[DeadPresidents]

Does it mean...there are an abundance of goods that renders them free?

Does it mean...there are an abundance of necessary goods such as food...that renders them free?

[TechnocracyTNAT]

"Income

Now let us see what further details will have to be incorporated in this distributive system in order to satisfy the requirements we have laid down. First, let us remember that this income is usable for the obtaining of consumers’ goods and services, and not for the purchase of articles of value. That being the case, there is a fairly definite limit to how many goods and services a single individual can consume, bearing in mind the fact that he only lives 24 hours a day, one-third of which he sleeps, and a considerable part of the remainder of which he works, loafs, plays, or indulges in other pursuits many of which do not involve a great physical consumption of goods. Let us recall that every individual in the society must be supplied, young and old alike. Since it is possible to set arbitrarily the rate of production at a quite high figure, it is entirely likely that the average potential consuming power per adult can be set higher than the average adult’s rate of physical consumption. Since this is so, there is no point in introducing a differentiation in adult incomes in a manner characteristic of economies of scarcity. From the point of view of simplicity of record-keeping, moreover, enormous simplification can be effected by making all adult incomes male and female, alike, equal. Thus, all would receive a large income, quite probably larger than they would find it convenient to spend. This income would continue without interruption until the death of the recipient. The working period, however, after the period of transition would probably not need to exceed the 20 years from the age of 25 to 45, on the part of each individual. Still further properties that must be incorporated into this energy income received by individuals are that it must be non-negotiable and non-savable. That is, it must be valid only in the hands of the person to whom issued, and in no circumstances transferable to any other individual. Likewise, since it is issued on the basis of a budget expenditure covering two years, it must only be valid for that two-year period, and null and void thereafter. Otherwise it would be saved in part, and serve to completely upset the balance in the operating load in future periods. On the other hand, there is no need for saving, because an income and social security is already guaranteed independently to each individual until death.

The reason for taking two years as the balanced-load period of operation of the social mechanism is a technological one. The complete industrial cycle for the whole North American Continent, including the growing period of tropical plants, such as Cuban sugar cane, is somewhat more than one year. Hence a two-year period is taken as the nearest integral number of years to this industrial cycle. All operating plans and budgets would thus be made on a two-year basis, and at the end of that time the books would be balanced and closed for that period. No debts would be possible, and the current habit of mortgaging the future to pay for present activities would be completely eliminated.

If, as is quite likely, the public find it inconvenient to consume all their allotted energy for that time period the unspent portion of their allotment will merely be canceled at the end of the period. The saving will be effected by society rather than by the individual, and the energy thus saved, or the goods and services not consumed, will be carried over into the next balanced load period. This will not, as will be amplified later, throw the productive system into oscillation, because production will always be geared to the rate of consumption, and not to the total energy allotment. In other words, if for a given balanced load period the total energy allotment be equivalent to that contained in, say four billion tons of coal, this merely means that we are prepared if need be to burn four billion tons of coal, and distribute the resultant goods and services during that time period. This merely sets a maximum beyond which consumption for that time period will not be allowed to go. If the public, however, finds it inconvenient to consume that amount of goods and services, and actually consumes only an amount requiring three billion tons of coal to produce, production will be curtailed by that amount, and the extra billion tons of coal will not be used, but will remain in the ground until needed."

https://archive.org/details/Technocracy ... Unabridged