Many are after money. It seems like money is some kind of magic tool that can conjure up anything you like. In many places this is more or less true today, but it is because those that you pay want you to feel like this (Amazon for example), not because there is some intrinsic mechanism to 1. make stuff and 2. to get stuff where it needs to be.
Money is just a token. It fixes one problem in the economy : That you may need something when you don’t want to realy part with something. If you have something you want to trade today, but need nothing (or need something that is only available next week) you accept money because you know it will work to get you what you want next week. This is how money is said to be “a store of value”. This is a mistake, it is not. If nothing is available to buy with your money next week, the money is worthless.
Another thing about money is that it does not solve the delivery of what you want to buy. This is essential for trade. If you are in a desert and you have $1000, it will have no value at all. Whatever you order from that desert has to come to you, which adds cost, the more remote you are the less value your $1000 has. Logistics is often associated with trade, but it has to be associated with money. It is an essential requirement for money to function.
We barely notice the weaknesses of money today because fossil fuels for logistics is kept dirt cheap. This is the “well oiled machine” fossil fuels created. We order something online and it comes with ‘free shipping’. This is of course a huge enabler of trade. It is also an illusion. Container ships produce massive emissions, require incredible amounts of fuel. Some shipping companies (Maersk) own their own oil wells. All this is to keep the illusion alive that wherever you are, your $100 bill will buy you something.
The downside of this illusion is that large regions of the world remain unused. This is because before anything can happen anywhere there needs to be a road and a gasstation. The (fossil) energy needs to be there so people can move stuff and trade. Fossil fuels are connecting all productive members of the economy, not only consumers and producers. Because this is a hassle we have factories and cities and towns, where we concentrate wealth creation so the cost (and human effort) involved is minimized. Also to protect the human lives but that is a lesser concern in most of Europe.
From the above it is easy to conclude that our current financial system is fundamentally married to the fossil energy sector. It has a nice trick it pulls on us. It borrows money to us, and we buy fuel with it to move ourselves and our products around. This absorbs a certain percentage into the fossil industry accounts, but we still have to pay back what we borrowed. We never can, and so banks gain ownership as the weak playrs in the system go bankrupt, The economy is a system that continuously increases the control of banks.
In the Roboeconomy money’s weaknesses will be exposed. Money can only be a token of exchange if its relationship with energy for logistics is somehow neutralized. A renewable energy producer should be allowed to create credit so people can buy its energy in the future. But the further you get away from the energy source the more energy has to be produced to deliver the same amount to the customer. Also the energy needs to be transported. This means that economic activity will happen close to renewable energy sources and along existing energy distribution networks.
On the other hand, renewables allow new centers of activity to sprout up in places that have enough renewable energy potential, such as our deserts. There will be a critical mass of economic skills and materials needed to make it work, but when those two conditions are met there is no reason to doubt a community can grow almost anywhere, on land or at sea. This is a great positive effect of moving on from a fossil basis of world trade to a renewable one. At the same time the pressure to trade will drop significantly, because banks are no longer able to rake in control over assets. The world will become many seperate communities creating wealth to their best abilities. Of course any technology can be used to do it, robots, AI, computers.
In such a world there could be a new system, created to bring comfort to travellers. It can be a lot like the Starbucks and Burger Kings we see wherever we (pre covid) used to fly. The simple fact is that although every place may need a different exact energy input to produce certain kinds of wealth (say a capucino), if the energy source is dirt cheap (like solar panels already are) then you can deliver the wealth for a currency that you can use with establishments set up this way. The total independence of say a Starbucks or fast food chain from a fossilcredit and logistics system would make it a super stabile entity in the experience of people moving around.
If you imagine Tesla setting up charing points all over the globe, where you can buy 1 kwh for 2 ct or something, put it in your car, drive home, power your home (in one of these remote places) etc. Then Tesla could use its own currency to deliver that energy, and a real productive economy could grow on the basis of that currency. Earning enough Tesla’s to power an electric plane to fly you to Baghdad (where the big covered pools and gardens are) would be a motivator to create wealth for others as a citizen. This is exactly what banks do : They provide the illusion that our money has a fixed value everywhere, and that we can save it. We find comfort in that illusion, and we work because we believe we can experience wealth in the future (from our savings). Sadly banks are lying, because they are using fossil fuel as a basis, and this is bothe a finite and toxic resource to use.