't call it money. And the reason I didn't call it money is because it's not money. Pretty good reason not to call it that. Economists generally define money as having three key functions. One, a medium of exchange. Two, a common measure of value or a unit of account. Three, a store of value. There's also a fourth function of money, which is that it looks really cool when you throw it at the camera. In NTC socialism, the means of payment has features number two and three, but it doesn't have feature number one. It's not a medium of exchange. The reason it's not a medium of exchange is because it doesn't transfer. When you buy things with money, you exchange your money for whatever it is you're buying. If for example you want to buy this lovely chia pet, you give your money to the chia pet store and the store gives you the chia pet. Money for chia pets. It's an exchange. But in NTC socialism, there is no exchange. You swipe your debit card and the price of the chia pet is subtracted from the spending points in your account. But those spending points don't transfer to the chia pet store. They simply disappear. You get the chia pet, but the chia pet store gets nothing. No exchange. The fact that there's no exchange also means there's no market because markets are defined by exchange. You give me this, I give you that. You give me products and services, I give you money. You give me chia pets and I as a chia pet fanatic give you my entire life savings. But in NTC socialism, there's no exchange and no exchange means no market. No exchange also means no profit and I'll explain why that is, but first I want to address a question that is probably burning in everyone's mind. NTC socialism question two. How can enterprises pay for their costs? If the chia pet store doesn't get any currency or spending points from the people who buy chia pets, then how can the store afford to pay for their supply of chia pets? Answer, they don't. The store gets all its chia pets for free. In NTC socialism, the only ones who pay are consumers. Enterprises don't pay for anything. Stores don't pay for any of the items on their shelves. Factories don't pay for the materials, parts or equipment that they use to make products. Farms don't pay for land, tools, tractors, seeds or fertilizer. Restaurants don't pay for the food, the drinks, plates or glasses, chairs or tables. Whatever an enterprise needs to operate, they just order it from the supplier and receive it for free. So wait, am I saying that all these materials and supplies and machines, all these factors of production are totally free? For enterprises? Yes. But for consumers? No. The price is paid by consumers, but it's not paid by anyone along the chain of production. So for example, a pencil is made of wood, graphite, rubber, aluminum, yellow paint and glue. A pencil factory must order all these materials and although the pencil factory doesn't pay for anything, the workers at the pencil factory keep a record accounting for the cost of the wood, the cost of the graphite, the cost of the rubber and so on, because that's how they calculate the price of the pencil which consumers must pay. The price of machines and tools can also be factored into the price of goods. Let's say a pencil making machine can, on average, make one million pencils before it breaks. Then the cost of this pencil making machine is divided by a million and each pencil bears one millionth a fraction of that price. If the machine continues working after it's made one million pencils, the price of every pencil it makes from then on can be slightly lower because the cost of the machine has been already accounted for. But if on the other hand, the machine breaks down before it's made a million pencils, say only 900,000 pencils, then each of the next 100,000 pencils, even though they're now made by a new machine, will still have to bear one millionth of the cost of the old machine as well as one millionth of the cost of the new one. But never mind the math equations. The point is that factories and other enterprises get their machines, materials, and so on for free. But workers at these enterprises measure and record the costs of these things at every stage of the production chain because that's necessary to calculate the price of consumer products. So if enterprises don't have to pay for anything, this might make you think, well then, wouldn't enterprises become wasteful with resources? If resources are free to use, they're also free to waste. Well, one thing we could do to prevent waste is we could make it a policy that every enterprise has open books. What does this mean? Anytime an enterprise orders something it needs, when a shirt factory orders cotton and thread, when a farm orders a new tractor, or any other case where an enterprise orders new supplies, it makes a record of it. That's standard practice. What we could do is we could say that these record books that each enterprise has must be open to the public. They must be published on a website for anyone to be able to review. Full transparency. Transparency helps keep people honest. If an enterprise shows a pattern of being wasteful, then there can be an intervention to correct that. This intervention can be done by the workers' council for that industry or by a committee that the public creates specifically for this purpose. NTC socialism question three. How can profit be prevented? Earlier we discussed why profit is a major cause of wealth inequality and the driving force of business practices that cause climate change, death, illness, injury, and other harmful social ills. And I also mentioned the fact that in NTC socialism, profit does not exist. So how does NTC socialism manage to achieve this? It comes down to the fact that the means of payment or spending points don't transfer. As a result, no enterprise can make any income in exchange for its products. Stores don't get income for the products they provide. Factories don't get income for the products they create. Workers at all these places are paid for working, but they're paid for their time. And the enterprise they work at, the store, the factory, or whatever it is, receives no payment at all. If enterprises don't make income, then they can't make profit because profit is the financial gain left after expenses are subtracted from income. No income, no profit. Being unable to make profit makes a profound difference between capitalism and NTC socialism. Profit and the cutthroat competition to maximize profit is at the core of why capitalism is such a harmful and brutal system. This is why it's so important to prevent the means of payment from transferring. But how can we make sure that this is the case? This would probably not work if we use physical currency like bills and coins, because then whoever collects them could easily reuse them, making it too hard to prevent stealing. So instead of bills and coins, we could use something like the debit cards we use today. We could each have our own account, a computerized record of all our spending points. When you use your card to buy something, the price is subtracted from your spending points in your account, and the points don't transfer to any other person, enterprise, or institution. They simply disappear. But it's also possible, even without a computerized system and just using paper, to prevent the means of payment from transferring. We can achieve this by using certificates and punch cards. This idea comes from a 19th century socialist named Edward Bellamy in his novel Looking Backward. I won't get into it here, but it's explained in the video Communist Democratic Planning by Paul Cockshot. Yes, that is his real name. The link is in the video description if you want to watch the Cockshot. NTC socialism question four. How are people paid? Another thing that makes NTC socialism different from capitalism is that workers aren't paid by a business owner or employer, because owners and employers don't exist. Instead, workers are paid by society as a whole and would also be society as a whole that pays everyone their universal basic income. But how could this work in practice? Well, we can set up a computer program to automatically add points to each person's account every week. No state is required. Just some IT people and number crunchers to maintain the system and make sure it runs smoothly. These IT people and number crunchers wouldn't have any special power or privileges. They'd literally just be a payroll department. They don't decide who gets paid or how much they get paid. They don't decide anything. They just make sure the computer program runs smoothly and without errors. But if we want to be extra sure that the people in the society-wide payroll department don't become powerful, we can make some rules to keep them in check. One, the payroll department must make all its records publicly available. Two, payroll department workers must have short term limits. For example, they can only work in the payroll department for a maximum of one year. Three, payroll department workers must be chosen by random selection from a pool of qualified applicants. Four, payroll department workers can be instantly recalled by a public referendum. There you go. That'll keep those IT nerds in check. NTC socialism question five. Should there be exceptions to the rule of currency being non-transferable? As we've discussed, it's very important to prevent spending points from transferring, but every rule needs an exception, right? Though I guess it depends. Like for example, don't let your 7 year old use the stove unsupervised. That's a good rule. But should it be a rule with no exceptions? No, I don't think so. However, don't let your 7 year old use the stove unsupervised to cook meth. That's a rule that you should not bend. Obviously a child should not be cooking meth without close supervision. But anyways, clearly there are many rules that need exceptions. Should the non-transferable nature of spending points be one of them? I can think of two reasons why people might want to have an exception to this rule. First of all, we might want to make it possible for parents to transfer spending points to their young children so that kids can have some independence. We also might want to make it possible to transfer points to an advocacy organization like an animal rights group. On the one hand, I like this idea. Kids should have their own spending points and organizations should be able to get donations to fund their cause. But on the other hand, there's a danger that if we allow points to transfer even in these rare cases, it can become a slippery slope back to money and markets and capitalism. So here are other options that can help us to avoid that. Instead of parents giving kids an allowance, this allowance can be given to kids by society as a whole. Kids would receive a small allowance in the same way that adults receive an income, an automatic deposit in their account. And what about organizations that are advocating for a good cause? How can we donate to them if we can't give them spending points? One possible solution is for organizations to have something equivalent to an Amazon wish list, but without Amazon, of course. Another possible solution will be discussed later in the video, so you'll have to stick around to find out. NTC socialism, question six. How can we make prices reflect real costs? One of the flaws of capitalism is that prices don't measure real world costs. For example, gasoline contributes to climate change, air pollution, the health problems caused by air pollution, and many other things. But these costs are not measured into the price of gas. They're externalities. NTC socialism could remedy this flaw by basing prices on real-world costs. Which real-world costs? Here are some possible ideas. Idea number one, environmental impact. For each product, we can calculate the various impacts it had on the environment, such as how much fresh water was used to produce it, and how much greenhouse gas was emitted. We can measure product's impact on air pollution, biodiversity, the health of soil, and every other environmental impact that we think is important enough to measure. Each type of environmental impact can be quantified into a number measured in points, and then combined to measure the total environmental impact. The worse something is for the environment, the more it would cost. And this gives us a push to consume things that are better for the environment and avoid things that harm it. And if the cost of a product also includes the environmental impact of transporting it from the factory to the consumer, this gives us a push to consume things that are produced locally rather than halfway across the world. Now I'm not claiming this is a total solution to our environmental problems. Taken by itself, this isn't enough to stop environmental destruction. We'd also need to combine it with a general transformation of how we relate to the environment. Idea number two, labor time. When Karl Marx wrote about the first phase of communist society or lower-stage communism, he thought that a product's price should be measured by the labor time it takes to make it and that we would get paid in a currency that represents units of labor time. So for example, if a chair takes one hour of labor time to make, to buy it would cost you one hour of labor time currency. And if a chair is made in one minute of labor time, to buy it would be foolish. Labor is a scarce resource, so basing our prices on labor time can help us to use this resource wisely. So Marx was on to something with his idea. Then again, Marx lived in a time before global warming was threatening to destroy life on Earth, so the idea of prices based on environmental impact never occurred to him. But we don't have to choose between basing price on labor time or basing it on environmental impact. We can combine these costs together into one unified price. We can use an algorithm that combines all the various costs into a single unit of measurement. Idea number three, harm to workers. Another thing we might want to