The elusive goal of social and economic equality

Day 6,092, 11:28 • Published in USA USA • by PlasticAlley

From the beginnings of human life in this planet, the most important issues for mankind,
have been access to resources and reproduction.





Humans started to address these issues at first, usually with the application of brute strength and violence.
(Survival of the strongest)





While societies and primitive economies started to develop, even though new ways were found to help
people obtain resources and reproductive rights (with the introduction of social status and wealth),
social and economical inequalities remained.

Ascend to higher social and economic positions inside the evolving societies, could now be achieved
through commerce, education, agriculture, stock farming and war.





Also from antiquity all the way to today, human slavery and human exploitation through personal debt,
war enslavement, or simply as a way to survive, has been one of the simplest and more effective ways
of personal and state enrichment.

Although many different forms of government have been tried, such as aristocracy, oligarchy, tyranny, democracy, etc. along with various economic systems such as capitalism, communism, socialism, etc.
none has managed to solve the problems of social or economic justice and equality.





Even today in the 21st Century, you can still find companies and people who are profiting from human
exploitation, through underpayment and overworking of people who live and work in bad and sometimes dangerous conditions.

In a previous article I mentioned my thoughts on why although human societies have made progress,
in their core they still remain deeply racist, unjust and inhumane because they are still based on gains,
profits and advancements, mostly achieved through the sacrificing of the lives of others, especially
the ones that we deem inferior.





So what is it all about then ? Is it about justice ?
How do we enforce equality and justice and in which sectors of life ?
How do we measure inequality and where do we even begin to deal with it?

What about the people who were born ugly, retarded, disfigured, blind ?
Is there truly a way to reverse their inequality and enforce justice ?

What about the inequality that comes out of the rewards, that societies give to their members
for achievements and breakthroughs in science, medicine, education, sports, arts ??

What about the inequalities as a form of motivation for the educational, personal
and financial progress of individuals and societies ?





I cannot and will not even attempt, to talk about Plato's theory of "The Republic" or Aristotle's "Politics"
or even Rousseau's "Social contract".

No matter how helpful their theories were for the advancement of societies, the application of principles in morality, ethics and the spiritual enlightenment, we have utterly failed again and again to create a sustainable society and a truly working model of living out of them.

In fact I will go as far as to boldly claim, that all these thoughts and essays about equality among people
and fairness in financial and social matters, were stated by hypocrites who had never worked a day in
their life..

It would have been next to impossible for any of them, after having worked manually or mentally for 8-10 hours every day, to return to their home where they would have had to take care of other stuff (sometimes including their family), to find the strength to think, read and write articles and essays about human nature and socio-economic justice before they went to bed..

Most of them either had slaves and workers doing the hard work for them or they were already quite well off
financially, therefore they had the luxury of time and education, to deal with philosophical matters like these..





It is highly probable, exactly because these are theories made from people with no real working experience,
who enjoyed comforts and privileges in their personal life, that the value of their work remains mostly if not only theoretical and spiritual, while their teachings and theories have little to no practical use.
For these reasons, I will make no reference to their work at this point.

So, if the writings and theories of the people that we consider to be the wisest and most brilliant
have no practical application, is the existence of a fair society without human exploitation a lost cause ?

Fortunately, there is a glimpse of hope in the horizon in the form of AI and robotics..





Finally the human kind will (eventually) have, workers that will do all the hard, dirty underpaid work
for nothing, so human exploitation will no longer be necessary.

Humans will (for the first time in history) be able to free themselves from working just to survive and
instead work to achieve higher levels of education and consequently get high-skill, high-pay employment
probably working side by side with AI and robots.





All the necessary things for their existence, houses, food, clothing, beverages, medicines, transport vehicles, high tech devices, will be produced by robots with artificial intelligence and greater efficiency.

Automated delivery trucks, electronic teaching and scheduling assistants, computers that replace paralegals and self-driving cars, are just a few examples of the comforts and services that will be available through AI
and robotics.





Will this be the end of low-paying, manual, low-skilled jobs and the beginning of high-skill,
high-pay jobs being attainable for everyone through education ?

Is this the solution to the problem ?
A hybrid of communism or better yet socialism, enriched with the blessings of AI and robotics, where
all citizens will be equal and have more or less the same access to resources, social status and wealth ?

Who will pay though for the transformation of human civilization to this new model, along with the costs
of the educational needs that will be necessary for the transition to this new society and the high skill
jobs that will be required ?





Is this going to be possible through some form of neo-socialism where people would have a guaranteed
basic income financed by capital taxation, which will allow them to pursue the high level education
without the worry of living expenses ?

Economists should think hard about what it means for economic growth and income distribution
in the years to come.

Maybe since equality would be real, could the capitalists donate their money to cover these financial needs ?

But what will the capitalists gain by donating their capital for your advancement ?

If the transition to this new AI/robotic new age of high efficiency and no labor cost is unavoidable,
why wouldn't they just spend their capital to create all this tech for themselves ?

Then after having bought the fields, the factories, the warehouses, just purchase thousands of advanced
robots to do all the work for free, while they keep all the profits ??





Why would Bezos share the profits from his robotic automated warehouses
or Uber share the profits from the fleets of self driving taxis ?





After all, globalization and technological innovation have made easier for capital to avoid taxation
in recent times.

Even if we assume that all goes well and the robots do all the dirty, low paid jobs and capitalists donate
their capital for the education and development of those advanced societies, what will happen with all
the countries (and their population) who are surviving based on cheap production and low wages ??





Unfortunately, despite the fact that AI and the robotic "revolution" have all the potential to finally
improve or even better help create a better society and an economy more fair than ever before,
there is a huge possibility that we will end up living in a world with much deeper inequalities
and with low skilled, uneducated people struggling to survive, in a financial environment
that will no longer need them at all..

The ones who will surely benefit, will be the ones who will own the robots
(along with the information cloud, the info highways and the AI software that will make them function).

So, I guess the whole issue of socio-economic justice and equality (at least in it's financial part)
really comes down to only one question:


“Who will own the robots ?"







Because he who will own the robots, will own the world..






-NEWPAPER DISCLAIMER-

The articles are meant to be food for thought and causes for reflection, that will hopefully
engage the reader's personal critical thinking and ultimately change, enhance and/or help
create a perspective on the matters described and on the opinions stated in those articles.