A Sustainable Economic System for the U.S. from 2019 Onwards  

To achieve a just and sustainable society in the U.S. today, a range of initiatives must be implemented. Systemic racism, corporate environmental destruction, enormous inequality, and institutional dependence must all be addressed in a form that creates a self-sustaining economic system. The framework outlined here consists of Universal Basic Income, the Green New Deal, Pluralism, and the range of matters that remain outstanding beyond those policies.

Universal Basic Income

Universal basic income provides a monetary baseline for all citizens that provides for their basic needs – housing, food, utilities, and basic health care. These payments must be individual, meaning that every citizen receives them personally rather than through any proxy. And the universal qualifier implies that every citizen receives the exact same payment, independent of criminal activity or any other confounding factors. The fund for universal basic income must be based upon a flat or progressive income tax, meaning that at minimum the same percentage of income is taxed for all individuals. Or, in the case of a progressive tax, higher percentages are taxed for higher-income individuals. This scheme is justified by the fact that the lowest-income individuals struggle for subsistence, and thus it is entirely callous to detract from this income. Progressive income tax schemes have already been in effect in several states and nations for decades, so they are certainly viable (Joumard).

The deceptive element of many of these schemes, however, is that the wealthiest citizens of a community also have the greatest means available to them for tax evasion. In the U.S. between 2008 and 2010, the IRS stated that $458 billion dollars were lost annually to tax evasion, which comprises around twenty percent of total taxes owed (IRS). It is possible that these figures are even higher than the IRS admits, and there are also legal schemes of tax avoidance that would never be included in these figures. To take just one example, Amazon was found to have paid no taxes on $11 billion of income in 2018, but they did so within legal means. Besides income tax, huge sums of tax payments are avoided in the area of inheritance tax. As has been extensively documented by Jane Mayer and many more investigative journalists, North America’s wealthiest families found entire institutes under the guise of philanthropy, as this strategic giving is cheaper than the inheritance tax rate (Mayer). While such institutes arguably do give back to the general population, they rarely provide essential amenities to the poorest citizens. While artistic foundations, as one example, do make world-class art accessible to the middle class and low-income individuals on an occasional basis, the entrance prices and especially the membership prices make such institutes far more accessible to the wealthy than the less privileged.

Thus a flat tax rate could be implemented in the U.S. if that rate were then enforced with ice-cold accountability. However, seeing the rates of tax avoidance and evasion today, it is more likely that a progressive tax scheme can even achieve an end result equivalent to flat tax. Tax evasion and tax avoidance must be rectified through policy adjustments to gain a more functional, transparent, and overseeable system. It is essential that a system is actually self-consistent to be able to operate, manage, and adjust it. As alluded, the fund for this universal basic income must be supplied by a progressive income, inheritance, and property tax with true enforcement. As these simultaneous efforts of adjusting taxation rates and creating greater accountability in tax payment progress together, subsequent reviews can be made. As evasion and avoidance are gradually eliminated, the taxation rates can perhaps be lowered to arrive at the same final sum.

The successful implementation of a universal basic income also requires entrepreneurship coaching freely available to all citizens. One of the great societal potentials of universal basic income is its opportunity to reallocate people to the work that suits them best, in which they can contribute in the most meaningful way to their community, creating greater efficiency through job suitability and satisfaction.

To inspect the financial feasibility of this scheme, it can be noted that the richest 1% of U.S. Americans own 40% of its wealth, which amounts to about $37 trillion including assets (Ingraham). The total private wealth in the U.S. was $93 trillion in 2016 (FRED). The U.S. population was 323 million in 2016. Equally distributed, this would give $288,000 per person. The median household income was $120,000 in 2015 in the U.S. (FRED). There is no city in the U.S. in which $120,000 does not suffice for a livelihood. Rent is recommended to comprise half of a single individual’s annual budget, and there are enough homes available in the U.S. that have a rent of less than $5,000 a month to house all citizens.

