Humanitarianism (Economic)
Encyclopedia

Economic Humanitarianism is a collection of economic ideas which, according its maker Claude Vorilhon
Raël
Claude Maurice Marcel Vorilhon is the founder and current leader of the UFO religion known as Raëlism....

, is designed to complement Geniocracy
Geniocracy
Geniocracy is the framework for a system of government which was first proposed by Rael in 1977 and which advocates problem-solving and creative intelligence as criteria for regional governance.-Definition:...

.

Relation with capitalism

Economic humanitarianism accepts the capitalist
Capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...

 notion that through competition
Competition
Competition is a contest between individuals, groups, animals, etc. for territory, a niche, or a location of resources. It arises whenever two and only two strive for a goal which cannot be shared. Competition occurs naturally between living organisms which co-exist in the same environment. For...

 and technological innovation
Innovation
Innovation is the creation of better or more effective products, processes, technologies, or ideas that are accepted by markets, governments, and society...

, some companies may install automation
Automation
Automation is the use of control systems and information technologies to reduce the need for human work in the production of goods and services. In the scope of industrialization, automation is a step beyond mechanization...

 in an attempt to reduce costs, which replaces jobs and reduces the aggregate consumer base. As long as there are industries which have not reached maturity, the employment will return to a natural level, as will the consumer base. In the framework of Economic Humanitarianism, capitalism is considered to be the best way for industries to mature in the long run.

But in place, once maturity of all industries is close at hand, automation is seen to eliminate jobs at a rate faster than new industries can introduce. If the economic system is not reformed around this time, this not only reduces aggregate consumer base, but also the total consumer base, resulting in poverty despite normal levels of output. Reflecting on history, the author of Economic Humanitarianism, Claude Vorilhon
Raël
Claude Maurice Marcel Vorilhon is the founder and current leader of the UFO religion known as Raëlism....

, suggested that all employees whose labor was replaced by automation should have received supplemental income and that all individuals should receive minimal existence revenue (their fair share of what automation has to offer). Economic humanitarianism supports the implementation of a basic income
Basic income
A basic income guarantee is a proposed system of social security, that regularly provides each citizen with a sum of money. In contrast to income redistribution between nations themselves, the phrase basic income defines payments to individuals rather than households, groups, or nations, in order...

.

In Claude Vorilhon
Raël
Claude Maurice Marcel Vorilhon is the founder and current leader of the UFO religion known as Raëlism....

's book Geniocracy, he writes:
Obviously this system is not viable in a capitalist society, since once the owners automate their factories, they just sack all their workers without pay and let them starve while the machines do all the work, filling their own pockets with gold from the profit. This is unjust and should not be tolerated. The boss who builds a machine that replaces one hundred workers should continue to pay these workers who now have nothing to do. Thus the machine should allow them to enter and benefit from the age of leisure.

People often say that machines enslave man and that technology dehumanises society, but they are wrong! It is the manufacturer that enslaves man. It is to the manufacturer that man is condemned to a life sentence of forced labour. The manufacturer enslaves man, but robots free us. The only reason that technology is dehumanising society is because humans still have to work with the machines used for forced labour, or because they must clock in to where the forced labour takes place. That is the problem, humans and machines should not be mixed together. Humans are designed to spend their time in places of fulfilment, while machines are designed to function in the workplace, under the supervision of robots and computers.


In book 1 of 3 in Claude Vorilhon
Raël
Claude Maurice Marcel Vorilhon is the founder and current leader of the UFO religion known as Raëlism....

's Intelligent Design was a text allegedly narrated by Yahweh, who according to him, is a humanoid extraterrestrial responsible for the creation of life on earth:

YOU could very soon live in a genuine terrestrial paradise if only the technology that you have at your disposal today were made to serve human well-being, instead of serving violence, armies, or the personal profit of a few.

Science and technology can totally liberate humanity not only from the problem of hunger in the world, but also from the obligation to work to live, since machines can quite easily look after the daily chores by themselves thanks to automation.

Economic rent

One way to aid such an effort, Raelians believe, is by changing how property is exploited. According to the Raelian Messages, the following was another official message from Yahweh:

You are all born equal and this is also written in the Bible. Your governments should ensure that people are born with approximately the same level of financial means. It is unacceptable that unintelligent children should live in luxury thanks to the fortunes amassed by their parents, while geniuses die of hunger and do any menial chore just to eat.
This way they forsake occupations where they could have made discoveries benefiting the whole of humanity. To avoid this, property ownership must be abolished without establishing Communism.


Under most capitalistic systems, money is created by issuing debt
Debt
A debt is an obligation owed by one party to a second party, the creditor; usually this refers to assets granted by the creditor to the debtor, but the term can also be used metaphorically to cover moral obligations and other interactions not based on economic value.A debt is created when a...

 and is not necessarily introduced at birth. Instead of property ownership, the humanitarianism described in the Raelian Messages involves of long-duration rent, an idea held by many proponents of Georgism
Georgism
Georgism is an economic philosophy and ideology that holds that people own what they create, but that things found in nature, most importantly land, belong equally to all...

. In the Raelian idea of humanitarianism, this should even apply in the case of businesses (as well as land):

Thus individuals can make a fortune for themselves depending on their own merits, but not for their children. To each their own merits. The same should apply to commercial and industrial enterprises.
If someone creates a business, it is theirs for their entire life, and they can rent it out, but never for more than forty-nine years. The same goes for farmers. They can rent land and cultivate it for forty-nine years but after that it all goes back to the State which will be able to rent it out again for another forty-nine years. Their children can also rent it for forty-nine years.
This method must be adopted for all goods that remain exploitable...


Under economic humanitarianism, the only legal inheritance is the family home.

See also

  • Automation
    Automation
    Automation is the use of control systems and information technologies to reduce the need for human work in the production of goods and services. In the scope of industrialization, automation is a step beyond mechanization...

  • Capitalism
    Capitalism
    Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...

  • Microcredit
    Microcredit
    Microcredit is the extension of very small loans to those in poverty designed to spur entrepreneurship. These individuals lack collateral, steady employment and a verifiable credit history and therefore cannot meet even the most minimal qualifications to gain access to traditional credit...

  • Netocracy
    Netocracy
    Netocracy was a term invented by the editorial board of the American technology magazine Wired in the early 1990s. A portmanteau of internet and aristocracy, netocracy refers to a perceived global upper-class that bases its power on a technological advantage and networking skills, in comparison to...

  • Socialism
    Socialism
    Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...

  • Trade credit
    Trade credit
    Trade credit is an arrangement between businesses to buy goods or services on account, that is, without making immediate cash payment. The supplier typically provides the customer with an agreement to bill them later, stipulating a fixed number of days or other date by which the customer should pay...


External links

  • http://marshallbrain.com/robotic-nation.htm - Robotic Nation series by Marshall Brain
    Marshall Brain
    Marshall David Brain is an American author, public speaker, and entrepreneur. A former college instructor and computer programmer, Brain is the founder of HowStuffWorks.-Background:Marshall Brain was born in Santa Monica, California...

     of HowStuffWorks
    HowStuffWorks
    HowStuffWorks is a commercial edutainment website that was founded by Marshall Brain with the goal of giving its target audience an insight into the way in which many things work. The site uses various media in its effort to explain complex concepts, terminology and mechanisms, including...

    .com
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