.”
The state has a special role to play in Project Zero because only the state is “centralized, strategic and fast” enough to address the urgent problems. However, Mason rejects the old socialist idea of a centrally planned economy, arguing that a centralized bureaucracy cannot respond to new data fast enough to keep up with the pace of change in the information society. Recall the earlier point that the key agent of change will be the educated and networked individual, which implies a high degree of decentralization.
Limits on private capital
So what can the state do to facilitate the transition to postcapitalism? First, it can curb private economic power in industries where it has become a danger to the public good. The energy industry would be one, as the discussion of the climate issue illustrates. The state should actively discourage fossil fuel production and encourage cleaner sources of energy. Mason also sees a much larger role of government in the financial industry. One proposal sure to provoke controversy is that the state take control of the central bank in order to implement a monetary policy that helps debtors more than creditors. That would be a looser monetary policy that keeps interest rates low but allows the inflation rate to be somewhat higher. Over time, that erodes the real value of debt, in contrast to a strict monetary policy that protects wealthy lenders by placing primary emphasis on fighting inflation. Since government itself is a large debtor, that would help governments recover from the fiscal crisis resulting from demands for both low taxes on capital and high spending on social programs to assist struggling wage-earners.
Mason would also reorganize the banking system to make it less profit-driven, by encouraging non-profit banks, credit unions, peer-to-peer lenders, and “a comprehensive state-owned provider of financial services.” He would regulate the remaining profit-oriented banking to curb wasteful speculation and encourage its proper role of efficiently allocating capital to productive activities.
In the economy as a whole, the state would act to insure that what profits remain would be a reward for entrepreneurship, and not just a “rent” based on ownership. Creators of new knowledge would get the rewards of intellectual property rights, but those rights would be short-lived to encourage the flow of knowledge and the continued incentive for further innovation.
Another thing the state can do is strengthen the legal rights and protections of workers to give them more bargaining power in their relationship with capital. This will indirectly encourage the fuller application of new technologies that can produce economic abundance. “If we legally empowered the workforces of global corporations with strong employment rights, their owners would be forced to promote high-wage, high-growth, high-technology models, instead of the opposite.” Owners would try to make each worker as productive as possible if they could no longer profit from paying such low wages.
An obvious objection is that higher wages and productivity would have the downside of less employment. But for Mason, less employment in capitalist workplaces where owners profit by overworking and/or underpaying workers is ultimately a good thing. Ideally, workers would be better paid for the hours they worked, but also have the option of working fewer hours. They could then experience the decline of paid employment as a liberation, not an involuntary displacement.
The other side of the transformation of work is the increasing opportunities for work outside of traditional profit-centered firms, such as in non-profits and co-ops. Mason recommend that the state “reshape the tax system to reward the creation of non-profits and collaborative production.”
The replacement of millions of workers by automated systems is unlikely to be experienced as a good thing unless it has benefits for people as consumers, not just as workers. Here the state can facilitate the transition by providing a basic income to all households, to support those who are vo