There is, however, a question of whether all citizens can exercise sufficiently effective financial management to maintain their financial status. Thus the offer and the popularization of financial management lessons in public libraries and similar spaces is to be encouraged.

There are concerns about inflation in the face of universal basic income. Market prices must be regulated at the onset of the UBI to prevent corporations from exploiting newfound wealth and recreating inequality. Progressive income taxes limit these effects but do not eliminate them.

A few more measures must be implemented to eliminate the vast economic inequality in the U.S. today. The racial wealth gap in particular is an urgent issue, and one of the major factors reinforcing it is income inequality (Aliprantis). Thus, schemes for internal and external accountability that guarantee income equality must be constructed. One such scheme would involve easily accessible and free legal avenues by which a complainant can make a claim regarding their unequal income. The state must then take legal action, requiring the employer to adjust wages. Tax documents and other internal records can be used to verify claims. Such cases are simpler to resolve in the case of wage inequality within a corporation. Perhaps minimum wages categorical to professions can be determined, and these can be used to resolve cases in which there is only one employee of a given profession in the corporation, or all the employees in that profession are POCs. Other suggestions for closing the racial wealth gap include free financial management courses, reducing student debt, basic income, and the establishment of savings accounts for all low-income children at birth (Burton, Oliver).

Additionally, shareholding must be capped to slow the rate of increase of this economic gap. The mathematics of redistribution would require very strong taxation, which has historically been heavily opposed, to even reverse the current widening of the inequality gap if the wealthiest individuals continue to earn on the profits of their investments.

Corporations must be taxed in addition to individuals. A carbon tax can be implemented alongside further environmental taxes. These can include a pollution tax for sulfates, nitrates, heavy metals, particulates, endocrine disrupting compounds, surfactants, solvents, and perhaps even radiation and noise too. Furthermore, an exploitation tax must be implemented that taxes poor labor conditions, both internal to the U.S. and abroad. The Fairtrade standard can be used to assess foreign labor conditions, and similar standards must be assessed internally. Finally, a resource inefficiency tax can be implemented too. For all water, electricity, and raw materials that are wasted, a corporation is duly taxed for the harm it has committed through unnecessary extraction, transportation, and wear on infrastructure. This standard can begin at the level of wastage that corresponds to these resources being used in unoccupied buildings, water being contaminated without any resulting productive output, and excess raw materials being discarded. If there is support for it after the initial implementation, this standard could even be raised to include subtler wastage.

The Green New Deal

Before diving too far into details, however, another major scheme must be addressed – the Green New Deal. The Green New Deal is designed to simultaneously tackle inequality and environmental damage. It recognizes that these two factors go hand in hand, as low-income workers are exploited in the limitation of their local financial options to labor in an industry that ultimately destroys their own bodies or the bodies of those in a neighboring community. This pattern of exploitation and destruction has been repeated in North American history until present, from iron mining to coal mining to Teflon production to uranium mining. The fact that neither strong unions have reformed nor alternative systems have formed is a testament to the extent and control of plutocracy in North America today. Most U.S. Americans who believe themselves to be free have not looked deep enough, have not reflected frankly enough to see the contradictory evidence. Or they refuse to accept or change the fact after discovering it and may continue to advocate for communally destructive policies in the haze of this state of denial.

The Green New Deal proposes to “mobilize vast public resources to help us transition from an economy built on exploitation and fossil fuels to one driven by dignified work and clean energy” (Sierra Club). The transition to renewable energy should be enacted via infrastructural investments in hydro, solar (PV and thermal), and wind (offshore and onshore) energy primarily. These are listed in order of decreasing recommended power proportion, and geothermal, tidal, and wave energy can be implemented at smaller scales in advantageous localities. The cleanest fuels to use during the transition period are nuclear and natural gas. And the currently existent infrastructure for these two fuels is sufficient for the transition. A national high voltage DC (HVDC) grid will facilitate the transition too, as it will allow for renewable energy farms to be located in the most resource-rich areas as well as for the power generated there to be transported effectively and efficiently to populated areas. The transitional non-renewable fuels as well as hydro power provide the needed baseloads to address the intermittency of renewables. And additional energy storage infrastructure in the form of hydrogen fuel, batteries, flywheels, and pumped hydro storage can be built during the transition to address intermittency in the long run (Clack, Jacobson, MacKay, Platt, Zeitler 2018).

