4 ms·

Taking "Me, Inc." Public: Market Caps for Individuals

12 points by peter123 17y ago

cperciva 17y ago
I don't think the author realizes this, but what he is really doing is pointing out that sometimes slavery can be beneficial for slaves. Selling your future output net of cost-of-living is essentially what slavery is, after all; and the argument the author is making -- that if one could buy someone's future output (or the future output of a group of people) then one would have an incentive to invest in education and health care and other services which would maximize that output -- is one which dates back to at least the Roman republic, and probably earlier: Roman slaveowners would often pay to have their slaves educated or trained, because it increased the slaves' value more than the education or training cost.
- peter123 17y ago
  It's not slavery if one is willing to be enslaved.
  - pj 17y ago
    I downvoted because I believe that slavery can be created as a best alternative. Imagine if someone said to a starving person, "If you become a slave you'll have food every day." That person may become a slave by choice, but only at the loss of freedom. Because the negative ramifications of slavery are not presented to the potential slave, they are making a choice with limited information.
  - redorb 17y ago
    "Its not stealing if you don't get caught" bullshit!
    - philh 17y ago
      More like "it's not rape if they consent". Arguably it would be slavery if they agreed at first and then decided they wanted out, but the statement is not obviously bullshit.
  - ajb 17y ago
    There's a reason that freedom is usually held to be an 'inalienable right' (one that can't be sold). Even if, theoretically, it might benefit someone to sell their freedom, its too dangerous to allow such a transaction to be considered legitimate.
    - _h4xr 17y ago
      Even if, theoretically, it might benefit someone to sell their freedom, its too dangerous to allow such a transaction to be considered legitimate. That is simply untrue. We sell our freedoms all the time. I sell big chunks of mine in two-week increments when I work; I sell my freedom for other times when I go home to an apartment where there are certain limits on my behavior.
      - ajb 17y ago
        There is an implicit quantifier in the phrase 'sell their freedom'. You read 'any', I meant 'all'.
        _h4xr 17y ago
        Right. If you're okay with selling it in increments, but not selling all of it, there's probably a cutoff. And your cutoff is probably lower than 99%.
- pmichaud 17y ago
  Public companies can always spend cash on buying back stock so they can go private again.
- vaksel 17y ago
  sounds more like indentured service
- _h4xr 17y ago
  Of course it can be beneficial to slaves. If they're an asset, and the appreciation in that asset's value accrues mostly to the owner, that owner has every incentive to maximize their value. As Mencius Moldbug (http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2009/07/why-carlyle-matters.html http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2009/07/why-car...) points out, one modern version of this is the Japanese lifetime employment system. If a company pays 2% on money it borrows, and gets to keep employees for twenty years or more, it can afford to spend years training them without getting any revenue from their work.
pmichaud 17y ago
I'm sure that in practice it's a quagmire of ethical and practical details, but the idea is quite intriguing. It opens the possibility of divideds, (hostile?) take overs, stock buy backs, options for people who take a risk on someone. It could be great.
popmechanic 17y ago
Mike Merrill is an American individual who already has succeeded in becoming a publicly traded person: http://kmikeym.com/ http://kmikeym.com/ Shares are valued in real time by trades made on his open public market, implemented as a web application. Shareholders vote on major life decisions, such as whether he should engage in certain business ventures, and even on very personal questions, such as whether he should get a vasectomy. Buy some shares, try it out!
birthcertbond 17y ago
This is a very timely post as I have been researching a very similar approach that the US, Canadian, and UK governments among others have been using for years. It turns out that this is how the US Government has been financing its operations since FDR declared the US bankrupt in 1933 (remember when they took all the gold?) Here is how it works: 1. Your parents applied for a birth certificate creating a corporate legal fiction with the name spelled in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS which is a public trust that they control. 2. The government floats a bond in the amount of $1 million dollars against the name and upon various events (applying for SSN#, completing high school, university, etc) the value of the bond is increased. 3. The bond is backed by YOU (well actually, on their ability to tax and levy your future labor) 4. They collect the proceeds of this bond to fund their operations and 'pay you benefits' 5. Since your parents (on your behalf) applied for this 'benefit' this fraud is considered legal under contract law. It doesn't matter that they do not know the implications of what they are doing. This falls under the Latin legal maxim Caveat Emptor (Buyer beware) I know this sounds outlandish. I thought so too, until I looked into it. Check for yourself by Googling 'birth certificate bond' Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer and this information is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Do your own research!
kragen 17y ago
We used to have a market for private ownership of individuals; thanks to Wilberforce et al., we don't any more (at least, publicly, in OECD countries). Is there some reason to believe that public ownership of individuals would be less evil? Debt by individuals is still allowed, though. Generally you can do anything with debt financing you can do with equity financing, no? Student loans are an example of this, as applied to personal development. Some "intellectual property" laws are another gray area. If someone becomes an expert in a patented process, the owner of the patent gets to decide, essentially, how much that person is allowed to earn with that expertise — and how much they have to pay in rent back to the owner of the industrial property. Utility patents and trade secrets have this property; copyrights and mask-work rights less so; and trademarks and design patents least of all.
davemc500hats 17y ago
appreciate the commentary, however i was really only using the individual market cap example as a way to calculate an estimated value for the overall asset class... in all likelihood, the financial instrument in question would likely be for an aggregate group, not for one individual. (see my updated clarification) that said, i'm sure there are ways to limit moral hazard in the individual case, and most certainly there would be a regulatory if anything like that ever came about that would not allow anything approaching slavery -- or at least no moreso than credit card debt and/or personal bankruptcy. (seriously: it's an imaginary financial engineering exercise, not a moral liberty question. you folks can now get your panties unbunched & proceed with the discussion ;) ahem.

