Around 8,000 years ago, humanity’s great revolution began. For the first time, more was produced than was immediately necessary for survival. This was a tremendous step forward: at last, a life seemed possible that went beyond the daily struggle for survival.
It began in Mesopotamia, when more was produced than was necessary. Some people enclosed land and paid wages to people to work in the fields. With their wages, they could buy what was on offer at the market. Whatever was left went into the landowners’ storehouses.
Further development proceeded slowly; the greatest achievement was the invention of the wheel some 5,000 years ago.
It took almost another 5,000 years before it seemed as though humanity was ready for a new leap forward. Suddenly, distant continents were discovered, the printing press was invented, the sun was placed at the centre, and an apple fell on Newton’s head.
Everything surged forward at once and the competition began. Traders vied for the lowest prices with the most interesting products. Over time, there were looms, steam engines, electricity, penicillin was discovered, DNA was decoded, aeroplanes took to the skies, television was invented and nuclear power was unleashed.
Although most people could already lead a life of dignity, the struggle for survival still overshadows our daily lives.
The struggle for wages and social benefits
The drive for ever-greater progress went hand in hand with a constant struggle for wages and social benefits. Large trade unions emerged; not a week goes by without public transport grinding to a halt somewhere because people are fighting for higher wages.
Securing social benefits is the central issue in election campaigns.
But pay rises do not fall from the sky. Every time wages are to rise, more must be produced and sold. As not enough cars are being sold, the arms industry must step in today.
Demand for energy and raw materials is skyrocketing, and the IMF forecasts a further 25 per cent growth over the next five years. We are destroying the foundations of our existence, yet on average we throw away what we buy after half its useful life. Many people today fear the end of the world
Many sense: things cannot go on like this.
We are not aware that we have reached the final phase of this revolution of humanity. All the conditions for the transition to a new paradigm are in place
A revolution in its final phase
A simple but radical idea
The market ensures that more and more must be produced and sold so that wages, social benefits and, of course, profits can be generated.
This will remain the case as long as we need wages to obtain the necessities of daily life. Yet shortly afterwards, those wages are absorbed back into the market.
Every time wages are paid, a profit is generated at the same time. This is the portion of the sales revenue that the entrepreneur does not pay to the employer, but keeps for their own work. Since the entrepreneur also bears the risk, this portion of the profit is naturally greater than the wage.
This happens with every wage payment, and that is why the gap between employers and employees, between rich and poor, keeps growing. But of course we don’t learn this sort of thing at school, so it looks as though it is ‘God’s will’. Marx explained this precisely.
We could, of course, demand that entrepreneurs keep less profit for themselves, but they will always insist on their entrepreneurial risk and initiative, and ultimately they hold the upper hand.
Do we really always have to think of expropriation and revolution straight away?
Couldn’t we try, given the critical state of the world, to bring employees and employers together around a table and discuss whether it might be possible to do without profits and pay slips?
Profits and wages will be needed for as long as production and consumers have to be linked via a market.
Direct supply without a market
Today, it is possible to supply humanity entirely without a market.
Before the internet existed, the market was indispensable so that producers could offer their goods there.
Today, we are connected worldwide. Instead of ordering from Amazon or AliExpress, we could order directly from the producers. Exactly what we really need. Without advertising and price wars urging us to take more.
But for that to happen, product prices would have to disappear so that we can recognise the real benefit, the use value.
Is that even possible? Products without prices? They would then be free!
Of course it is possible, because the Earth gives us everything we need. All raw materials and all energy are gifts of creation, and creation does not demand money.
The owners of the oil wells, the mines and the fields would then, like everyone else, receive their livelihood for free. Nothing at all could then be bought with the profits. So it would not matter to them in the slightest if the raw materials, which were originally free, were simply taken and thus remained free.
If everything is free, then people would not need wages at all.
Due to globalisation, this transition would, of course, have to take place simultaneously across the whole world, so that raw materials and energy become free everywhere at the same time. But globalisation actually helps us in this regard, as it has ensured that the world has become quite small.
Many critics of growth speak of socialisation. But there need be no socialisation at all. Only all costs must be eliminated.
Entrepreneurs would, of course, retain their businesses and, free from competitive pressure, could develop and manufacture sustainable and, as far as possible, fully recyclable products.
The entrepreneurs and owners of factories and fields would lose nothing in the process. Like everyone else, they could take what they need. Even the possibility of a luxurious lifestyle would not disappear.
They have usually invested the bulk of their wealth in shares or property to save on taxes, but even with the dividends, they would no longer be able to buy anything if everything were free.
