The Fair Deal

"Globally align the interests of people, business, and government"

What is The Fair Deal?

The Fair Deal is primarily a new social contract with these characteristics:

1. A New Social Contract: A fresh vision inspired by the Square Deal and New Deal, capturing contemporary principles and understanding for a more just future.
2. Based on Core Principles: Grounded in high individual liberty, social mobility, and standard of living; informed by psychological theories of universal human needs.
3. Global Nonpartisan Initiative: An inclusive, nonpartisan effort to shape a new social contract, inviting diverse contributions. Aimed not just at America, but the entirety of humanity.
4. Building Consensus: A commitment to gradual, thoughtful change, nurturing consensus across political, economic, social, cultural, and intellectual spheres.

Core Principles

The Fair Deal is predicated upon these principles. Everything should flow from this core framework.

1. High Individual Liberty for all humans
2. High Standard of Living for all humans
3. High Social Mobility for all humans

In other words, these are universal principles that we all might agree on as an ideal model of society. If we can agree on these principles, then we can collectively work towards them.

Universal Human Needs

Through rigorous research and distilling of multiple frameworks and perspectives, these are the universal human needs. While the Fair Deal is not meant to provide them directly, the Fair Deal creates the optimal environment for thriving. In other words, the aforementioned three principles, when applied broadly, facilitate and enable people to meet their universal needs.

1. Basic Needs: Includes physiological needs and safety, emphasizing survival and security.
2. Love and Belonging: A recurring theme that highlights connection and relationships.
3. Autonomy and Freedom: A focus on individual choice, control, and the ability to pursue one's path.
4. Growth and Self-Actualization: Concerns personal development, competence, and reaching one's potential.
5. Health and Well-Being: Encompasses mental and physical health, relaxation, and overall wellness.

This is a "needs-based" model of humanity, rather than a "human nature" based model. It's not meant to supplant Adam Smith's theory, but rather to build upon it and add more nuance. In other words, you can look at these universal human needs as the underlying drives, motivations, or desires that humans try to fulfill. We make no comment on whether or not humans are intrinsically self-serving, altruistic, or any spectrum between the two. We merely wish to identify and articulate universally observable human needs.

Racing Analogy

This analogy can be useful for messaging, clarity, and constructing simple, universal narratives. You need four things to win a race:

1. Steering: Avoid obstacles and collisions
2. Braking: Slow down to maintain control
3. Acceleration: Pick up the pace to get to the finish
4. Victory condition: Where are you going towards

Racing without all of these is stupid, and you will either die or lose.

Victory Condition: Utopia

Can we all agree that we all want:

1. High standard of living?
2. High social mobility?
3. High individual liberty?

If so, this is the endzone, the checkered flag, the destination. Can we agree that this is a good objective for all humanity? For the entire globe? If so, this can help solve coordination failures.

Steering: Oversight

Guiding our global journey requires:

1. Direction: Knowing which paths align with our shared objectives
2. Avoidance: Steering around obstacles like corruption, inequality, catastrophe, and ethical lapses
3. Alignment: Keeping interests of people, businesses, and governments in harmony. Look for the win-win-win Steering without purpose or precision is wandering. Lack of proper oversight can lead us astray or into collisions with unintended consequences.

Braking: Regulation

Controlling our pace and motion needs:

1. Balance: Not too slow to hinder progress, nor too fast to lose control
2. Safety: Implementing measures that protect society, economy, and environment
3. Responsiveness: Adapting to emerging challenges and opportunities in the global landscape Racing without brakes is reckless. Proper regulation ensures we don’t crash, but that we can still navigate the twists and turns towards our utopian goal.

Acceleration: Investment

Fueling our progress to the finish requires:

1. Resources: Investing in technology, research, and infrastructure
2. Innovation: Supporting implementation, development, and entrepreneurship
3. Redistribution: Ensuring all benefit from advancements to crank the economy red hot Accelerating without consideration is wasteful. Strategic investment propels us forward, powering the vehicle that drives us towards a globally aligned future.

