The second of the four goals formulated by Gerard K. O’Neill is to find (or rather create) an optimal living climate for all of humanity. Not surprisingly he spends a large portion of his book on orbital space settlements, discussing the internal design of space habitats in order to promote public well-being. Continue reading Public Green & Society
Category Archives: economics
Fees against junk?
One of the negative externalities of the space age, is the debris resulting from abandoned satellites. Currently there about 128 million pieces of old spacecrafts floating around, pieces that are up to 10 cm in size. Though this does not seem threatening, the kinetic energy of these parts is so high, they can destroy operational satellites. Continue reading Fees against junk?
Henry George: Progress and Poverty
It has been quite some time since I read Henry George’s master piece. However, this post provides a good core of HG’s theory.
Henry George was an American political economist and journalist. His most famous work, Progress and Poverty (1879), sold millions of copies worldwide, probably more than any other American book before that time.
The book is a treatise on the questions of why poverty accompanies economic and technological progress and why economies exhibit a tendency toward cyclical boom and bust.
I want to stress that this was one of the most important books ever written. Only the Bible sold more copies than George!
I want to share my favorite parts. See if you notice how similar the problems of past are to the problems to today.
Introductory – The Problem
At the beginning of this marvelous era it was natural to expect, and it was expected, that labor-saving inventions would lighten the toil and improve the condition of the laborer; that the enormous increase in the power of producing wealth would…
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Deep sea mining
About two-thirds of the surface of the Earth is covered by the oceans. And since on land mines are depleting, due to human greed, it is hardly surprising people are looking to explore the seabed for resources. This is known as deep-sea mining. Continue reading Deep sea mining
Rochdale School for Social Enterprise
Earlier we discussed Michael Parker’s proposal to abolish business schools and to replace them with “schools for organizing”. Though it is unlikely that business school here on Earth will go out of business anytime soon (pun intended), space settlements will provide a unique opportunity to reinvent BS. Continue reading Rochdale School for Social Enterprise
Another argument for Universal Healthcare
The following article on ScienceDaily:
Preventable deaths from lack of high-quality healthcare costs trilions
provides yet another, economic, argument in favor of universal healthcare system. The main argument of this study is that people dying from treatable conditions unnecessarily decreases a society’s labor force. And hence economic output is also diminished. Continue reading Another argument for Universal Healthcare
The Mordan Foreign Investment Corporation
This post has been long overdue
Earlier we proposed the establishment of the Mordan Domestic Investment Fund. That fund is intended to stimulate domestic economic development. However, the Mordan Foreign Investment Corporation or MFIC, will focus on investments abroad by investing the Nation’s foreign exchange reserves*.
Land and inequality
Though inequality of wealth is a “hot” topic, one of its root causes is usually neglected. We are talking here about the unequal distribution of land. About a year ago The Guardian published the following article:
Slavery and modern management
The following article in the New York Times, American Capitalism Is Brutal, You Can Trace That To The Plantation, describes in an excellent manner how modern management systems have their roots in slavery and plantation economy. A short summary: an efficient plantation required an elaborate bookkeeping to keep track of each slave’s productivity. Hence a multilayered system of supervision of labor was necessitated. Continue reading Slavery and modern management
Public bicycle system
As distances within a space habitat will be rather small, only a couple of kilometers in most designs , bicycles will be an excellent mode of transportation for space settlers. Promoting cycling will also have environmental and public health benefits. Continue reading Public bicycle system
