Project 2028 and Beyond
An early framework for the Equitable Future Initiative
By Abel E. Martinez
A proposal for rethinking work, essential needs, and shared governance. This document provides a foundation for EFI’s continuing development, with ideas to examine, mechanisms to refine, and practical questions to resolve.
105 pages · Working framework
What the framework explores
Work and time
How could people gain greater control over their labor, share necessary work, and have more time for family, creativity, and community?
Essential needs
How could institutions organize the provision of housing, healthcare, food, and other essentials—and account for the resources and labor those commitments require?
Shared governance
How could people participate meaningfully in decisions affecting their lives, hold institutions accountable, and challenge concentrations of power?
How to read it
Project 2028 brings these concerns together in an early institutional proposal. Its aspirations and proposed mechanisms should be examined separately: a desirable outcome does not, by itself, establish that a particular design will achieve it.
Questions about feasibility, rights, participation, and transition remain part of the work. Readers are invited to examine both the possibilities and the tensions.
Questions for further development
Providing essential needs
What resources, infrastructure, and staffing would reliable provision require? How would shortages be managed, and how would access be protected for people unable to contribute labor?
Reducing working hours
The framework proposes a 15–20 hour workweek. What assumptions about productivity, staffing, care work, and consumption would make that possible—and where might they fail?
Sharing power
How would workers, residents, and people outside the workforce be represented? What protections would safeguard dissent, individual rights, and accountability?
Making the transition
Which parts could be tried on a small scale? What evidence would justify expanding them, revising them, or stopping?
These questions are part of developing EFI. If you see a weakness, know a relevant example, or have a source that could sharpen the analysis, I welcome your perspective.