Medium published my new article “Coronomics — The Covid-Induced Economy”

The Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2, or in short, SARS-CoV-2, is the strain of coronavirus that causes Coronavirus Disease 2019, a.k.a. COVID-19 — the pandemic that’s killed over a million people in just ten months and is only growing more virulent and violent. It’s also smashed the world’s economy.

Not seeing better a better option, governments are printing money as if there’s no tomorrow. But if they keep this up there will really be no tomorrow, at least not one we want to live in.

With countless houses and apartments standing vacant, and millions of people living on the streets, clearly, there is a fundamental flaw in the system.

Such a time, when the familiar is failing you, is the right time to think outside the box. We know that there are basic needs that people must have no matter what. Food, clothes, and housing are such basics. If people don’t have them, they will destroy the country simply by trying to survive. Therefore, the government, any government, must provide these basics or see that they are provided to every single citizen.

To guarantee provision of basic needs to everyone, the government must see that distribution reaches all the people. Currently, approximately half the food that is produced does not reach consumers either because its sell-by date expires before it’s bought, or because it’s trashed by manufacturers and/or retailers in order to keep the price up, or because transportation costs make distribution unprofitable.

What is true of food is just as true of clothes, tons of which are dumped at the end of each season, and even of housing. With countless houses and apartments standing vacant, and millions of people living on the streets, clearly, there is a fundamental flaw in the system.

You might say, “This is capitalism,” but it doesn’t make human sense to keep people on the street while there are plenty of houses they could occupy. And if capitalism doesn’t make human sense, then capitalism doesn’t make sense, not in today’s world anyway. In other words, it’s time to say goodbye to capitalism and adopt a more considerate and humane approach (though I suggest we leave it nameless for now).

The important thing right now is to help people understand that we are all accountable, and we are all responsible for one another and for all of nature. Our way of life has turned our planet into a giant dumpster. We are living in a dumpster but we complain when we get sick. It’s time we make the connection between how we live and how it all affects us.

So after everyone gets the basic needs for survival, it’s time to change our way of life, namely our attitude to one another. Capitalistic competition is destructive. It did let us out of the caves, but look where it got us. If we must compete, we should compete over who brings more people together, who unites them, who makes them caring and considerate rather than indifferent and selfish.

Of course, we can shrug this whole Covid-induced economy notion off and head back to capitalism, but it won’t work. Covid will kill every attempt to get back to 2019. And the longer we stall with the change, the harder and more painful Covid’s prodding will be. If there is one thing I wish for humanity, it is that everyone will quickly understand where we are going and use the cure I have just outlined before we suffer the blow.
[272665]

Filed under: Coronavirus, Crisis, Economy, New Publications - No Comments →

Question: Many say most people are motivated to work by wages, some by career development, and some by a comfortable atmosphere in the company.

There is a proverb that tells of a traveler in the desert who meets a man rolling a heavy stone. The traveler asks him, “What are you doing?” He answers: “I work, I suffer.” Then the traveler meets another person doing the same thing. To his question, he replied: “I earn a living to support my family.” And the third said: “I’m building a temple.”

It is the same action, but the motivation is different for each one. What can be the highest motivation for a person? How would you motivate, let’s say, your employees?

Answer: Only by education. They need to understand that they are doing the most important job in the world. At every moment, they make such efforts that improve the world and raise the entire universe to the next degree of existence.

There is no work above this one because it brings the world to an integral state when each part interacts with all the others as one single whole. And the world more and more constitutes a single organism. Awareness of what we are doing is a necessary incentive for our proper development.
[271151]
From KabTV’s “The Post-Coronavirus Era” 6/4/20

Related Material:
Will Connection Between People Change In The Future?
Connections Of Egoists Are Doomed To Fail
The Global Crisis Strengthens The Connections Between People

Filed under: Crisis, Economy, Globalization - No Comments →

Question: How should salaries be distributed in an ideal society? Sages said that payment is measured by effort. But the effort is hidden from us. What are the criteria for payment for labor?

Answer: A person’s payment must consist of at least two parts: corporeal and social, spiritual.

We can calculate the corporeal part, taking into account how many children a person has, the conditions of living in each country, in each climate zone, and so on. In addition, here we must adhere to a general criterion so that it is in equilibrium with integral nature.

And the next level is the spiritual, psychological reward. In this case everything already depends on the contribution of a person, on his efforts, on his example for the good of society.