factor into price is harm to the health and well-being of workers. For example, mining is dangerous, physically grueling work that can cause strain, pain, injury, chronic illness, even death. Health and safety standards need to be greatly improved in the mining industry, but even then, mining will probably still be more risky and harmful than most other forms of work. If harm to workers is included in the price of a product, if it's part of the price algorithm, then products that use minerals and metals that are extracted from mines will become more expensive than products that use minerals and metals extracted from discarded or recycled products. And since people prefer to buy less expensive products, the result will be a big reduction in how much mining we do and a reduction in all forms of dangerous or harmful work. This will give us an increased incentive to reuse discarded and recycled products and to also improve our safety, health, and well-being standards in all the various industries and work and jobs that we have and do in society. Idea number four, harm to society. Cigarettes increase the burden on the healthcare system. Alcohol and most other drugs do the same and they also increase car accidents, domestic violence, and so on. And you can probably think of other products that cause social harm besides cigarettes, alcohol, and other drugs. People should be free to use these things if they want, but we might want to discourage it by raising the price according to an algorithm that attempts to measure social harm. These are all just ideas. Like I said, this is not a blueprint for a future society. It's up to future generations, the people alive during and after the creation of a socialist society. They're the ones who will decide how prices should be determined or even if they want to have prices at all. They might want to make everything free, those dirty commies. NTC socialism question seven, how to make supply meet demand for goods and services. Okay, due to popular demand, it's time to discuss supply and demand. The big question for any economic system is the question of supply and demand. How do we make supply meet demand? How do we make sure that the stuff we produce, our supply, matches up with the stuff that each of us needs and desires, our demand. People have many consumer demands. They demand food, they demand housing, they demand dolls, and then grow up to demand other dolls. They demand drugs and therapy and transportation to get to their drug dealers and therapists who are often the same person. They demand everything you can think of and things you rather not think of. To meet these demands, we must provide the supply. But this is harder than it sounds. How do we know what to produce and in what quantity? How do we know what quantity of each product to send to different countries, cities and neighborhoods? How many sex dolls are demanded in Tallahassee, Florida? We know it's a lot, but the specific number? That's unclear. So figuring out how to match supply and demand, that's a very important task for any economic system. But one little caveat or actually one very big-ass caveat is that although we do want to be able to match supply with demand, I don't think we should allow consumer demand to rule our lives. If consumer demand is our absolute number one priority, then other aspects of our life will suffer. Things like spending time with loved ones, getting enough sleep, doing things we find enjoyable and fulfilling, and making sure the planet doesn't overheat and kill us all. In today's capitalist world, most of us are overworked. As a result, we don't have enough free time and we don't have enough energy to make use of the free time that we do have. And to make things worse, many of us have jobs that don't contribute anything all that important to society. If you look at all the goods and services we produce in the economy, many of these things probably aren't worth producing or at least not worth producing in such high volumes. Not when you consider the harm it does to the environment or all the precious hours and days and years of life that people had to waste standing on an assembly line, or packing boxes in a warehouse, or stocking shelves in a store, or staring at a computer screen in a cubicle. If we spend less time catering to every trivial consumer demand, we will gain more free time and more time to do the things that truly matter. Our priority should be our quality of life and although having our consumer demands met does help our quality of life, it's only one factor among many. Okay, so with that in mind, let's return to the question, how do we make supply meet demand? The answer to this depends on whether we're dealing with public goods or goods for individual consumption because each of these involves a completely different method. For the supply of public goods, like schools and parks and subways and roads, the method that NTC socialism uses is participatory planning, but we'll save the discussion of public goods until near the end of the video. For now, let's look at how NTC socialism makes supply meet demand for goods that are for individual consumption. Okay, so when it comes to deciding how much of something should be produced, these decisions are decentralized among the various enterprises or production units throughout the economy, the factories and farms, the mines and offices, and so on. But how will workers in these enterprises know how much to produce? This question is at the core of what is called supply management. Supply management isn't something that socialists made up. It's a set of ideas and practices used by business managers, but it can be adapted for a socialist society. In supply management theory, there are two main approaches to resolving the question of how much to produce. The push method and the pull method. Push method and pull method. Sounds like something Socrates and Plato might debate after too much wine. Well, Socrates, to achieve maximum pleasure, it is irrefutable that one should push it. Push it real good. But, my dear Plato, is it not true that pleasure is more efficiently achieved by simply pulling oneself off? For more on this philosophical debate, subscribe to my OnlyFans. Spoiler alert, the real answer is that pleasure is best achieved by licking power tools. Obviously. When it comes to supply management, rather than pleasure management, the push method tries to predict what consumer demand will be for an upcoming period of time, for the next month or the next year or whatever, and then sets a production quota based on that prediction. So, if a pencil factory is using the push method, they'll be like, well, last month consumers in this city bought 100,000 pencils, and this month the population has increased by 1%, so will increase production by 1%, and produce 101,000 pencils. So, that's the push method, and the pull method, instead of trying to predict future consumer demand, waits for consumer demand to actually happen, and then produces however much is needed to meet that demand. So, if a pencil factory is using the pull method, they'll be like, we just got an order for 500 pencils, so let's get cracking and produce 500 pencils ASAP. Though usually, even pull production won't be quite that last minute. More realistically, the pencil factory will have a stock or inventory of pencils they already produced, sitting on a shelf somewhere. That way, when they get the order for 500 pencils, they can ship those pencils off without hesitation. But then the factory will produce 500 more pencils, so they can replace the pencils that they shipped and restock their inventory. In both the push and pull method, it's essential to keep track of supply and demand, of scarcity and surplus, and this requires a tracking system. Thankfully, we already have one. So, which method is superior? The push method or pull method? Well, neither method is inherently superior. Either one could be better, depending on the situation, which is also the conclusion Plato and Socrates came to, but no, no, we're not discussing that. Get your mind out of the gut, are you filthy animals? The point is, that some types of production are scutable for push production, and others are scutable for pull production. When it comes to supply and demand, we've seen how this works for a single factory, but how does it work when we scale it up to a regional or even global economy? Let's explain with the example of this waifu pillow. As you can imagine, it's very popular, so very soon the store that sells it is running low on its supply. So a worker from the store will order more of these pillows by contacting the factory that makes them. The pillow factory makes more of these pillows and sends them to the store, but now the pillow factory is starting to run low on its supply of materials that are needed to make these pillows. Materials like cotton, fabric dye, polyester, dialectics, and pure Chad energy. And so a worker at the pillow factory will contact the factories that supply cotton, polyester, and fabric dye and say, hey, we need more of this shit. Send it to us ASAP. Each of these factories will have their own stocks of materials that they use for production, and when these materials run low, they do the same thing. They contact their suppliers to order more. This continues until it reaches back to the farms that grow the cotton, the chemical factories that produce the ingredients for fabric dyes, and to the drilling sites that extract petroleum that makes polyester, or if we want to be eco-friendly, to the farms that produce algae, fungus, or crop waste, which can be used to make plant-based polyester. So it's really quite simple. Each enterprise supplies its products to those who order it and orders materials from those who supply it. The result is a horizontal network of communication between enterprises, and it extends from the start to the end of the supply chain, and the same thing occurs for the supply chains of every product. This creates a vast web of communication between enterprises that extends all over the world, creating economic links for the supply of every single product. If this sounds unwieldy or messy or too complex to work in the real world, I got good news for you. It already does work in the real world. This is actually the way it works in the market economy of capitalism. A market economy is organized through the decentralized decisions of producers and consumers. Supply reaches out to demand without needing any planning by centralized bureaucrats. But despite this similarity to capitalism, NTC socialism is very different because it's operating with no profit or profit motive, no markets or market exchange, no bosses, and no capitalist property relations. Now let's consider a problem that might arise in this scenario. When the pillow factory needs to restock its supply of cotton, what would happen if the factory that it usually gets cotton from is not able to provide the cotton? Maybe the cotton factory has too many orders from clothing factories, bed sheet factories, curtain factories, and so on, and is unable to keep up with the demand. One solution is that the pillow factory could just contact other cotton factories and hope that one of them is able to supply the cotton. That's how things would be done in a market economy, such as capitalism. But in a socialist economy, there's another easier solution. The pillow factory can simply contact the workers' council for the textile industry. This workers' council would have information on all the factories that produce cotton, and so the council would know which factories are capable of supplying the cotton that the pillow factory is requesting. The workers' council would also have information on all the factories that produce polyester, fabric dye, and everything else that is used in the textile industry. And this is very helpful because it means that workers' councils will make the process of balancing supply and demand run more smoothly, quickly, and efficiently. In NTC socialism, when the overall demand in society for one thing goes up, it will balance out by a reduction in demand for other things. That's because each person has a limited income or limited purchasing power. So the amount they can consume is limited. So when people consume more of one thing, they can only afford it by consuming less of something else. This frees up workers and resources from producing the things we've lowered our demand for, and they're now available to produce the things that we've increased our demand for. But what do we do in cases where demand for a product exceeds supply? People want to buy more of something that is available. What do we do then? In NTC socialism, we can deal with this by raising prices for whatever it is that's in short supply. The increased price will decrease demand. Which prevents shortages. But the higher price is just a temporary solution until we're able to increase supply. Once supply is increased, we can lower price back to its normal level. In NTC socialism, higher prices give people an incentive to decrease demand. However, higher prices don't give an incentive to increase supply. In capitalism, when a product's price is raised, businesses will tend to produce more of that product. They increase production because higher prices and higher demand means higher profits more money. That's capitalism. But in NTC socialism, it doesn't work that way. Nobody is making profit. This means there's no financial incentive to increase production. So in that case, in an NTC socialist system when demand for a product exceeds supply, how can we ensure that supply will be increased? Well, to increase the supply of a product, we usually need more people to do the job, do the work, of producing that product. So the question is, how do we convince people to go and do that type of work? There are various ways we can achieve this and we will be discussing them, but we're going to save that question for the next section of the video. So back to the issue of raising prices on scarce goods. If we raise prices when