This goal of the Human Baseline and Equity Contract is to provide a foundation that leads to a better life compared against our existing ownership belief and systems. Since the world is based around the US Dollar as a standard currency, this comparison will be around US labor expectations. But it should be noted that each country has different ways to access necessary systems that may not be directly tied to your employer.
Current Expectations
In the US (as of 2026), the expectation for “full benefits” is at least 40 hours per week. “Benefits” is different between each employer, and may not cover all of your medical needs. AND that is if your employer even offers you full-time positions. It is not uncommon for part-time positions to be offered, and people are expected to work multiple jobs to earn enough to survive, all the while not being offered “full benefits”. Having to pay inflated prices on medical benefits.
There is also no upper limit to how much people are expected to work. The retirement age is dependent on your personal finances, if you did not save enough to coast in retirement then you will have to work extra to make ends meet. This becomes exponentially more difficult for people who cannot afford to save any money. Financial security is the biggest economic depressors people suffer from, forcing them to survive using alternative or illegal means.
Or people just die. There is no expectation for anyone to have any money. Allowing people to die from hunger, homelessness, and medical neglect. This is not a problem in capitalist economies, it is a feature. Profit is prioritized over people. While there is no ceiling to how much a person can “own”, there is a floor for everyone, that floor is death. As long as the owners keep growing their ownership, it doesn’t matter how many people die.
Equity Expectations
With the Equity Contract, we immediately raise the floor for everyone. Neglect is not acceptable, and there is no expectation for anyone to not be able to access their needs. Regardless of how many hours you have worked, you are still a member of the community and deserve to access your needs just like every member. This guarantee will provide the security people need to thrive.
Without the expectation of infinite growth and labor for the sake of earning money, the demand for labor goes down dramatically. The contract only requires people to “maintain the necessary systems”. That means only enough labor to keep the community alive, we don’t need to more than what we need. So instead of endless unreasonable expectations, there is just a minimum expectation.
With all people in the community now focused on meeting that minimum expectation, the amount of work per person goes down dramatically. The LLO already defines the upper limit for how much labor a person needs to perform. That will not change regardless of which community you live in and what their labor demand is. That ~40 year LLO is close to current expectations of a “good career” could afford you in terms of retirement. But again, most people cannot afford to retire after forty years. So having any reasonable upper limit will improve the lives of most people.
The CLO will be the biggest unknown, but with the minimum expectation and increased focused on necessary systems. The average US state could maintain a CLO of ~24 hours per week. We can achieve this by having more people work in existing necessary systems, thus lowering the labor per person. Automation focused on undesirable labor will also naturally decrease the total labor hours necessary, and move people into more desirable positions.
A lot of the economic problems people face today with automation and monopolies removing the amount of jobs in the market just goes away when you don’t need to earn a living to survive. These “economic problems” just become “logistic efficiencies” when people live for equity instead of ownership.
Conclusion
When you replace ownership with equity in terms of economic priority, life just becomes easier. A lot of the problems we think we have today become benefits for the people and community. No one cares about “shifts in unforeseen economic forces” (whatever that means), people care about living. Prioritizing equity allows people to live their lives more, without compromising their integrity just for scrapes of play money.
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