Question: And yet, if a person is a manager responsible for the lives of thousands of people, should he receive the same salary as his employee who is responsible for one specific action?

Answer: Why not? If a manager has everything he needs, why would he need more? What will he do with it? He will see by himself that he does not need it.
[271292]
From KabTV’s “The Post-Coronavirus Era” 6/4/20

Related Material:
Corporeal And Spiritual Work
What Will 70% Of The World Population Study?
Professions Of The Future

Filed under: Economy, Society - No Comments →

Question: In 2020, it has been estimated that a third to one half of the world’s population, almost two billion people, are at risk of losing their jobs or switching to part-time employment. More and more people work from home today. On one hand, this has many advantages for both the employers and the employees. On the other hand, we have stopped wasting time on extraneous conversations, smoking, breaks, etc. But the most crucial thing is that when we stopped working in our workplaces, we lost our social contacts.

What do you think will replace the connections that people had at work?

Answer: I am very glad that these ties are dissipating because they were all egoistic built on the lack of the correct upbringing.

Comment: Accounting for working hours when working from home is quite problematic.

Answer: We don’t need any business hours! We need a person to work from the heart 24 hours a day. This would include one’s physical activity, walking, sleeping, and one’s relationship with their family so that everything altogether would make up their life. Why look at working hours? How many people today work needlessly or with minimal benefit, ostensibly demonstrating their positions are necessary?

Question: Do you think the pay should be based on the number of working hours or on the results?

Answer: Pay should be such as to allow a person to properly exist according to one’s necessities regardless of what one does, where one works, or what position one holds. Payment should be more or less the same for everyone, according to the individual needs of each person.

Question: How can an individual’s needs be determined?

Answer: In order to answer this, we must study people and create well-defined charts of their needs. This is the realm of social work that will involve a lot of people. Each person would make a list of what they need. Let’s say that you need to fill out a form of what you need for a day, a week, a month, and a year.

From such reports, we will understand what everyone needs, and we will learn what we need and what may be completely unnecessary to produce because it only depletes the Earth.
[271236]
From KabTV’s “The Post-Coronavirus Era” 6/4/20

Related Material:
Will Online Communication Lead To The Severing Of Social Ties?
For The Sake Of Society, Not For Yourself
Train To High Jump Over Egoism

Filed under: Crisis, Economy, Health, Society - No Comments →

Question: You say that a person is obliged to work even if he has a means of subsistence. Why?

Answer: It is obvious that society needs his work. Does he work for money or in order to give society what he can give? We don’t see labor as a necessity. We regard it a necessary human participation in the life of society.

Question: So a person who has a livelihood must work in order to connect with other people?

Answer: Of course! Work is a connection with other people, with the general structure of society, humanity. He is obliged to do this precisely in order to be a human being, to be a part of society, not in order to earn money. Work is a means of being included in the human community.
[270971]
From KabTV’s “The Post-Coronavirus Era” 6/4/20

Related Material:
Become A Useful Element Of Society
For The Sake Of Society, Not For Yourself
Labor Is A Necessary Condition For Existence

Filed under: Crisis, Economy, Globalization - No Comments →

In the News (Business Insider): “A group of 83 millionaires are pleading in an open letter to be taxed more in order to pay for the damage COVID-19 had caused to economies around the world.

“Signatories to the letter, addressed to ‘our fellow global citizens,’ called themselves ‘Millionaires for Humanity.’ …

“The signatories said that the extra governmental challenges of providing healthcare and education, and helping struggling businesses — all of which have been hit hard by the pandemic — cannot be solved through charity.

“They do not drive ambulances, serve hospital wards, or stock grocery shelves amid the pandemic, the group admitted. ‘But we do have money,’ they wrote. ‘Lots of it.’

“The group said the responsibility lies with government to raise the funds needed to address the issues that they said will last for decades, they wrote.”

Question: Do you believe it?

Answer: What are they saying? “We have been stealing for dozens of years, raking out of your empty pockets almost everything you had, to the last cent, and now we are ready to give back a little. And this so that you will buy, develop everything, and we continue to get rich from that so everything keeps going, and we have what to live on.

You do not have enough money to spin this machine? We will give you! We will “pour some gasoline” for you. And you keep working! Keep working so that we get more billions. From the fact that you spin on a penny, we earn billions.”

What do they want now? They play at nobility, saying: “We are giving it to you! We are ready to donate to you! We are ready to pull money out of our pockets!”

Question: How else can they express their empathy?

