Chapter 1: The Foundation
Read the full chapter in the Unscarcity book.
Chapter 1 explores what happens when 90% of work becomes optional. It presents three models for organizing society without mandatory labor and makes the case for treating survival as infrastructure rather than charity.
Questions Addressed
- What happens when machines handle all production and nobody needs a job to eat?
- Can UBI actually work, or does inflation eat the check?
- How do we avoid surveillance dystopia while still motivating contribution?
- What did the Inca prove about running civilization without money?
- What’s the difference between welfare and infrastructure?
Related Topics
- The Foundation — What the Foundation includes and how it operates
- Two-Tier Solution — Foundation vs. Ascent without class hierarchies
- UBI - Universal Basic Income — The cash-based approach and its limits
- Inca Moneyless Foundation — Historical proof that scale without money works
- Civic Service — The voluntary path to citizenship
- Survival Problem — Why the status quo cannot hold
- Stagnation Problem — The meaning crisis waiting on the other side
- Free Zones — Where the Foundation gets proven in the real world
- Humanoid Robots 2025 — The labor revolution already underway
- Fusion Timeline 2024-2030 — Energy as the unlock for abundance
Key Concepts
- The Foundation (90%) — Housing, food, energy, healthcare, education as universal infrastructure
- The Ascent (10%) — Scarce transformative opportunities allocated by decaying Merit
- Civic Service — Voluntary path to citizenship and civic participation
- Two-Layer Split — Survival as infrastructure, significance as achievement
