Here we outline the steps by which we can gradually, peacefully, and non-coercively transition from a contemporary consumer-capitalist society to one which universally and equitably guarantees the Millennial Social Code.
In the initial phases, there is an emphasis on growth, because capitalist thinkers got at least one thing right when they discovered economies of scale. However, growth should only be actively sought for as long as it takes to become self-sufficient, and never to the extent that it compromises our ability to uphold the MSC equally for all members/citizens. It is possible that the point of self-sufficiency can occur even before MU citizens outnumber capitalists, but this depends entirely on adoption rate, which in turn depends entirely on our ability to earn and maintain public trust. Our relationship to growth will therefore change over time: first, intentional (but responsible) growth until we are self-sustaining; then passive growth as more citizens join, but active recruitment is no longer necessary. The extent of MU resource management will then begin to approach global scale, and growth will no longer be a concern except insofar as it should be (non-coercively) discouraged if and when the human population approaches the limit of the environment to sustain.
The initial phases may also end up bearing an unfortunate (but undeserved) likeness to a Ponzi scheme. This can be mitigated by maintaining open access to financial data used by MU Governance (MUG), for current as well as prospective citizens, so that a reasonable person can have no doubt that the system works and is managed competently. Citizens in leadership positions can get in the habit of voluntarily releasing their personal financial information to prove that they are not hoarding resources: something to the effect of “The government cannot force members/citizens to relinquish their right to privacy of personal data, but I believe that it is in the public interest for leaders to voluntarily sacrifice some personal privacy to build public trust, so I’ll do this voluntarily and encourage my colleagues to do the same.”
Less reasonable people will inevitably still be certain that the MU is some kind of scam, and are welcome to continue to believe that in spite of the availability of evidence to the contrary. Trying to push them will just make them more sure they’re right. We should never be in the situation (or give the impression) that we are desperate for new recruits (yikes). We merely want to convey that new citizens are welcome (whenever we can support new membership), and anything they can contribute is appreciated, as long as we can continue providing basic goods and services.
Phase 1 - The Millennial Minitopia / Social Insurancelink
At the outset, there will be significant reliance on startup capital to purchase critical goods and services from the plutocrats’ market (PM). The initial citizenry will probably mostly be moderately wealthy tech nerds with no agricultural or industrial skills. The only real requirement is that we start with enough citizens to form a valid but minimal government, since it is likely that almost all of their basic needs are already being met. At a stretch and with significant guesswork, perhaps this could be achieved with a minimum of about 32 citizens:
- A chief executive
- Several directors for any departments that aren’t redundant with the local government
- Several legislative councillors
- Several judges (various levels)
- Enough citizens outside elected positions to form a small but balanced electorate and pool of jurors
If MULLC (the company managing MU financial resources) does not own enough housing outright, it will need to be able to subsidize rent (for long-term residence) or hotel rooms (for short-term residence) which is paid to the PM. MU will need to ensure that basic utilities remain available in all such residences, and that residents can easily use their own private funds for access to nonessential goods and services from any MU or PM sources they choose. In most cases, MU “services” will really just be indistinguishable from an insurer’s usual system of handling claims/reimbursement/member support, just less evil (no silly “networks” or other arcane mumbo-jumbo for avoiding payment).
Environmental rehabilitation and maintenance may not be practical to manage directly, so we will have to rely on indirect methods like public service announcements (which incidentally spread awareness of our existence!), or support for specific organizations which are able to actually enact the kinds of environmental support we aspire to. Small steps can at least still be taken to minimize waste and reclaim resources as much as practicable so that self-sufficiency can be achieved more quickly.
Members can also (voluntarily and without coercion!!) contribute outside cash to be managed by MU on their behalf for everyone’s mutual benefit.
