Thank you, excellent point. I hadn’t thought of it that way, and I think you’re right.
Ding!
I spent 6 years as a Business Analyst working for one of Australia’s largest banks, mainly working on projects related to their online services. This article is pretty close to spot on. The majority of the people above me delivered no tangible benefit, and much of the work we were asked to do delivered no tangible effort (or did it in the most ineffective and inefficient way).
The problem is that the finance and other ‘big business’ industries are full of MBA parasites who have learnt that the only skill they need to have a ‘successful’ career is to ‘manage up’, that is, play politics well and learn to manage what those above you think you are doing, and what you can do.
It finally got to a point where I saw things would only continue to get worse, and couldn’t live with myself knowing that I was being paid a decent wage on a project costing tens of thousands of dollars daily, while colleagues in less fortunate areas of the bank were being made redundant (because it is quicker and easier to raise profits by cutting staff and offshoring jobs, that to actually deal with your costly inefficiencies and bullshit.
I got out when it finally became too much and now enjoy spending my days actually making real tangible things as a carpenter.
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Strongly recommended. Mr. Altemeyer’s Wikipedia page has a link at the bottom, that’s probably a good staring point too. It holds up well and is actually a pretty entertaining read.
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I heard Elwood in my head when reading it both times.
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I think your and holz’s ideas are great ones. They should be refined and put into effect. We will eventually HAVE TO put some form of these ideas into effect if we want to remain on the planet and have a planet for our kids & grandkids. All I’m doing is poking holes in it, so we can figure out a robust model for it to actually work. It could, it just needs more discussion and some trials.
I am definitely willing to entertain your plan. What I have a problem with is giving up the autonomy, my individual nature, in order to satisfy a system’s internal need for control. There are some things that just don’t need control. I’m not going to veer off into a freedom discussion - I’ll keep it to the matter at hand. In this case, my ability to get my hands on the raw materials, and to have a chance to be rewarded for my efforts.
If I design a better iPhone in your system, something that’s a true global hit, I want to be rewarded for it! I want to be able to take vacations wherever I want and gain additional resources to invent bigger and better things, hire people, acquire their talents under my tent to invent more stuff. To grow my ideas, and to have access to the resources to carry it out, and not be impeded by a central authority.
As I see it in your system, there is no real individual reward for their work. If I invented something great, in your system, it would just sort of “be there” and people might use it, and I wouldn’t really receive anything. Thanks is not enough motivation. Not to people like me. There has to be some kind of a reward, some kind of a prize for it to be worth doing.
So here’s what I thought. For SOME things, your system is perfect, as in for basic needs. But don’t do away with money and don’t do away with individual reward, competition and ambition. Combine them!
Promote the tithe to the world’s well-being, but no longer in terms of money. Start centralizing these resources, but making them more and more democratic. So instead of farms buying materials and labor, develop a system whereby everything gets done and distributed along the lines of your model. Same for health care, and taking care of roads and basic things in every town and state, and include the individual’s receipt of the fruits of their tithe/labor. So people work 10 hours, and they receive boxes of food for them and their family, and a fuel stipend, and health care.
But next to that, there is a monetary economy. The things within the first economy do not have dollar values - their value is intrinsic to the tasks that were identified as needing to be done. The things in the parallel monetary economy behave like things currently do. If I want to go on Amazon and buy a bunch of stuff and a new TV, I have to pay for it with wages I got from hours 11 through 80.
I wouldn’t have a problem with a system like that. In fact, it would be refreshing to have the option to go work on a farm 10 hours a week, and then go do epidemiology for however much else I wanted to. Some people would just work on the farm all week because that’s what they wanted to do. Some people would do other stuff, like public works or whatever else their expertise is in, and that would be their tithe. (Or whatever you want to call it. I’ve been calling it tithe because of 10 hours, but 10/40 is really a quarter.)
How do you feel about a hybrid system like this, instead?
I have a bunch of responses that I might not be able to craft into a nice reply. So this may be a bit list-like…
I see this core system, like you suggest, as being primarily for the basic needs of everyone. Food, shelter, healthcare, roads, communications, etc. Above that, there would be some looser version of the system that allowed everyone to do what they wanted (as much as possible). So you’d work your ten hours for the core needs, then you’d have time to do stuff you like - improving iPhones, studying epidemiology, fishing, whatever.
My hope would be that there wouldn’t be something like a “central authority” of people doing too much of the decision making. I would like that to be as decentralized and democratic as possible. I don’t have a system for that in mind beyond some sort of combination of kickstarter and general elections.
