Value, Utility, Karma

A radical reimagining of utilitarianism begins by collapsing the traditional distinctions between justice, goodness, pleasure, and karma into a single unifying metric: utility, not as a vague abstraction but as the measurable energy of value creation that circulates through human systems, with money serving as its imperfect yet revealing signal. In this framework, justice is not a separate moral category but the equitable distribution of utility across agents, goodness is the maximization of net positive utility flows, pleasure is the subjective experience of utility realized at the individual level, and karma is the long-term compounding of utility effects across networks of action. Money, then, is not merely a medium of exchange or a store of value but the crystallized indicator of how much utility one has contributed to global circulation; it is the receipt society issues when you have successfully added value that others recognize, demand, and are willing to exchange for. Theoretically, the only way to sustainably make money is to inject new utility into the system - whether by solving problems, creating efficiencies, or generating experiences that others find meaningful - because extraction without contribution eventually collapses under entropy, fraud, or diminishing trust. This reframing dissolves the false dichotomy between altruism and self-interest: to enrich oneself is, in principle, to enrich the whole, provided the money earned reflects genuine value creation rather than rent-seeking or manipulation. It also reorients moral philosophy away from abstract debates about categorical imperatives or divine commands and toward a pragmatic calculus of utility flows, where the ethical question is not “Is this good?” but, “Does this add net utility to the circulation of human flourishing?” In this sense, the pursuit of wealth becomes morally justified only insofar as it corresponds to the expansion of utility, and the hoarding of wealth without reinvestment becomes a kind of karmic stagnation, a blockage in the circulatory system of value. Justice, too, is redefined: not as blind adherence to rules but as the restoration of balance when utility flows are distorted, ensuring that those who add value are rewarded and those who diminish it are checked. Pleasure, often dismissed as hedonistic, is recast as the subjective confirmation that utility has been successfully internalized, while karma is the recognition that utility flows ripple outward across time, returning to the originator in ways that may be delayed but are nonetheless real. This radical utilitarianism thus integrates economics, ethics, and metaphysics into a single system: money as the energy of utility, morality as the maximization of its circulation, and human life as the ongoing experiment in how best to generate, distribute, and experience it. In such a world, the entrepreneur, the teacher, the artist, and the healer are all utility engineers, channeling energy into forms that others can absorb, while corruption, exploitation, and deceit are revealed not just as moral failings but as systemic inefficiencies that drain the vitality of the whole. The ultimate vision is a civilization where every transaction, every act of justice, every moment of joy, and every karmic ripple is understood as part of the same grand economy of utility, with money as its imperfect but indispensable language.