Why can our situation not be addressed merely through a combination of reprioritization of spending and tax increases?
 
Reprioritization and taxes merely redistribute existing wealth.  Both initiatives will further burden our economy and people.  Even with reprioritization and taxes we will be able to do little more than repay our debt and fund the most urgent of current priorities.  We will simply not have the wherewithal to address our serious socio-ecological issues which until now have been sorely neglected.  We must generate vast additional wealth from the present economy and without additional financial burden.  GEO will miraculously produce the necessary funding and allow us to avoid reprioritization and increased taxes.

Global Economic Optimization promises to generate the additional wealth needed to fund solutions to the world’s serious problems,  but some individuals already have adequate personal wherewithal to take care of themselves.  Why should they care about the world’s problems?

The Earth has grown so densely populated and so instantaneously interactive that any part of the world can rapidly influence every other part.  Even the most affluent are subject to rapid reversals of fortune triggered by economic crisis, pandemic illness, violent conflict, etc.  None of us can afford to ignore a situation in any part of the world where the seeds of such difficulties are germinating.  Since no one can any longer escape the influence of the world’s problems, we are left with no alternative but to proactively address these challenges at their epicenters. 

Reversing the world’s difficulties will require consistent large-scale funding, but individual, corporate, and governmental priorities have not supported such funding.  GEO will be able to generate enough additional wealth to fund solutions to our serious socio-ecological problems.

Why is GEO not already being proposed by our leadership?

It is not logical to assume that our economy could create vast additional wealth beyond what is already being produced.  This causes our leaders to dismiss that as a possibility and gravitate instead, based on ideological orientation, toward diversions of funding from current priorities or increased taxation to address our current staggering debt.  In an environment of heightened political polarization our leaders are leaning steadfastly toward one or another of the positions, which limits the openness to revisit the possibility of the ideal solution that will avoid the negative side effects of both reprioritization and increased taxes. 

In the interest of maximizing forward progress, we must pursue a course that increases wealth from our present economy.  Without reprioritization of funding or increased taxes, GEO will generate vast additional wealth which can be used to:

Solve the world’s serious economic and socio-ecological problems
Fund development of the technologies, products, and services of the future
Raise corporate earnings to levels not possible with our current approach
Create countless new jobs in heretofore neglected areas of pursuit

Is GEO going to eliminate jobs?

The present nature of business discourages firms from collaborating with each other to achieve maximum efficiency.  Consequently, firms must each carry all necessary support functions rather than share common resources with each other. This saddles the business sphere with enormous redundancy, which includes human resources.  Corporate mergers and acquisitions eliminate this redundancy without properly providing for placement of those whose jobs have been eliminated.  Infusion of inter-firm collaboration will free up significant numbers of workers whose present jobs are redundant and, therefore, not really secure anyway.  

But even if this human resource redundancy was allowed to continue, countless jobs will be displaced in the near future as technological advancement (automation, Artificial Intelligence, etc.) becomes increasingly employed.  We are not currently preparing for this eventuality.  GEO will create both the additional wealth and jobs needed to address the mass unemployment resulting from technological development as well as the elimination of human resource redundancies.  The new jobs will support vital new initiatives which have not yet received the required attention. 

Will the role of government be expanded through GEO?

GEO is not intended to be a governmental program.  Governmental ownership or control of any firms will not be needed.  Full inter-firm collaboration will be an initiative of the business sphere, with government agreeing to the approach in exchange for business’ commitment of a substantial portion of the resulting vast additional wealth to the common good, along with necessary levels of transparency to ensure propriety.

How does GEO compare to socialism and capitalism?

GEO avoids the pitfalls and incorporates the intended benefits of each of these other economic approaches.  Socialism gives priority to support of the common good, driven by governmental control of businesses as a means of ensuring the welfare of society.  In the extreme, socialism strives to eliminate class distinctions.  Because the priority is on supporting the common good, individual initiative is of secondary importance, which can cause a dampening of creativity and achievement.  Because capitalism on the other hand, emphasizes the importance of individual freedom, government maintains a more hands off approach to business and allows individual initiative to express in growth and innovation.  In the extreme, unbridled business freedom results in damage to society and the common good.

Unlike Socialism, GEO involves no ownership of business assets and actually minimizes the role of government in the private sector.  Business is allowed the freedom to create, achieve, and even pursue the full extent of collaboration thus producing vast additional wealth.  By agreeing to devote a substantial portion of the added wealth toward solving the world’s socio-ecological problems, the business sphere will take the lead in supporting the common good thereby overcoming the disadvantage that capitalism sometimes produces, even while allowing businesses to amass more corporate wealth than is possible with our current economic approach.