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Since it's Friday, how about a little devil's advocate. Does anyone here ever think about alternative economic systems similar to getting rid of money, like wha

Since it's Friday, how about a little devil's advocate. Does anyone here ever think about alternative economic systems similar to getting rid of money, like what the Federation does on Star Trek? Why hasn't an online group (similar to a utopia) formed where members contribute a portion of their incomes and receive a UBI? A single unicorn could pay everyone to work on unrelated projects and solve real global problems. I'm not really driven by money. I work more for the betterment of society, to help important projects that could change the world, to help others start their careers, and for self-actualization, or to not have to work someday, things like that. If I had solar panels on my roof and a little robotic hydroponic garden in my backyard, there's not a whole lot else I would need from the world. I might consider putting the bulk of my income into a pool for everyone if it meant that I could finally be left alone to research and invent on my own and make a larger contribution to society than the narrow goals that capitalism has for my skills.

dlg 8y ago
There's a (relatively new) book, Radical Markets[0] by Eric Posner and Glen Weyl that looks at how mechanisms for this might actually work in practice. Core to their argument is that most things we care about in society have increasing returns to scale so that under our current system we systematically under-allocate and mis-allocate to public goods. While I disagree with a lot of it in practice, I highly recommend reading it if you're thinking the way the parent comment of this comment does. [0] https://www.amazon.com/Radical-Markets-Uprooting-Capitalism-Democracy/dp/0691177503 https://www.amazon.com/Radical-Markets-Uprooting-Capitalism-...
- selimthegrim 8y ago
  Was this the Eric Posner who was suggesting adopting immigrants?
  - matt4077 8y ago
    That does sound like him. Posner is probably best known for (a) suggesting an open market for babies, and (b) being one of the smartest humans of our era. He's a Chicago School market-mechanisms fetishist, but a reasonable one believing in the necessity of regulations to tackle externalities and anti-trust. His writings sit in that perfect spot where I instantly notice the author is way smarter than me, but can still understand the jokes.
somethoughts 8y ago
I'd advocate for UBS (Universal Basic Stuff) versus UBI and a Universal Dividend. In highly simplistic terms: For UBS - as stuff gets increasingly easier to produce with automation, the stuff that gets included will grow (Free access to clean water/air, health, housing in a non overpriced city, free online MOOC education). The Universal Dividend drives the annual UBS allotments - basically if the country as a whole is profitable and there is money left over - then the whole country is rewarded and the amount of UBS given to each person is increased for that year. Hence people will be incentivized to reduce spending because it will effect their UBS.
wutbrodo 8y ago
It seems like that would have the classic "market for lemons" adverse selection process. People who join would likely be skewed towards those whose productive capacity (or intended future production) is lower than estimated, and it seems like you'd end up in a death spiral of free-riders pretty quickly[1]. Don't get me wrong, I'm a big supporter of UBI at the society-wide level, but these problems are substantially mitigated when participation isn't voluntary, or at least is tied to residence/citizenship. [1] similar dynamics are in play for halfway measures in health insurance like the ACA, which is why it focused so hard on getting young people to sign up for insurance and improve the quality of the insurance pool
- zackmorris 8y ago
  You and dragonwriter both bring up the valid point about adverse selection issues with free riders not pulling their weight. I knew that was a problem but didn't know the name for it, so thanks for clearing that up for me. I'm wondering if it might be solvable via an endowment. So for x dollars of UBI, the organization would need to invest roughly 10x in stocks/bonds/mutual funds/etc (assuming a 10% annual return). We'd have to decide if shortfalls due to inflation/taxes/fees would be made up by donations or if everything should be self-funded from the start (which might increase the multiplier). I'd like to see a spreadsheet with projections on ROI and find out a typical multiplier. Obviously countless people would be on board if the multiplier is <= 1. But I'd like to see the formula for how much membership tapers off with increasing multiplier. Personally I can see living on about $24,000 per year in my city (assuming I really could live mostly off my greenhouse and not have to commute to a day job), so that limits people here to a multiplier of perhaps 2-4x with $50k-$100k incomes. I think it's conceivable to barely live on $12,000 which would be 4-8x. A 10x or higher multiplier is probably unsustainable. Which seems to suggest that UBI is not feasible until we have another 2-4x of GDP growth 30+ years from now, or redistribute income from the very wealthy to get us to where we'd be had income kept up with inflation. BUT that ignores economies of scale and the emergent effects of makers who are suddenly free to invent automated solutions for subsistence costs. For example I've been meaning to build a $1500 electric-assist solar recumbent bicycle from https://www.goldenmotor.com https://www.goldenmotor.com parts that would largely negate all my transportation costs. But I'm too busy with work to ever do that, so the opportunity cost of having a job is at least $100 per month in fuel, insurance, repairs etc on my truck. Not to mention the 10 hours lost per day in preparation and commuting to work that I could be applying towards building apps that would earn me a passive income.
