Bai Zhongqi smiled as he lightly tapped his mobile phone against the electronic paynt device on the milk tea shop's counter, which emitted a light ding sound. The milk tea shop girl behind the counter, who thought this custor bore so resemblance to the Chancellor, smiled and said, "Thank you for your patronage." She then handed over two cups of milk tea to him.
Bai Zhongqi offered his thanks and handed one cup to his girlfriend, Han Jiaxue, while saying, "Since I've co back this ti, I found the money in my account just keeps growing. I feel like I'm on my way to becoming a millionaire."
That comnt was practically asking for a smack. Han Jiaxue pursed her lips, feeling that her boyfriend's shalessness was beyond redemption.
"You haven't touched the basic inco in your citizen account, so naturally it keeps piling up."
Bai Zhongqi chuckled, "I never thought of myself as soone who could save money, but now I realize it was all a misunderstanding."
The couple took a seat at a small table in the milk tea shop. The girl who had served them seed to have finished her shift and, after handing over to another young girl, she changed out of her uniform, laughed, and left. She even said goodbye to Bai Zhongqi and Han Jiaxue on her way out.
Suddenly, Bai Zhongqi rembered that Han Jiaxue seed to have a book bar and asked, "How's your shop doing lately?"
After asking the question, Bai Zhongqi felt like a truly negligent boyfriend, embarrassed that he wasn't more up-to-date with his girlfriend's work.
Han Jiaxue answered, "The business is about the sa as before. The gross profit has decreased quite a bit since the currency change, but since costs like rent, as well as utilities like electricity and water bills, have all decreased too, it's actually not bad. It's just that hiring is getting more and more difficult. These days, everyone's on basic inco and not worrying about food and drink. What country doesn't have an unemploynt rate of thirty or forty percent? Nowadays, young people generally do part-ti work for three to four hours a day, so shift changes are really frequent."
Hearing this, Bai Zhongqi nodded. He was also very concerned about the issue of transformational reforms in countries around the world. After boldly stepping into the Intergalactic Era, people's lives had undergone imnse changes.
The material lifestyle provided by the Star Alliance was unimaginably abundant compared to any previous era. The Star Alliance had constructed a large number of public ecological farms and consur factories, offering an extensive range of daily consur goods, from food to clothes, daily electronic products, cars, building materials for houses, and so on—everything one could wish for.
Moreover, the Star Alliance controlled nuclear power plants, water companies, heating companies, and other facilities that provided basic services to Star Alliance citizens completely free of charge.
This inevitably led to a consequence, that is, most of the private profit-making enterprises around the world, regardless of the services they provided, couldn't compete with the public economic sectors of the Star Alliance. No matter how these private enterprises struggled, they eventually had to declare bankruptcy en masse.
Even if so capitalists tried to stir up public opinion, ordinary people weren't stupid. After the Star Alliance wholly monopolized the infrastructure and basic living supplies, everyone could receive what they needed without spending money. Regardless of how persuasively private enterprises argued, people could still clearly distinguish their own interests from those of the bosses.
Despite widespread business closures and job losses, society was very stable overall, as a large number of unemployed people enjoyed a better life at ho, cursing their forr employers for making them realize that they lived better without a job than with one that worked them to the bone.
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Bai Zhongqi also felt quite moved by this phenonon, "The principles laid down by Comrade Old Ma and other sages, like distribution according to work and no food for the lazy, now seem less appropriate. Technologically, the Star Alliance can easily et the daily consumption needs of billions of people, and we still have a massive amount of production capacity that is inactive. Thus, our situation now is such that no one has to work, yet our lives are better than before, which leads to many not wanting to re-enter the workforce."
The situation in the United Empire of Iridium Star was different. After five thousand years of developnt, Iridium Star had a well-established employnt system and national psyche. On Iridium Star, employnt was a citizen's duty, mandatory, and Iridians naturally believed that creation and hard work were honorable. The value of an Iridian's existence was to create and contribute, for oneself or for society.
However, Earth had not naturally transitioned from the old capitalist labor values of 'earning a living' to the stage of Iridium Star, which led to the collapse of the so-called labor employnt market after the Star Alliance achieved its imnse supply capacity. Once labor was decoupled from the market, people lacked the motivation to seek employnt again.
This phenonon had not yet beco particularly acute or extre in countries like C in East Asia. Despite C's rapid developnt on top of state capitalism over the last few decades, its founding still bore traces of socialism. Coupled with the national respect for hard work and disdain for laziness, when the Star Alliance opened up a large number of jobs in monopoly industries and supply industries similar to forr state-owned enterprises, these giant companies attracted a massive workforce. Many applied for positions purely for the status of an 'insider' role.
However, there was no longer any real system to speak of; as long as one was a citizen of the Star Alliance, they had complete coverage from birth to death. To use the term 'coverage' might even understate it, as 'supply' is more accurate.
Under the new labor laws in C, working 20 hours a week constituted full-ti employnt. Despite the fact that the nurous enterprises of the Star Alliance didn't need that many employees, they still hired tens of millions of laborers. Most people didn't have a heavy workload, and many even primarily received training.
But regardless, C's employnt rate remained relatively high.
And then there were the developed nations of Europe and Arica, whose circumstances were completely different. In a dozen European countries that had implented the Star Alliance's national supply policy, the non-employnt rate had already reached over seventy percent. The term 'non-employnt rate' was even coined to avoid the unpleasant term 'unemploynt rate.'
The people of these lax developed nations, many of whom had previously lived on welfare and unemploynt benefits, now didn't need to work to eat well and enjoy better housing and cars. So even managed to travel to places like Erald Sea Star, Lieque Star, and Mars, reducing their willingness to work even further.
This had beco a serious social issue, attracting attention from many scholars and research institutions. So criticized the Star Alliance governnt for rolling out the national supply policy too quickly. Chancellor Du Peng directly retorted to these people, saying that if the Star Alliance could improve everyone's lives, should they really be timid, holding back out of consideration for existing industries and just watching Star Alliance Nation citizens' standards of living fall below expectations?
Naturally, with many people leading comfortable lives without working, their energy might be diverted elsewhere, such as into social issues.
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