The Equality Project
What if the big picture solutions the United States needs in 2026 aren’t missing? What if they’re scattered?
“We have it in our power to begin the world over again.” —Thomas Paine, Common Sense, 1776
There is an anger we feel when promises are not met.
We hear the words of the Declaration of Independence, that all people are created equal, and that we have the right — the right! — to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The words of the Constitution that promise us a government of, by and for the people, where every one of us is equal under the law…
We hear these words and they fill us with pride, with a fierce joy that the United States of America is a great country because we have these rights and these promises and this equality.
The Unmet Promises of 1776
We know the stories of our founding, that people who loved liberty threw off the bonds of tyranny, a far away king, living in luxury and expecting us to pay him taxes when we weren’t even represented in government. We had no say in the laws that governed us.
That’s terrifying: to have no say in the rules we have to abide by, unfair rules, rules designed to take our hard earned money and for what? If we had no say in making the laws, why would the laws benefit us?
So we fought a bloody revolution and earned our liberty, and we enshrined these promises in our very form of government, so that we would have no more tyrants and we could live in peace and equality.
Every one of us has had a moment when we look at the world we live in, we look at the lives we are living, and we see the promises of 1776 in tatters around us, shredded and meaningless.
That is a heartbreaking moment. All that pride, all that civic joy, called into doubt.
We want to be great. These promises are great. These documents and our country have been an inspiration and a beacon of hope to millions, over centuries, over 250 years now, in fact.
And on our great nation’s 250th birthday, we say: we can now make these promises come true.
Or certainly much closer to true, in this imperfect world.
The Founders Wanted Equality. But They Couldn’t Deliver Equality.
The founders were operating under 1776 rules. They created a government and an economic system that made sense in that world. They made compromises because they could see no other way forward.
They did a truly amazing thing in creating the United States of America, and we as citizens of this country, for 250 years, have done amazing things with the freedoms we have been given.
Now, in 2026, we have tools — technology, energy, communication, ways of creating things and talking to each other — that the founders literally could not dream of. Any more than we can truly know what capabilities people will have in another 250 years, when the United States turns 500 in 2276.
And the best part is, our founders knew that this would happen. They knew the world would change and that we, the people, would need a way to change our country to match our new needs, our new capabilities.
To see us making amendments to bring even more equality and prosperity to the people of this country would bring them great joy.
The joy of a parent whose child has become an adult, confronts the new world that they live in — so different from our own youth — and grasps the possibilities with eager hands, ready to learn, grow, and create.
This is what our parents wanted for us. What we want for our children. What the people who wrote the United States Constitution wanted for the future citizens of our country.
The founders wanted equality. They promised equality. They couldn’t provide equality.
Life was hard then. In different ways from how it’s hard now.
Growing food took more human labor. Making anything took more human labor. A shirt, a bowl, a piece of paper — the time and labor it took to make these things was enormous.
Now we can drive to Ikea and pick up an attractive dining set for a handful of dollars.
The months it took for a letter to cross the ocean! King George didn’t even know we’d declared independence for more than five weeks.
The world we live in has changed enormously from 1776, and that gives us new capabilities.
Groceries and Gas
When we talk about the kinds of pains that we all feel, we talk about groceries and gas. Food and the energy we need for transportation. And we talk about healthcare: the cost of going to the doctor, and the fear of getting sick or having an accident and not even knowing how much the hospital is going to cost, except that it will be a ruinous amount.
Groceries, gas, and going to the doctor.
Oh, and one more thing, a pain we all feel and that we’re all angry about right now, and rightly so: for each of us, having our vote matter.
We were promised government of, by, and for the people.
In 2026, we’re not feeling it. All the people who don’t vote: they don’t bother because they know it doesn’t matter. And whether you’re angry about gerrymandering, voter suppression, or stolen elections, at heart you’re angry because you want your vote to matter.
That was the promise, and that’s what we want.
Groceries, gas, going to the doctor — and for our votes to matter. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness — served by a government of, by, and for the people.
Over the years, there have been many people who have said — for various reasons — that they should have these things but others should not.
Today we say: we can all have these things. These basic necessities. This foundation for a good life.
That foundation — a high floor of material wellbeing, with food, energy, healthcare, and the dignity of having our voices be heard in government — won’t mean everyone’s lives will be perfect.
We will still have the freedom to make mistakes.
But we will also have the freedom to climb.
The Speed of Change
We will have the freedom to try new things, to explore and to build, without being afraid of not having enough money for food, energy, healthcare. And we will be able to achieve this because our votes will matter, and our government will exist to serve us: we, the people.
This is what we can do in 2026, at the 250th birthday of the United States of America.
We can make this country the place that the founders dreamed of, where equality becomes real, where we feel it every day, where we no longer live in despair, but can trust that our basic needs are met and build on that.
This is new. This was not true even 50 years ago, at our country’s 200th birthday.