lsc 8y ago
https://www.eastwindblog.co/?page_id=146 https://www.eastwindblog.co/?page_id=146 I mean, there are a lot of places like this. This one has hippie culture, and most of their businesses are old economy, but there are a fair number of places like this that have different cultures and different business focus. If you want to live in a utopian community, there are lots. I encourage you to find one compatible with your values and give it a shot. Also, read "walden two" by Skinner.
UncleEntity 8y ago
> Does anyone here ever think about alternative economic systems similar to getting rid of money, like what the Federation does on Star Trek? They still need a way to (efficiently) distribute resources. Sure, everyone gets a replicator for basic things but what about scarce resources like spaceships? Do you just pop over to the Bureau of Spacecraft Allocation and declare you want a ship to tool around the sector in?
- zackmorris 8y ago
  I was wondering this too. I remember a quote from the Westworld HBO series: "what is real? that which is irreplaceable." One of the main problems with our current capitalist economic system is that the way it values things doesn't distinguish between commodities like food/energy, things that are difficult to replace like homes/vehicles, and things that are priceless like human lives/the environment. So we waste time talking about the minor monetary cost of feeding the poor while completely ignoring the incalculable price of letting them continue to starve. Since a spaceship approaches real by being nearly irreplaceable, under UBI it would have a nonlinear value higher than its components. I imagine on Star Trek that some portion of the individual per diem is set aside in a communal fund, and everyone votes on how much of that fund should be allocated to things like spaceships. I would think that any part of a smaller spaceship like a shuttlecraft that can be replicated (only requiring energy or readily available raw materials) is provided to hobbyists and even children for essentially free. But stuff that's hard to come by like duranium or tritanium might cost credits. Latinum (having no obvious use) might be their equivalent of Bitcoin, but I digress: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Star_Trek_materials https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Star_Trek_materials After writing this out, I see that I am a huge nerd.
dragonwriter 8y ago
> Does anyone here ever think about alternative economic systems similar to getting rid of money, like what the Federation does on Star Trek? To be fair, even the creators of Star Trek didn't think much about that, weren't consistent about it, and avoided any exploration of it beyond platitudes. Also, one of the key assumptions of classical economics that actually seems to hold up to reality (unlike much of the underpinning of the rational actor model) is the concept of unlimited wants, which makes post-scarcity impossible with finite resources. > Why hasn't an online group (similar to a utopia) formed where members contribute a portion of their incomes and receive a UBI? Because an opt-in voluntary UBI-providing community faces strong adverse selection issues, and anyone willing to do the effort to set one up will probably think it through long enough to realize that is a fatal flaw. > A single unicorn could pay everyone to work on unrelated projects and solve real global problems. If by “unicorn” you mean “succesful venture-backed startup”, there's a fairly obvious reason they don't tend to toss money around on social benefit efforts with no ROI for the firm. If you mean a literal mythical magical beast, there are other reasons that hasn't materialized.
jackcosgrove 8y ago
> to not have to work someday You will still be consuming then and unless you have enough savings to last, you will eventually depend on the money of others. Multiply this situation by tens of millions and you have society, filled with people who consume more than they make, whether by lack of capability or unwillingness. Few people want to work, yet everyone needs some energy to survive and most want more than that. So we have developed elaborate carrot and stick systems to induce people to work.
drewrv 8y ago
I think capitalism and socialism both address issues of scarcity, with one trying to direct resources to those who produce the most "value" and the other trying to ensure everyone has enough to get by. Not a lot of thought has gone into the economics of abundance. I think an easy place to start experimenting with this is with food. In the US we produce far more calories than we need and there is a ton of waste, yet people are still hungry. Why? How can we do better?
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
lazyjones 8y ago
> Why hasn't an online group (similar to a utopia) formed where members contribute a portion of their incomes and receive a UBI? Because all hard-working people find the thought of paying voluntarily to fund lazier people appalling. > I'm not really driven by money. I work more [...]or to not have to work someday, things like that. Go ahead, work towards FI and then you can do all the good for society you desire. You might find it a little less tempting at that point to devote your remaining life to helping other people skip the "work towards FI" step though.

