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Joe Corbett has been living in Shanghai and Beijing since 2001. He has taught at American and Chinese universities using the AQAL model as an analytical tool in Western Literature, Sociology and Anthropology, Environmental Science, and Communications. He has a BA in Philosophy and Religion as well as an MA in Interdisciplinary Social Science, and did his PhD work on modern and postmodern discourses of self-development, all at public universities in San Francisco and Los Angeles, California. He can be reached at [email protected].

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Integral Money and the Self-Development Economy

Joe Corbett

Let's be clear, the current DOGE (the Elon Musk headed Department of Government Efficiency) goal of gutting state institutions will not save tax payer money because federal taxes don't pay for anything anyway in a fiat currency economy (and I thought Musk was supposed to be a genius). In practice, federal taxes are simply deleted from paychecks, and other tax payments are burned after being received and recorded by the IRS. Then when the government needs to spend on anything it simply reissues the currency by electronic keys. There is no tax-payer revenue bank account anywhere that is drawn on for spending. The Fed simply issues whatever amount of currency the government needs, including “tax refunds”, and that's it. That's how money creation works in a fiat currency economy. What cutting government agencies will do however is remove any controls and regulations on capital for the tech-bro billionaires. Nature and wage labor, run (or fight!!) for your lives!

What DOGE will also do is send tens of thousands of former administrative and white collar employees into the private sector, increasing the supply and therefore decreasing the wages of workers in office and service jobs across the board in the private sector. How convenient for corporations and the billionaires! In addition it will at least temporarily shrink the economy, while simultaneously providing justification for cutting taxes on the wealthy because of the “savings” from cutting “wasteful” government programs. And because many of the displaced government workers will not find comparable jobs in the private sector, the economic shrinkage is likely to be long term and permanent, especially since tariffs are unlikely to bring back industry and factories to America any time soon, if ever, in a global economy.

But if there is one good thing that could come out of the gutting of state institutions and the decimation of the economy for ordinary workers, besides eliminating departments and programs like USAID that fund coups and imperialism, it would be the implementation of an Artificial General Intelligence and Universal Basic Income economy of free time and self-development for all rather than wasteful production and consumption of things we don't need, working in bullshit jobs we shouldn't be doing, mostly for the benefit of the few. Sorry, liberal elite corporate-masters for “meritocratic achievement” in the rat race of subservient wage-slaves, your time is up — the autocratic ubermensch of the Chump-Muskrat has arrived. But how might this best case scenario come about, and what could be the implications for society, the individual, and the planet?

First of all, after decades of trickle down neoliberalism and the hollowing out of economic fundamentals with global financialization of the economy, the final collapse of the American economy has now been cast with the political choice to slash social spending and gut jobs alongside tariffs that will only make the cost of living even higher. Since the oligarchs can only think about themselves, and the extra cash they'll have stashed away from the tax cuts they'll receive, most of them have no idea what their actions are doing to others and the turmoil it's causing for ordinary people, and therefore they will be caught off-guard when there are uprisings against their austerity program that appears to be modelled after the Hunger Games television series, in which people are forced to fight to the death in conditions of meagre resources in order to survive. As a result, the oligarchs will have to think quick to avoid the guillotine, or Luigi-like assassinations, and the obvious solution will already be on hand in the form of the Universal Basic Income that even the tech-bros themselves have advocated for.

Alongside the political downsizing of the American workforce and the rising cost of living, there is the rise of AI and AGI that will rapidly replace workers in increasing numbers in both blue collar and white collar jobs in virtually every area work, from taxi and truck drivers to scientific researchers, and from doctors and engineers to legal assistants and teachers. This poses a dilemma for corporate America and the political stability of society. Who will be able to buy the goods and services of the economy without much work even in the middle and upper class professions, and what's then going to prevent people from coming after the oligarchs with pitchforks? Again, a UBI in a fiat currency system, where taxes are not needed for social spending and AGI robotics does most of the work in society, will be the logical if not the only alternative to societal collapse and revolution.

Of course, a UBI cannot provide people with a life of luxury and the dream formerly known as the American Dream, as even fiat currency is limited by the resources it can purchase without causing inflation. However in a moderate but sufficient amount that will not leave people impoverished, it can provide a secure foundation for those who either want to continue pursuing the riches of the A-Dream, or those who want an alternative lifestyle to the daily hustle of the rat race and who would prefer to pursue a hobby of personal interest and/or self-development. Instead of working 5 days a week from morning dawn to evening dusk as a means to the end of enjoying ones weekend, one could enjoy each-day-all-day in pursuit of ones heart and bliss rather than things and objects that are rapidly destroying the planet and ones own health.

A UBI, especially if some kind of self-development incentive was attached to it, would create the conditions of a cultural economy for a new renaissance in art and innovation of all kinds, including sporting, community, and political activities of various kinds that nobody has the time, energy, or imagination for in our current wage-slavery system. To help people pursue this path rather than only the consumer path of the A-Dream or sitting on the couch all day watching television, classes in the arts, sciences and humanities at open universities, schools for extended and vocational education, and other group activity centers could be established and supported as an alternative form of government service to people, creating an educational self-development economy instead of CIA psyops and coups in foreign countries. And remember, none of this would depend for its funding on the amount of taxes collected by the government!

For good reasons many people are concerned about a surveillance state that Ellison, Musk, and Zuckerberg are proposing as part of the AGI political economy, as that has the potential to become big brother in the Orwellian sense if constraints aren't placed on it. Do you have the wrong views, or are you not parroting the pentagon narrative about Russia and the Middle East? Sorry, no UBI for you. And so the authoritarian nightmare ensues. Hence the need for constraints on how the tech-bros will construct the AGI-UBI economy so they won't re-enslave us all is at least as urgent as the need for constraints on AGI itself so that it won't end humanity.

But on the “brighter” side of surveillance, isn't self-monitoring of ones behavior and conscience that such surveillance would surely inculcate in people thru panoptical discipline, better than the police state of physical intimidation and administrative brutality we (Americans) currently live under along the lines of what we do to the rest of the world with our bullying? We won't need a large police or administrative state if we have a surveillance state. We won't need an army of bullies if we have an inner conscience to behave with empathy and respect for one another. That's the trade-off for maintaining civilized control over our lesser natures, provided such control is warranted, and inculcating the inner conscience that many without an authority figure in their life (because of high divorce rates and single motherhood) never developed.

This is something that Foucault would probably roll over in his grave about. But imagine if you will surveillance systems that would inculcate self-creation, empathy, compassion, and ethical dissent rather than just self-control and conformity to norms. That would be more in line with what Foucault himself was saying when he spoke about the need for creating a new ethics of the self beyond the ethics of modern normativity. Indeed, surveillance systems could become the means for implementing Nietzsche's revaluation of values, and hence creating the ubermensch thru a surveillance technology of the self! God willing, the tech-bros will have read and carefully considered for implementation the issues in at least the last three paragraphs above.

PS — I'm available for consultation.