For them, it would be a liberation from the burden of wealth.
This is the prerequisite for the dissolution of the market. Only when we are no longer influenced by advertising or price wars will we realise what we really need for a dignified life.
No one would then be excluded from shelter, food and medical care.
We could develop our talents in complete freedom; culture, art and education would no longer depend on funding, because everyone involved would be automatically provided for.
Only what is truly needed would be produced
‘Free’ does not mean ‘worthless’ in this context.
On the contrary: things would finally have the value that really counts – their usefulness. The decision on what is produced would no longer depend on what sells well, but on what people actually need.
The internet makes this technically possible for the first time today: a direct link between need and production – without the detour via markets, prices and advertising.
Wouldn’t the entire production system then collapse?
Actually, we wouldn’t even notice that anything had changed. We would go to work or to university just as we do every day.
As wages would be paid with a time lag, nothing would change at all. Production would continue undisturbed on the basis of existing supply contracts. The products would leave the factories without any invoices being issued. After all, we know that no further costs may be incurred that would assign a financial value to the free raw materials.
In practical terms, this would mean that all entrepreneurs worldwide would simultaneously dispense with their payroll accounting, because human labour is the only cost factor caused by wages.
The only thing we would notice during this transition is that we no longer have to pay for anything in shops.
All the happiness in the world
The World Happiness Report is published annually, in which countries are assessed according to criteria such as social support, GDP per capita, health, life expectancy, freedom, generosity, emotions and goodwill.
The Wellbeing Research Centre at the University of Oxford is campaigning to give the GDP criterion less weight.
Is it not the greatest joy for us humans to receive gifts? Think of Christmas or birthdays.
After the transition, we will be given everything we need to live every single day. GDP would then cease to exist, because it could no longer be calculated. At that moment, we would switch from Gross Domestic Product to Gross National Happiness.
If anyone is still afraid of this change:
The economic impact of the first lockdown in March 2020 was far more severe. The car industry was scaled back to a fifth of its size within a few days, and all global air traffic came to a standstill instantly. Nevertheless, there were no significant problems with the daily supply of goods to the public.
Wouldn’t people then loot the shops if everything were free?
This concern is understandable –
but we already know the answer from our everyday lives. Flat-rate services have shown for years that people use these offers, but they do not use them without limit.
Nobody watches series on Netflix round the clock. Nobody pointlessly travels around by train all day long. Nobody lives at the gym.
Why?
Because we have no interest in wasting our time on mindless consumption.
When advertising and price pressure are removed, the opposite tends to happen:
We consume less, but more consciously.
Why there will probably be no more scarcity
Today, a large part of scarcity is created artificially: products are deliberately designed to be short-lived. Advertising creates artificial needs. Competition forces overproduction.
In a system without sales pressure, this would change: products could be designed to be durable and repairable. Recycling could be fully implemented. Development could take as long as necessary – because time is no longer a cost factor.
The result would most likely be: significantly lower resource consumption, significantly less waste and, consequently, far less genuine scarcity.
Economists say that the market is necessary for the allocation of raw materials. In fact, the allocation of raw materials becomes superfluous as soon as the market disappears.
Why entrepreneurs and employees must sit down together
The key idea is this: if all products become free at the same time, then everything changes.
No one needs to buy anything anymore; no one needs income; money loses its function.
Entrepreneurs, like everyone else, would then automatically be provided for.
This means: they do not lose their livelihood – only the need to make a profit.
So it is not about taking something away from anyone.
Rather, it is about something losing its significance.
The path to this – in three steps
There is no need for intervention in the economy. No taxes, no changes to the law are necessary.
A global discussion
First, we need a shared understanding:
The Earth is in danger
The problem lies in the system’s compulsion to grow
A genuine solution means: overcoming market mechanisms
This discussion must be held globally – openly, honestly and without taboos.
2. A simple, shared decision
The actual step is surprisingly simple:
Companies worldwide could decide:
to distribute products free of charge
whilst simultaneously abolishing wages and prices
This requires no modification of machinery, no new technology –
but only a collective decision.
3. Support through social pressure
If necessary, this development could be accelerated:
A globally coordinated general strike would demonstrate that people are prepared to embark on a new path. Not as a compulsion – but as a clear signal:
The current system has no future.
The real crux
Ultimately, it is not about technology or the economy.
It comes down to a simple question:
Do we want to continue living in a system that forces us into excess – or are we prepared to focus on what we really need?