General Strategy

These four strategic principles can allow anyone to participate in spreading the ideas of the New Deal. Like any intellectual, political, or philosophical movement, it will take time. These are four strategic behaviors that anyone can do, starting right now.

1. Initiate Conversation: Engage people in dialogue about these universal principles. Explore agreement, objections, likes, and dislikes to craft organic narratives. Negotiate and compromise.
2. Research and Messaging: Encourage academics, politicians, and communicators to dissect, discuss, and name these ideas, creating a robust intellectual framework. Teach it, understand it.
3. Incorporate into Culture: Urge creators, influencers, and storytellers to weave these principles into their works and missions, recognizing the power of timely ideas and compelling stories.
4. Spread and Embed: Allow the idea to resonate, spread, and become part of the zeitgeist. Naturally, champions will emerge, and it will influence policy and societal norms.
5. Launch Campaigns: Embed these ideals and objectives into your messaging, political campaigns, corporate culture, and social media platform.

Policy Milestones

These milestones and strategic objectives can be implemented broadly within and between nations to help drive the conversation in the right direction. While AI was the catalyst for the Fair Deal, this package must be all-encompassing. In other words, AI and technology represents a Black Swan event that could either become a watershed moment where we pivot and establish new paradigms of economics and governance or we continue on the path we're on.

While these various policy milestones are expansive, they are by no means exhaustive. These lists are provided primarily as food for thought.

Steering

1. Implement Global Transparency Standards: Create and enforce international standards for transparent reporting in AI development and governance across all participating nations.
2. Sign an International Treaty on AI Ethics: Develop and ratify a binding international treaty that sets clear ethical guidelines for AI research, development, and deployment.
3. Establish Multinational Oversight Bodies for AI: Form international organizations with representatives from various nations to oversee, review, and regulate AI activities and developments.
4. Create Cross-Border Anti-Corruption Measures: Implement shared anti-corruption measures that focus specifically on preventing regulatory capture and undue influence in the AI industry.
5. Launch Global Whistleblower Protection Programs: Initiate international programs to protect those who expose unethical practices within AI development and governance.
6. Inaugurate International AI Research Centers: Open international research centers dedicated to ethical AI, funded and supported by multiple nations, fostering collaboration and shared knowledge.

Braking

1. Enact Global Financial Stability Regulations: Implement international regulations to monitor and prevent potential financial crises, ensuring stability across markets.
2. Sign an International Data Privacy Treaty: Develop and ratify a binding treaty that sets universal standards for data privacy and protection across participating nations.
3. Create Multinational Disaster Response Protocols: Establish shared response strategies for global crises (environmental, health, technological), ensuring coordinated action.
4. Regulate Cross-Border AI Deployment: Implement standardized regulations controlling how AI technologies are deployed and operated across international boundaries.
5. Formulate Global Environmental Sustainability Standards: Develop and enforce shared international standards for environmental protection, focusing on sustainable technology practices.
6. Establish International Human Rights Protocols in AI: Create binding agreements that enforce the application of universal human rights principles in AI development and utilization.

Acceleration

1. Launch Global Innovation Hubs: Inaugurate international centers for research, development, and innovation in AI, supported by collaborative funding from various nations.
2. Implement a Universal Education Platform: Establish a globally accessible online education platform, focusing on AI and technology skills, to promote equal opportunity and workforce readiness.
3. Create an International Sustainable Technology Fund: Develop a shared investment fund to support research, innovation, and deployment of environmentally sustainable technologies.
4. Sign Cross-Border Entrepreneurship Agreements: Facilitate international agreements to support and fund collaborative entrepreneurship in the AI and technology sectors.
5. Invest in Global Health Technology Research: Fund international research collaborations focused on leveraging AI for global health improvements and accessibility.
6. Establish International Infrastructure Development Programs: Initiate multinational projects to enhance digital infrastructure, enabling equitable access to AI-driven services and technologies.

