EDIT : if you can organize my post i will give 40 minerals to whoever does this and i like it...
(Gratis=free) (Civitas= community) In greek

http://www.freeworldcharter.org/en

TL;DR Version
Its not truly free but a system where money is no dependent on class or perhaps job and mundane jobs that are deemed too hard and machines can't do will be given to those who are punished/volunteer thus all the fulfilling jobs are given the same pay as the jobs are usually easier or harder depending on what you think of it. Leadership will be distributed through experienced people from all walks of life and no 1 person may run consecutive terms unless they get majority vote or work in two or more of the three positions of power - government (leadership) - industry (companies) - Unions (regulators) a unbiased third party that only people who are not involved with the 2 parties may vote on. (Lanth brought up the fact that that universal wage is a the probably the way to go which could work...)

FAQS
The links have many positives of it so i won't explain them just quickly skim the site or watch the youtube site... I will however try to counter the negatives. Although this is similar to the Venus project there is a distinction though.

-Abuse through overspending
-----Simple limit said person spend through a flat rate although class and the job might work better (testing in large scale tests are required to see which works out better since no system is perfect it all matters about the situation and problems that need fixing)

-Hoarding of points
-----It will most likely people will hoard points but this isn't really a bad thing as they will save resources because they aren't spending as much in fact there could be rollover points.

-No incentive to work
-----Money and greed is not only the incentives to work they are passion of your job and knowledge your contributing

-Hard/Boring jobs
-----These people will be voluntary people who will be rotated if not enough people are required there will be a random draw or a slight increase to the points someone earns although most if not all functions will be automated.

-Sounds Like Communism
-----Communism is different because communism forgot to take in the fact of human nature... people are greedy so the greedy use power to redistribute the wealth by asking the people to making something and then giving back a portion of all goods, this was mismanaged by greed so that's why it failed (items are giving a grade or scale so they are devalued)
So basically the government got too much control of things so this lead to corruption to fix this instead of a one government or leader there are a community of leaders from all walks of life and a union to represent each group of people.
Shortened and concise version although incentive to work was diminished this was all due to the corruption of government cause faith to be lost so people stopped working this although can be fixed with the passion for something ie picking the job.

-Slacking off
-----Easy to fix this, decrease the points of eliminate it completely for whoever doesn't work or assign them a job depending on past experience/ tests/etc

-Isn't this like Capitalism
-----Yes this is very similar to capitalism except the majority of the problems are fixed, leverage is completely taken out as the 4 pillars of wealth,time, leverage, other peoples money the major problem with this structure is leverage which allows person richer than you to crush you through buyouts, out competing, or simple corruption since people jobs are assigned and any jobs in need are rotated thus there is less of a need for a rich poor gap as the poor no longer support the rich... the jobs supports the people so if class didn't determine job and vice versa then there would be no need. Leverage means less competition, no debts (as people earn a flat rate).

-Nothings perfect
----- Of course this has to been changed eventually as many political changed have happened in the past 1000 years or so, however this the best system assuming it has enough checks and balances

-Companies/Leaders/Union corruption and hoarding of power
----- I thought of it thoroughly and maybe a system built from the leaders which get changed each year with private firms that are created from people from all walks of life they cannot be in a union or a leadership position to help segregate the power better although there is a few requirements for said position ((5 years if gains majority votes 10 years if minority vote) e.g.) And no one person is in charge as power is given equally through different people of all walks.
Unions (regulators)[Has to be somewhat fragmented to help take away power form those seeking to be an elitist and although the 3 structures of leaderships are there for speed people may vote for a referendum in which the people vote for their decision. It is also worth nothing that there will be more pillars of leadership as they are needed.

Post has been edited 23 time(s), last time on Feb 12 2012, 2:53 am by Tempz.

Communism?

a quote from the site


It doesn't really answer so I'll try..

Communism is different because communism forgot to take in the fact of human nature... people are greedy so the greedy use power to redistribute the wealth by asking the people to making something and then giving back a portion of all goods, this was mismanaged by greed so that's why it failed.

So basically the government got too much control of things so this lead to corruption to fix this instead of a one government or leader there are a community of leaders from all walks of life and a union to represent each group of people.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Feb 8 2012, 3:12 pm by Tempz.

An arbitrary system of made-up points versus an arbitrary system of made-up currency. Not seeing the difference other than the expiration concept, which is really just arbitrarily enforced inflation.