something is in short supply, does this mean we should lower prices when something has excess supply? In my opinion, no. Because remember, in NTC socialism, prices represent real world costs, like labor time and pollution. Lowering price will create artificially high demand, causing excess harm to the environment and using up labor and other resources that could instead be used to make things that are in short supply. But, as mentioned earlier, rules are often in need of exceptions and I think that should be the case here. So for example, if food is on the verge of going bad, it's better to lower the price or just give it away for free than to let it go to waste. If we're going to be raising prices on scarce goods, we first need to answer the question, who makes decisions about when to adjust prices and by how much? Knowing when to adjust prices and by how much requires knowing the available supplies and the rate at which stocks of these supplies are depleting or refilling. Therefore, adjusting a product's price should be up to the workers at the enterprise that supplies it, the store, the factory, the farm, or whatever it may be. Or another option is that prices can be adjusted by the local workers' council for an industrial federation. And one last point about raising prices. In NTC socialism, people get essential products like medicine for free because these are included as free public goods. So that means we don't have to worry about people being unable to afford something they absolutely need because of a price increase. Hello there, dear viewer. How are you? I hope that all this explaining has made sense. And just to make sure it's nice and clear, let's review what we've covered by using the example of an unusually hot summer. During this unusually hot summer, workers at the stores that sell air conditioners notice that air conditioners are in short supply so they decide to raise the price. The higher price makes some people decide not to get an air conditioner after all and the demand for air conditioners goes down to a more manageable level. However, the demand continues to be higher than normal. More people are buying an air conditioner and this leaves them with fewer spending points than they would have had if they didn't buy the air conditioner. And so with fewer spending points they must reduce their consumption of other things. And because people are buying less of these other things, the factories that make these other things no longer need as many workers and resources, which means these workers and resources are now available to go off and make air conditioners. Now of course we can't expect that all of these workers and resources will brush off to the air conditioning factories but that's okay because hundreds or perhaps thousands of products throughout the economy will also be experiencing fluctuations in demand for whatever reason and when the picture is taken as a whole workers and resources will flow from industries with shortages to industries with surpluses. And this has helped along because whenever a job is experiencing a labor shortage such as a shortage of people working in air conditioning factories efforts are made to attract more people to that job. And like I said in the next chapter of this video we will explore this mystery of how to attract more people to do a particular job. So if this all sounds similar to a market economy that's because there are similarities and yet it's not a market. A market is a system of economic exchange but NTC socialism has no exchange and because there's no exchange there's also no profit which means we avoid the corrupt, harmful, heartless and predatory behaviors that are inspired by the profit motive. And because there's no profit this also prevents economic inequality because as we discussed earlier in the video vast inequalities of wealth and income are the inevitable result of a profit based system. And if you know Marxist theory you'll also recognize that there's no commodity production and no MCM or money commodity money cycle. And if you don't know what the hell that means never mind it's just for the theory nerds. What we have here is an economy that has the market's best feature supply matching demand without the need for central planning but none of the market's negative features. Hooray! And TC socialism question eight how to make supply meet demand for labor? Balancing supply and demand for goods and services is only possible if people work to make the things we demand and we can't assume they will after all people have free choice over where they work and it might turn out for example that not enough people want to do the difficult work of growing and harvesting coffee. If that happens we'll have a labor shortage in coffee farming and a shortage of coffee. We could just accept the shortage but in many cases we won't be willing to do this especially for things that are essential. So if there's a labor shortage for a particular type of job how can we fix this? In NTC socialism the norm is for everyone to make the same income for each hour of work but if a certain job has a labor shortage the hourly pay for that job can be raised to attract more people to do that job but there's a downside to this pay differentials create social inequality and the bigger the pay difference the bigger that social inequality becomes and the more of a danger it poses to social harmony and social solidarity. It just basically starts to create all sorts of other social problems. Obviously there is a dilemma here so what can we do? For starters we can set a maximum limit on how big pay differences can be. My personal feeling is that anything more than double the normal rate is too much but I'm honestly not sure. Furthermore anytime we raise pay to prevent a labor shortage for a job we can simultaneously try to find other ways to attract people to do that job like for example by improving the work conditions which will make a safer or more pleasant experience to do that type of work and obviously if the working conditions are better then more people will want to work there. We can also do public outreach campaigns to recruit people for particular jobs. This will hopefully allow us to eventually reduce the hourly pay for that job to the normal rate and make everyone's pay equal once again. In other words pay equality would be the norm and pay inequality would only be used as a temporary solution. Let's also remember that education and job training are free and those who are studying or training for a job receive an income equal to the average working person. This will make it much easier for people to go through the years of training it takes to become doctors, dentists, scientists, architects and other such jobs that require a long period of learning. As a result I think we'll be less likely to have labor shortages in these types of jobs. When a job is boring or unpleasant that job can be shared by many people. It might be hard to find people willing to do coffee farming for 30 hours a week but it's easier to find people willing to do coffee arme... coffee arming? But it's easier to find people willing to do coffee farming for five hours a week. If you're only doing it in moderation this can be a pleasant way to get fresh air and exercise. The downside is that this requires more people in total doing the work but since more people would be willing to do it then it would hopefully balance out. So that's how NTC socialism can deal with a labor shortage but what about the opposite? What if a job is so popular that there's an oversupply of people wanting to do it? Should we lower the hourly pay to make the job a less attractive option? In my opinion, no way. Terrible idea. This just creates needless inequality. A better solution is job sharing. If two people are after the same job and that job is 20 hours a week each person can do it for 10 hours and if they want to work more hours they can just find some other job to work at the rest of the time. Job sharing is good one because there's no pay inequality and two because more people have a chance to do what they love. But what if there's an oversupply of people who want to be a surgeon or some other job where a less than top quality performance can have bad or even deadly outcomes? In these cases, I think it's better to just allow the most talented and qualified people to do these jobs rather than to have highly talented surgeons sharing their job with surgeons of mediocre talent. I mean no offense to people with mediocre talent. I'm among you. I'm one of you. I just don't want you operating on my brain. It's in bad enough shape already. NTC socialism question nine. Who decides hourly pay? All of this talk about adjusting the normal rate of hourly pay raises a big question. Who gets to decide what the normal rate of pay is in the first place? The answer is everyone. Society has no rulers, no politicians imposing their decisions on others. So things like this are decided by the public, perhaps through something like a referendum. You might think that we'd be tempted to set our hourly pay at an absurdly high rate, but if we did this and we gave ourselves an absurdly high income, this would require that we work an absurdly high number of hours in order to sustain our absurdly high level of consumption. And we probably don't want to do that because that would be absurd. So how could we decide what our hourly pay should be? There are many different ways we could go about making this decision, but I think we should start by asking qualified experts. Experts? Experts? What? I think we should start by asking qualified experts to estimate consumption levels that are realistic in terms of how much labor it would require us to do, and also a consumption level that's sustainable for the environment. And by qualified experts, I mean people like environmental scientists and whoever the fuck studies statistics on labor and consumption. This is one of those things for which workers' councils could come in handy. These qualified experts could then make a few recommendations for hourly pay that would roughly enable these levels of consumption. They could explain to us, the general public, the consequences that each option would likely have for the environment, and also what it would demand from us in labor. Then we, the members of the public, could discuss these options and meanings and then hold a referendum to vote for the option we prefer. And what if a job has a labor shortage and we need to decide whether to raise pay for that job? Should this also be decided by public referendum? Maybe? But if it became a frequent occurrence, then it would be a nuisance to constantly have referendums about this. If that was the case, then it's probably better for each city or town to have a special committee of delegates who are tasked with making decisions on this issue. But just to be safe, the general public should be able to instantly recall any member of this committee and the public should also have veto power over the decisions of this committee. This ensures that power remains in the hands of the people. All right, enough about NTC socialism. I grow tired of it. It's time for something a little more radical, a little more rad, a little more badass, a little more bad. It's time for free access socialism, which is also called Disclaimer. The following description of communism is not the only way to do communism. Communism is a stateless, classless, moneyless society with no compulsory labor. And within these boundaries, there are many possible manifestations. What follows are just some ideas for how communism could be done. Communism question one, will people work enough? In communism, all goods and services are free. And this is why communism can also be called free access socialism. And another thing about communism is that work is voluntary. No one is forced to work. No one is paid to work. No one is punished for not working. And no one has to work to earn access to consumer goods. Many communists call this the abolition of work and not because people just sit on their ass and never do anything productive, but because work is perhaps not an appropriate word for something that is voluntary. When talking about life in a communist society, many communists don't use the term work and they also don't use the terms worker or workers because they believe these words are tainted with the taint of class divisions and wage slavery. And when it comes to taints, these taints are especially gross, which is why they're taint none of that in communism. So many commies prefer terms like labor and productive activity instead of work and producer instead of worker. But personally, I just prefer the term work and worker because it just keeps things simple. Please forgive me commies. And besides, the word work includes things that are voluntary. Like if I'm painting a picture, I'll say I'm working on a painting. It's a work of art. And there are other uses of the term work as demonstrated in this song by Missy Elliott. Is it worth it? Let me work it. I put my thing down, flip it and reverse it. Missy, don't you know that's anti-communist? It should be, is it worth it? Let me labor it. Come on. But regardless of whether we call it work or labor or chocolate cherry pie, the question remains, will we do enough of it to meet our various needs? I think it's safe to say that most people will want to work. Most people like to do things that are useful and that make a positive contribution to society and other people. Doing this can give you a sense of fulfillment and purpose and a healthy sense of pride or self-respect. But the question remains, will the amount of time that people are willing to work be enough to produce the things we need for a good quality of life for everyone on earth? I'm not psychic, so I can't predict this for sure one way or the other, but there are things we can do in a communist society to make it more likely that people will work enough. So let's have a look at what those are. Solution one, eliminate unnecessary jobs. If we reduce the