Another option for incentivizing donations could take the form of one-time rewards (“help us save the world from capitalism and we’ll give you a cool vacation” or whatever), as long as the cost of the incentive is not more than the amount of funding provided. This means that objectively, this citizen will be getting less for their money than they would have if they kept it; as a result, it must only be voluntary (or else it would be a crime), and we must make it clear that such a donation contributes to society as a whole, and makes it easier for everyone to live a better life by expanding MU benefits to new members, reducing the amount that existing members need to work while maintaining the same standard of living, and increasing member dividends by making it easier for us to turn a profit off of our capital investments. Taking a contribution of $100 and giving them a $40 gift certificate and a promise that someday they won’t have to work so hard isn’t really a good advertising strategy, but we should also not attempt or appear to disguise or dissemble any such programs, which damages trust. We can only strive to politely correct any narratives that try to play it as a nefarious fraud by keeping government finances open and explaining our motivation for implementing the donation program. If MU fundraising ever gives the impression that donors are being coerced or misled, it will fail.
The gambling industry is an example of the success of this kind of strategy in a capitalist system. Casinos may openly use nefarious psychological tricks and outright deception to get people to visit and stay, but people still do it, because at least they are genuine in their motivation: to make money. Everyone knows that the house always wins, but in our case, the house is society as a whole!
Phase 2 - Approaching Self-Sufficiencylink
Self-sufficiency increases; average member fees decrease as economies of scale tend to decrease the cost of services when averaged across a larger population. Each cohort of new members needs to have a sufficiently broad range of economic backgrounds to make this possible, and a large enough population to ensure that calculating expected costs based on averages continues to be feasible, and we do not accidentally overreach our means. On the other hand, it is important not to fall into a pattern of only admitting members who can put up a significant amount of capital or pay higher fees, and thereby form a “commune for rich people”; this public image is fatal and must be avoided. The balance here is quite delicate and must be thoroughly planned to maintain sustainable, equitable growth.
Plutocrats may also begin to respond here as their working class migrates to a more equitable society, resulting in a labor shortage outside the MU. We should be very conscious of any critical imports or exports, and be prepared with alternatives if/when the plutocrats attempt to cut us off from their market. To the extent that we can spare to tie up our cash in real estate, we can start purchasing properties (housing, office space…then farms, forests, mines…) that can enable us to provide (responsible, sustainable) jobs that increase our self-sufficiency and reduce our reliance on the PM. As MU’s social footprint increases, we will cross a critical threshold of public awareness+trust where we can start seriously considering the formation of a political party for legal reform of local/national government.
Phase 3 - Self-Sufficiencylink
Formerly disadvantaged citizens begin to contribute more and more as social trust fosters the expected bell curve between less productive and more productive citizens. As long as the overall social affluence remains positive (see Proving MU Viability), income will exceed expenses, supporting further growth and eventually encouraging more middle-class capitalists to join. This influx of wealthier members will result in an exponential increase in the growth of both capital assets, which we will still need for business taxes and any goods/services on the PM that we cannot reasonably provide ourselves at any scale. It may in fact become possible to achieve complete self-sufficiency if we really need to, but as long as we are able to access the outside market, this should never be restricted or hindered, except perhaps to prioritize self-sufficiency for goods or services that are produced exploitatively in the PM.
Once we are as self-sufficient as we need/want, the way things develop depends on the reaction from the outside.
Success with Sunshine & Rainbowslink
MU maintains cordial relations with the PM, and can continue purchasing enough land and admitting enough citizens that we can form a political party, take over by election, and legally reform the national government until it can guarantee the MSC on its own. MULLC ceases to exist in practice, if it is not legally dissolved, because it is no longer needed. Capitalism ends with no fuss because we were so overwhelmingly successful in demonstrating the viability of our society.
Success with Minimum Tensionlink
The plutocrats react by conspiring to fix prices against us and generally make it harder for us to use their market. In the worst case, banks refuse to hold our assets, or even prevent people from using their funds to purchase our goods or services. This will probably constrain growth and slow but not prevent the point of legal takeover; if we’re self-sufficient, we can just turn all our liquid capital into government bonds and national currency, stick them in a safe, and carry on using those liquid assets to trade with the outside world to the extent necessary and possible. We will need to put up with crazy prices for things that are absolutely critical, and prioritize development of alternatives in the meantime. The general mood would be one of polite competition, in the slightly sociopathic sense used by finance executives.
