@ Neil

Sure. You just re-frame it as it actually is…a (chronic, systemic and unavoidable) scarcity of individual incomes….that can only be actually resolved by a direct and costless payment to the individual….because if you rely upon simply the indirect method of investment or the costs and inefficiencies of government (which also largely go directly into the system before reaching the individual’s pocket)….you just re-initiate the scarcity.

We require a reformation of economic and monetary theory which breaks down the enforced indirections of government and the productive system itself. That way the blessings of the tool of money and our abundant abilities to produce will serve the individual and the system instead of serving only the top 4-6% who now control it. Somebody needs to nail the 99 theses on the doors of a cathedral.

Philosophical visualization is not only important in understanding it is essential for clarity. All of the blame and shame associated with welfare and a BIG/Universal Dividend/JG is irrelevant…and so is perfectionism. The government/societal thought leaders need to “up their game”, break up the monopolies and oust the true parasites by clearly and thoroughly visualizing Wisdom and its pinnacle concept Grace and then crafting policies that align with it as well as strategies for enabling the populace to react to it in healthy ways. An alliance of consumers and businesses in visualizing and implementing such Wisdom is probably the best and quickest move we could make.

AI is an incredibly disruptive economic force that will not and should not be tampered with in any productive sense. That plus the fact that the logic of efficiency is inherent in profit making systems, innovation and AI means economic theory must evolve and integrate those realities into said theory. Leisure, which is not idleness but self determined and engaged interest, needs to be encouraged not inhibited. Outmoded and false Orthodoxies hide in corners if not in plain sight and we need to think through them.

I don’t have any necessary objection to the concept of a job guarantee for people who might find work for pay necessary for them to have purpose in life, however, life presents many possible constructive purposeful activities and from a mental health standpoint helping others to understand this and assisting them in finding such purpose(s) is probably more important than merely providing some relatively (or utterly) purposeless employment.
So a Purpose Guarantee is actually a lot more important than a JG in this sense.

The most basic purpose of the productive system is not employment, but rather the consumption of what is produced. All other economic purposes including both employment and profit proceed from this most basic purpose and both employment and profit can fit seamlessly within it much more equitably and freeflowingly if we would simply guarantee the individual sufficiently abundant income to purchase production and all of its costs with a universal income guarantee, and then also implemented a discount to retail prices that not only ended any inflation, but could actually effect price deflation without harming any enterprise (Other than to the hiding in plain sight monopolistic and problematic business model of Finance, and then it wouldn’t harm it….just de-throne, de-tooth and downsize it so it would take its proper and smaller place alongside the other business models in the economy.)

Cost rules every enterprise in the micro-economy, and because of depreciation, a host of other additional costs over and above the costs of finance and time lags inevitable in the physical universe the flow of total costs always exceeds the flow of total individual incomes distributed. Thus cost and the inherently cost inflationary nature of the economic system should be a dynamic factor considered in macro-economics. The missing of this reality by economists and the failure to fully address both it and the increasingly disruptive factor of artificial intelligence’s erosive effects on aggregate demand is the primary failure of macro-economic policy. If a sufficiently abundant income supplement and discount program were implemented the rest of investment and the drive for efficiency of cost by competition, innovation and artificial intelligence would largely be able to proceed with a minimum of intrusion save a firm commitment to breaking up the oligopolistic tendencies of corporations with global reach, and that could largely be dealt with by re-industrialization of advanced economies and the consequent decentralization of the global economy….because the dependence upon employment as the primary means of finance will have been broken by the universal dividend and a retail discount policies.

The way to implement a BIG or a dividend is to include/”sell” the compensated/rebated back to retail merchants mechanism right along with it. The retail merchant at the terminal end of the productive/economic cycle Gifts the consumer a discount and the central bank rebates every cent of those discounts back to the merchants. The only thing that occurs is the market for consumer finance gets downsized. Also, that way businesses are not punished by the even higher taxes associated with re-distributive programs. Make the dividend big enough and the discount percentage to prices to the consumer large enough and you will be able to quickly accomplish more of both the liberal and conservative agendas….than either of these hapless political parties has been able to do….by being hypnotized by the idiocies and delusions of DSGE and the 5000 year old problematic business model of Finance. The direct distributive and Gifting paradigms offer us a way out of this hypnotization and enslavement, and a way home to individual self determined purpose. It’s a proactively win-win situation for the individual and businesses, and the too big to fail banks get downsized from their current monopolistic, dominating and manipulative position….poor things. 😦   How godawfully mean of me to suggest such a thing. Maybe I should chastise myself. Well, maybe not considering how much more freedom would be accomplished.

Orthodoxies like gold as money capture people’s minds and authoritarianism adds to the rigidity of their delusions. The one concept (and human experiential capability which is above orthodoxy is that of Grace. That’s natural existential Grace not some religious orthodoxy regarding it.
and that is why the concept of Grace and policies aligned with it…are the next and new primary paradigm that economic theory and monetary reform must discover.

Yes we’re all becoming “frogs slowly and cozily boiled in oil”. That’s how the delusions of DSGE become truth…and eventual rebellion, frustration and war become “human nature”. That is indeed the nature of homo economicus. Homo sapiens would have almost entirely different reactions…if it were ever given the economic and monetary chance with policies of abundance instead of austerity.

