An open reference for the post-labor economy

Economics, rebuilt from new axioms.

Modern economics explains how humans allocate scarce resources. Modern governance assumes human agents. Modern social norms are organized around work. AI breaks all three simultaneously — and patching existing theory is insufficient. This initiative starts over, from different axioms.

Why a new initiative

These are not edge cases. They are structural failures, already in motion.

Failure · Labor

Labor is no longer the primary input to value.

Capital that replicates itself, learns, and improves without human input does not fit cleanly into any existing production function.

Failure · Governance

Governance has no framework for non-human agents.

When an AI system makes a consequential decision — economic, legal, social — existing institutions have no coherent answer for accountability, representation, or rights.

Failure · Scarcity

Scarcity assumptions collapse under AI-driven abundance.

The core mechanism of price theory — scarcity signals driving allocation — degrades when marginal cost approaches zero across entire industries at once.

Patching existing theory is insufficient. The field this initiative is building starts from different axioms.

Domains & core questions

Every domain of society, re-evaluated. Every core question, answered.

Domain
Core question
LABOR & VALUE THEORY
How is value created and distributed when machines outcompete human labor?
CAPITAL & OWNERSHIP
Who owns the means of ownership — and what does that imply about capital allocation?
GOVERNANCE & POLICY
What role does governance play in a world of agentic intelligence?
ECONOMIC MODELING
How does value get modeled and allocated when the primary inputs are no longer human?
ETHICS
What responsibilities does AI technology endow us with for societal cohesion?
GEOPOLITICS & POWER
How does the race for AI define the next century of power dynamics?
CULTURE & MEANING
What can societies do once AI detaches meaning from value creation?
Founding axioms

The axioms past frameworks don't address.

CONTRIBUTION REQUIREMENT — Any work contributed to the Initiative must build on these axioms. Not around them. Not without them.

I

Labor is a diminishing input.

Human labor is being marginalized in value as scarcity-shifts reduce its necessity. Frameworks that depend on human-centric aggregates are already obsolete.

II

Abundance does not solve distribution.

A post-scarcity economy does not automatically produce equity. The political economy of plenty is as contested as the political economy of scarcity — and far less studied.

III

Decentralized intelligence ends existing power structures.

The shift of power toward decentralized intelligence will dissolve the structures built to contain it. How societies respond will define the coming century — and it will not be easy to undo.

IV

The exponential breaks the pattern.

AI's exponential nature contradicts every pre-existing pattern of scarcity-shift. The assumption that knowledge and intelligence bottlenecks would keep displacement linear is ending — removing humans from value creation entirely.

Use cases

An open reference for every class of people.

The Initiative's aim is a repository from which anyone — civilian, researcher, builder, or statistician — can extract real value.

Researchers

Foundational literature, novel frameworks, and empirical datasets to anchor new work in a field that has no established canon yet.

Policymakers

Actionable models and transition analyses to inform legislation before institutional lag makes the decisions for them.

Builders & Founders

A theoretical grounding for the economy they are actively constructing — whether they realize it or not.

Statisticians & Modelers

Raw data, displacement curves, and simulation scaffolding for quantitative work on labor, capital, and distribution dynamics.

Educators

Curriculum material for teaching economics, governance, and social theory where the standard textbooks are already obsolete.

Journalists & Analysts

A rigorous reference point for covering AI's structural economic impact — beyond the usual hype and panic cycles.

Everyday Civilians

Plain-language documentation of what is actually happening to work, wages, ownership, and society — written for the people who need to understand it most.

Open contribution

The field has no canon yet. Help write it.

The repository is open. Read the framework, stress-test the axioms, contribute the work the next century will be built on.