dlg 8y ago

There's a (relatively new) book, Radical Markets[0] by Eric Posner and Glen Weyl that looks at how mechanisms for this might actually work in practice. Core to their argument is that most things we care about in society have increasing returns to scale so that under our current system we systematically under-allocate and mis-allocate to public goods. While I disagree with a lot of it in practice, I highly recommend reading it if you're thinking the way the parent comment of this comment does. [0] https://www.amazon.com/Radical-Markets-Uprooting-Capitalism-Democracy/dp/0691177503 https://www.amazon.com/Radical-Markets-Uprooting-Capitalism-...

selimthegrim 8y ago
Was this the Eric Posner who was suggesting adopting immigrants?
- matt4077 8y ago
  That does sound like him. Posner is probably best known for (a) suggesting an open market for babies, and (b) being one of the smartest humans of our era. He's a Chicago School market-mechanisms fetishist, but a reasonable one believing in the necessity of regulations to tackle externalities and anti-trust. His writings sit in that perfect spot where I instantly notice the author is way smarter than me, but can still understand the jokes.

somethoughts 8y ago

I'd advocate for UBS (Universal Basic Stuff) versus UBI and a Universal Dividend. In highly simplistic terms: For UBS - as stuff gets increasingly easier to produce with automation, the stuff that gets included will grow (Free access to clean water/air, health, housing in a non overpriced city, free online MOOC education). The Universal Dividend drives the annual UBS allotments - basically if the country as a whole is profitable and there is money left over - then the whole country is rewarded and the amount of UBS given to each person is increased for that year. Hence people will be incentivized to reduce spending because it will effect their UBS.

wutbrodo 8y ago

It seems like that would have the classic "market for lemons" adverse selection process. People who join would likely be skewed towards those whose productive capacity (or intended future production) is lower than estimated, and it seems like you'd end up in a death spiral of free-riders pretty quickly[1]. Don't get me wrong, I'm a big supporter of UBI at the society-wide level, but these problems are substantially mitigated when participation isn't voluntary, or at least is tied to residence/citizenship. [1] similar dynamics are in play for halfway measures in health insurance like the ACA, which is why it focused so hard on getting young people to sign up for insurance and improve the quality of the insurance pool

zackmorris 8y ago
You and dragonwriter both bring up the valid point about adverse selection issues with free riders not pulling their weight. I knew that was a problem but didn't know the name for it, so thanks for clearing that up for me. I'm wondering if it might be solvable via an endowment. So for x dollars of UBI, the organization would need to invest roughly 10x in stocks/bonds/mutual funds/etc (assuming a 10% annual return). We'd have to decide if shortfalls due to inflation/taxes/fees would be made up by donations or if everything should be self-funded from the start (which might increase the multiplier). I'd like to see a spreadsheet with projections on ROI and find out a typical multiplier. Obviously countless people would be on board if the multiplier is <= 1. But I'd like to see the formula for how much membership tapers off with increasing multiplier. Personally I can see living on about $24,000 per year in my city (assuming I really could live mostly off my greenhouse and not have to commute to a day job), so that limits people here to a multiplier of perhaps 2-4x with $50k-$100k incomes. I think it's conceivable to barely live on $12,000 which would be 4-8x. A 10x or higher multiplier is probably unsustainable. Which seems to suggest that UBI is not feasible until we have another 2-4x of GDP growth 30+ years from now, or redistribute income from the very wealthy to get us to where we'd be had income kept up with inflation. BUT that ignores economies of scale and the emergent effects of makers who are suddenly free to invent automated solutions for subsistence costs. For example I've been meaning to build a $1500 electric-assist solar recumbent bicycle from https://www.goldenmotor.com https://www.goldenmotor.com parts that would largely negate all my transportation costs. But I'm too busy with work to ever do that, so the opportunity cost of having a job is at least $100 per month in fuel, insurance, repairs etc on my truck. Not to mention the 10 hours lost per day in preparation and commuting to work that I could be applying towards building apps that would earn me a passive income.

lsc 8y ago

https://www.eastwindblog.co/?page_id=146 https://www.eastwindblog.co/?page_id=146 I mean, there are a lot of places like this. This one has hippie culture, and most of their businesses are old economy, but there are a fair number of places like this that have different cultures and different business focus. If you want to live in a utopian community, there are lots. I encourage you to find one compatible with your values and give it a shot. Also, read "walden two" by Skinner.