total amount of work that society requires, then it's easier to ensure that the required amount of work will be done. So how can we do this? Well we can start by stopping all the work that served a purpose in capitalism but is no longer necessary in communism. No more cashier jobs, no more jobs in banking or insurance, no more jobs in advertising or sales, no more building bombs or other weapons of mass destruction to name just some examples. We can also scale back on jobs that produce goods or services that are of such trivial value that they're clearly not worth wasting our time on. Solution two, change our attitude. Remember what I said earlier in the video about how we shouldn't let consumer demand rule our lives? Taking this attitude will also help us reduce the amount of work we need to do. Our priority should not be to maximize our consumer satisfaction but to maximize our overall life satisfaction. Now consumer satisfaction is part of that but it's only one part among many. Solution number three, build things to last. In capitalism, business owners often make products that break down quickly. Sometimes they do this due to just cheap design to cut costs and sometimes they do this on purpose which is called planned ops lessons because when a product breaks or becomes dysfunctional then it has to be replaced leading to more sales and more profit. Either way, it's a waste of resources and labor but in a system that's not based on profit then we can build things to last which means we not only save on resources we also give ourselves less work to do. Solution number four, automation. Another thing we can do is automate jobs by building machines that do the work for us. Yay! In capitalism, automation is our enemy because it destroys jobs but in communism, automation is our friend because it destroys jobs. But I don't think our goal should be to make a world where machines do all the work. That would make life pretty boring and sometimes of work need a human touch like teaching or taking care of sick people. Robots tend not to have good bedside manner. So I don't think full automation should be the goal but we do want to bring down the amount of undesirable and boring work to as little as we possibly can. Let the machines do that and that way the only jobs left for us, the human beings, will be the types of jobs that people find enjoyable and fulfilling. And that brings us to solution number five, transform the nature of work. Another way to make sure people work enough is to change the nature of work so that it no longer feels like work and instead is transformed into something that people enjoy. Imagine the job of digging a ditch for irrigation. It doesn't sound fun, does it? Sounds more like prison labor. But what if you're digging the ditch with your friends? You have music playing, a barbecue going, and if it's your thing, maybe there's a few beers, a little weed. You're chatting, joking around, taking breaks. Digging the ditch might take twice the time but it's time spent having fun. The boundary between work and leisure is dissolved. Now, of course, many jobs cannot be done in such a casual way. Like, I don't want a pilot and co-pilot to socialize over beer while they fly a plane. And I don't want children to watch cartoons while they cook meth. That shit takes concentration. Get back to work, kid. But a lot of jobs can be approached in new ways so that they're more enjoyable. Even in capitalism, there are some factories that have replaced assembly lines with assembly teams and this allows people to interact and socialize while they work. Assembly lines can also be replaced with something called industrial craftsmanship which transforms boring repetitive jobs into something that's more creative and interesting. And of course, in communism and also in NTC socialism, workers are no longer working under the domination of a boss. The employer relationship is gone, it's done, it doesn't exist, and instead is replaced by worker self-management. So this level of autonomy and freedom and just being in charge of yourself, being your own boss, that of course is gonna make work a more pleasant place. Solution number six, variety is the spice of life and work. Another thing that can make work more enjoyable is variety. Many people find it boring to do the same job day after day, week after week, year after year. But what if you could pursue seven, seven? Why seven? Several, several. What if you could pursue several different vocations? This is made easier by the fact that education and job training are free. Imagine a life where every five years you pursued a new passion. You could live several different lives in the space of one lifetime, or maybe you prefer to have variety from one day to the next. Maybe Monday's you work as a chef, Tuesday's you grow food, Wednesday's you make furniture, and Thursday's you teach a computer programming class, or you know, insert whatever you're interested in those slots. Some jobs like teaching children should have a consistent person from day to day. You know, the teacher-student relationship is important, especially for kids. So, you know, you want that bond to be maintained. And there are also some jobs like surgeon that should be only done by people who are highly skilled, which means that it's better to have people stick to that job year after year so that their skill and competence can advance. But many people can find enjoyment in variety, and it's more than just enjoyment. You know, by exploring a variety of interests, we can realize a fuller expression of our humanity. Though, of course, there will be some people, and perhaps many people, who really just enjoy sticking to one thing. And they're, of course, free to do so, if that makes them happy. You do you, bro. The aim is for everyone to feel that their work is something that they enjoy, something that gives them fulfillment. But getting to that point will take time. Although we can, from the very first day of communism, or socialism, begin to improve working conditions, it will be a hell of a long time before we can make all work stop feeling like work. So that brings us to the next question. What have I done? Looks like I've committed a murder. Fucking murdered this painting. Communism question two, how to make supply meet demand for labor. It's one thing for people to be willing to work for free, but it's quite another for them to be willing to do the specific types of work that will provide us with the things we want and need, especially when this work is not exactly pleasant, like collecting and sorting garbage. Some of these unpleasant tasks are necessary to keep us alive. So how can we make sure that they get done? There are several ideas for solutions. Solution number one, rotation. Rotation means that different people take turns doing the same job. We could organize it so that every working person is expected to share in the burden of doing work that's widely considered unpleasant or undesired. Perhaps it's a few hours per week, or perhaps only a few hours per month. That all depends on how much of this type of work there is for us to do. Now, when I say that people are expected to do their share of unpopular work, I simply mean that it's a social expectation. Nobody is forced to do it, and nobody is punished for not doing it, because communism is a free society. Solution number two, public outreach. Whenever there's a labor shortage for an important type of work, we can try to attract more people to that job through public outreach campaigns. A communist or NTC socialist society would have no need to advertise products, but we could use advertising for socially useful purposes like encouraging people to do unpopular jobs. We could also have people who go around town trying to recruit people to do jobs with a labor shortage. Although the U.S. military is an evil, impure list organization, we can learn a thing or two from it about how to recruit people, only we'd be recruiting for more noble causes like cleaning sewers. Solution number three, teaching the value of service. Doing something for someone other than yourself can enable the nourishing and flourishing of compassion, empathy, and a heart-centered mind. It is sometimes said that service is love in action. In a communist society or any society, we should educate ourselves and our children about the historical value of service and the value of caring for each other in our hearts and our actions. If we do this, people will be more willing to volunteer their time, to do whatever work is needed to meet the needs of others. Now, I think that teaching the value of service should not be done by guilt-tripping or by teaching people to neglect their own needs and their own well-being. We don't want people to devalue the self or devalue the individual. Instead, we want to teach that each individual is precious, and that's actually part of why serving others is so important, because we value the individual and we want to make sure that each individual is flourishing and that their well-being is maximized. So I think it's equally important to teach self-love and love for others. These things are not contradictory. They are complementary. Solution number four, improving work conditions. The more unpopular a job is, the more unpleasant it's likely to be. So the obvious thing to do when a job has a labor shortage is to figure out how to make that job a more pleasant experience. Sometimes this will require changes to the physical environment of that job. So like renovations of the building, new machinery, better tools and so on. This all requires an investment of resources. As a society, each year we need to invest resources to improve and maintain the means of production as a whole. And we can make it a priority to invest more resources in improving the conditions for the jobs that have a labor shortage. Solution number five, automation. And last but certainly not least is automation. In my opinion, our goal should not be to automate all our jobs away so that we never work. Instead, we should transform work into something that we actually like doing. Actually enjoying our work, imagine that. This means targeting automation at the jobs that are rejected and despised. Actually enjoying our work, imagine that. Communism question three, how can we avoid over consumption? In communism, everything is free. So how can we avoid over consumption? In other words, how can we make sure that people consume within the limits of what we're able to produce so that we avoid shortages and also the limits of what's sustainable for the environment so that we avoid destroying our planet? Solution number one, ideas we already discussed. One solution is one that we already discussed. Use methods of production that allow us to produce more output with less labor. This can be automation or other labor-saving technologies. Another solution is also one we already discussed. Build things to last. This reduces our work time, reduces our use of resources, and reduces our strain on the environment. Solution number two, environmentally friendly production and consumption. If we want to consume at a comfortable level without harming the planet, then we need to radically redesign production to be environmentally friendly and shift some of our consumption patterns too. Switching to green renewable energy is just the beginning. Making this happen is easier said than done, but it's a lot easier in a system where there's no profit mode of blocking the way and where political power is truly in the hands of the people and not in the claws of a ruling clique of oligarchs who care more about profit than they care about people or the planet. Solution three, reduce the need for individual consumption. One way to reduce the need for individual consumption is to expand and improve public goods and services. A great example of this is to create better public transit and better urban design so that it's convenient, fast, and easy to travel without a car, and that will drastically reduce the number of people who need a car. Another great way to reduce the need for individual consumption is community sharing, and to some extent we already do this, like think of apartment buildings that have a shared laundry room with washers and dryers or maybe a shared gym room full of workout equipment. And libraries are another familiar example. The concept of the library can be expanded for other types of goods besides books. So for example, we can have car libraries. You can just go borrow a car from the car library just like a book and then return it when you're done. It's like car rental but free. This drastically reduces the need for individual car ownership. Already, there are cities that have tool libraries and this concept, this library of things, can be expanded to all sorts of things that you might use only rarely like camping gear or suitcases. If you want to learn more about the library of things, check out Andrewism's video essay We Need a Library Economy. Solution number four, rationing. Even with all the ideas we've discussed, there will no doubt be some goods that are in short supply at least every now and then because this is inevitable in any economic system. Yes, capitalism included. So what can we do when goods are in short supply? We can use a system of rationing. To ration something is to distribute it in a controlled and limited way. Rationing is a way of managing scarcity and there's more than just one way to do it. Here are some examples of rationing methods that we could use and rather than always using the same method, we could use different rationing methods for different situations. Need space rationing. Those who need something get more of it, get it sooner or might be the only ones who get it at all. Waiting lists. This works well for things that there's only a slight scarcity for so that everyone who wants it will get it after a short wait. Lottery slash random draw. This works well for luxury items if there's not enough for everyone to get it by waiting list. Reward. In recognition for someone's exemplary