Carla Skandier, a Senior Research Associate at the Democracy Collaborative, interjected in an interview at The Next System that the Federal Reserve saw it fit to introduce $3.5 trillion to save Wall Street in 2008-2014. And Skandier highlighted the reflection that claims of a lack of funds for the green transition are somewhat illegitimate on this basis. When the federal government considers an issue pressing enough, it finds even these completely anomalous forms of funding for the dilemma. Jackie Fielder, an organizer working toward a public bank for San Francisco, added that the Treasury could bottom-line the Green New Deal, as they did with the original New Deal. And Skandier referenced the October 2018 IPCC report ‘Global Warming of 1.5°C’ in asserting that the cost of adapting and responding to climate damage is far greater than the cost of preventing that damage (The Next System, IPCC).

Aside from electricity and heating being provided by renewables, transportation must be reformed as well. Transportation constituted 28% of U.S. energy consumption in 2018 (LLNL). Provisions for this must include bike lanes that are raised on a curb to protect cyclists, which connect continuously throughout the city, and that are integrated into the traffic signal system. Electric vehicles can be subsidized to encourage their initial purchase – both manufacturers and banks can offer interest-free loans on electric vehicles as part of their CSR. And citizens should be encouraged to purchase the size of car that most accurately fits their transportation needs. Some therapeutic public campaigns may be required here to assure citizens that the size of their car is not directly correlated to their worth as a person. Some such campaigns can assert the opposite – that a smaller car is a reflection of strong character, of valor and wisdom. While others could emphasize the intelligence of saving on energy costs in a car of the most suitable size. Additionally, a policy can be implemented that creates an express lane for small vehicles. Thus incentivizing small vehicle purchase by the speed of commuting. It is likely that there would be less traffic in such a lane because the minimum following distances need not be as long for a lighter and smaller car. This is in addition to the reduction of space occupied by each vehicle in itself. And it is furthermore possible that vehicles so small that two can fit in a standard lane would be created in a more distant future. This can reduce traffic even further, much like a more immediately attainable solution of having more motor scooters and motorbikes on the road to fulfill commuting needs. Smaller vehicles have a range of advantages from their reduction of traffic and their lower energy consumption to their lower capital cost and lesser extractive outlay.

Many individuals require large cars only for occasional journeys and purchase one for this reason, even though they drive with it mostly empty for the overwhelming majority of its usage. This challenge can be overcome by car sharing, in the form of being able to borrow another person’s car that they have made publicly available on an online platform. Such sharing economy apps can be and are being used for other items as well, greatly reducing a community’s impact on the environment. The culture of private ownership is not only destructive to social cohesion but also to nonhuman nature.

An essential threshold in the trajectory towards renewably powered transport is the solar airplane. Solar Impulse II, developed by Airbus, has circled around the world once already, and research in this area is of utmost importance for the progress of human society at this time. An airplane emits over 300 times as much CO2 as a car traveling the equivalent distance. In anybody’s carbon footprint calculation, their impact from a multi-hour flight outweighs their impact from all other areas of life by orders of magnitude (University of Michigan Center for Sustainable Systems). We have reached a point societally at which it seems impossible to even suggest that people will stop flying around the globe. And cultural learning as well as global understanding are vital to pluralism in our world that is probably ever more connected and diverse, though not certainly. An electric airplane would of course achieve similar sustainability goals as a solar plane, but there has been less recent research in this area.

Public transport and train lines must also be expanded to attain sustainable transportation goals. They provide low-carbon alternatives during the transition to electric vehicles and solar planes.