This is what currency and pricing does.

I'm pretty sure I'd slack off and not do much productive for anyone but myself, though I can't say that for everyone.

yes all true

Boredom will be taken care of in time through passion for your job if that doesn't work then a system of penalization will work.



Post has been edited 3 time(s), last time on Feb 8 2012, 9:41 pm by Tempz.

This system cannot work in my opinion.
It's like the centrally planned economics. In theory, it can work and is indeed great for the whole society, but people think first about themselves before they think about all others. Therefore it has a huge potential to fail.

First of all, money is basically a replacement of goods for easier trading. So the carpenter won't have to trade a chair for 50 apples. Then he has 50 apples and can't eat all of them, so he tries to trade 40 of them for bread and meat... The whole trade will become immense complex, if you look at how many different products you consume nowadays.

I don't believe that people would work harder, if they know that you never have to pay for anything. They have no benefit of achieving more. So, in general, everyone will become more lazy.
There will still be corruption and might divergences. The person who owns most or has a machine which produces the most/best will have the biggest influence.

How will you distribute the food? How will you decide who gets a steak and who gets a pig's foot or ear to eat?
People might revolt and steal goods to survive because they think they deserve more or because there is a true injustice (because the system is/could be potential corrupt). Imagine you get some stinky soap and your neighbor got some wonderful smelling soap. Why did you get the stinky soap and your lazy neighbor got the better soap? Why are you even working that hard, if you won't live better than that lazy person?

The corruption problems still exist in markets, but as long as you keep the markets working, it ensures a distribution which reflects the personal need for that product.
Everything has a value, everyone has requirements and everyone is capable of different work. So how do you distribute everything fair for everyone? Some people do more or more difficult work than others and all get the same. That's not fair, neither.

Markets and their competition is what triggers development and research in most cases. So I don't think that research will progress faster like it's intended in the video.
Sure, many projects are slowed down or hindered because they cost very much, but costs reflect how much worth something is and maybe the new technology's potential isn't good enough to transfer that much money/human resources for it because these resources are needed somewhere else.
If you leave out the money, markets aren't flourishing. So, you will need to centrally plan the whole economy. But how do you detect that you haven't produced enough of something for everyone? How do you calculate that you won't produce way to much of a good? Markets can help to maximize that efficiency.

I cannot imagine a working society on a whole planet which is efficient in research, too. Humans are to selfish to make that work. They won't sacrifice themselves for their society.
Just have a look at the people in this forum. How many do actually something in their spare time to raise the standard of maps in SCBW or SC2?
Not that many.
Would they return mapping when they wouldn't think about money all the time?
I doubt it.

Have some principles of economics and make them work without money. K, thx.

I repeat some stuff you already mentioned because I'm writing to much and to slow.

edit:
I forgot, people are terrible at calculating what people have to do in more complex jobs like a politician. You only see them talking and traveling, so one might think that they have an easy life. But they have to solve everything in a timely fashion (and hold speeches which need to be good instead of investing their time into other stuff, but that's a problem of democracy). So people might miscalculate what the other person really does for the society or how difficult their task can be.

it operates under the assumption that greed will be gone. I would think that people would just hoard physical goods instead of money.

The system also assumes everyone will be well-educated in morality and the ways of the new society. There will always be some criminals or selfish people. What happens when someone asks for something but society does not want to give it to them? Even if 99.9999% of people act fairly, there's always that small percentage that will abuse the system.

The harder you work the more chance of a union role/leadership role (perhaps a reward system) the punishment of point reduction and a reward will work fine although this might need testing so you might be right
How is is any different from points with the exception of leverage gained through more wealth [supply and demand determines cost] how is it more complex when its just points and resources instead of a essential "middle man" between the two just causing prices to inflate through over production of money.

Punishment and reward goes a long way, checks and balances can solve the competition although there is less punishment and reward its doesn't devalue money which means its still almost as potent as a punishment, reward system.
The person who earns the points will as they decide how to spend their points just like money whereas the same thing applies to our current system buy alot of game and you have to eat crap food.

Another problem i can't particularly solve but classless vs job not affecting class is a tough decision and either fix and cause problems

The same things could be said for the desire to make the world a better place as demand can easily be tracked by who spends what amount points on what and the current production and extrapolate it and see if there is a problem.

Again and punishment and reward go a long way as there is no punishment or big reward (note is use big since happiness is a reward) since money isn't devalued as much we could use it as the checks system to make sure it doesn't happen.