When you don’t have an independent central bank….that’s the time to create one right along with the dividend they are proposing. Of course you’d need a discount mechanism also to encompass the entire national economy and make it truly effective. Even if it was just a domestic currency it would make the economy hit on all cylinders.

A re-distributive dividend has already been proven in many places not only not to work, but also to fall prey to the immature scolding puritan mindset plaguing much of humanity. Beyond that, even a scarcity clinging mindset regarding the dividend is also doomed to be a snatching of defeat from a potentially winning policy if it resigns an increasing number of individuals to
a second class income. There are multiple possible monetary equilibria and levels of dividend incomes because the discount mechanism brackets the entirety of the system and occurs when and where costs are terminally summed and so can effect not only an equilibrium but create a condition of price deflation even while harming no enterprise and fitting seamlessly within a profit making economy. And if one has a job…they’re even better off. You probably wouldn’t want the level of dividend to be extremely high for ecological reasons, and sane and yet gracious national policy that would favor research into resource efficiency and durability and length of lifetime of product would make sense. Just make it a guaranteed middle class level whether one worked or not. That would end the rule of finance and wage slavery in one fell swoop.

There have been many economists and numerous economic theories, but there have only been 3 economic philosophers Adam Smith, Karl Marx and C. H. Douglas. The economic philosophies of Smith and Marx have captured only parts of either the economic reality or the human reality but not the full relevance of both the economic and the human realities at the same time. The theory and philosophy of Social Credit by C. H. Douglas accomplished a fuller integration of both the economic and human realities, and Wisdomics/Gracenomics/Gracientialism has further integrated the philosophy and policies of Social Credit with a fuller understanding of Space, Time and Self Awareness-Consciousness itself thereby accomplishing a higher and fuller integration of economic realities, philosophical concepts and the complete nature of Man and his potential to consciously create experience.

The most basic economic considerations are Costs/Price, Space-Time and their impacts on the individual. DSGE theorists asserted that they had resolved the first two, but in reality they had merely trivialized them. Capitalism and its parasite Finance have brought us to where we currently are, and Socialism thinks it can effectively replace capitalism with mere re-distribution of monetary scarcity.

MMT is aware that there needs to be an additional flow of finance/income, but as do all of the proceeding theories/movements, misses the inherent cost inflationary nature of the productive/economic process itself.

Positive Money understands the need for financial sovereignty of the nation, but has not recognized some of the shortcomings of re-distribution nor completely understand how to avoid the problems of hierarchy.

Public Banking recognizes the importance of making money a public utility, and is coming to cognition about the necessity of direct financing to the individual and the need for a nationally sovereign agency to guide and execute monetary policy.

Steve Keen has de-constructed DSGE and understands the relationship between, and the importance of money, debt and banks, and discovered Disequilibrium as the actual state of the productive/economic system, but has not cognited on the necessary philosophy and policies that will resolve that fact instead of merely palliating it.

Social Credit is the forerunner of all of these theories and movements and integrates all of their insights and concerns with the philosophical concept of monetary grace the free gift and direct to the individual monetary policies that enables an actual solution to the underlying scarcity of total individual incomes in ratio to total costs/prices in both each moment and the flow of Space and Time.

Wisdomics/Gracenomics/Gracientialism is thoroughly aligned with Social Credit in both philosophy and policy, and it “stands on the shoulders” of C. H. Douglas and a number of his present students without whose knowledge and insight Wisdomics/Gracenomics/Gracientialism would never come to be. It is also the further iconoclastic examination of all economic elements and the orthodoxies that surround them. In addition it is a linguistic and wisdom tradition  exegesis of Social Credit’s most basic concept, Grace,  in all of its aspects, and also that concept’s relevance to and alignment with economics. In essence it is an an integrative study of Cost/Price, Space-Time and Self Awareness-Consciousness.

It can be observed that an aspect of Grace is the basic philosophical or policy denominator in all of the theories and reforms above. Social Credit and Wisdomics/Gracenomics/Gracientialism are simply further and more thorough integrations of that deepest of human concepts and experiences.

@Kevin Harding and others

“Inflation reveals the fundamental and inevitable conflict in society .
This conflict coexists with cooperation. It is a conflict for real resources, their control and use, the fruits of the earth and human labour and technology. In the modern economy this is a struggle for money tokens, although this is backed by force. As Marx pointed out this is a struggle between capital and labour but also amongst capital and labour, between sectors, financial, producers and retail.”

Correct. Except I would add: It is an unresolvable conflict…unless a third and unifying alternative is recognized. One that strikes at and changes the two dominant paradigms of scarcity and Debt Only with new paradigms of abundant Gifting integrated with Debt. One that integrates the dynamism of capitalism with the equitable intentions of socialism. One that is not top down but bottom up, truly in the interests of the individual and his/her freedom FIRST…so that the the business entities and the system as a whole can also be free and free flowing. One that more quickly and completely accomplishes the objectives of both the political left and right by reducing taxes and government bureaucracy and also distributing money and so wealth more democratically. One that by being truly in the individual’s interest does not try to fit man to the theory, but rather the theory to man….and of course the analysis of homo sapiens in that theory is necessarily a whole and complete one…not some skewed and fragmented fantasy like homo economicus.