12 points by peter123 17y ago

I don't think the author realizes this, but what he is really doing is pointing out that sometimes slavery can be beneficial for slaves. Selling your future output net of cost-of-living is essentially what slavery is, after all; and the argument the author is making -- that if one could buy someone's future output (or the future output of a group of people) then one would have an incentive to invest in education and health care and other services which would maximize that output -- is one which dates back to at least the Roman republic, and probably earlier: Roman slaveowners would often pay to have their slaves educated or trained, because it increased the slaves' value more than the education or training cost.

peter123 17y ago
It's not slavery if one is willing to be enslaved.
- pj 17y ago
  I downvoted because I believe that slavery can be created as a best alternative. Imagine if someone said to a starving person, "If you become a slave you'll have food every day." That person may become a slave by choice, but only at the loss of freedom. Because the negative ramifications of slavery are not presented to the potential slave, they are making a choice with limited information.
- redorb 17y ago
  "Its not stealing if you don't get caught" bullshit!
  - philh 17y ago
    More like "it's not rape if they consent". Arguably it would be slavery if they agreed at first and then decided they wanted out, but the statement is not obviously bullshit.
- ajb 17y ago
  There's a reason that freedom is usually held to be an 'inalienable right' (one that can't be sold). Even if, theoretically, it might benefit someone to sell their freedom, its too dangerous to allow such a transaction to be considered legitimate.
  - _h4xr 17y ago
    Even if, theoretically, it might benefit someone to sell their freedom, its too dangerous to allow such a transaction to be considered legitimate. That is simply untrue. We sell our freedoms all the time. I sell big chunks of mine in two-week increments when I work; I sell my freedom for other times when I go home to an apartment where there are certain limits on my behavior.
    - ajb 17y ago
      There is an implicit quantifier in the phrase 'sell their freedom'. You read 'any', I meant 'all'.
      - _h4xr 17y ago
        Right. If you're okay with selling it in increments, but not selling all of it, there's probably a cutoff. And your cutoff is probably lower than 99%.
pmichaud 17y ago
Public companies can always spend cash on buying back stock so they can go private again.
vaksel 17y ago
sounds more like indentured service
_h4xr 17y ago
Of course it can be beneficial to slaves. If they're an asset, and the appreciation in that asset's value accrues mostly to the owner, that owner has every incentive to maximize their value. As Mencius Moldbug (http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2009/07/why-carlyle-matters.html http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2009/07/why-car...) points out, one modern version of this is the Japanese lifetime employment system. If a company pays 2% on money it borrows, and gets to keep employees for twenty years or more, it can afford to spend years training them without getting any revenue from their work.

pmichaud 17y ago

I'm sure that in practice it's a quagmire of ethical and practical details, but the idea is quite intriguing. It opens the possibility of divideds, (hostile?) take overs, stock buy backs, options for people who take a risk on someone. It could be great.

popmechanic 17y ago

Mike Merrill is an American individual who already has succeeded in becoming a publicly traded person: http://kmikeym.com/ http://kmikeym.com/ Shares are valued in real time by trades made on his open public market, implemented as a web application. Shareholders vote on major life decisions, such as whether he should engage in certain business ventures, and even on very personal questions, such as whether he should get a vasectomy. Buy some shares, try it out!

birthcertbond 17y ago

This is a very timely post as I have been researching a very similar approach that the US, Canadian, and UK governments among others have been using for years. It turns out that this is how the US Government has been financing its operations since FDR declared the US bankrupt in 1933 (remember when they took all the gold?) Here is how it works: 1. Your parents applied for a birth certificate creating a corporate legal fiction with the name spelled in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS which is a public trust that they control. 2. The government floats a bond in the amount of $1 million dollars against the name and upon various events (applying for SSN#, completing high school, university, etc) the value of the bond is increased. 3. The bond is backed by YOU (well actually, on their ability to tax and levy your future labor) 4. They collect the proceeds of this bond to fund their operations and 'pay you benefits' 5. Since your parents (on your behalf) applied for this 'benefit' this fraud is considered legal under contract law. It doesn't matter that they do not know the implications of what they are doing. This falls under the Latin legal maxim Caveat Emptor (Buyer beware) I know this sounds outlandish. I thought so too, until I looked into it. Check for yourself by Googling 'birth certificate bond' Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer and this information is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Do your own research!

kragen 17y ago

We used to have a market for private ownership of individuals; thanks to Wilberforce et al., we don't any more (at least, publicly, in OECD countries). Is there some reason to believe that public ownership of individuals would be less evil? Debt by individuals is still allowed, though. Generally you can do anything with debt financing you can do with equity financing, no? Student loans are an example of this, as applied to personal development. Some "intellectual property" laws are another gray area. If someone becomes an expert in a patented process, the owner of the patent gets to decide, essentially, how much that person is allowed to earn with that expertise — and how much they have to pay in rent back to the owner of the industrial property. Utility patents and trade secrets have this property; copyrights and mask-work rights less so; and trademarks and design patents least of all.

davemc500hats 17y ago

appreciate the commentary, however i was really only using the individual market cap example as a way to calculate an estimated value for the overall asset class... in all likelihood, the financial instrument in question would likely be for an aggregate group, not for one individual. (see my updated clarification) that said, i'm sure there are ways to limit moral hazard in the individual case, and most certainly there would be a regulatory if anything like that ever came about that would not allow anything approaching slavery -- or at least no moreso than credit card debt and/or personal bankruptcy. (seriously: it's an imaginary financial engineering exercise, not a moral liberty question. you folks can now get your panties unbunched & proceed with the discussion ;) ahem.