Name: Wenhan Zhang
Major: Philosophy (Philosophy and Science concentration), CIS
Graduation year: May 2020
Faculty Supervisor: Carlos Pereira Di Salvo
Project title: Sollarism: The Emancipation of the Work Society with UBI and Community Currency
Abstract:
Work could be said to be the defining feature of humanity, essential to human life and meaning and to the progress of history. Our current capitalist economic order has constructed a work-centered society. Paid work has a naturalized status in almost all cultures and the acquisition of money is a guiding tenet in many of humans’ pursuits. However, instead of enabling human flourishing, the experience of work for many people is alienating, entrapping and humiliating. With the prospect where technology can potentially satisfy the basic material needs for all of humankind, it is important to envision an emancipatory transformation of society with regard to work now. I propose a vision which I name “sollarism.” In this system, universal basic income in the form of a community currency, sollars, guarantees basic human needs, liberates people from the coercion of paid work and enables the freedom, potential, mutual appreciation and flourishing of humankind. It is compatible with existing capitalist modes of production, and it offers the human dignity but not the social control of communism. While attempting to bridge with the current economic order, sollarism aims to radically transform of how we view work, money and life.