How does the Galactic Capital City/Planet work? It struck me the other day that Coruscant - the city-planet on which all that boring diplomatic stuff happens in the first three Star Wars films - has no economy. Well, not a monetary-based one anyway. I know of course that there is nothing outside the text but I wondered if this was possibly the future for humanity on this very-real planet, where technology has taken over almost all the work that we at present get paid for. Sooner or later our technology is going to get to a point where no one actually has to do anything other than think - and even that will go out of the window. Will we then live in a paradise of permanent leisure where everyone just gets and does what they want without any need for the money to do so? Of course we won't. Wouldn't it be lovely though? Someone I know - until recently a Maggie fan of the highest order - has started suggesting that a world based on a monetary economy is doomed to failure (something to do with debt apparently - maybe he has a point there) and we should work towards one based on barter and resource. From what I remember, the governments of the world have done their best to monetise any resource-based economy by taxing payment in kind so we can't all just go off and start swapping our abilities without handing over money and expect no not get a visit from Mister Inland Revenue ... which is a pity. Of course if the point at which the technology makes such a world possible coincides with the point at which our consciousness can be absorbed into the machines, such laws would need a radical overhaul anyway.
Sometimes I wonder if it wouldn't be better to set up the robots with a few unimpeachable regulations and let them get on with the boring stuff of keeping the world happy without them having to worry about being actually paid for it. Sorry - not a good thought is it. Bye for now.
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