It is key to the transition to renewable energy to also train the workers currently employed in fossil fuel corporations to renewable energy work instead. All parties can benefit from such an arrangement, as fossil fuel employees will find new work and renewable energy corporations will not only have their needed staff but will also prevent the opposition to their work that would be generated by those who are afraid to lose their jobs. The question then is whether fossil fuel corporations and their executives will and should benefit from the transition. There are inherent problematics to the self-centered disregard and myopic greed of many fossil fuel executives. And it is worth considering that they may impose poor labor conditions, cultivate a dissonant corporate community, and may also enact environmentally harmful policies within the renewable energy sector. It will be possible, even as a renewable energy provider, to be unsustainable in the operation of facilities or to foster cooperation with nuclear energy plants which are not carbon-intensive but create significant other kinds of environmental damage. These executives may even decide to offer electricity packages to their customers of which they determine the mix of renewable and nonrenewable energies “during the transition phase.” If these executives again gain monopoly of local economies, they can keep their previous fossil fuel facilities running for longer than is ideal for the planet, in order to turn a greater profit from that investment.

With all of this considered, the question remains whether it is worthwhile, whether it is just, whether it is the most effective plan of action to utilize the existing energy infrastructure to build up renewables. Certainly the grid infrastructure is worth billions, including not only power lines but capacitor stations, transformers, backup generators, and control stations too (Chen). The grid operators (New England ISO, PJM Interconnection, MISO RTO, ERCOT ISO, etc.) and power corporations (PG&E, Alliant, AmeriGas, etc.) are nominally separate, but the business agreements that they have are perennial and must be very robust, as the failure of their cooperation would lead to the failure of some of the most essential societal systems. And it is entirely conceivable that a number of fossil fuel executives feel they have the right to their continued monopoly of energy supply in their region, perhaps on the basis of a meritocratic argument. But that is an open question. Do they? These judgments obviously differ significantly between providers depending on the labor conditions they created, the profit margins they imposed, the quality and reliability of their service, the amount they have given back to their communities, et cetera. And so, in fostering the renewable energy transition, we should evaluate energy companies by these criteria, encouraging those who fared well and who also hold a significant proportion of grid infrastructure to transition their existent corporation to renewables.

Another point that Ocasio-Cortez has emphasized in her deployment of the Green New Deal, which has been on the agenda of many environmental engineers and architects for years, is the renovation of buildings for energy efficiency. “Today’s buildings consume 40% of U.S. energy, release 30% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions and 38% of carbon dioxide emissions, and use nearly 13% of all potable water in the U.S.” (McGraw-Hill). McGraw-Hill Construction asserts that a 98% drop in energy and operating costs can be achieved through energy renovations. And cost-effective renovations can reduce energy consumption by up to 50%, and sometimes more (IPEEC).

In the event that a universal basic income is not implemented, or is not sufficient in its scale, health care subsidies must be made to the individuals who are at or below the double of the federal poverty line. This is also a part of Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal.

Pluralism

Another element of society that must be addressed is the multicultural nature of most of the U.S. Diversity is a demographic descriptor, but it does not guarantee actual lived expression of citizens’ diverse cultural backgrounds and experiences. The harmony between members of the society is still lacking, and so is the sentiment among cultural minorities that their uniqueness is valued by their fellow community members. Cultural exposure is vital to this end, as citizens can only value the things that they know, and hopefully know from a positive context. To this end, cultural events such as small local concerts and communal music-making events must not be underestimated. It is all too easy and all too common to dismiss any one cultural event as insignificant, as politically inconsequential, even voyeuristic or self-servingly assuaging guilt. But cultural understanding, cultural valuation, and pluralism can only ever form their entire fabric in a metropolis by the weaving of a number of minor events. Additionally, political protests don’t necessarily form social connections. While they are valuable and worthwhile to question the political status quo, popularize alternative solutions, and exert pressure upon decisionmakers, protests don’t necessarily facilitate the formation of bonds between a wide range of community members. More appreciative and generative environments are required for impressive shared experiences between people. While protests may unite previously disparate individuals within their boundaries, they often criticize other contingents of society. And it is through shared enjoyment that people feel united.