All systems will be abused eventually that's there have been so many reforms in the past 1000 years or so if there is a problem we will have to make a new system. Continuous points that don't expire vs expiring points is a real hard choice again it hard decision unless we get a large scale test since both have positives and negatives, Unions and multiple leaders will convene to and all are from wide walks of life as to prevent discrimination of any kind.

Simple supply and demand will figure out jobs just like how objects are given a momentary value... Its not difficulty unless its mundane its how much it fulfills them but you are right difficulty is a factor i know i've said this many times but its a head or tails between classiness VS job doesn't affect pay.

Edit : i have some holes... too annoyed to read though and correct.

Post has been edited 5 time(s), last time on Feb 8 2012, 4:20 pm by Tempz.

Tempz, how many people will you put in charge for punishments that the other people work hard enough (including that they work for the punishment executors/managers)?

Do you want to spend the whole day on trading and moving your goods around?
Economy will become inflexible without fast trades. With money you just go into a supermarket and pay with your money instead of carrying your apples to the store and try to exchange them.
Also, how will you find the people that need apples? Maybe the person you want to buy a chair from has no need of apples, so he won't trade with you because apples are worthless for him. The person who owns the chairs has that might to enforce he receives the goods he wants for his chairs.
Also, you won't carry your apples 10 miles to the next carpenter because that raises the opportunity costs, too and you don't know what that carpenter wants for a chair.


Tempz, you are also talking about points. How would that differentiate from money? How will points instead of money not create the same world?

fine w/e... points money lets just call it money for now.

Money that is distributed without dependance on class/ dependance on job is what I'm really getting at... the money will be put on a id like a retina scan or credit card thus fast access difficult jobs that are deemed undesirable for whatever reason will be given to the punished/volunteers thus less of a segregation between jobs, the fulfilling jobs are the ones that take less work to do so if your fulfilled its less of a job.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Feb 8 2012, 4:34 pm by Tempz.

So basically everyone would receive money which they can spend freely?

So now give the employed more money than the unemployed and give the persons in difficult jobs more money than jobs everyone can fulfill to encourage people to work. We are now very close to the society I live in.
If you have no money because you can't work, you won't die. There is a social system which lets people survive who cannot gain the money they need themselves and as long as people won't abuse it, it's a wonderful thing to have (in terms of humanity and because of ethical reasons).

again alhi your logic is all valid and my idea is a free yet slightly controlled market like a flipped version of the chinese system (mostly free market some controlled market) Yes but you take away the money difference of jobs and classes other then the undesirable ones then it changes everything which is what my whole argument is based on which is fair to do but tough, fine if this weren't to be part of it the controlling some aspects and a mostly free market works with the current leadership structure, but the only reason it works is because classless/job not affecting pay was the only i way i could get it work i know my argument is built on a house of cards (too heavily relying on 1 thing) but its the only way i could get it to work just like Einstein could only get 1 light bulb out of the hundreds to work.

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Feb 8 2012, 5:28 pm by Tempz.

It's nice to see resource-based economies gaining traction.

Whether you agree with their system or not, the simple truth that we are forced to work to live is right up in our face. Under a capitalist society, we are not forced to work for any single employer, but we must work for some employer, or even become self-employed. It's a more free version of slavery, really. But at the end of the day, it's a huge limitation on our liberty.

---

I cannot agree with the system, however. It does seem less thought out than the Venus Project, which is a system I don't entirely agree with either. But let's perform a thought experiment for people that do say this could never work.

Imagine that you are a farmer in an extremely early human society. All of your friends are farmers. Their friends are farmers. Actually, everyone is a farmer. You all plant the same crops, usually more than you need, and if one farmer has a bad crop, then the rest pitch in help him out, and likewise he would do the same. Sometimes you trade one crop that you have extra of for another.

But say Tom has an idea. He thinks wooden tokens with no inherent value should be used as a form of currency. How would you respond?

I would hope your response would be, "Ha, that would never work!" But in reality tokens that have no inherent value are being used a form of currency. Incredible, is it not? In fact, our economic system is so delicate that if one major currency were to rapidly lose too much value, entire nations would be plunged into chaos.

But how did we get ourselves in this mess? It didn't happen overnight. Small changes every day led to a newer society. And the same must occur for a resource-based economy. We slowly need to push the world towards it, making small steps that won't tip over our boat.