People have wanted this for a long time — perhaps for all time. They’ve been making plans and trying to figure out better ways forward and they have achieved a lot, over time.
1976 was already a long way beyond 1776 in terms of equality and government of, by, and for the people.
What has changed now is that our technology has reached a point where it is improving at lightning speed.
Think about a smart phone from 7 years ago. Maybe you even have a smart phone from 7 years ago. Then think about what your new phone can do, if you’re lucky enough to have one. Or think about the ads you’ve seen, the features they show off.
The new abilities are astonishing. In just a few years. Maybe you can even remember before smart phones, and the difference between that way of living versus now, having a tiny miracle of a computer in your pocket, which lets you do so many things you now take for granted, but which were impossible just a couple years ago or a decade ago.
Add in the new technology of generative AI, and the speed of change increases again.
Maybe you see this in your job, in how much that has changed in five, 10, 15 years. Or you look at the world your kids are growing up in compared to your own childhood.
The change is breathtaking.
It’s certainly not all for the better. That’s another thing we all agree on. But there’s no denying that the technology has advanced.
A Life Without Despair, So We Can Just Live Our Lives
We have the technology to have enough clean energy. To have enough good food. To give everyone the basic healthcare we all need (the medical miracles are another place where the new technology is, indeed, miraculous). These need development, coordination, implementation. But they’re real.
We could live lives that are just that essential bit easier.
Not with everything done for us, or a government that gets in our way and tells us what to do. But without the worst kinds of despair.
Without being afraid that if you lose your job, you lose your healthcare, and you can’t get the insulin you need to manage your diabetes or keep your heart healthy.
Without being afraid that you can’t cover both rent and groceries.
Without watching gas prices rise with panic churning in your belly because you can’t afford to drive to work.
Without begging the energy company not to turn off your electricity, because they raised the rates again and they’re celebrating record profits while you can’t get online to find a new job that pays more and isn’t so far away.
This kind of despair eats a person alive. It hollows us out. It makes us angry, and sad, and frightened.
A life without despair, so we can just live our lives.
Make mistakes, suffer heartbreak, start a podcast, celebrate with family, learn a new hobby, maybe even relax once in a while. Have food on the table, reliable clean energy, and go to the doctor when you need to. And know that your vote matters in electing the people to represent you in a government that cares about what matters to you.
This is the kind of equality we’re talking about. This is equality that matters.
This is The Equality Project.
We’re launching The Equality Project on July 4, 2026, as a celebration of the 250th birthday of the United States of America — and a hope that we can do better at making the American Dream a lived reality for more of us, now.
This project is at Minimum Viable Product stage. We asked a big question. We found some interesting answers. Now we’re opening it up to you.
We have a lot of ideas about how to move forward with this, but first we need to pressure test these ideas with lots more people. We hope you’ll be interested enough by our big claims to want to learn more.
We also suspect you’re asking about how we get from here to there. We have some ideas about that, too. Much more to come.
FAQ
Why do you believe that technology can now, in a new way, solve big problems better than before?
Explore our extensive research outlines:
We will write more about these subjects, but to start with, we’re sharing our initial research, which persuaded us that this was a conversation worth having.
I have thoughts about The Equality Project. Where can I share them?
For The Equality Project to get anywhere, it will need engagement from a lot of smart, informed, ambitious people. Rather than use comments on Substack, we’re asking that you join the conversation over on Reddit, where we hope to see lively debate.
Join the conversation about The Equality Project on Reddit →
You briefly mention a constitutional amendment. What’s that about?
It’s pretty clear that the political and economic systems we currently have in place are not serving human wellbeing.
All of these solutions can exist and still not provide any benefit to anyone if we don’t implement them. We have read countless essays and articles, listened to so many podcasts, of elegant, thoughtful explanations about why great solutions aren’t being used, or are being actively thwarted, because of entrenched elements in our current political and economic structures.
A constitutional amendment is hard, but we as a country have done it before and we can do it again.
The need we see: We need a restructured government that can move more fleetly and match pace more closely with technological and social changes — and that makes every person equal in the law and in the power of their vote.
More to come on this. And we welcome your thoughts on the subject.
How do we even redesign an economic system?
We see markets as elegant, effective tools. But there is not now and has never been an actual “free market.” There are incentives built into the market. Once we recognize that, we can choose to change the incentives.
Look at the business leaders making grotesque choices every day. They are responding to the current incentives. The incentives for a health insurance CEO are to drive profits, not increase human wellbeing — and we see the horrifying results.
We can choose to instead use government to create different incentives, which do prioritize human wellbeing. We can construct a system of incentives that will drive markets toward the results we want.
We will need to retool our economic system to change the incentives, so that the markets can do their flexible, clever thing of creating supply to meet demand.
We want to use the strengths of capitalism to drive innovation that benefits people.
More to come on this as well. We’d love to hear what you think.