To achieve pluralism, there may actually be the need to push back on certain elements of cultural appropriation rhetoric as it has propagated in this century. Cultural learning and valuation are essential to the attainment of pluralist society, and in some cases that have now been designated cultural appropriation, individuals were immersing themselves deeply in both cultural learning and valuation. While some advocated for mimicry as an effective strategy for understanding another paradigm more deeply, it is certain that no individual can actually attain the perspective of having grown up in another nation. The question remains though whether individuals living in another country for decades, assuming they make efforts to integrate, can gain meaningful insight into that culture – and whether the extent of their insight qualifies them to be equivalent citizens and members of this culture. Some of the strictest cultural appropriation critics would respond in the negative. However, those same critics may take issue with this same rhetoric applied to immigrants to the U.S.

And so it is important to recognize the differentiation between the economically, historically, militarily, and otherwise privileged nations, and the nations that the aforementioned exploited to attain this privilege. This differentiation may be described by the terms colonial (or post-colonial) and subaltern nations. Subaltern is used here in the sense of Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s post-colonial theory to describe nations or cultures that have experienced colonialism, that were subjected to colonialism, that suffered it, whatever wording is preferred for a specific case. While I wish in no way to propagate power differentials between historically colonial and subaltern nations, and not all nations were involved in colonialism, I will use these reductive descriptors here to address the dynamics that must be taken into account to redress inequalities at present. I will apply these terms broadly and therefore inaccurately to address not only nations involved in colonialism but their neighbors too, in order to discuss general socioeconomic and geographic tendencies. To redress economic inequality at present, it is important that citizens of subaltern nations are given citizen status and are respected as equal and valuable particularly because of their cultural background when they migrate to historically colonial nations. Again, no clear line can be drawn between the past and the present to assert that colonialism is not still in effect, but I address these present forms as neocolonialism rather than colonialism. Citizens of historically colonial nations, on the other hand, are likely to experience less urgency in their desire for assimilation or acceptance due to present global economic differentials. However, it is important to realize the potential of the integration of colonially ancestried individuals into subaltern cultures for their own cultural learning. Many such individuals will only come to understand these global differentials and the history of colonialism through their reception into subaltern circles. And, for citizens of a community to exist in harmony and with appreciation of those who are different from themselves, they must invest resources into cultural learning. The institutions of a given community must also invest resources into the cultural learning of the citizens and of the institution’s comprising members too.

In certain communities in which a form of cultural appropriation policing was enacted, such as parts of Princeton University, the cultural appropriation rhetoric has sometimes led to a suppression of multicultural engagement. Or, in less intense cases, it has enabled and provided a justification for pre-existing xeno-apathy. In diverse communities, some individuals for some of the time will automatically engage with perspectives other than their own. Circumstance or minority individuals will sometimes orchestrate this. But as there is widespread discontent as to the ignorance, the disregard, the insensitivity, and the outright disparagement of especially white, wealthy, and white-wealthy Americans especially towards low-income, minority, and low-income-minority Americans this extent of multicultural engagement is clearly not sufficient. As cultural appropriation policing was enacted, individuals were told that they could not wear the garments or use the words of cultures other than their birth culture. The two forms of cultural engagement that were clearly approved in this landscape were interpersonal communication and the reading of literature by individuals about their own culture, whether fictional or non-fictional. Similarly, informative films, podcasts, and other media that communicated accurately and without sensationalism were also acceptable. However, the enjoyment of art forms was more ambiguous, such as music. Fashion is, to some people, an art form that is instructive of a culture, and so the denial of this form of engagement cast ambiguity upon the acceptability of engagement with other art forms. As this rhetoric has developed, other art forms have largely been exempted and it is mainly garments, deriving from the wearing of sacred objects, that are deemed appropriation. Art, as long as it is a replica, has largely been exempted. Original pieces, of course, are undergoing whole other forms of scrutiny for colonial theft and public display of sacraments.