Answer: They have no empathy. Absolutely not. They know that if they pour a couple of billions into the economy now, they will continue to rake in 20 to 30 times more.

Question: And if they want this money to go to those who are at the forefront of the fight against coronavirus?

Answer: It does not matter. The main thing is to keep it going. And where the money goes, it does not matter.

Question: What act of theirs would you call noble? Noble at least within the framework of our world. What should they have done?

Answer: I think that we just need to take everything that they have and to give it away, and they should keep for themselves only what everyone has, because they earned all this due to the fact that tried to take the most they could at the lowest possible cost.

I may be an idealist in some way, but one cannot earn such capital in an honest way. One cannot! This is due to the fact that one forcefully takes that which belongs to everyone for oneself.

Question: But you understand that they will not do such a noble deed. They will not give all their money away. Well, will he then go and shoot himself?

Answer: It is obvious that they will not. They will buy the media as usual, although they have already bought it. They will spread the news everywhere, will ring it up, will hold charity events and concerts, and everyone will admire them.

Question: What does a person feel when he acts, in his opinion, in such a noble way? Is it only his pride that grows in him?

Answer: Of course!

Question: And they will no longer be able to do a noble deed?

Answer: This is not a noble deed. This is pompousness! Super arrogance! Say, we have earned everything through hard work and now we give part of this away to society. Let us say, I have 100 billion and I give you two billion!

Question: So what is a “turning point”? What can urge them to give away their money, even if not all of it?

Answer: Nothing can urge them. Not in any way. With such capital, they will not move.

Question: There is nothing to take over the armored egoism of these people?

Answer: No. They are accumulating lots of billions now; they are now earning much more than before. They profit from this crisis even more. But it will be over soon, and what next? After all, all this will be no longer needed, all this fashion, all these jewels. For this to exist the masses are needed!

Question: When the masses will not be able to pay for it, then a new period will begin?

Answer: Of course! They already feel it.

Question: One way or another, if not this coronavirus, as you say, then something else will lead them to the state where their thinking will turn over?

Answer: Their thinking will not turn over. I think that money will just lose its value, its meaning.

Question: What will be valued?

Answer: A person’s attitude to the world. Gradually, we will begin to appreciate a person’s attitude to society. A person will be appreciated; this will be most important.

Question: What kind of a letter from a billionaire would you take seriously?

Answer: “We have come to the conclusion that we are obliged to invest all our hundreds of billions in creating such a society that would lead all of humanity to unity, right up to the feeling of the common force of the world.”
[270940]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 7/20/20

Related Material:
Tested By Wealth
And The Rich Will Weep
Cyber Monday

Filed under: Crisis, Economy, Globalization, Health, News - No Comments →

Question: Recent research conducted by recruiting companies suggests that waiters, chefs, security guards, and cleaning personnel have been the most unused jobs during the pandemic.

Many people, literally hundreds of millions, felt that they could lose their profession overnight. Yesterday they had a professional job, but not today. What would you suggest? What profession should a person choose today?

Answer: I think that a person just needs to find him or herself. Finding yourself means constantly creating a more correct image of yourself, of what a person is. And professions will be needed, if at all, only for a small part of humanity.

We will come to a state when people will work a minimum number of hours a day, and they will engage in self-education for the rest of the time. They will take part in all kinds of educational programs and change themselves and society. This is the real work of a person.
[271304]
From KabTV’s “Kabbalah Express” 9/1/20

Related Material:
The Most Important Professions
Professions Of The Future
Getting To Know Ourselves

Filed under: Crisis, Economy, Globalization, Society - No Comments →

Question: Wikipedia defines labor: “Work or labour is intentional activity people perform to support themselves, others, or the needs and wants of a wider community. Alternatively, work can be viewed as the human activity that contributes (along with other factors of production) towards the goods and services within an economy.^“

Sigmund Freud said “Love and work are the cornerstones of our humanness.” According to Marx, “Labour is, in the first place, a process in which both man and Nature participate, and in which man of his own accord starts, regulates, and controls the material re-actions between himself and Nature. He opposes himself to Nature as one of her own forces, setting in motion arms and legs, head and hands, the natural forces of his body, in order to appropriate Nature’s productions in a form adapted to his own wants.”

How would you define work?

Answer: It depends on what era we are talking about. But, in general, labor is a necessary condition for existence. Nature itself confirms this. If we do not need something, we are not drawn to it. Man engages in something that interests him. Therefore, labor is a necessity that forces a person to produce those products that he needs. But if there is no need for them, then he will happily not waste time on their production.