It is important to remember that a self-sufficient MU can carry on indefinitely (as long as the outside government does not become entirely corrupt), and the plutocrats cannot: the entire time, we will be draining their workforce from the bottom up, at an accelerating pace. Even more importantly, as long as the national government is stable long enough for us to legally reform it, no matter how bloodthirsty the plutocrats get, the only people who really have to deal with it on a daily basis are the MULLC lawyers and financiers who manage the capital on MU’s behalf so that it can continue to exist symbiotically with the plutocrat-controlled government. Citizens can watch it unfold in the media with the same amount of personal involvement as watching a tennis match. As long as we are responsibly managing our resources, we can’t ever allow external pressure to cause panic or mistrust, because we can still fulfill our mission and support universal equal rights for all of our members.
Acceptable with Some Traumalink
The national government becomes largely enthralled to the plutocrats, who begin sowing fear and distrust amongst MU citizens and non-citizens alike. Isolated violent incidents may occur, and the national government may refuse to step in. Significant effort will be needed to keep MU government loudly transparent so that public trust remains high in our system without coercion, inoculating citizens against propaganda since they should be able to look around and see that their lives are objectively much better than what the plutocrats’ victims are going through.
As tensions simmer, the MU government must make clear that any citizen who attacks another person, regardless of citizenship, has still committed a crime under MU law and will be prosecuted by the MU government…if they can avoid being prosecuted by the national government. If the US prison system is anything like what we have in 2021, MU should actively attempt to protect MU citizens, and anyone else, from the US prison system as much as possible, even if that citizen would then go on to be legitimately punished by the MU government.
This will escalate until it peters out when the plutocrats realize they’re proving our point by attempting to goad us into violence, returning us to the Tense but Happy Ending with hopefully a minimum of casualties. As long as the national government does not start falling apart in the meantime.
Barely Acceptablelink
The national government begins to fall apart before we can legally take it over, due to mismanagement and corruption in the face of a catastrophic labor shortage in the plutocrats’ market. NG ceases to enforce the nominal law for MU citizens. During this time, the MU will need to start taking over more of the responsibility for citizen safety. If the external government is obstinate in their refusal to enforce their own laws for people who are still nominally their citizens, we will need to start seriously planning for borders and secession, while simultaneously beginning to conduct our own foreign relations to build international support for independent statehood.
This is basically the only scenario in which it is possible to entirely fail, rather than simply postponing complete success. If the national government becomes so psychotic as to start threatening military force to coerce MU citizens into rejoining the plutocrats’ market, the only hope is that we can get enough international support to force the NG to back down first. If this happens, we will be able to slowly and carefully and very politely proceed along a path to independent statehood, since the external government had its bluff called and proved itself incapable of enforcing its sovereignty over MU citizens.
Failurelink
As the deadline for military action from the NG approaches, if it is clear that we will not have enough international support for independent statehood, THAT IS THE END. We must surrender. We cannot succeed in any path that results in military force being used against us. This is true from a practical standpoint: a society founded on open government implies that preparations for military conflict would be discovered immediately, so trying to prepare for this eventuality can only ever result in us getting stomped on sooner. It is also true from a moral standpoint: in most cases, a national government powerful enough to carry out such a threat will have access to weapons of mass destruction, and there is absolutely no utopia that is worth the risk of calling that bluff and losing. It becomes a question of humanity’s survival. We will simply have to wait until things have cooled off, try to keep the documentation alive, and start again if/when it is safe to rebuild the MU.
We must not ever operate under the assumption that military conflict with a national government is inevitable, necessary, or even possible. MU government and MULLC should never be in the business of creating, stockpiling, or trading lethal weaponry; or engage in any activity whatsoever that could be interpreted (or propagandized) as preparation for violent conflict. On the other hand, MU citizens should not be prevented from purchasing weapons from non-MU sources, as long as they are stored and used in a manner that does not threaten the physical or emotional safety of any other person. (See Weapons.)