It is also notable, however, that very few non-white American students at Princeton are wearing their own ancestral garments. And Beyoncé, for example, was criticized for her alleged appropriation of foreign garments and symbolism during the Grammys, when she was in fact reclaiming her own Nigerian heritage. Fans mistook her orisha Oshun inspired look to possibly contain Muslim or Hindu symbols (Bowen). Cultural appropriation policing reached such a degree of severity that most individuals are avoiding all things that could even be remotely identified as cultural appropriation. And they are thereby avoiding many opportunities to engage with other cultures too. One of the online catchphrases in evaluating celebrities’ outfits, hairstyles, and music in the past few years has become “cultural appropriation or appreciation?” especially for POCs engaging with another culture. So, although this realization has not reached Princeton University’s campus yet, it is in the public realm and will hopefully spread from there.

The U.S. today faces a grand obstacle in the form of cultural assimilation. The level of expectation for assimilation is extremely high among U.S. Americans (Lalami, Powell, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research). And many statements disguised as acceptance of non-white culture turn out to be calls for assimilation into white culture in the end. This phenomenon intersects somewhat with whitewashing, but they are certainly not identical. It is whitewashing of individuals, of public culture, of mass media and the whiteness of large institutions, of decisionmakers, of figureheads that is at stake here. Integration and assimilation are crucially different from each other, wherein individuals can retain their culture in all facets of their life during integration while participating actively in the new community they now live in. Whereas assimilation requires adoption of the new culture, and unless the individual is extremely skilled and dedicated to finding modes of expression that combine both cultures, it is likely to lead to abandonment of one’s previous culture.

            Another matter to address in this area is affirmative action. In the case of peoples whose ancestors were exploited and oppressed, or of people who are still being exploited today, what is framed as an altruistic policy is actually the removal of latent racism. It is vital for the future of U.S. society that citizens realize affirmative action is necessary in certain cases because it contributes to the removal of latent and systemic racism. And cases should be evaluated on the basis of their ability to remove said systemic racism most of all.

As globalization progresses, we see North American culture sorely overrepresented in modern media. Most other citizens know more about U.S. culture than U.S. Americans know about those cultures. And this is a form of neocolonialism, and a cultural imperialism. In wanting to learn about current events, recent technology developments, or the trends and movements of Millennials, humans all over the world are forced to interface with U.S. culture, to use the lens of U.S. culture to access the wealth of information that so utopically became accessible through the internet.

Urgent Current Matters

A few more urgent points that must be addressed in the U.S. of A. include education, criminal justice, weaponry policy, and migration. History courses in all schools must be rectified to accurately portray that Native Americans were slaughtered during the colonization of U.S. land. And concurrently students must be made aware that the land that most of them live on rightfully belongs to the Native Americans who once lived on it. And the federal and state governments should include far more Native Americans, should cease to economically disenfranchise Native Americans, and should perhaps be composed entirely of Native Americans. That last point is intended as food for thought for students, more so than an immediately implementable policy suggestion. All schools should have correct and expansive geography education, as well as education about the cultures of the world woven into courses wherever it relates to the topics studied. Diverse perspectives must be a part of the fundamental school curriculum, both from inside of the country and all over the world. Creativity and independent thinking should carry greater priority. Environmental science education must be mandatory for at least one year in high school. And need-based financial aid must be available to all students at the primary, secondary, and tertiary level. Racist zoning that keeps urban elite high schools very white must also be reformed (Logan, Logan).

The criminal justice system must be reformed to be less racist. A third-party review system must be introduced to control racial bias in policing. This program can begin with investigations of the police officers who show anomalously high rates of arresting POCs in the area they work in. And can be developed further with third-party reviews of the questions and statements officers make to the individuals they stop. Another crucial adjustment is to remove the debilitating barriers to employment due to a criminal record. This can be implemented up to the degree of armed robbery, as a suggested cut-off. It is especially important, though, that individuals who were proven retroactively to have been innocent always have their records cleared. Additionally, initiatives such as the Innocence Project that investigate claims of wrongful conviction via DNA evidence require greater funding. Whether this funding is private, federal, or state-based is not critical so long as it is guaranteed to be provided to the necessary level, as long as the justice system is structured to require it. Additionally, the common procedures for trial must be reformed to meet legal standards. As the law is practiced today, many defendants do not actually receive a fair trial and are not innocent until proven guilty, especially on the basis of race (Constitutional Rights Foundation).

