Today, we face three major challenges:
- climate change,
- the increasing threat of war, and
- growing social inequality.
At the same time, a technological revolution is fundamentally transforming our economy.
Artificial intelligence, robotics and digital connectivity could take over an ever-increasing number of tasks that were previously carried out by humans.
For the first time in history, humanity could therefore delegate a growing proportion of its necessary work to machines.
Nevertheless, our response to job losses is almost exclusively to try to create new jobs.
Why?
We live in constant fear of
losing our means of subsistence.
After all, we need wages to be able to afford the necessities of life. But in order to pay for rising wages, the economy must sell more and more.
If consumption falls, a crisis looms, as this principle prevents the economy from contracting.
At the same time, the inefficiency of national economies is increasing due to growing abundance.
This is not immediately apparent, however, because individual companies, under pressure from the market and competition, must operate ever more economically in order to survive.
However:
- For competitive reasons, many virtually identical products are offered side by side.
- Products are deliberately designed to break down quickly (planned obsolescence).
- As production is outsourced to countries with low wage levels and environmental standards, transport costs rise.
- A large proportion of production is not geared at all towards people’s actual needs, but solely towards whether something can be sold – utility plays a secondary role in this.
How much longer can an economy afford such inefficiency, which devours resources and places an ever-greater strain on the environment?
In the age of AI and robotics, do we even still need this wage-price logic?
What if we were to imagine
- that, instead of waiting to see what the market has to offer,
- we were to order exactly what we need directly from the manufacturer, without being influenced by advertising?
Many people are unaware of this, but this option has been available ever since the advent of global connectivity.
We could actually order directly from the manufacturer, and AI could help to optimise production and transport routes. Today’s economy is capable of producing on demand.
- But don’t we still always opt for the cheapest option?
- Regardless of the country in which it was produced and the conditions under which it was made?
That is why, in theory, there should no longer be any prices at all.
Because without prices, we would order what we actually need, rather than what is cheapest.
If prices no longer existed, companies would only produce what people actually want, and no longer what can somehow be sold.
- If nobody wanted weapons, they would no longer be manufactured.
- If people wanted durable and repairable products, the economy would produce durable and repairable products.
Under what conditions might prices lose their economic function?
There is a recent example of this:
In January 2026, a Leipzig-based farm was faced with the reality that it could not sell 4,000 tonnes of potatoes profitably due to a fall in prices. It decided not to feed the potatoes to livestock, but to give them away.
As a result, these potatoes lost their price.
At that moment, two conditions were met simultaneously:
- The farm exercised its entrepreneurial freedom to decide, entirely independently, to give away its produce. No one could prevent it from doing so.
- Once given away, the potatoes no longer had a price.
Let’s carry out the following thought experiment:
- What would happen if more and more companies were to follow this example?
At first glance, this seems impossible. After all, companies have to pay for raw materials, energy and labour, and would go bankrupt immediately if they gave away their products.
Even if entire countries were to adopt this approach, other countries would obtain the free products and sell them within their own borders.
Something like this would therefore only be possible if it were to happen simultaneously across the globe, much like financial crises that have global repercussions, or the first lockdown in March 2020, when global solidarity and discipline ensured that society did not collapse.
From these premises, it ultimately follows…
…that perhaps it is not automation that is the real revolution, but the possibility of decoupling one’s livelihood from income?
For if everything were free, people would no longer need an income and unemployment would be a thing of the past.
Why do we find it so difficult to imagine such a situation?
Because we always understand prices, costs and wages/profits in terms of the market economy.
A new definition of costs and income
Should we not rethink these historical foundations when we consider a future economy?
Claim:
Taking into account the new economic definitions, according to which only paid work confers financial value on products, the following applies:
▶️ The central hypothesis:
The actual purpose of wages and corporate profits is to secure an individual’s livelihood.
If this individual livelihood were permanently secured by other means, wages and profits would no longer be necessary.
Description of the solution:
▶️ This gives rise to a theoretical thought experiment:
If all companies worldwide, like the Leipzig agricultural enterprise, were to simultaneously switch to providing their products and services free of charge as part of a joint exercise in entrepreneurial freedom, no income would be required.
- Since we have established that only paid labour and profit generate costs,
- these costs would, of course, also cease to exist if no income were required.
- This closes the circle and ensures that products and services can be provided free of charge.
A comparison with the wage-price spiral
Conclusion
As this does not involve physical intervention in the economy, but merely an organisational change, the economy is not directly affected.
Production would continue unhindered on the basis of long-term supply relationships; only bookkeeping and payroll accounting would be dispensed with. However, as these lie in the future, this is more of a symbolic act.
Following the switch to direct provision, the economic pressure to artificially stimulate consumption would cease. Consequently, the structural necessity for advertising would also disappear.
Empirical studies show that emotional advertising stimuli activate the brain’s reward system and encourage impulsive purchasing decisions, particularly in the case of goods that do not serve basic needs.
The resulting decline in consumption would not be perceived as a sacrifice, as it would be entirely voluntary.
Lower consumption would lead to a reduction in production.
Further conservation of resources and a reduction in environmental impact would be achieved, as labour would no longer incur any cost, thereby paving the way for the production of recyclable and durable goods.
Why should companies even consider such a step?
The proposal alters neither ownership structures nor production structures or supply chains. Companies would continue to produce, but would be able to free themselves from price competition, expectations of returns and the constant pressure to grow.
In the vision presented here, the decision lies solely with the companies — they would then be freed from all market constraints and could thus return to their historical mission:
providing for people whilst taking care to preserve the natural environment.
Distinction from other approaches to transformation
What this draft expressly does not call for:
- no expropriations
- no centralised planned economy
- no state coercion
- no reform of the financial system as a prerequisite
- no abolition of entrepreneurial independence
Frequently asked questions
Who would still work then?
What will happen to resource allocation when there is no longer a market?
Regardless of whether this proposal ultimately proves to be practicable, it seems sensible to examine it as an option open to academic discussion.
Technological change is increasingly calling into question traditional assumptions about work, income and economic coordination. Precisely for this reason, now might be the right time to examine alternative models with an open mind.
Further questions such as
- Who does the unpleasant work?
- Is there still such a thing as progress?
- What will happen to luxury goods?
as well as, for example, the care sector, where market logic is excluded and which accounts for almost half of social life
are answered in the free book “The Simple Economy” (reading time approx. 3 hours) by Eberhard Licht.
25 July 2026
Eberhard Licht
licht at economy dot nu