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5 contributions to Rebel Economist (Free)
The Deep Dark
By nature I’m an optimist, yet I’m writing now about a nightmare and I hardly know how to title this Post. It’s an appaling nightmare, triggered by a ‘Long Read’ article from the Guardian. See https://www.theguardian.com/news/2026/aug/18/the-long-read-democracy-v-the-machine-digital-age-warnings-computer-history-technology I’ve always been interested in ‘What If?’ questions, in a positive or improving sense. But this ‘What If?’ goes the other way. What if humanity’s future is a new Slave Age, where say 10 million of the very wealthy are supported in opulent lifestyle by an host of AI-machines and robots - a host with capabilities that are fully the equal of 10 billion people, who are now superfluous. Of course I don’t believe this nightmare, yet I feel fear. Do the very rich TechBros, and their associates, think there could be a future in which they don’t need the rest of us? If fire and flood should consume most cities and towns, wouldn’t that just be an efficient way to reduce the surplus population? I never thought I’d see that phrase Charles Dickens gave to a fictional character in quite such a new light. The real nightmare is that this scanario doesn’t have to be true in order to happen. It only needs enough of the very rich to believe that it’s likely. A false dawn of machine slaves would, after an attempted dawning, be no comfort. And I’ve not been smoking or swallowing anything ‘interesting’.
0 likes • Aug 18
I wrote a series of blog posts about this but also a direction of a solution https://substack.com/@rolfst/note/p-194107524?r=1fu3 this displays the road to the future as it is happening https://substack.com/@rolfst/note/p-206709406?r=1fu3 and this shows the way to the positive future that is possible. And this https://substack.com/@rolfst/note/p-211690844?r=1fu3 this explains the broken economy and a possible fix in line with professor Keen's tradition
1 like • Aug 19
@Alwyn Lewis my bad I copied them from the admin screen https://rolfst.substack.com/p/who-owns-tomorrow?utm_source=share&r=1fu3 https://rolfst.substack.com/p/who-owns-the-future-the-future-is?utm_source=share&r=1fu3 https://rolfst.substack.com/p/the-broken-economic-model-and-how?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=1fu3
New video is up!
The new conversation with Steve is LIVE right now 🔥 Energy is the blind spot almost every economic model still pretends does not exist. Steve walks through the 1-for-1 lock between energy and GDP, why AI may never scale the way the hype claims, and why he thinks the Hunger Games outcome is more likely than the optimistic one. This one has to be a must watch so watch it right now! Drop your take in the comments on YouTube and let’s get this in front of as many people as possible tonight.
0 likes • Aug 18
Wow I just wrote an article about the thermodynamics of the economy where it leaks and what we can do to close the loop. Professor Keen was a huge inspiration for me. And I connect it with the Georgism idea of LVT.
FJG vs UBI for full employment and price stability
Preliminary simulations using MESSSI (Macro Economic System State Simulator) developed by Tyron Keynes reveals that whereas the FJG is superior to UBI in targeting this dual objective, nevertheless a combination of the two when applied to lower income earners contributes significantly in reducing overall income and wealth inequalities. https://www.relearningeconomics.com/what-the-messsi-model-says-about-a-ubi-and-fjg
0 likes • Jul 27
It must be turned into productive speculative assets
1 like • Jul 28
I phrased that badly. What I mean is the opposite: land should not be held purely as a speculative asset. A land value tax forces productive use, idle land becomes costly to hold, which drives it toward economic contribution rather than passive appreciation. The rent of natural resources belongs to no one person more than another.
Do Godley tables convince common good activists the money is there?
This substack post asks if we can answer the "how to pay for it" question using Godley Tables and a dose of MMT. Take a look and see if you agree. See it as a first draft. https://open.substack.com/pub/stephenhinton584706/p/how-to-pay-for-the-future-a-case?r=21tjc&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true
0 likes • Jul 24
Good first draft. the Godley Table framing is the right move, and the asset-swap argument ("bond issuance → real natural capital") is exactly what's needed to break out of the household-budget fallacy. A few things worth strengthening in a next iteration: What works well: The SFC approach ensures every funding flow is accounted for across sectors. The ROI framing (€1 → €4–38) is compelling, and the "crisis of postponement" reframe is rhetorically sharp. What's missing: The model patches restoration spending onto the existing tax structure. That's fine as a first draft, but it leaves the harder question unanswered: if you're serious about using SFC modelling, the revenue side deserves the same rigour as the spending side. A nitrogen tax is a good Pigouvian instrument, but it's a small loop. The larger question is what happens to the overall fiscal architecture when you shift from taxing labour to taxing wealth, which changes the macro-financial picture for how public investment gets funded at scale. I've been working on exactly this at Astra Europa, a pan-European federalist movement, using the same SFC methodology but applied to a full structural redesign: EU wealth tax, zero labour tax, European Citizen Dividend as automatic stabiliser, and Pigouvian taxes (including CO₂ and financial speculation) as the corrective layer. The NRR funding question fits naturally into that framework. Restoration bonds become far easier to justify politically when the revenue base is already structured around asset taxation rather than labour. Happy to share the SFC scenario files if anyone wants to dig in.
0 likes • Jul 28
@Stephen Hinton Thanks! A few suggestions for a next version: 1. Model the revenue side with the same rigour as the spending side. The nitrogen tax loop is a start, but the harder question is what the overall fiscal architecture looks like when you shift from taxing labour to taxing wealth, that changes the macro-financial baseline for public investment significantly. 2. Run a two-scenario comparison. A current fiscal architecture vs. asset-tax-funded architecture. The simulation plots in Ravel make the difference between fiscal architectures visible in a way narrative arguments cannot. I've built a Minsky/Ravel SFC model that does exactly this for the EU-wide case. This addendum is probably the most relevant starting point: https://codeberg.org/astra-europa/Policies/src/branch/main/belasting/Addendum_Financial_Market_Transmission_EN.md Happy to connect with anyone working on the fiscal architecture question, whatever the theoretical starting point.
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Welcome! Access the Rebel Economist FREE Course + Funny Money book for free by tapping HERE. Also feel free to introduce yourself below. P.S. My name's Jordan and I've been Dr. Steve Keen's business partner for the last 2 years. Please reach out to Adam Maio, our Community Director for any assistance. We're happy to help.
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0 likes • Feb 4
@Kendra Alien yes but I think something went wrong. My skool on my Mobile is different than on my desktop
0 likes • Jul 23
Hi everyone, I'm Rolf Strijdhorst, a federalist from the Netherlands and one of the founders of Astra Europa a pan-European political movement working toward a democratic European federation. Over the past months I've been developing a tax reform proposal that shifts the burden from labour to wealth at EU level, replacing income tax with a progressive wealth tax and funding a European Citizen Dividend. The proposal draws heavily on Keen's work on private debt dynamics and the Minsky Moment, which is why I ended up here. To test the core claims I built a Stock-Flow Consistent model in Minsky/Ravel. The results are honest: the reform stabilises private debt and maintains a demand floor, but demand pressure is real and the supply side remains an open question. The model files are publicly available. I'm here to learn, to get the model torn apart by people who know what they're doing, and hopefully to contribute where I can.
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@rolf-strijdhorst-6901
I am a software architect with political aspirations

Active 13d ago
Joined Feb 3, 2026
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