The third point of reform for the justice system is the federal decriminalization of marijuana. This point actually contributes to the reduction of racism in the system, as an outsized proportion of POCs are arrested for possession of marijuana, as compared to marijuana usage demographics (ACLU Marijuana). Additionally, cocaine and crack cocaine punishments must be equalized. This is another form of discriminatory and racist policy that punishes poorer and minority citizens outsizedly. Investment bankers on Wall Street buy themselves the most expensive cocaine imaginable, probably are never stopped or searched, but would face lesser charges if they were. While less wealthy citizens who smoke crack cocaine face greater charges (ACLU Cracks in the System). And, of course, poverty is correlated to melanin levels in the U.S. (U.S. Census Bureau). There must additionally be further review of policing laws, to close up any other loopholes that allow for legal racist policing. Solitary confinement policy must be strictened to apply only to the more serious crimes of all the kinds that it is being applied to today. The maximum length of solitary confinement must be significantly reduced so that prisoners can see daylight each day, must have a day in a regular cell after a week, must have a week in a regular cell after a month interspersed with the days outside, and cannot be in solitary confinement in this way for more than a year consecutively. And torture laws must be reformed too, so that Guantanamo Bay cannot exist in its present form. Additionally, there must be active and consequential third-party review of prison and jail guard violence. It is absolutely unacceptable that wards of the state are physically and psychologically tormented by the guardians of the state.

The offerings for in-prison education and skill training to build post-release employability must be expanded to all U.S. facilities. Group therapy must be available to all prisoners. And the profit that can legally be made from a prison must be capped, so that money can go towards these aforementioned reforms and the quality of prisons can be improved. There have been many scandals in the news in the last decade, such as private prisons serving inmates rotten food and not having doctors available to increase their profit margin (Joy). Finally, restorative justice programs must be implemented wherever possible, especially for minors, instead of jails, and for lesser crimes.

Gun policy must be adapted to prevent the mass shootings that characterize our generation. Background checks must be federally mandatory to purchase a gun, as well as at a maximum of five year intervals to own a gun. Possession must be limited to sports usage, and required to be stored at the sports facility, in as many states as it is humanly possible to pass that policy in. The lobbying payments of the NRA in particular must be capped, if lobbying is not to be capped in general. The deaths of tens of thousands of innocent people entirely justify this policy (Mervosh). The minimum age to purchase a gun must be raised to at least 21 in all states. And assault weapons such as the AR-15 must also be banned in all states.

Cultural influences, such as TV shows, that demonstrate community benefits of migration need to be prioritized. The wonders of diverse perspectives that inspire all people on the variety of ways to live life can be captured in relatable narratives, and these seemingly superficial influences can form the beginnings of a cultural opening to the idea of migration.

Beyond even this framework, there are further societal systems that need addressing, such as the vast plastic pollution created by the U.S. today. Plastic is not biodegradable and it is estimated that it will take at least a million years for microorganisms that can chemically break down plastic to evolve (Weisman). Therefore any plastic that we create is currently predicted to stay in our ecosystems for at least a million years. It breaks down physically, into smaller pieces, but it is still chemically identical to its original plastic form. In addition, the unsustainable agricultural industry must be reformed, as it causes eutrophication and loss of biodiversity in swathes across the U.S. A reduction of fertilizer and pesticide usage is required here, which can be balanced out by polycultural farming, crop rotation, and a variety of other agricultural techniques.

And although the combination of Universal Basic Income, the Green New Deal, and Pluralism will hopefully foster such sentiments implicitly, a more holistic vision of progress is needed too. Social, psychic, and emotional development must be valued as highly as material progress in society. The care for each other of individuals in community is just as essential to an economically sustainable system as employment and GDP.

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