Let’s open source financial independence, shall we?

I’ve been thinking for a while about what’s going to happen after financial inclusion is solved. I’m certain that we will fix this, it will take us some time (maybe 10 years or so), but will fix it. So what’s next?

What will happen when everybody (7 or 8 billion people) can transact services and goods all around the world seamlessly and without friction? And with ubiquitous Internet access?

I hope that these leads us to a financial independence of all persons in this world (or at least many more people than enjoy it today ).

Lots or people are worried because they fear that the fourth industrial revolution will eliminate at least half the human jobs in the world. My hope is that this revolution leads to a transformation through which, instead of people needing to work in order to feed themselves, they are drawn to work in order to fulfill, grow and enhance themselves.

Financial independence is the state in which one has sufficient resources to become self-sustaining, without having to “work for a living”. For example, a landlord living off the rents of his real estate, or a wealthy person living off the interest on his financial applications or the returns on his investments.

There are many variables that determine “financial independence”, not least of which is how many resources are required to “live”. This raises, of course, other philosophical issues with regards to the economic requirements for sustaining life, the morality and practicality of systems designed to generate and distribute wealth, and so on. My position is that this is somewhat beyond our control, so a realistic solution must cover different requirements for different people. We must respect the differences among us, as they too generate wealth. We cannot force a common standard here: we cannot go against people’s most basic drives and desires.

On the other hand, there’s a huge challenge inherent in finding the best way to apply limited resources towards generating sufficient wealth to “make ends meet”. I’m convinced that this issue will soon be solved due to the optimization offered by the wonderful new companies of the Uber, Waze and Airbnb era. Under-utilized resources (like transportation, streets and rooms) are being freed by these apps. More optimizations will come, and more resources will be made available that were not available before. So we will require less resources to live.

Usually finance independence is a problem solved with savings and a balanced investment portfolio, but I don’t, however, believe this is the way to resolve it for all mankind. Not when the 62 wealthiest persons own assets equivalent to the combined wealth of the poorest half of our world’s human population. Wealth is heavily concentrated.

So my idea is: let’s open source the problem! Let’s think about it, debate it, and pull all our resources together in order to obtain independence of our limited resources.

We only live one life: we’d better make it count. We can much better use the energy currently devoted to “earning a living” to more significant things: learning, loving and being loved. Creating and exploring.

Thanks Javier David for your insight, debate and edition.