I work in the arts and technology. I see a lot of people doing things they don’t get paid for - writing open source software, hacking machines, making sculpture, writing poetry. I think people are creative and inventive without monetary compensation, and will continue to be. If someone does something that everyone likes, they would be recognized for it. There would still be fame and reputation. And I would imagine that reputation would help you convince others to allot time and materials to your next project.
But, yes, a multi-level approach / hybrid system seems like it would work best. Basic needs, common wants, individual desires each managed collectively in their own level/system of shared effort.
I see where you’re coming from with this, but some of it makes me nervous. When you start talking about hiring people and telling them what to do, and taking credit or money for their ideas and time, that gets a little out of scope. You’re starting to become an authority at that point. And you’re creating a situation in which you could reap further rewards for work you don’t do yourself. I see that as one of our current problems, and fixing that is a goal of the new system.
Money is a very useful method of exchange, of course. It has some issues. It becomes fetishized. People start working for money rather than the common good, or even their own good (time, health, happiness). And then people give money to other people who haven’t earned it. They give it to their children or to people that did something that they, and they alone, might appreciate. And then we get into all those weird definitions of “value” that separate what something is “worth” to you as a wealthy person from what helps the common good. Now you decide (like above) what other people spend their time on, and maybe that’s making you happy at the expense of others. Why do you, or your children, deserve to be happier?
I’d rather we all feel that providing something useful, more reliable, well-liked, or time-saving to the world is reward enough. That the thanks we get, and the knowledge that we have really helped, is a good payoff. That’s pretty optimistic, and would require a big social shift.
Enough rambling for now…
I see how you are wary of authority. I am too. But authority doesn’t have to equal being authoritarian. Authority can come from expert levels of knowledge and collaboration. Authority can be shared by a board of directors who are not boobs, but serious players in their industry, people who get their hands dirty and tackle the hardest issues. Also, these “authorities” can be staffed by collaborator/owners who aren’t being exploited, but are willingly engaging in the collaboration. So their efforts aren’t being taken, rather they are freely giving their effort to that specific industry, and therefore the greater good, just like in your proposed nonmonetary model. But in these systems, there is a monetary incentive, too.
I don’t have a problem with money in itself, because it is a universal way to exchange value. If we used bananas instead, that would still be money. It’s a problem that will follow us, regardless of what system we use.
I’d be in favor of multiple value systems existing side-by-side. Right now we have a monopolistic one based in the abstract concept of the dollar, eschewing all else. But in places where their economies are hard-hit by recession, such as Greece, and other places that wanted to experiment with it like in the UK, they have their own local currencies. I’d love to see more of that. I’d love to see more diversity in the value proposition. So my side-by-side model of monetary/nonmonetary economic systems doesn’t HAVE to be dollars. It could be anything. As long as it works, as long as it’s practical.
We got this one!
you’re right, there are a whole bunch of us with overlapping solutions, that all together are more than enough to make all this work, but with all our different starting points and contexts it’s hard to address this one well. Luckily, our starting point addressed this particular angle right away!
@awjt, I myself tended to be an overachiever in the corporate world, I did some awesome things, they got noticed, . .and yeah, I got some rewards that were pretty fun. We like our shinies, don’t we?
And, as you’re getting at, what we like MORE (those of us who really get things done) are Autonomy and the ability to get things done that we know deep down are really good things to do, that’s why we hate getting crushed by bureaucracy and small minded sorts who get the way of us making awesome happen, am I right?
And when you’re on a roll, the LAST thing you want to do is have somebody mircomanage you and throw a bunch of silly barriers up. That’s exhausting, it’s draining, and more importantly it just prevents things from getting done. Combine that with the fact that it’s often a lot easier to SEE something than to explain it. I lost track myself of how many times I gave up on explaining something and instead of doing hours or days or months trying to justify something in paperwork and forms I just went ahead and prototyped it on my own time and said ‘There, see now? Want more?’
So let’s just say that was in the back of my head as we were designing the whole thing. I took Dan Pink’s TED talk on Motivation to heart . . . because we know it’s true. We don’t to lead people with short term rewards anymore, and we sure don’t want to feed off of their instability and make them fear failure, that road leads to all sorts of stupid. So instead. . .
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Everybody’s got the basics taken care of (housing, shelter, clothing, health, etc.), and we’re constantly looking to enhance everybody’s lives. This doesn’t just apply to those of us who are running away and doing awesome things, but it frees us of lots of worries too, right?
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As somebody gets more competent/functional in a field, we make sure they get more of the two big 'A’s . . Autonomy and Access. If you start to get noticed or make a difference in structural engineering, you’re more likely to be a shoe-in to work with Neil Stephenson and Keith Hjelmstad and the like on the Tall Tower if you want. We want awesome to bubble to the top, right?