UncleEntity 8y ago

> Does anyone here ever think about alternative economic systems similar to getting rid of money, like what the Federation does on Star Trek? They still need a way to (efficiently) distribute resources. Sure, everyone gets a replicator for basic things but what about scarce resources like spaceships? Do you just pop over to the Bureau of Spacecraft Allocation and declare you want a ship to tool around the sector in?

zackmorris 8y ago
I was wondering this too. I remember a quote from the Westworld HBO series: "what is real? that which is irreplaceable." One of the main problems with our current capitalist economic system is that the way it values things doesn't distinguish between commodities like food/energy, things that are difficult to replace like homes/vehicles, and things that are priceless like human lives/the environment. So we waste time talking about the minor monetary cost of feeding the poor while completely ignoring the incalculable price of letting them continue to starve. Since a spaceship approaches real by being nearly irreplaceable, under UBI it would have a nonlinear value higher than its components. I imagine on Star Trek that some portion of the individual per diem is set aside in a communal fund, and everyone votes on how much of that fund should be allocated to things like spaceships. I would think that any part of a smaller spaceship like a shuttlecraft that can be replicated (only requiring energy or readily available raw materials) is provided to hobbyists and even children for essentially free. But stuff that's hard to come by like duranium or tritanium might cost credits. Latinum (having no obvious use) might be their equivalent of Bitcoin, but I digress: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Star_Trek_materials https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Star_Trek_materials After writing this out, I see that I am a huge nerd.

dragonwriter 8y ago

> Does anyone here ever think about alternative economic systems similar to getting rid of money, like what the Federation does on Star Trek? To be fair, even the creators of Star Trek didn't think much about that, weren't consistent about it, and avoided any exploration of it beyond platitudes. Also, one of the key assumptions of classical economics that actually seems to hold up to reality (unlike much of the underpinning of the rational actor model) is the concept of unlimited wants, which makes post-scarcity impossible with finite resources. > Why hasn't an online group (similar to a utopia) formed where members contribute a portion of their incomes and receive a UBI? Because an opt-in voluntary UBI-providing community faces strong adverse selection issues, and anyone willing to do the effort to set one up will probably think it through long enough to realize that is a fatal flaw. > A single unicorn could pay everyone to work on unrelated projects and solve real global problems. If by “unicorn” you mean “succesful venture-backed startup”, there's a fairly obvious reason they don't tend to toss money around on social benefit efforts with no ROI for the firm. If you mean a literal mythical magical beast, there are other reasons that hasn't materialized.

jackcosgrove 8y ago

> to not have to work someday You will still be consuming then and unless you have enough savings to last, you will eventually depend on the money of others. Multiply this situation by tens of millions and you have society, filled with people who consume more than they make, whether by lack of capability or unwillingness. Few people want to work, yet everyone needs some energy to survive and most want more than that. So we have developed elaborate carrot and stick systems to induce people to work.

drewrv 8y ago

I think capitalism and socialism both address issues of scarcity, with one trying to direct resources to those who produce the most "value" and the other trying to ensure everyone has enough to get by. Not a lot of thought has gone into the economics of abundance. I think an easy place to start experimenting with this is with food. In the US we produce far more calories than we need and there is a ton of waste, yet people are still hungry. Why? How can we do better?

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

lazyjones 8y ago

> Why hasn't an online group (similar to a utopia) formed where members contribute a portion of their incomes and receive a UBI? Because all hard-working people find the thought of paying voluntarily to fund lazier people appalling. > I'm not really driven by money. I work more [...]or to not have to work someday, things like that. Go ahead, work towards FI and then you can do all the good for society you desire. You might find it a little less tempting at that point to devote your remaining life to helping other people skip the "work towards FI" step though.