Victory

1. Achieve Universal Healthcare Access: Successfully implement global strategies that ensure healthcare accessibility to all individuals, regardless of location or income.
2. Guarantee Basic Needs for All People: Enact international agreements and programs that guarantee every person access to essential needs such as food, clothing, housing, and clean water.
3. Establish Global Social Mobility Initiatives: Create and enact international programs that demonstrably enhance opportunities for upward social mobility across all nations.
4. Implement Global Internet Freedom Policies: Enforce and uphold international policies that guarantee unrestricted access to the internet, protecting freedom of expression online.
5. Coordinate Comprehensive Climate Change Solutions: Unite countries in achieving measurable success in climate change mitigation and adaptation through shared policies and practices.
6. Ensure International AI Safety Compliance: Reach global consensus and adherence to safety standards in AI development, deployment, and utilization.

Cautions

Political and social ideologies can be extremely harmful when misapplied or misunderstood.

1. Don't put the cart before the horse. There's a correct order of things here. You can't force an organic narrative anymore than you can change wind and tide. You have to go with the flow.
2. Ends don't justify means. Some of the worst atrocities in humanity were because someone had an idealized view of society and humanity and used brute force to try and make it happen.
3. Progress is not linear. Systemic change requires systemic efforts, and patience. Grassroots movements always feel glacial, but they can take years or decades to pick up steam, and then the change happens all at once. Be ready for narrative and counter-narrative.

Underpinning Theories and Models

For reference, these six frameworks serve as the primary underpinning research behind The Fair Deal.

1. Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs: A psychological theory that describes five levels of human needs, arranged in a pyramid. From bottom to top, the levels are: physiological, safety, love/belonging, esteem, and self-actualization. The lower needs must be satisfied before higher-level needs become motivating.
2. Choice Theory: Developed by Dr. William Glasser, Choice Theory posits that human behavior is driven by the choices made to satisfy five basic needs: survival, love/belonging, power, freedom, and fun. It emphasizes personal responsibility and the idea that the only person's behavior we can control is our own.
3. Self-Determination Theory (SDT): A theory of motivation that focuses on the degree to which human behavior is self-motivated and self-determined. It centers around three basic psychological needs: autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Fulfilling these needs leads to optimal development and well-being.
4. Roger Walsh's Therapeutic Lifestyle Changes (TLC): A set of evidence-based lifestyle therapeutic practices that aim to enhance mental health and well-being. It includes exercise, nutrition, exposure to nature, relationships, recreation, relaxation, religious/spiritual engagement, and contribution and service.
5. Kohlberg's Theory of Moral Development: A stage theory describing the development of moral reasoning. It consists of three levels, each with two stages: Pre-conventional (obedience, self-interest), Conventional (interpersonal accord, authority), and Post-conventional (social contract, universal ethical principles).
6. Kegan's Self-Authorship: A developmental theory by Robert Kegan that focuses on how individuals construct and evolve their understanding of the world through six stages. It emphasizes the progression from being subject to one's context to achieving a sense of self-authorship, where individuals can act independently from their surroundings. The final stages, Self-Authorship and Self-Transforming minds, understand their perspective in the context of numerous other perspectives and worldviews. It’s about disentangling oneself from the noise to see the bigger picture.

Another crucial contributor to this framework is Patricia Churchland who takes an interdisciplinary approach by combining philosophy, neuroscience, and evolution. Her work was a strong influence on this framework.

Understanding Social Contract

It's important to understand that The Fair Deal is not a legislative package, but rather a new narrative, a new social contract. The ultimate result should include policy changes, fiscal changes, and monetary changes. But it should also include a new understanding of the relationships, responsibilities, and expectations from the various pillars of society.

