Starting in the 1960s, the neoclassical economists took certain conclusions and assumptions much more seriously.
Milton Friedman’s suggestion of a negative income tax became accepted best practice and led to a small but growing UBI throughout developed world. There was much less pushback against globalization, free trade, or automation, since everyone directly benefited from rising GDP.
Paying more attention to the risks of market failures leads to requirements that all companies buy generalized externality insurance. (This was inspired by Fall of Doc Future mentioning such a thing, but the mechanism I’m proposing is my own off-the-cuff spitballing). You pay an insurance premium, and any time someone can prove that an action you take imposes costs/harms on some group of people or companies, the insurer sets up a fund to pay out claims to them, and your premiums go up. Any time you can prove you are creating a positive externality for another firm, their insurance company pays yours and your premium goes down (or you get a rebate). I suspect this would be too complicated for individuals to carry such insurance, so the government acts as the insurer who pays for positive externalities that accrue to individuals instead of companies. This makes the overall system positive sum for companies that actively and effectively strive to make others’ lives better.
By 2010, globally, compared to our world, rGDP per capita was 30% higher, carbon emissions per capita were 50% lower, average hours worked per lifetime were 20% lower (some people have shorter days or four day weeks, some have longer annual vacations, some have mini-retirements between jobs, some take off for 5-10 years to raise children).
Schools and colleges (first private, then all) are forced to pay for the secondary effects of their own practices on children’s mental health, and downstream effects on crime and poverty rates, and not just in their own districts, enabling efficient distribution of funds across geographies to optimize the societal benefits of education.
Anyone who can prove that companies’ practices lead to governments competing to provide corporate welfare forces said companies to pay it all back in premiums, eliminating the practice and letting communities reinvest their tax revenue in themselves instead.
Developing countries successfully obtain compensation for exploitative actions, leading to more humane and sustainable development and further accelerating the trends towards automation, resource efficiency, and dematerialization.
Starting in the 1960s, the neoclassical economists took certain conclusions and assumptions much more seriously.
Milton Friedman’s suggestion of a negative income tax became accepted best practice and led to a small but growing UBI throughout developed world. There was much less pushback against globalization, free trade, or automation, since everyone directly benefited from rising GDP.
Paying more attention to the risks of market failures leads to requirements that all companies buy generalized externality insurance. (This was inspired by Fall of Doc Future mentioning such a thing, but the mechanism I’m proposing is my own off-the-cuff spitballing). You pay an insurance premium, and any time someone can prove that an action you take imposes costs/harms on some group of people or companies, the insurer sets up a fund to pay out claims to them, and your premiums go up. Any time you can prove you are creating a positive externality for another firm, their insurance company pays yours and your premium goes down (or you get a rebate). I suspect this would be too complicated for individuals to carry such insurance, so the government acts as the insurer who pays for positive externalities that accrue to individuals instead of companies. This makes the overall system positive sum for companies that actively and effectively strive to make others’ lives better.
By 2010, globally, compared to our world, rGDP per capita was 30% higher, carbon emissions per capita were 50% lower, average hours worked per lifetime were 20% lower (some people have shorter days or four day weeks, some have longer annual vacations, some have mini-retirements between jobs, some take off for 5-10 years to raise children).
Schools and colleges (first private, then all) are forced to pay for the secondary effects of their own practices on children’s mental health, and downstream effects on crime and poverty rates, and not just in their own districts, enabling efficient distribution of funds across geographies to optimize the societal benefits of education.
Anyone who can prove that companies’ practices lead to governments competing to provide corporate welfare forces said companies to pay it all back in premiums, eliminating the practice and letting communities reinvest their tax revenue in themselves instead.
Developing countries successfully obtain compensation for exploitative actions, leading to more humane and sustainable development and further accelerating the trends towards automation, resource efficiency, and dematerialization.