The conditions are in place today:
global connectivity
sufficient productivity
growing awareness of our planet’s limits
Perhaps we are not facing the end of the world.
But rather the final step in a very long process.
And this step begins with a simple realisation:
That we already have enough – if we stop feeling the need to sell everything.
An emergency plan
At present, the market prevents all people worldwide from being unconditionally supplied with everything they need.
However, this economic growth has also led to our planet’s limits being exceeded, as we produce almost twice what we really need to live in dignity.
Do we even need the market anymore? Don’t we already buy everything on the internet? The market could therefore be replaced immediately by global networking.
This system of competition and the market has no regulatory mechanism that can curb growth. After all, politicians have promised to secure our prosperity, not to preserve the earth.
However, technological development has long since overtaken the market. For several years now, global networking has made it possible for all people to communicate their needs directly to producers, who then provide the goods just in time.
This did not exist until a few years ago. Until then, it was necessary to take goods to the market, where they had to be purchased with wages. We no longer need this market today.
We have a perfectly functioning model: reproduction. There is no market within the provisioning of families. What is needed is made. With care for people and the earth.
No one would think of offering their family three meals a day to choose from, just so that more is eaten and thrown away. No one cleans the bathroom twice in a row. So we see that it works without the market.
The big question is: how do we get there before the earth is destroyed?
To do this, we would simply have to separate the now obsolete financial control instrument from the existing physical economy.
Let’s do it the same way as in families. The housewife or househusband does not write invoices to family members, nor do they do payroll accounting.
What would happen if we did the same in the economy? Worldwide, from one day to the next? Just like food in families, all products in the economy would then be free.
The vast majority of business relationships in the economy are tried and tested and stable; even without financial control, the economy would continue to function.
Gifts do not need to be advertised, and competition would focus on developing durable and recyclable products instead of overproduction. Every person would be provided for unconditionally.
We would hardly notice this transition to a post-growth society, because it does not require socialisation. Property would lose its exclusive function all by itself, because all ‘capitalists’ would also be automatically provided for and nothing could be bought with the income from capital and property. What remains is only responsibility.
The assumption of unlimited needs
A frequently raised objection to models of income-independent or free provision is that, with the elimination of prices and income, demand would grow immeasurably. This assumption is implicitly based on the idea of unlimited human needs and correspondingly unlimited consumption behaviour.
However, this idea is not empirically or theoretically tenable.
Need versus demand
Economic theory often fails to distinguish between use-oriented needs and demand (solvent demand). In capitalism, needs appear exclusively in the form of demand, i.e. as a variable mediated by income and prices.
Overproduction in capitalism is therefore not an expression of excessive demand on the part of users, but the result of a supply-driven mode of production. Production is not primarily aimed at meeting existing needs, but at realising exchange value and securing capital appreciation.
Supply-induced overproduction
Empirical evidence shows that the central mechanisms of today’s overproduction lie on the supply side. These include in particular:
planned obsolescence, which artificially shortens the useful life of products,
aggressive and psychologically optimised advertising, which creates new needs or reinforces existing ones,
product differentiation without functional added value, which shortens sales cycles,
institutionalised pressure for growth as a result of credit-based financing.
These mechanisms do not serve to satisfy needs, but rather to stabilise continuous sales markets.
Frugality as an empirical and anthropological constant
The assumption of unlimited needs also contradicts anthropological and sociological findings. In almost all societies, it can be seen that human needs are relatively stable beyond a certain material level. Studies on life satisfaction indicate that additional consumption above a basic level has only limited effects on well-being.
Frugality should not be understood as a moral category, but as a structural characteristic of human needs formation. People strive for security, social recognition, meaning and self-efficacy – not for unlimited material possessions.
Consumption behaviour under conditions of direct provision
Under conditions of direct provision independent of income, the incentive to compensate for status through consumption disappears, as income and possessions lose their social signalling function. At the same time, advertising and branding lose their economic function, as it is no longer necessary to secure sales.
Under such conditions, material needs would likely be based on real usage requirements: durable, repairable and high-quality goods would replace short-term replacement consumption.
Overproduction as a systemic phenomenon
Overproduction is therefore not an expression of human excess, but the result of a system that depends on continuous capital utilisation. In a system where production is directly linked to real demand rather than sales, the structural incentive for overproduction is eliminated.
The fear of uncontrolled growth in demand thus fails to recognise the fundamental difference between a value-based mode of production and a use-value-oriented supply.
