Tim Knowles
Sep 1, 2018 · 2 min read

the world faces profound questions of how it will go on providing basic things for everyone

I think you picked a wrong word in the phrase, not providing but distributing. How will the things people want and need be distributed in the future. Will we allow the free market to decide who gets what or will we ration everything so everyone gets the same things? Maybe we could compromise and let the people vote on what controls to place on the markets.

If capitalism can’t solve the Big Crunch, that leaves societies with two options: fascism and socialism.

You are disregarding the option of Democracy. We are not restricted to authoritarian forms of government. If we could evolve to a true democratic form of government with an enlightened electorate we do not need to become neither fascist nor socialist. We could remain capitalist with the people voting on the necessary restrictions to be placed on that capitalism to prevent the tyranny of markets and capital.

Right now our democracy has voted to allow the market to massively prefer to distribute the goods available based on wealth.

We could set up some sort of regulation that would negate the bias toward greater distribution to the wealthy. It would sort of be like rationing but still with some market freedom. Like the CAFE standards penalty for gas guzzling we could have limits on other excessive consumption.

Democracy can work but we have to get the big money out of politics, we have to overturn Citizens United for starters and much more.

The Oligarchic Plutocratic Elite don’t care what happens to us or the planet.

TEK

    Tim Knowles

    Written by

    Worked in our nations space programs for more than 35 years