• Social Contract: An implicit or explicit agreement among members of a society to cooperate for mutual benefit, often involving negotiation and compromise to balance individual and collective needs, wants, values, and rights. Some features of Social Contract:
  • Consensus: Social contracts work towards consensus through negotiation and compromise.
  • Narrative: Consensus is achieved through narratives and stories. A social contract is a type of narrative.
  • Belief: People have to believe in the social contract for it to work. Cultivating belief is a matter of evidence, time, reflection, and observation.
  • Universal Principles: The social contract must appeal to universal principles. Prior social contracts were based upon prevailing philosophy and economic theory of the time.
  • Zeitgeist: Social contract is embedded within and constructed along with the zeitgeist. It is as much a reflection of the times as it is a shaper.
• Pillars of Society: A social contract underscores a set of expectations, roles, and responsibilities placed upon the various pillars of society. This is crucial to solving the coordination problem, which allows for large, complex societies to exist.
  • The People: Social contracts are, first and foremost, of the people, for the people, and by the people.
  • Government: Secondarily, social contracts establish the role of government, including expectations, constraints, and goals. This can include entities such as central banks, military, Congress, Courts, and other constructs of government. This excludes religious institutions as we have globally agreed that secular government is ideal.
  • Business: A third pillar of social contract is business; the entities, institutions and instruments of society that produce goods and services. This can include numerous categories, such as banks, media, and journalists.

Renegotiating this social contract and the relationship between these pillars will be incredibly important with the rise of AI and the possibility of entering into a Post-Labor Economic paradigm.

Other Thinkers

Let's compare and contrast The Fair Deal to prior work. The point here is to draw similarities and show how The Fair Deal builds upon established philosophy and thought.

• John Maynard Keynes
  • Similarities: Keynes advocated for government intervention to address social inequality and ensure economic stability. This model's emphasis on social mobility and high standards of living could align with Keynesian economics in the pursuit of social welfare.
  • Differences: Keynes focused primarily on economic policy and macroeconomic management, while this model offers a more holistic and human-centric approach grounded in psychological theories.
• Adam Smith
  • Similarities: Both models recognize the importance of individual choices and motivations. Smith's focus on self-interest could be seen as a specific aspect of the broader human needs this model addresses.
  • Differences: This model is more inclusive and cooperative, aiming for societal agreement on universal principles, while Smith emphasized market forces and individual competition.
• Immanuel Kant
  • Similarities: Kant's philosophy on autonomy and the moral worth of individuals aligns with this emphasis on individual liberty and the universal principles that guide human behavior.
  • Differences: Kant's moral philosophy centers on duty and categorical imperatives, while this model focuses more on meeting universal human needs and fostering social mobility and well-being.

The Fair Deal vs Neoliberalism

Here we will compare and contrast The Fair Deal with Neoliberalism (the prevailing economic and political doctrine) to demonstrate that The Fair Deal can easily fit within the current framework. In fact, the Fair Deal can be seen as adding nuance and sophistication to neoliberal models.

1. Overlaps
   • Emphasis on Individual Liberty: Both neoliberalism and The Fair Deal value individual freedom. Neoliberalism often emphasizes individual entrepreneurial freedoms within the framework of property rights, whereas The Fair Deal highlights high individual liberty as a core principle. Property rights flow from individual liberty, social mobility, and standard of living, but should not supersede these human needs. In other words, property rights should exist in service to human needs.
   • Market Mechanisms: Neoliberalism advocates for free-market capitalism and minimal government intervention. The Fair Deal, while more inclusive and concerned with social welfare, may still recognize the role of market forces in achieving economic efficiency. In other words, The New Deal agrees that seeking efficiency (lowering the cost of goods and services) is one of the best ways to achieve its aims.
   • Inclusivity: The Fair Deal's nonpartisan initiative is aimed at creating a new social contract that resonates with diverse human experiences. This emphasis on inclusivity has a direct counterpart in neoliberal ideology, namely that neoliberalism views all human's ability to contribute productively and demand equally. Labor is labor, and money is money. Both frameworks appeal to meritocracy and equality.
2. Clashes
   • Social Responsibility and Equity: Neoliberalism often prioritizes market efficiency over social welfare and may resist regulations that promote social equality. The Fair Deal, on the other hand, emphasizes high social mobility and standards of living for all, indicating a commitment to reducing inequality and ensuring basic human needs are met. This conflict can be resolved by viewing the principles of the Fair Deal more as KPI rather than imperatives or mandates.
   • Role of Government: Neoliberalism typically advocates for limited government intervention in the economy, whereas The Fair Deal might involve a more active government role in creating a new social contract and aiming for high standards of living. This clash can be resolved by aligning the interests of the people with the intersts of business. Find common ground that benefits everyone.
   • Human Needs vs. Human Nature: Neoliberalism's reliance on self-interest as a driving force can conflict with The Fair Deal's focus on universal human needs, values, and well-being. This conflict can be resolved by viewing human needs as the underpinning force driving human nature. This provides a more nuanced view.
3. Independent Aspects
   • Approach to Change: The Fair Deal emphasizes a patient and thoughtful approach to building consensus over time, focusing on organic narratives and inclusive dialogue. This is distinct from neoliberalism's more rigid adherence to free-market principles.
   • Connection to Historical Initiatives: While neoliberalism has its roots in classical liberalism, The Fair Deal explicitly draws inspiration from historical initiatives like the Square Deal and New Deal, establishing a different historical context and lineage.