Question: If we consider this issue from the point of view of history, in the beginning labor was necessary simply to survive. Then people began to exploit each other’s labor and earn money. And then the essence of work changed. People themselves started to ask to work.

Today we live in a period when a person fully associates himself with work. Even more, his status is determined by where he works. How will the essence of work change in the future?

Answer: I think things are moving toward the fact that we can provide everything we need with very little effort and in a short time. We will not produce beyond what is necessary because eventually we will realize that this is killing us: personally, our society, and the planet on which we live.

Therefore, we need to limit producing surplus and produce only what is necessary, and that the necessary will be sufficient for us.
[270641]
From KabTV’s “The Post-Coronavirus Era” 6/4/20

Related Material:
The End Of The Era Of Consumption
Did Our Employment Bring Benefits?
Professions Of The Future

Filed under: Crisis, Economy, Globalization - No Comments →

Question: When someone provides me with some service, I can feel through it his emotional and moral attitude toward me. If I receive some products made by people I do not see and do not know, will I be able to feel them?

Answer: It depends on our agreement. There should be a clear program, clear policy, clear social agreement in society that people will produce only what they need and provide it to everyone.

Therefore, there should be common places established for producing necessary food, clothing, machinery, and so on.

But the most important thing will be aiming at mutual education, revealing the internal forces of the integral system of nature in the correct connection between us. This will help us create our own integral system of human relationships, which will be similar to nature. Then we will be called Adam, from the word “similar to nature.”

Question: What is better from the point of view of the internal laws of nature: to work for me, for the employer, or for the country?

Answer: From the Kabbalistic point of view, it doesn’t matter who you work for. It is because a person, society, country, the entire Earth, and all of nature in general are one integral system. We need to be included in this system first out of necessity and then voluntarily by our will and with love.

There are stages of our inclusion in the general system. Yet, it all begins with love for one’s neighbor and extends to universal love for the entire nature, for the entire system of integral connection.
[271106]
From KabTV’s “The Post-Coronavirus Era” 6/4/20

Related Material:
On The Threshold Of A New Formation: “Integral Society” Part 2
Earn The Other’s Consent To Participate In Union
The Wisdom To Reveal The World

Filed under: Crisis, Economy, Globalization - No Comments →

Question: Can you explain the principle of “from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs”? Can we say that this is the main principle of the new economy?

Answer: Naturally. Society should give a person what is necessary for his normal existence, no more and no less. In return, it should require of him all possible participation in the life and prosperity of society.

Do not measure the good of society by the growth of product output. If you have everything you need, there is no need to increase production. Man is the same animal. He needs as much as he can consume. Not more.

He should not consume 5,000 calories today if he consumed 2,000 yesterday. The growth of social welfare does not consist in this, but in a greater connection between people, in order to reveal to each other the higher layers of nature.

Remark: By saying this, you are canceling Maslow’s pyramid. It is clear that the rich can no longer eat and sleep in three beds. But behind basic needs, there is social growth of egoistic desires for honor, power, and knowledge. You can not jump over them.

My Comment: It depends on your upbringing. When I use these means to benefit society, they will not be defined as power, knowledge, strength, fame, etc. It will be called something else because I do it for the sake of society.

Question: What will a person enjoy?

Answer: The fact that he will be respected not for power, but for working for others. He will evaluate his work in accordance with the assessment of society.

Question: So, will the desire for wealth, power, and knowledge still remain?

Answer: They will take on a different form: for the sake of society, not for their own sake.

Question: Will the rich people still stay?

Answer: No. There will be no rich people. Society will not allow itself to have such people. Moreover, a person brought up in a new environment will not want to be like this.

Question: But the desire for knowledge will certainly continue. Scientists will be respected for their discoveries. What is the difference between today’s scientists and the scientists of the future? What will drive them?

Answer: Those and others are working to satisfy their selfish desire for knowledge. It does not interfere with society. Anything that does not hinder society or allow it to move ahead toward greater integration is commendable. The public good should serve as a compass.
[270651]
From KabTV’s “The Post-Coronavirus Era” 6/4/20

Related Material:
Building The Future Society, Part 5
Will People Lose Their Desire To Be Rich?
Society Of The Future: Becoming Partners With The Creator

Filed under: Crisis, Economy, Globalization, Health - No Comments →