service, their community can award them a scarce luxury. Now, just to be clear, rationing would not be done by a state or by central planners. Instead, it could be done either by delegates on Democratic workers' councils or by committees of delegates from local communities and under the people's Democratic control by way of mandates and instant recall. Rationing does work, but it has to be rare. Too much rationing for too long causes widespread discontent and social unrest. And this is a very dangerous thing. One of the dangers being that it might make people turn back to capitalism. Communism question four. Can production be efficient in communism? Being efficient means not being wasteful, and efficient production means things are produced in a way that doesn't waste resources and keeps production costs low. In capitalism, production costs are measured by their market price in currency such as dollars, pounds, pesos, rupees, yen, and so on. But market prices ignore real-world costs such as impact on the environment or use of finite resources, which means the supposed efficiency of capitalism is false. But that's another story for another time. In NTC socialism, which we discussed earlier, costs are measured in points, and these points are based on real-world costs such as labor time and stress to the environment, while also factoring in scarcity. Measuring costs is important. Measuring costs means we're able to measure efficiency and calculate efficient production methods and thus avoid wasting resources. So in a communist society, how can we measure costs when everything is free? This sounds like a dilemma, but it's not. After all, real-world costs exist even if things are free. If it takes 33 gallons of water to produce one apple, then that apple costs 33 gallons of water. This is true even if the apple is distributed to people for free. And apples also have a cost in terms of land use, labor time, and so on. The point I'm trying to make is that we can measure the cost of something without putting a price tag on it. A communist society can measure the costs of production by using real-world costs such as the amount of fresh water used, the amount of labor time, and any other costs that we decide are important to measure. One way to do this is to use an algorithm that combines all these various costs into a single unit of measurement. Now, reducing everything to a single unit of measurement has an advantage and a downside. The advantage is that it makes things pretty easy to calculate. But the downside is that your calculations, though nice and easy, become less accurate because you're unable to consider each type of cost independently. So people might prefer not to measure costs by a single unit and say to consider multiple costs simultaneously. This is called calculation in kind. Whichever method people use, the point is that even in a communist society where everything is free, costs can be measured to calculate efficient methods of production. This helps us to avoid wasting resources, and it also helps us to figure out how to produce things in ways that are environmentally friendly. Though, of course, efficiency is not the only thing we should care about. We also want to care about the quality of our working conditions, the quality of what we produce, and so on. I want to return to the issue of calculation in kind for just a moment because there are some people who think calculation in kind cannot be done properly or efficiently. This was a big debate among economists in the 20th century, a debate which went by the name the Socialist Calculation Debate and also the Economic Calculation Debate. Now, it is true that calculation in kind requires complex math equations and incredibly vast amounts of information, but grappling with all this is no longer the enormous problem that it used to be thanks to the power of 21st century computer technology. If you want to learn more about this, just Google Socialist Cybernetics or check out the video description for some learning resources. Communism question five, how to make supply meet demand for goods and services? Ah, good old supply and demand. How can we ensure that what we produce matches with what we need and desire? Now, before I say a single word to answer this, please recall my disclaimer from earlier. I'm going to be saying things like, in communism we do it this way and that way, but what I describe isn't the only possible way to do it. There are other ways to do it, other possible positions to take, a whole commisutra of possibilities. So if you think communism should be done differently, that's fine. Tell me about it in the comments section. When it comes to matching supply and demand, there are many similarities between communism and NTC socialism. To determine the supply and demand for public goods, things like healthcare, parks and public transit, both systems can use participatory planning, which is something that we'll be discussing later in the video. And to determine the supply and demand for goods for individual consumption, you know, the various products and services, demand is determined by the choices of consumers and supply decisions are in the hands of the workers at the various enterprises throughout the economy, the factories, the offices, the farms, and so on. Enterprises figure out how much to produce by using supply and management practices, known as the push method and the pull method. The stuff about push and pull was explained when we discussed NTC socialism. So if you want to review that, it's from 54 minutes and four seconds to 57 minutes and 10 seconds of this video. So these are the similarities of how both communism and NTC socialism deal with matching supply and demand, but there are also differences. In NTC socialism, public goods and services are free, but for everything else, consumption is limited by income. If people increase their consumption of a particular product, they spend more of their income on that product, which leaves them with less income to buy other products. Therefore, a rise in demand for one thing is balanced by a reduction in demand for other things, and this frees up workers and resources to transfer from making one thing to making the other. And if demand for a product exceeds supply, its price can be raised. But in communism, none of this applies because everything is free. So how can supply and demand be brought together? Let's return to the example from earlier in the video of the unusually hot summer, which caused unusually high demand for air conditioners. Air conditioners are made from steel, plastic, and other materials. The problem is that thousands of products use one or more of these materials. So if we're going to make all of these extra air conditioners, we'll be left with less steel, less plastic, and less of all these other things to make all of these other products. Now this means that we can only make enough air conditioners if we reduce production for one or more of these other products. Okay, so how do we decide which products to produce less of and by how much? This is the question. Some people think we should make these decisions in meetings, community assembly meetings, or meetings of workplace councils, and then we would vote on what products to produce less of. But that would require attending meetings where we review thousands of products and then debate the merits of producing more or less of each one. We'd be in these meetings for ages. The only escape would be death, though I guess that solves the problem, because once we all die from boredom, then demand for everything will become very low. So what can we do? An idea for a possible solution comes from the libcom.org group. Here's how they describe it. To mediate any scarcity, priority sectors could be drawn up by various participatory means, such as federations of councils, and rotating slash elected recallable delegate committees could handle the minutia. So, for instance, you'd expect basic physiological needs to be high priority and luxury goods to be low priority with a whole spectrum of other goods arrayed somewhere in the middle. In this manner, the total social plan would be emergent and flexible and subject to democratic amendment by means of adjusting the order of priority sectors slash goods. Okay, so to make this a little more concrete, here's an example of how this might go. Each neighborhood can choose a delegate. They can be chosen by an election or by just random selection. And these delegates from the communities or neighborhoods all across a municipal area can form a council. These councils of delegates could rank consumer products from one to 100 in terms of their importance, with the most essential items given a ranking of 100 and the most frivolous luxury items given a ranking of one. Each and every consumer product would have a ranking like this. As a result, workers in factories that produce materials such as steel or lumber or parts such as screws or wood studs or whatever it may be can use these rankings as a guide to figure out what to do if demand for their product exceeds supply. So like, for example, if let's say a screw making factory gets an order for 100,000 screws from an air conditioning factory but then also gets an order for 100,000 screws from a bike factory but they can't make enough screws to fill both orders at the same time, then the workers of the screw factory need to decide how to handle this dilemma. And their decision can be informed by the importance rankings of air conditioners versus bikes. If the importance rankings are the same, they'd probably decide to fulfill half of each order. So like, 50,000 screws to the air conditioning factory and 50,000 screws to the bike factory. But if the importance ranking is slightly higher for bikes, then they might decide to send 60,000 screws for bikes and 40,000 screws for the air conditioners. But if it's a hot climate and thus the importance ranking for air conditioners is much higher, then they might send all 100,000 screws to the air conditioning factory and none to the bike factory. The bike factory would then have to either wait longer to get their screws or they would have to try to find another factory to produce them. And this is something that they could go turn to the workers' council to ask for help with because the workers' council would have information on all the screw factories in the Federation and could find out which had an available supply for them. Now, this idea of using importance rankings is pretty good, but it has some flaws. Sometimes it's obvious that one thing is more important than the other. Medicine is obviously more important than chocolate, even if for some of us, chocolate is medicine. But it's not usually that obvious. Like, how can we decide if air conditioners are more important than bikes? Either one could be more important depending on your personal needs and preferences and how hot the climate is. Every individual has their own opinion on how important something is and this may be very different from the official importance rankings that are decided by a council. So the same exact thing may be essential or frivolous depending on who it's for. If someone wants a flight from Scotland to Barbados to just lay on the beach, that's not that important. But if someone wants the same flight to Barbados to visit a parent who's on their deathbed, this is, I think we can agree, pretty damn important. The libcom.org group somewhat addresses this issue, so I'll quote them again. There are a myriad of ways this scarcity could be managed, each with their own pros and cons. You could also have some form of needs testing, which could incorporate effort. So for example, if the amount of flights were restricted by collective decision on ecological grounds, having relatives abroad or having worked particularly hard could give you a better claim to a flight. Of course, anybody deciding on these matters would need to be mandated, rotating and or elected slash recallable so as to be properly accountable. So that's one way of addressing it, but I still think that if we give consumer items an importance ranking, these rankings will inevitably clash with how important these things actually are to individuals because individuals have wide differences in their needs and desires. Now I'm not saying this is a reason to give up on communism, personally, I think communism is a worthy goal for humanity to aspire to, but there are some challenges that need to be figured out, but hey, NTC socialism has challenges and problems too. And to be fair, I should also say that if we had priority sectors or important sectors for products, this would definitely have benefits. And if you have any doubt, here's a real life example. Currently, there's a global shortage of semiconductors, which are used in products that have computer technology, such as smartphones, digital cameras, TVs, laptops, and also some types of medical devices like CPAP machines and MRI machines. These medical devices are needed to treat medical conditions and even to save lives. But because there's a global shortage of semiconductors, this is causing a global shortage of medical devices. And actually someone who I love very much has needed a CPAP machine for a long time, but it's been unable to get one. So, you know, that shit hits home. Now, it's important to point out that this shortage of medical devices is totally unnecessary because there are more than enough semiconductors to produce all the medical devices that we need. After all, medical devices only make up 1% of the market for semiconductors. But because the market sells things to the highest bidder and only cares about profit rather than people, scarce semiconductors are being used to create the latest iPhone instead of creating life-saving medical devices, which is just like horrible and absurd. But hey, that's capitalism. But if we had a system that used priority sectors and importance rankings, this type of shit that is literally killing people would never occur. With her big giant hands, Anarchy Girl will