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If somebody’s a newbie but has a brilliant idea, we don’t want them hammered down! So we need an end-around there too? So Kickstarter and Valve’s Greenlight give us an obvious path there, and for those who are more ‘idea people’ and not the sort to start a project, we connect organizers/designers with them so they can leverage their strengths and not have to fight to do things in ways that are unnatural for them (we embrace variety rather than trying to smash it)
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Earlier, @sssss pulled me back to person-hours (and added some good enhacements on their own), there’s plenty of opportunity to bank time, in fact we want EVERYONE to take at least one vacation, and to (if they’re willing) to go try something that they’re interested in every year (or more!). So if you’re also really into oceanography then you can do an intern-thing over at MBARI, and if you’re good at it and like it, then your vacation can become your job for a while, or forever . . up to you. On top of that, as you hinted, if you kick ass, you get more time off. But if you’re having that much fun you might not want to. . We’re about breaking the work/life balance.
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We have sort of internal ‘authority by proxy’ system, if you want to embrace the ability to influence lots of others and lead something huge, you just have to start getting noticed. If Phil Plait has an idea in what we’re working on, and he’s accepting those roles, then things will start happening almost as fast as he thinks of them. . . but he doesn’t get broken or promoted to uselessness like in our system.
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Lastly, these are all close to the context of the current system, why would we ever want to stop there? We want to spoil people who inspire us, don’t we? We want whole groups of people who’s job it is to connect amazing ideas and toys with people who inspire them We want them to make a game of it. Not just the huge figures, but the less noticed ones too. Not everybody likes ants or macro photography, but enough do that Alex Wild gets showered with toys if he wants (but gets to avoid the attention if he wants instead)
And we’ve got the scientific method on top, so we’re actually paying attention to what really works, rather than what we think/hope does.
A big problem that sssss and I are having is one you’re having too. Sometimes things are just. . . OBVIOUS. Heck, this idea that I’ve been working on with my gang has been obvious to us for almost two years now, it’s translating it into terms that other people understand that’s been such an exhausting nightmare for us. I bet that sounds familiar too, doesn’t it?
We’ve added a different angle (re-added actually, and tightened), starting from Valve and getting us to where we want to go. It looks ambitious, but that’s only because it scales terribly well. We want to win the one place nobody else is competing properly right now. . . recruitment. 
It’s a draft, but does that get things a smidge more visible?
And combine that with all of the genius @sssss has posted, and there’s something there, no? At the very least, the bar’s set pretty darn low.
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Good god, man, that’s 261 pages! I still haven’t managed to read your Dr. Who script, which is much shorter.
I will at some point manage to do both, I promise, but don’t hold your breath. One of the reasons I’ve been on bOINGbOING since the dawn of time is that it has lots of small nuggets of information, that I can sample while waiting for a compilation or replication, or attending a boring teleconference, chomping a sammich, or whatever.
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It’s like. .zero point eight! 
Then there’s the Valve to Awesome bit, that’s maybe five.
Unless oh no. . are you living at 640x480 in which case… . oh man you poor poor thing! hugs
And I KNOW, you try condensing something that completely rewrites the world into less than four pages and see how you do!
And then when you do, they’re all ‘well, that’s not enough detail, no way that works’
And then you DO add the notes at the end, references and stuff,and somehow people manage to read right around the parts that they seem to be missing. We’ve got some AMAZING mental super powers, totally screwed up, but impressive nonetheless!
Now,to be fair, I was totally spoiled in life by the fact that when people didn’t get something, I’d just prototype the thing and say ‘See?’. So my strength is finding solutions to extremely complex problems that invariably seem really obvious after people have a good look at them. . . this one’s got so many subtle (but important) interactions between fields and sciences it sometimes exhausts me! And that’s what I’m supposed to be good at!
You’ll dig it once it all clicks though. Minds get blown, that bit’s kind of fun.
I actually really like, if not mostly “love” what I do for a living. But is there any job that compares with traveling the world, being free to learn anything you might have a desire to, spending time with family and friends, AND having the means to do that full time? This wasn’t a dig at “love what you do and you’ll never work another day in your life”( though I would say the people who can truly say that are less than .1% of the population).
I agree - it’s long, but there definitely is some good stuff there!
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You do realize that if you grow the peppers and I grow the corn, and I want some peppers and you want some corn, and that neither of us have any money…I mean…you do realize that there’s a way to break that deadlock, right? If only there were some way we could trade something else other than money…if only we both had some goods we could trade with each other…
This still happens in the U.S., by the way. Just…don’t tell the IRS, because they see that as taxable income.
Of course. The context of the passage is as a WHOLE system replacing another existing system not just a casual barter system from me to you.
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