---

In any case, the foundation doesn't seem to account for the fact humans are not inherently greedy. This notion of human nature is actually rather imaginative and fictitious. It doesn't have any supporting science.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Feb 8 2012, 6:57 pm by Sacrieur.

I just feel like if you don't want money to be important than you should not make it important. Play the money game and find some other way to get self fulfillment that doesn't rely on monetary gain. Trying to impose a belief that money is not important on people who obviously find it important is just as immature as a company trying to force you to buy a topic. There are other ways to happiness that do not require money in this day and age. And if you present excuses as to why this isn't true than money is in fact important to you.

Yeah all of those starving people. Why should we care about them?

Its so neat how money that is intended to go overseas is wasted on bureaucracy, or is sent to the wrong people who never properly distribute it. The root of the problem here is still greed, but these people don't want to accept that this is what it is. Concerts, benefit dinners, all that...how much of it ends up in the hands of someone who needs it? A shockingly low number.

well a resourced based economy will work like this

Resource -> People

our economy as it stand works like this

Resource -> Money -> People

money heavily limits us we need to cut out the proverbial middle man although money can be controlled more easily this ultimately also leads to its downfall as people try to manipulate the system take out the variable of money and let people govern the resources of course with a series of checks to make sure this isn't abused as well.

I tried reading the first post but it seemed rather jumbled and badly laid out. I've only given the replies a very cursory skim.

Anyway:
This wouldn't work. It means if you get a really great person in a position of power, they're limited in what they can achieve. Then you replace them with someone who is incompetent. Silly.

As Ahli said, the system as you're now advocating just seems to be the same as what we already have.

Why don't you just go the easier route: universal basic income. This is where the government pays everyone a fixed amount of money a year, say $12,000. All pensions, sickness and employment benefits are scrapped; there may be a few special-case top-ups for particularly needy or vulnerable people, but 80-90% of existing benefits would simply be replaced by the new universal benefit, which everyone receives. Then apply a flat rate income tax to all income earned privately.

Let's use a flat-rate tax of 25%. This means if you have a job that pays $5,000 a year, your total income would be $17,000 and you'd pay 25% tax on the $5k, or $15,750 income after tax. If you have a job that pays $60,000 a year, your total income would be $72,000 and after tax it would be $57,000. Once you earn over $40,000 you are effectively paying the government more in tax than you receive back as part of the universal benefit.

The avantages of this system:
1. No discrimination. Everyone gets government help. Now there's no talk of "benefit bludgers" because EVERYONE gets a benefit. If you lose your job suddenly, you'll have a small amount of money to backstop on, enough to hopefully cover the very basics such as food, housing and electricity.
2. Flat rate income tax that is progressive in practice: those who only earn a little only pay a little in tax, those who earn a lot pay a lot.
3. Flat rate income tax removes (claimed) disincentives to work that arise from a progressive tax system
4. Flat rate income tax removes high marginal tax rates, particularly for those moving off benefits that are often abated at a certain rate
5. Tax system and welfare departments of the government can be greatly reduced in size and cost, because the system is much simpler to administer. This leads to more government efficiency.

It does get a little tricky trying to sort out who should get money when: are 5 year olds eligible for the UBI? Does it get paid to their parents? Do they receive a portion of it or the full rate? What about 16 year olds? What about 18 year olds? What about 14 year olds?

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Feb 8 2012, 10:10 pm by Lanthanide.

^ Give that man a cookie.

Let me explain to you why I think communism doesn't work and why capitalism works.

Communism works on the principle that one's life is better managed when controlled and regulated from an outside source. This takes any sort of control one has over one's situation away from the person, and any detail that one deems as "unfair" or "unjust" can be blamed on the government.

Capitalism works on the idea that one is responsible for one's own self. You push for your own gain in life, and if you fail, you have no one to blame except yourself, luck, or your situation.

People are naturally dissatisfied with their situation. That is not to say that you cannot be satisfied, but it is often fleeting unless you were to gain a broader, more complete, perspective on things (perhaps?). This dissatisfaction, in a communistic society, is directed towards the government, and a negative image of the government is reinforced by any sort of bad situation, which I think eventually leads to the downfall.

Capitalism works because the dissatisfaction can only be redirected towards yourself, fate, and god.

I think that any sort of regulation of a person's life, such as this one, cannot work.

Or maybe I'm just blowing hot air.