smack capitalism right out of existence. All right, so, we've explained quite a bit about communism and also NTC socialism. And we still have to discuss public goods and participatory planning. But before we get to that, I have a surprise for you. At the start of this video, I promised to tell you about two economic systems that are alternatives to capitalism. And that's what I've done. But now, I have a bonus third system. Aren't I just so generous? I really spoil you people. This system combines elements of both communism and NTC socialism. I'll start by telling you what it has in common with NTC socialism. This system has plenty of free public goods and services. But other things are not free and must be paid for with income. When we spend our income, it doesn't transfer to anyone else. It just disappears. Also, prices are measured in real-world costs like labor time and environmental damage. And prices can be raised to address scarcity. And now, here's a way this system is like communism. In this system, we don't earn any income for working. Work is unpaid. We don't work for a reward and there's also no punishment for not working. We work because we choose to. That's freedom, baby. And now, here's how this system is unique. In this system, we receive income. But instead of getting our income for working, we get our income just for being alive. Sorry, dead people. You don't get shit. But this is more than just a universal basic income because the income is enough to afford more than just the basics. It's enough to provide as high of a standard of living or as high of a quality of life as we're able to provide without causing shortages of goods and without destroying the environment. So a better term for it is universal full income. In general, everyone would receive an equal income. But if people have special needs that require extra consumption, then they can get more. So that's another similarity to communism. Both systems are based on the principle from each according to their abilities to each according to their needs. Okay, but how much would our income actually be? This would be up to the public to decide by direct democracy. We obviously want it to be high enough to give us a good material standard of living, but not so high that our level of consumption causes unwanted consequences such as harming the environment or causing shortages of goods or pressuring us to work more than we want to. Therefore, to figure out our ideal level of income, we can consult qualified experts who are able to calculate what level of consumption is environmentally sustainable and also what level of consumption is compatible with the amount of work that people are contributing. We can then use this information to guide us in deciding how high our income should be. So there you go. That's a brief explanation of this bonus system. What do you think we should name it? I struggled a lot to come up with a name for it. I went through many options. John, Fred, Shanice, Hailey, Claire, Clifford, Clifford the Big Red Socialist. Finally, I just decided to call it Universal Full Income Socialism or UFI Socialism for short. So now that we've explained three different systems, let's review and compare them to refresh our memory. In all three systems, public goods and services are free. And what about other goods and services? In NDC socialism and UFI socialism, you have to pay for them and in communism, they're free. Next question. What is the means of payment? How are things paid for? In NDC socialism and UFI socialism, we use non-transferable points via a debit card and because points don't transfer, they are not money. And communism has no means of payment because everything is free. Next question. Is there a universal income? In NDC socialism, there can be a universal basic income. In UFI socialism, there is a universal full income. And in communism, no because everything's free. There's no need for income. Next question. Are workers paid? In NDC socialism, yes. In UFI socialism and in communism, no because there's no need for it. Next up. How is supply and demand determined for public goods? All three systems use participatory planning for public goods, which we'll be talking about soon. And a related question. How is supply and demand determined for private goods? In all three systems, demand decisions are made by consumers and supply decisions are made by workers in each enterprise or workers' council. Another related question. How to ensure supply means demand? In both NTC socialism and UFI socialism, prices can be raised when demand exceeds supply. In communism, this does not occur. Instead, each good can be given an importance ranking so that workers know where to send scarce resources. And in all three economic systems, various methods are used to increase the labor supply for jobs with labor shortages, such as public outreach and recruitment campaigns. And in NTC socialism, we can also address a labor shortage for a job by increasing how much that job pays. And finally, each system has the things in common that I mentioned at the start of the video. The means of production belong to everyone, workers are self-managing, profit is abolished, and the political system is egalitarian and libertarian. All right, I hope you enjoyed that review because now it's time for something new. Starting a new enterprise. In any economic system, it's important that people have freedom of choice in deciding the work that they will do. So what about people who don't want to join an existing enterprise? People who instead want to start a new enterprise. People who in a sense want to be entrepreneurs except without the goal of making profit. In communism and also in NTC socialism and UFI socialism, this would be an option that anyone could pursue. But unlike in capitalism, they wouldn't be the owner of the enterprise and also anyone who worked with them would be a co-worker and an equal, not an employee and not a subordinate. Let's say you're a genius, which of course you are. I mean, you watch my channel. And so, being the genius that you are, you've invented a small, portable, solar-powered machine that's extremely efficient at turning dirty, contaminated water into clean drinking water. Well done, you. Now you just need a factory to mass produce it. So how do you get access to one? Can you just call up the workers' council of construction workers and be like, I'd like one factory, please, and make it snappy? My guess is no. We can't just go around building factories for anyone with a wacky idea and a dream. I mean, your water purifying invention sounds great and all, but no offense. How do we know it actually works? I mean, I know it works because you're a genius who watches my channel. But the rest of society doesn't realize what a smartypants you are. Society needs a way to decide who gets access to the resources needed to start a new enterprise. The question is who gets to make this decision and how. In capitalism, people who want to start a business need to convince a bank or private investors to loan the money, which means that in capitalism, banks and rich people are the ones who have the power to grant or deny this permission, which is like not a great system at all. So how would we do it in a communist or socialist society? This of course is not for me to decide, but here are some ideas. And by the way, these ideas could be done in combination rather than using just one. Option one, workers' councils. Anyone aspiring to start a new enterprise can request permission from the workers' council for the relevant industrial federation. So because you want to open a factory to produce a water purifying machine, you would seek permission from the water sanitation workers' council in your town, city, or region. The council would have a committee of delegates who are workers in the water sanitation industry, and this committee is tasked with the responsibility of reviewing requests like yours, so you would pitch your idea to them. Option two, special committees. Every neighborhood, village, town, city, and region could have a committee of people who are delegated with the task of hearing requests from people who want to start their own enterprise and deciding who will be granted access to the resources they need to do so. For a large factory that requires a lot of resources, this could be decided by a committee at the level of the city or region. But for a smaller enterprise, like let's say opening a restaurant, this could be decided by a neighborhood committee or a village committee. The power of these committees should be kept in check. Members of the committee should be rotated, serving for short term limits, and the public should be able to recall them by a recall vote. Option three, multiple committees. I think we shouldn't give just one single committee all the decision-making power for approving new enterprises. Not everyone can recognize a good idea when they see it, especially when that idea goes against the established orthodoxy, and it would really suck if the next great invention didn't get a chance because the committee turned it down, and then that inventor had nowhere else to turn. In a capitalist society, if you're trying to get a loan to start a business, you have options. If one bank turns you down, you can try another. If the banks turn you down, you can pitch your idea to private investors. A socialist or communist society should give people options too. So in my opinion, each city or region should have multiple committees tasked with approving new enterprises. That way, if one turns down your idea, you can always try another. Option four, merging with an existing enterprise. What if the committees reject your request to start a new enterprise? Well, another option is you can find an already existing factory that would be capable of producing your invention. You can just go talk to the workers there and try to convince them that your invention is worth mass producing. If they agree, then you can join the team and see your dream come to life. If they don't agree, you can just go talk to workers at another factory and try again. Option five, crowdfunding, but not quite. In an NTC socialist or UFI socialist society, perhaps we could make it possible to obtain the resources to start an enterprise by doing something similar to crowdfunding. And I say similar to crowdfunding because it would be somewhat different. Nobody can donate spending points to you because spending points cannot be transferred. So then, how would crowdfunding be possible? Here's one idea that I came up with. There could be a website similar to Kickstarter or GoFundMe, where anyone who wants to start an enterprise can create a web page. So let's say you start a web page like this because you want to access a factory to make your water purifying machine. People who want to support your cause can then go to this web page and use their spending points to purchase votes of confidence. One spending point equals one vote of confidence. These votes of confidence aren't really anything. They're just proof that someone gave enough of a shit about your dream to part with a bit of their purchasing power. And their spending points don't transfer to you or to anyone. And the people who spend their points don't get anything in return. The vote of confidence isn't like a trophy that you can just put on your shelf. It's just a little number on your web page that keeps track of how many votes of confidence you have. The goal is to amass enough votes of confidence that their equivalent value in spending points is equal to the value of the resources that you need to start your enterprise. If you're able to obtain enough votes of confidence, then the Industrial Federation will grant you access to the resources that you need to start your enterprise. Hooray! Now, just to be very clear, you're not purchasing these resources and you won't own the enterprise or the resources. You've earned the right to use them, but that's it. I like this idea of purchasing votes of confidence because it would also give people a simple way to donate to an advocacy organization like an animal rights group. However, I do think there's a little bit of a risk to this kind of thing. So if we did allow it, then we'd have to keep a close eye on it to make sure that it didn't become a slippery slope to the return of money. All right. I hope you liked those ideas and feel free to add your own in the comments. And now, it's finally time for Public Goods and Participatory Planning. Okay. So now we've finally come to the topic of public goods, healthcare, education, mass transit, road repairs, road construction, and so on. In today's world, politicians and state bureaucrats are the ones who decide which public goods and services will exist, which ones won't exist, and they also decide how much funding each public good and service will get. If our political rulers want to cut the education budget and increase the military budget, they have all the power to do that, and we have no power to stop them. And they also decide where these goods and services will be located. If they want to give one part of town freshly paved roads and beautiful parks, while the other side of town falls apart, they can do as they please, and we have no say. But it doesn't have to be this way. Instead, we can have a society where people have the power to choose what public goods and services exist in their community, and choose how much funding or resources these goods and services get. You know, self-determination. Giving the people who live somewhere the power to decide what that somewhere should be like. What a radical idea. And this idea has a name. Participatory planning. Sounds good. But can participatory planning work in real life? Can large populations of people collaborate to make plans and decisions for public goods and services? Well, the good news is that this has already been done and done successfully, many times and in many places. Participatory planning in Kerala. Many examples of participatory planning were, ironically enough, done as a government initiative, which might seem contradictory, but what matters in these cases is that the government stepped aside and put decision-making power directly into the hands of the population, into the hands of ordinary people, thus showing that people can manage these decisions themselves without hierarchical government. One of these examples comes from Kerala, which is a state in India. From the years 1996 to 2001, the government of Kerala decided that 35 to 40% of the government's budget would be handed over to the public. All across Kerala, people took part in assembly meetings where they decided how best to use this money for the betterment of their community. What did this mean in practice? A typical example can be found in Penjel, a village with a population of about 5,900 people. Here are some of the plans that the people of Penjel came up with for their village. Improving the irrigation system by repairing several canals and ponds. Improving conditions for local farming of rubber and coconuts. Repairs and renovations for the village high school, an idea which was recommended by the teachers and school staff. 