Post-Labor Economics

Let's explore the characteristics and implications of entering into a Post-Labor Economic paradigm. The concept of Post-Labor Economics envisages a future where human labor becomes largely irrelevant due to the superior efficiency, speed, and affordability of machines. This paradigm shift raises profound questions about how society will organize itself economically and socially. Here's how this concept intertwines with the guiding principles of the Fair Deal:

1. Collapse of Goods and Services Costs: In a Post-Labor Economy, automation could lead to an unprecedented reduction in the cost of most goods and services. Machines, operating around the clock without human limitations, could drive production efficiencies to new heights. This collapse in costs is generally viewed positively, as it can increase accessibility to various products and enhance overall living standards.
   • AI and machines could lead to a collapse of the price of goods and services.
   • This is because machines could become better, faster, and cheaper than human labor.
   • If machines outpace humans, it would also mean the collapse of demand for human labor (hence Post-Labor).
2. Renegotiating Relationships: However, the widespread replacement of human labor with machines necessitates a profound renegotiation of the relationship between individuals, government, and business. Traditional economic models that tie human value to labor and productivity are challenged in this new landscape.
   • Distribution and Redistribution Problems: With human labor less central to economic productivity, new mechanisms will be needed to ensure fair distribution of wealth and resources. The Fair Deal's commitment to high social mobility and standards of living for all humans becomes crucial here, guiding the creation of policies that ensure people's needs are met regardless of their role in economic production.
   • Business Continuity: While businesses may benefit from reduced labor costs, they also rely on consumers having the means to purchase their goods and services. Strategies must be devised to sustain business operations and growth in a landscape where traditional employment may no longer be the norm.
   • Government's Role: The government may need to play a more prominent role in creating and enforcing a new social contract that ensures both economic stability and social welfare. This aligns with The Fair Deal's emphasis on building political, economic, social, and cultural consensus.
3. Disentangling Human Needs from Economic Productivity: The guiding principles of the Fair Deal recognize human needs and values as intrinsic and separate from economic productivity. This disentanglement becomes essential in a Post-Labor Economy, where human worth and well-being cannot be reduced to labor value.
   • Universal Human Needs: The focus on high standard of living for all emphasizes that meeting basic human needs is a right, not a privilege tied to economic contribution.
   • Promoting Autonomy and Connection: By prioritizing high individual liberty, The Fair Deal also encourages a society where people are free to pursue fulfillment and connection beyond traditional labor roles.
   • Inclusive Growth: The Fair Deal's nonpartisan and inclusive approach fosters collaboration and dialogue, vital for navigating the complex transitions of a Post-Labor Economy.

In sum, the Fair Deal's principles are not only compatible with but essential to the vision of a Post-Labor Economy. They provide a framework to renegotiate the fundamental relationships in society, emphasizing universal human needs and values, and offering a path towards a more equitable and humane future where machines take on a larger role in production.