The Nature of a Commons
A commons is defined in a twofold manner. It is a necessary common resource, unowned and shared, and commonly perceived as such.
This is the object of this exercise, to inform one's perception that a statistical category known as aggregate demand is a necessary common resource, such as specifically air, shared with all and incapable of being owned.
Aggregate demand is the sum of all human direct and ancillary needs, wants, and desires in terms of goods and services allocated by market dynamics. It drives market economies as has been proven repeatedly, constantly these years since Bretton Woods.
The Nature of a Demand Economy
There are two aspects usually cited in discussing market economies, supply and demand. Aggregate supply is the total of goods and services produced both in response to and in the inducing of aggregate demand. With the advent of any automation, but especially capable autonomous robots, profound changes are made to the commons, the wellspring of all productive enterprise, of aggregate demand.
It is the wellspring because monies received for the production of goods and services define aggregate demand. Before a good or service is valuable in any sense in a market it must be sold to an end user. There must be a demand for it. To this point, automation has increased the productivity of human labor and as long as money is supplied aggrandized aggregate demand. Autonomous robots, replacing human labor, damage aggregate demand. They shrink the possible economy of money, demand, and reason. They are pernicious to a healthy economy. They comprise a runaway freight train of production untethered from market forces and thereby making little sense. Chaos will ensue.
The Commons Fiduciary Steward
Once one perceives the commons of aggregate demand and damages to it then it is necessary to codify it. The primary recognition consists of the selection of an institutional steward of the commons given fiduciary responsibilities for the commons. While logically the Commerce Department of the United States government falls naturally to hand as such a steward, while providing for the general welfare, the Social Security Administration has the mechanics in place to redress damages to the aggregate demand by assessing fees per robot hour of operation and distribute those receipts directly to the citizenry. The Commerce Department could easily administer protective tariffs established by Congress to protect fee paying robot production from unencumbered foreign robots and also distribute those penalties to the general citizenry through the Social Security Administration to support aggregate demand.
The robots currently being shipped out of China and by Hyundai and Boston Dynamics demand redress. They are designed to replace human beings. This has been such an attempt at designing a system for recouping damages to the labor force and in consequence the commons of aggregate demand.
The economy is either humane or insane, either human centered or illogical.
Do Well and Be Well.
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