65 specific road repairs with specific instructions for the exact locations these repairs were necessary. Rerouting electrical lines away from rice fields so that it's safer for farmers to drive their tractors in the fields. Installing solar powered street lights. Installing high efficiency cooking stoves in homes. And constructing a museum of local artifacts both for local enjoyment and to attract tourists. You might think that none of this seems all that impressive but what makes it special is that these plans were drawn up by members of the community and as a result they reflected the needs of the community much more accurately than they would have if the government had drawn up its own plans. When politicians or government bureaucrats are in charge of public goods and services they often don't have a clue what each community actually needs. And even when they do have a clue they often don't have a fuck. I mean give a fuck. Politicians be like What? People need affordable housing? But I can afford my house? I guess I can also afford not to care. But when power is in the hands of the people the needs of each community can be better served because nobody has a better understanding of what a community needs than the people who actually live there and nobody has a better will to make sure that those needs are met. So that's how things went in the village of Parash. Parash is just one village in Kerala but this use of direct democracy to design plans for public goods took place across the entire state of Kerala. It was called the People's Campaign for Decentralized Planning and a total of three million people participated. Three million? That's a lot of people and it proves that direct democracy isn't just for small groups. Direct democracy also works with large populations. Each meeting has to be small enough so that people can have a discussion and participate. But by organizing councils of delegates we can link together networks of local direct democracy that extend across large populations. So how was this done? Stage one neighborhood assemblies create project ideas. In stage one neighbors gathered together in assemblies. These were meetings in each local community and anyone and everyone who lives in the community was invited to attend. Except for the children of course they're a bit too young and also they had to stay home to cook meth. In these assemblies people discussed the problems and needs of their community and they brainstormed ideas for projects to solve these problems and meet these needs. So what I mean by a project idea is any sort of public good or service that can address a need or solve a problem of a community. I remember earlier when we were talking about the village of Panjale so an example of a problem or need of the community would be that it's very dark at night but there's not like an electrical grid to connect to. So a project idea would be to install solar powered street lights and that's exactly what they did. Okay so after coming up with this list of project ideas each assembly elected delegates who would then continue on to stage two. Stage two Delegates combine, amend and select project ideas. In stage two delegates from all the local assembly meetings in a city district or village came together for their own meeting. Each of these meetings was attended by about 250 to 300 delegates. So in each meeting you had delegates from many different city districts and villages and each delegate had a list of problems, needs and project ideas lists that had been created during stage one in their own local community assembly. As the delegates compared their lists they found lots of overlap and they were able to improve on project ideas by combining ideas from different assemblies and also adding a few touches of their own. After carefully reviewing all the project ideas they chose the ones that they thought were best and dropped the rest. Stage three Turning project ideas into detailed proposals. In stage three delegates took the project ideas from stage two and turned them into detailed proposals. They had to find out what was needed on a technical level and calculate the financial costs. To achieve this daunting task the delegates had help from about 4,000 retired engineers, architects, doctors and other experts who offered their services for free. Stage four Selecting project proposals In stage four the delegates presented the project proposals to the local government for their village or urban district. In total there were 150,000 project proposals. Less than half were chosen. The rest were dropped because there wasn't enough money. In Kerala it was the government that had final say over which project proposals would be actually used. But if we were in a stateless society this could be instead done by the local assemblies or by the councils of delegates. Or better yet all the projects could be approved because we wouldn't be on a budget of austerity. So that was the people's campaign for decentralized planning. It put public spending into the hands of the public. Imagine that. Public spending decided by the public. You mean it actually lives up to its name? So what were the results? According to anthropology professor Richard Frank who specializes in studying and researching life in Kerala participatory planning in Kerala resulted in improved public goods and services and an overall improvement in quality of life. According to research by Professor Frank some of the biggest and best advancements were seen in improving health care, education, housing, sanitation and access to clean drinking water. And participatory planning also drastically cut down on corruption. In other words the people of Kerala were much better at figuring out how to meet their own needs than the government had ever been. More examples of participatory planning. Kerala is not the only place that has done participatory planning. It's also been done in over 1,000 cities in towns around the world. You can read about this on the Wikipedia page for participatory budgeting. The original example of participatory budgeting took place in Porto Alegre a city in Brazil with a population of 1.5 million. So how did that turn out? Well, a study by the World Bank concluded that thanks to participatory planning the city of Porto Alegre improved its living conditions especially for people in poverty. These positive findings have been confirmed by other research. One study examined Brazil's 250 largest cities nearly half of which had adopted participatory budgeting. The study found that in cities that used participatory budgeting for at least eight years infant mortality dropped by nearly 20% and this was controlling for other political, economic, and social factors. Another study also found this connection between participatory budgeting and decreased infant mortality. They said the reason for this is because participatory budgeting leads to better investment in healthcare, sewage infrastructure, and other public goods and services that improve quality of life especially for the poor. Criticism Now as much as I love these cases of participatory planning they're not ideal examples. Although participatory planning in places like Kerala and cities in Brazil has definitely improved public goods and services the improvements have been limited and these places continue to have many ways in which their public goods and services are inadequate, deficient, and just plain not good enough. In Porto Alegre, in Kerala and in other such cases people's power to fulfill their needs and the needs of their community is constrained. It's constrained because the government has the final say over which plans are put into practice and which are rejected. It's constrained because the government only lets people control a fraction of the budget 35 to 40% in Kerala and less than 20% in Porto Alegre. And it's constrained because the capitalist system creates conditions that make the size of the public spending budget pathetically small and inadequate. In capitalism, participatory planning becomes an exercise in participatory austerity and being given the power to self-govern your own poverty is not very empowering. Thankfully, there are other examples of participatory planning which, although far from perfect, come closer to what it would be actually like in a stateless, classless society based on freedom and equality. Now, please note I say that they come closer. I'm not saying that these are stateless, classless societies. Present-day examples include the Zapatistas who control an autonomous region in the Mexican state of Chiapas and also the Democratic Confederalist movement in Rojava, an autonomous region in Syria. But my favorite example comes from the past, the Spanish Revolution. Participatory planning in the Spanish Revolution. The Spanish Revolution was a social revolution in Spain that began in 1936. It was a revolution created by workers and peasants many of who were members of a labor union called the CNT which was a union based on the principles of syndicalist anarchism. The revolution ended when it was destroyed by a fascist military dictatorship in 1939. But before its tragic end, the Spanish Revolution achieved some wonderful things. These achievements include trying out new ways of organizing society based on anarchist principles of liberty, equality, and mutual aid. And there were also achievements of lifting people from poverty, raising quality of life, and advancing economic development. Let's take the example of Levante, which is a region in the east of Spain. Here are some of the improvements to the Levante region that were made during the revolution. And they were not made by the state. They were made by peasants and workers. Constructing irrigation on a large scale to improve farming. Constructing a huge dam to bring water to over 1 million thirsty almond trees. Improving farming techniques by crossbreeding plants, transplanting, and other recommendations made by agronomists. Building new housing, building new roads, building barns, stables, pigsties, and poultry houses. Creating health clinics, creating schools for children, creating schools for adults, for everything from basic literacy to advanced professional skills. Providing aid to refugees who were displaced by the civil war that was going on in Spain at the time. This aid took the form of food, housing, and supplies. Also, providing food and supplies to the soldiers fighting in the civil war against the fascist army. And establishing a center for the scientific study of plant diseases and tree culture. These projects may sound simple and humble, but they were a very big deal because back then in the 1930s, Spain was a poverty stricken and underdeveloped country. Peasants in Spain were at a standard of living, no better than it had been back in the Middle Ages. Each of these projects began as a plan, and so who created the plans for these projects? It was the result of a collaborative effort. The plans were made by workers who had been elected by their co-workers to serve in administrative commissions. The plans were also made by peasants and villagers in the directly democratic assembly meanings of their village. And these assemblies existed in hundreds of villages, and the plans were also made by delegates of workers and peasants elected from each village, delegates who gathered in congresses that took place twice a year. In other words, the plans for these projects were created by a process of participatory planning. Public spending decided by the public? And it wasn't just the levante region where public works and public goods were the result of participatory planning. No, no. In other areas of Spain, village collectives and their federations built water mills and flower mills, constructed housing and barns, irrigated farms and reforested land, made factories more productive and built new factories, repaired roads and paved new ones, improved hygiene, and much more. Improved hygiene? Well, I could do with some of that. You think that making two-hour video essays leaves me with time to shower? Well, god damn doesn't. Just to be clear, improved hygiene actually doesn't mean that they got more people to shower. Hygiene issues are about dealing with sewage, you know, human waste, animal waste, manure, shit, basically, in an underdeveloped country that doesn't have plumbing is a very important issue to deal with because if you don't deal with it properly, you could have a call or an outbreak. That can actually be a matter of life and death. So, you know, dealing with hygiene is a very important thing. All of these projects were planned, organized, and implemented, not by the government, but by workers and peasants. To quote Gaston Laval, a historian of the Spanish Revolution, the peasants demonstrate more intelligence than all of the bureaucrats in the Ministry of Agriculture combined. Zing. Amazing progress was also made in education. Back then in the 