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Three core axioms of a post-accounting economy
AXIOM 1: The separability of the physical economy and financial representation
„The physical processes of production, logistics and consumption can be separated from their financial representation (accounting, prices, profit calculation). The physical economy is the basis, financial accounting is a control and distribution system built on top of it – not the economy itself.“
Implications:
Factories can produce without invoices being issued.
Trucks can deliver without payment being made.
People can consume without buying.
The real economy continues to function when financial abstraction is removed.
AXIOM 2: The elimination of the compulsion to sell through guaranteed basic provision
‘When the livelihoods of all people are secured through direct physical provision, the existential compulsion to sell goods or labour is eliminated. Competition becomes an option rather than a necessity.’
Implications:
Companies no longer need to be profitable to survive.
Workers do not have to work for wages in order to eat.
Innovation serves not to maximise profit, but to solve problems.
The “market” ceases to be a survival mechanism and becomes a coordination mechanism for quality and preferences.
AXIOM 3: Real-time coordination through sensor-based feedback
‘A globally networked system of sensors and demand signals can coordinate the allocation of resources and the control of production more efficiently than the delayed and distorted signal of prices.’
Implications:
An empty shelf directly triggers re-production – not via the detour of sales forecasts.
Global resource scarcity becomes immediately visible and can be democratically prioritised.
Production is based on actual consumption, not projected sales.
Information replaces negotiation as a coordination mechanism.
AXIOM 4: THE GENEROSITY BOOM
„The sudden liberation from payment constraints for basic goods triggers a collective psychological event that immediately shifts from fear of scarcity to relieved generosity. This system change generates its own social stability through spontaneous cooperation.“
Neuroeconomic basis:
Security priming effect: When basic needs are guaranteed, cognitive resources are freed up – instead of being used for existential concerns, they become available for cooperation and creativity.
Status anxiety relief: Constant social comparison (‘Can I afford what others have?’) is eliminated when basic needs are generally met.
Reciprocity relaxation: The implicit logic of debt in every transaction (‘I give you this, you owe me that’) breaks down.
Empirical analogies:
Disaster altruism: After acute hardship (earthquakes, floods, Covid-19) has been overcome, there is often a brief phase of extraordinary helpfulness.
End-of-war euphoria: It is not victory, but the end of rationing that triggers the greatest joy.
Experiments with unconditional provision: Every basic income experiment shows reduced anxiety, better mental health and increased social engagement.
Consequences for the system change:
The greatest fear – that people will fall into competitive selfishness when goods are ‘free’ – is proven wrong. The immediate removal of the payment threshold transforms scarcity thinking into abundance thinking, making cooperation the most rational option because it is the happiest.
The resulting imperative:
‘Turn off the financial control level to free the physical economy from its growth imperative and replace it with a transparent, real-time demand allocation system.’
THE CONCLUSION PARADOX
If the four axioms are true – and the empirical evidence suggests they are – then:
Our current system is not only suboptimal, but actively destructive.
The solution is not complex, but alarmingly simple: Separate the physical from the financial.
The transition cannot be gradual, but must be a global switch.
The longer we wait, the more painful the necessary transition will be.
The axioms are not utopian. They are a description of the real possibilities that our current economic logic systematically obscures.
Anticipated objections and rebuttals
Objection 1: ‘Without financial incentives, no one will work.’
Rebuttal: Unpaid care work (approx. 30-50% of GDP) proves the opposite. People work for meaning, recognition, community and self-fulfilment. The ‘helper’s high’ (neurochemical reward for cooperative behaviour) becomes the main driver.
Objection 2: ‘That’s a centralised planned economy.’
Rebuttal: It’s the opposite. Prices are a centralised information system (everyone reacts to the same price). Our system is decentralised and polycentric – everyone responds to direct signals from their local network, which are visible in a global dashboard.
Objection 3: ‘Who decides what is produced?’
Rebuttal: This is decided through transparent demand aggregation and democratic prioritisation, not through the secret calculations of marketing departments and shareholders. The question ‘What will be produced?’ becomes a democratic question, not a secret profit calculation.
The transformation
The global simultaneous separation of accounting from the physical economy could take place in two directions.
From below: All employees could forego their wages or salaries from a specific day. This would eliminate costs in the economy, making accounting superfluous.
The simultaneous changeover is necessary so that labour costs are eliminated throughout the entire production chain, starting with raw materials and including all auxiliary materials, leaving only the free material.
From above: All economic institutions simultaneously shut down their accounting systems worldwide, so that no more invoicing and payroll accounting takes place.
This requires sufficient communication. To this end, it is necessary to spread this idea in the media.
The general functionality is explained here in a dialogue between Helena and Maya
