In a Cooperative Economy, Elon Musk Would be Standing on Mars Right Now
So, Elon Musk wants humanity to reach Mars in his lifetime, right…
And he is putting in all the effort he can to make it happen.
Tesla, SpaceX, Crypto coins — everything he gets involved in, fits into his plan of reaching Mars in his lifetime. He’s sparing no effort in getting there.
Except…
All that gigantic effort, and it’s still not certain whether he may live to see his dream come true.
Why?
Because he needs capital to keep the companies going, to hire people, to do research, to keep enlarging and making the companies profitable in order to, well, gain more capital. Then rinse and repeat the cycle.
He started that cycle all the way from early PayPal days. Despite PayPal being totally irrelevant to reaching Mars. He gained some capital and moved forward.
Then he founded Tesla, which has mostly tangential relevance to reaching Mars. He had to struggle a lot, two steps forward and one step back, almost sinking at various points, then saving the organization at the last moment, and so on. After a lot of adventures and problems, he raised more capital and moved forward.
The next step was SpaceX. It faced exact same problem — capital. SpaceX also needs to raise capital, spend capital, recruit people, do research, conduct research, do manufacturing — everything all over again.
Raising capital for reaching Mars is extremely hard. Despite it shouldn’t be.
Why is Raising Capital For Mars This Hard?
Because those who hold the capital have no interest in doing anything revolutionary or paradigm-changing.
Billionaires, investment funds, real estate tycoons, franchise owners, big players, aristocrats — they have no interest in doing anything that would be a breakthrough for society.
With a few exceptions aside, what they have an interest in, is using their capital to gain more capital for the sake of, well, hoarding it. And unfortunately, exceptions don’t make a rule.
The grand majority among them have absolutely no interest in engaging in anything that may be very risky but may end up in a reality-shifting breakthrough.
Much better to dump their wealth into investment funds who mostly make money by shuffling investment assets inside fast trading computers, creating wealth by doing financial trades at lightning speeds. Without creating any tangible product or service.
Wealth from water vapor. Totally hands-off, zero to a little risk, totally useless for society…
On the other side, there are legions of people who would like to support endeavors that would take humanity light years ahead in its progress.
A few years ago, when a company started a project of providing habitation at Mars, over 300,000 people signed up and paid small sums for a place.
They knew that the company had a very low risk of succeeding in their lifetime. They knew that the company may have been a scam. They knew that in all likelihood their money would be lost.
And yet, 300,000 people paid that company.
There are millions of more people who have the same interest and motivation, but who wouldn’t pay because of the low likelihood of results, or who just couldn’t pay because they don’t have money.
People just don’t have wealth. They don’t have capital.
A few tens of thousands of billionaires, tycoons, investment funds, neo aristocrats on one side, and tens, maybe hundreds of millions of people on another…
A minority dominating the entire economy of the planet. Whereas the majority has to just stomach powerlessness.
Now Imagine That Hundreds of Millions of People Have the Power
For a second, imagine that those hundreds of millions of people have noticeable amounts of wealth, even if it isn’t billions of dollars.
Imagine that they have large amounts of money which they could invest, instead of a few dozen bucks.
Think how much easier would it be for Musk to raise capital for reaching Mars — countless millions of people with noticeable amounts of money investing in SpaceX or similar organizations.
Immensely empowering these organizations, skyrocketing their research, boundlessly enlarging their operations, allowing them to recruit legions of talented people.
There wouldn’t be any need for Musk going around and having to fight with capricious investors, a volatile stock market, conservatively predisposed investment funds, billionaires who prefer hoarding rather than doing things.
He could be able to just crank up the lever at SpaceX to light speed, being inside an economy that enables progress.
An economy that moves in the direction which majority wants.
An economy that enables breakthroughs instead of accommodating hoarders.
An economy that evolves and expands, instead of eating itself from the inside out.
How Can Such an Economy be Possible?
Such an economy can only materialize in a setting that prevents a minority from hoarding countless billions and the majority having tiny amounts.
Imagine an economy that only allows cooperatives. Which could only be owned by members in egalitarian ratios, instead of a few people being able to own the entire organization.
Which would prevent things like the Walton family owning Walmart with ~3 million people inside it. An organization like Walmart, which is larger than many countries. An organization that is economically larger than ~150 countries of the world. Owned by a few people. Who hoard all the profit. Which is literally a feudal fief.
Because organizations like Walmart are owned by a few people, 3 million~ people who work at Walmart get only a tiny amount of the economic value they create by working in those organizations.
The entire profit goes to their owners. Like how the Walton family pockets all the profit.
Which creates an immensely unequal distribution of wealth — a dozen people gulping billions whereas millions of people having to rely on food aid in order to feed their families.
Now imagine that such organizations were cooperatives.
With the employees being worker-owners, receiving egalitarian shares of the wealth. While also democratically participating in the governance of the company. You know, by voting for not doing things that harm the environment, bankrupt people and stuff. Which is just an added benefit.
A much more egalitarian distribution of the ownership of the economy. And a much more egalitarian distribution of capital as a result.
A distribution that gives the majority the power to invest.
As you can understand, in such an economy, it would be much easier for Musk to raise capital for reaching Mars.
And that wouldn’t be only because there is more capital available — there are more benefits of such an economy.
A Much More Educated and Powerful Society
A more egalitarian economy such as this means that there would be more funds to educate people, keep them housed, fed, and healthy.
More people can be educated, and they can get educated much better, with much more talent being available as a result.
The average level of talent would also rise, due to the wider availability of education and the increasing quality of education.
People wouldn’t have to work irrelevant jobs in order to afford a life and pay off their student debt.
So that great talent who could have achieved a breakthrough for space travel while working for SpaceX in such a different world wouldn’t be working as an oil rig engineer because he or she has to take care of the family and pay college debts.
Neither that other talent who would find the solution to adverse psychological effects of being confined in a narrow space during space travel would be flipping burgers like he or she is doing today. Only because of being from a poor family because people don’t get a fair share of the economic value that they create today.
Instead, people would be working jobs in which they are interested in, in jobs that really light up their fire. Like those who want to reach space, reach Mars and beyond working in SpaceX and other pioneers.
A Better Economy in Every Way
Imagine — in this new economy, Elon Musk has no issues raising capital.
He has no issues investing in groundbreaking research.
He has no issues in paying for manufacturing paradigm-changing technology.
He has no issues in recruiting more talent.
He has no issues in recruiting the best talent.
SpaceX is a gigantic, prosperous organization in this new economy. It's moving forward at lightning speed, solving problems not only for space travel but also for humanity at the same time. Things are just speeding up.
Mars seems to be coming closer every day.
So fast that it seems within reach now…
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