1930s, many people in Spain lived in villages with no school, and not many people were able to read or write. But during the Revolution, village collectives opened hundreds of new schools, and for most students at these schools, it was their first time in their lives getting an education. The Spanish Revolution brought education to both children and adults. Village collectives organized literacy classes for adults, and they also opened adult schools, specializing in accounting, agricultural science, and other practical and professional skills. Before the Revolution, not only did many villages in Spain not have a school, they often didn't have access to a health clinic. But during the Revolution, just as people were going to school for the first time, many also got healthcare for the first time. The greatest achievements were in Catalonia, a region in the northeast of Spain, where healthcare workers brought their services to every single village, every single hamlet, and even to isolated peasants living in the mountains. And cities also made great strides in healthcare. For example, Barcelona, Spain's biggest city, established six new hospitals. And again, I must emphasize that these advances in healthcare, education, and economic development were not done by politicians or by the state, nor by the capitalist class or entrepreneurs. These achievements were brought to life by workers self-managing their industries, and by peasants and common people self-governing their communities. It was achieved by liberated people working together for their mutual benefit. The Spanish Revolution has many more achievements that I would love to discuss. Although this revolution has flaws and mistakes, I think it's the best example in history of a socialist society, not a fully developed one, but a work in progress. I'll save it for a future video, but in the meantime, if you'd like to learn more about the Spanish Revolution, check the video description for some recommended learning resources. Public spending budget In communism, all goods and services are free, whether they're public goods or individually consumed private goods. So when it comes to creating a budget for public spending, communism doesn't really require any extra explanation. But NTC socialism and UFI socialism do require some explaining, so let's get to it. Any socialist society worthy of the socialist name will provide public goods for free. Individuals don't pay. Instead, the cost is paid for by the public as a public expense. So for example, a city or municipal federation could pay the costs of healthcare, dental care, child care, education, firefighting services, and other public goods for the city. A regional federation could pay for public goods in the region that aren't limited to a particular city or town, so things like highways, trains and train tracks, power plants, forest management, and so on. And of course, public goods would not be paid for with money, but with non-transferable spending points. The means of payment does not transfer, it does not circulate. When spent, it simply disappears. Okay, so this is all simple enough, but it does raise some questions. Question one, how would a neighborhood, city, region, or country be able to pay for the costs of public goods? We're assuming that this is a society with an egalitarian and libertarian political system, which means it's also a society with no state. But no state means no taxation, and without taxes, how can public goods get funding? To answer this question, we should first refresh our memory on some details of NTC socialism and UFI socialism. Public goods and public services are free, but private or personal goods and services must be paid for. You buy things with non-transferable spending points that you access by using a debit card. Each person has an account with all their spending points, and every week, new spending points are deposited into your account by a computer program. The computer program runs automatically, but there are IT workers and number crunchers who serve as a society-wide payroll department. This payroll department doesn't have any decision-making power, its only job is to make sure the computer program runs smoothly. Okay, so now that we've refreshed our memory, we can explain public spending for public goods. The same computer program that deposits spending points into each person's account could also deposit spending points into public accounts that exist for public spending. So for example, a city or municipal federation could have its own account with its own spending points that it uses for public goods. This could be replicated at every level. Every neighborhood assembly and village assembly could have an account for public spending as could federations for every town, city, region, or country. And along with these public accounts, every neighborhood, village, town, city, region, and country can have a webpage where we can see how many spending points are available for public spending and also see a record of everything these points were spent on. That way we can make sure that the budget is spent in the way that we democratically agreed to spend it. In other words, full transparency. So now we have answered the question, how can we fund public goods without taxes? There's no need for taxes because spending points are simply created by the software or computer program and deposited into the public accounts for our community, city, region, or country. But that leads us to another question. Question two, how can we decide the size of the public spending budget? Our public spending budget can be any size we choose to make it. This would be something people would decide together through some form of direct democracy. One way we could decide this is we could ask qualified experts to assess the labor requirements and environmental impact of different amounts of spending. And then, based on that assessment, make a few recommendations for how big they think our public spending budget should be. People could then vote in a referendum for which option they prefer with each recommendation being put as an option on a ballot. And we could also do ranked choice voting for this, which I think is generally a better way to do things. Another option is a referendum where everyone writes down their preferred amount for the public spending budget and then we just calculate the average. So those are a couple of ideas for how we could decide the total size of a public spending budget. But this still leaves us with another question. Question three, how can we decide the budget size or amount of funding for each public good? How much should we devote to health care? How much for education? How much for public transit? Parks and Recreation, etc. By now you know the answer. People can make these decisions together through direct democracy and participatory planning. And as we've already seen in Kerala, in Porto Alegre, and in the Spanish Revolution, participatory planning works. Wrap up. Hey there. I'm so glad you watched this far in the video. It's been such a long one. We examined two alternatives to capitalism in a decent amount of detail. We briefly covered a third alternative and we even got to look at the sexiest pillow no one demand. I hope this video has added your understanding and clarity of what a socialist or communist society could be like and how it could work. Not as a blueprint for a future society, not as a perfect plan for how things should be, but as ideas and imaginings of what is possible. And I hope it helped convince you that yes, a viable alternative to capitalism is possible. But maybe it didn't. Maybe none of the alternatives I presented satisfied you. Maybe none of them seemed to you like they would work. If that's how you feel, don't give up the search for an alternative. Look into the Spanish Revolution and other examples from history. Look into other theories and proposals that people have thought up and wrote down. And also, do some writing and thinking of your own to see what ideas you can come up with. If nobody else has a solution that satisfies you, try to think of a solution yourself. I mean, why the fuck not? You're a genius, right? You watch my channel. I know you could do it. A better world is possible as is a better economic and political system. Think of the amazing things humanity has achieved. We've invented air travel, space travel, computers, cures for diseases, all kinds of amazing and amazingly complicated difficult achievements. So don't tell me that we can't figure out how to make socialism or communism work. Of course we can. I'm not saying the world can become a perfect utopia, but with time and experimentation, we can create a world that will look like utopia in comparison to what we have now. Think of any of the great inventions in human history. Behind this great invention and every great invention is a long process of trial and error, a long history of failed attempts, a pile of prototypes that were full of glitches and bugs that needed to be worked out, and always a chorus of voices who claimed that this potential invention was a pipe dream that could never be achieved. But with time, patience and persistence, trying again and again after each failure and learning from past mistakes, eventually something amazing and wonderful is created. So far in history, our attempts to create a viable alternative to capitalism have failed. But this is normal in any process of innovation. So I know this video has probably raised more questions than it answered, but in future videos, I'll be doing more videos on alternatives to capitalism and I'll try to answer many of those unanswered questions. So please, if you have a question or 10 or 20 questions, ask me in the comments so I can attempt to answer your question in a future video. And I don't just want your questions, I also want your doubts, your comradely critiques, and even your ruthless criticisms. Don't be shy, don't hold back, you're not going to hurt my feelings. If there are flaws or weaknesses in these alternative economic systems, I really want to know what they are so that we can think of ways to improve them. And I'd especially love to get your feedback if you've done in-depth study of economics, because although I've taken an economics course and I've read some economics books, I'm certainly no expert. And there's one economist in particular that I have in mind that I'd like to hear from and that's the YouTuber Unlearning Economics. Unlearning Economics is a heterodox economist who's done a YouTube series called Bread Tube versus Economics where they critique things that left-leaning YouTubers have said on the topic of economics. So I would love, love, love if Unlearning Economics made a response video to this one. I'm sure that I would learn a lot from it and it would also encourage more people to do some deep and serious thinking about alternatives to capitalism, which if there was ever a topic that people should be doing deep and serious thinking about, this is it. And you, dear viewer, can help me make this dream come true by sending a link to my video to Unlearning Economics on Twitter at Unlearn Econ. So, Unlearning Economics, if you're watching this, thank you for watching and I hope I can look forward to hearing your ruthless criticism. I know this video is too long to respond to everything, so maybe you can just focus on something that you think is most important to criticize. If you're interested in learning more about what a libertarian socialist or communist society might look like, I highly recommend checking out an Anarchist FAQ, which is available for free online, link in the video description. And make sure you check out Section I, which has the title What Would An Anarchist Society Look Like? Now, I don't agree with everything it says, but it is a great learning resource and you can also check out a pamphlet called Paracon or Libertarian Communism, which is a debate in written form by advocates for libertarian communism who are debating advocates for a socialist economic system called Participatory Economics. I've also been told that another great learning resource for socialist or communist economics is the podcast General Intellect Unit, but I've only listened to a couple episodes, so I can't give it my personal seal of approval. Links for all of these things are in the video description. Hello again, my dear viewer. Do you want to see a world beyond capitalism? To get there, we will need to take action on a mass scale, but we're only going to take action to get rid of capitalism if we believe we have something worthy to replace it with. This is why spreading the word about alternatives to capitalism is so important. It's why I made this video and why I hope this video will be seen by as many people as possible. If you want to join me in spreading this message, there are a few easy things that you can do. If you click thumbs up and leave a comment, this tells the YouTube algorithm to recommend this video to more people. And you can also help by sharing this video with people you know. By spreading the message about alternatives to capitalism, we inch ourselves closer to creating a better world. A world where humanity can truly flourish and the beauty of life can truly shine. A world that is already alive within our hearts. And humanity honestly really does need your help in spreading this message. So thank you for being part of this. I also have some personal news. After making YouTube videos for three years, I finally decided to start a Patreon account at patreon.com slash one lucky black cat. And you can also give donations by PayPal or Kofi. Links are in the video description. Your support is important because it will help me to keep making videos like the one you just watched. So thank you so much. And as always, thank you for watching. Love, you deserve compassion and empathy. You have something unique to offer the world. There is love deep in your heart. You have power to make a difference. The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards communism.