Capitalism 2.0

<<Previously in Karkarduma

• The finest thing Facebook ever did to itself after its creation was replacing ‘Likes’ with ‘Reactions’.

• If you have a fair acquaintance with computer science and are wondering how do these quantum computers work so fast, or what the heck are qubits, they are basically higher dimensional classical bits. It is this ability of qubits to grow exponentially, that is the key behind quantum speed up.

• Everybody knows that the square root of negative numbers makes no ‘Real’ sense. Nevertheless, we included complex numbers (a -> a + ib) in mainstream mathematics and it is now virtually unimaginable to work without them.

• The purity in the provenance of quantum physics is ineffable. The theory of general relativity by Einstein liberated our understanding of the universe. Nowhere else do these two major pillars of modern physics coalesce as organically as in String theory. Although impossible to prove thus far, a major ramification of the theory states that we live in 11 dimensions of space-time instead of 4.

In general, everything gets better when we extend our scalar principles about it to vector (higher dimensional) domains.

Could we make similar upgrades to our current economic system?

Communism is the loss of individuality, but so is Capitalism. Consider our vocational preferences: As much as you would love to play flute for a living, you realize having a somewhat well paying job would require hours and hours of daily practice, prodigal talent, and a good amount of luck. Would you rather take a shot at being a professional flutist, or pick ‘science’ in Sr. secondary because it’s ‘safe’; pursue ‘engineering’ because it has good prospective career; practice coding consistently a few hours a week for 4 years and get a high paying IT job?

We are all working towards our ‘self-interests’ while our self-interests are skewed towards a common goal of mustering the ‘all-mighty’ money. Money has been the sole writer of the history of our capitalist world. It decides the prevailing technology, the prevailing fashion; the art, the artists, and everything in between.

We’ve never questioned its ascendancy as this is the model that has helped us — the society — grow. It has helped us reach the moon, cure historical diseases, refine concept, and what effing not. It is naive on its own yet amazingly effective in inducing development. My theme here is to acknowledge its inability to provide more than one vector of growth.

Let us reconsider the capital in capitalism. It is an asset — a commodity that people aspire and it is not always money. Money (currency) is simply a barter to exchange capital which is in no way ‘scalar’. What if we admit its incapacity, and decide to add more vectors to it. Apropos to increasing the number of channels between communicating parties — reducing stress on singular vectors, sharing more resolved responses.

Imagine a utopia where the participants of the society decide where and how to invoke their contribution. Wherein each contribution is weighted with its own independent worth, not compared with other incomparable assets — retaining individuality more than anywhere else.

There is little (if any) counter argument to the fact that liberty comes at the cost of morality. Morality mostly manifests as social ‘constraints’ which is quite literally the opposite of liberty. Capitalism in its current state favours liberty a bit too much over morality. This has what has been at the heart of our resentment of capitalism. I have considered myself to be a man of strong morals. There are many like me who might rise up some day and decide to live in a world where morality prevails over liberty. Will we always have to choose between the different worlds? Is there a way to have the good old ‘a little bit of both’? Could we not live in a superposition of the two (or the many others which may follow)? A world where multiple such capitalist systems dwell simultaneously — a multicapitalist world — Capitalism 2.0

I have possibly not even hinted at the ‘how?’ or ‘what?’ of these additional vectors of capital that’s because I don’t want to scare you away with my ideas right now. It took a lot of heart to get me to broach this idea in public and those specifics are the real punch of embarrassment. Truth be told I am not even sure how to structure this concept coherently. I maintain separate notes delineating all the different challenges the system may face and they are strong enough to thwart it good. Nevertheless my latest understanding of our current economic systems and of the many funny ideas people have given in the past made me realize absurdity is not always unwelcome. More posts to follow :)

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