User:JayAbbott/RBE

A Resource Based Economy is an economic system that does not use money for the trade/exchange of resources; goods and services are shared freely between the people within a society that adopts it. It incorporates a money-free economy with natural resource economics and is similar in many ways to a gift economy.

A Resource Based Economy is currently only a concept, it has not been tested or proven to be viable by scientific studies, nor has it been adopted in practice by any significant number of people. This article tries to describe some possible implementations and variations that may help individuals and groups when performing scientific research or planning a Resource Based Economy. Until further studies have been done it is not possible to have an accurate and detailed description of all aspects within a working RBE.

Etymology

The phrase "Resource Based Economy" was originated by Jacques Fresco for his Venus Project and he has registered it as a trademark. However, the phrase's validity as a trademark is questionable because it is descriptive; and it has been officially contested.

Desirable features of Capitalism

There are some features of capitalism that are useful to society. A good implementation of an RBE should try to include these positive features.

Risk Assessment

When a bank or an investor loans/invests money to a business, they do a considerable amount of due diligence and decide if the business plan is viable. That is:

Is the money required by the business and being risked by the lender/investor worthwhile, based on the potential profit to be made?

In an RBE the same level of due diligence and consideration would be useful in preventing wasted resources and human labour when developing new ideas and projects. In other words:

Is the resources and effort required by the project and being risked by society worthwhile, based on the potential value to society?

Balancing supply and demand: When the demand increases for a product the price goes up and this encourages investment into growing existing supply chains and creating or identifying new ones. This is a useful way of self-governing where resources and effort are spent, people vote with their wallets. In an RBE it is important to introduce a new mechanism to fulfill this inherently democratic feature of capitalism. Since all work would be done on a voluntary basis, people would need to be aware of what areas have a supply shortfall so that they can choose to work in those areas. Overall, where people choose to spend their efforts (supply) may not always line up with what they like to do/consume (demand). So some kind of self-balancing system is needed to replace this.

Automation

In a Resource Based Economy, one goal is to automate the manufacture of goods and provision of services as much as possible. This is often seen as a negative aspect of new technology in a money based economy because it eliminates jobs which slows consumption and damages the economy. However, in a Resource Based Economy the society can benefit from the positive aspects of automation, such as increased and more efficient production, greater consistency of quality, and freeing up humans from having to perform mundane/repetitive tasks.

Ownership

Without money the concept of ownership has a much smaller impact on society and is almost unnecessary. All land and goods produced are notionally owned by everyone, and everyone has the right of equal access to such resources. However, for hygiene and privacy reasons it is sensible to maintain the concept of ownership for some personal possessions. Toothbrushes, clothing, favourite mugs, and pieces of artwork created by an individual or given as a gift by family/friends, etc. would all be good examples of such items. Similarly an individual's private residence should also be protected, but ownership is not needed for this either. Everyone above a certain age should have the right of occupancy of a suitable home and should be given the same level of privacy and control over access to that location as if they owned it. Therefore in practice all the items stored there are effectively controlled by the person with right of occupancy. It is important for people to remain detached from such items or possessions so that if they want to move to a new location they are free to do so with or without their possessions, any items that are unwanted by the new occupant can be returned and reused or recycled and replacement items can be obtained at the new location (depending on how far away it is).

Government and Decision-making

It's widely accepted as a benefit to increase the level of automation for the production of goods and services (farming, manufacturing, distribution, etc.), but the same is not true for decision making. Some advocates of a Resource Based Economy have suggested that all decision making and governing can be done by automated computer systems, and others have contested that this is undesirable, impractical, and not even possible with our current technology. In practice, the level of automation in this area will start off fairly small and increase over time as the decision-making technology and its information inputs improves. So to begin with, any RBE will need a democratic and scientific way for society to make decisions.

Comparison to a gift economy

In a gift-economy gifts are given on an individual basis or between small social groups and create a kind of psychological or remembered debt. Gifts create social status and the leaders are often the people who are able to find or produce the most gifts and are also very generous with them. Subsequently, these people tend to be very well looked after with gifts from others. As the size of the social groups within a gift-economy grow, the knowledge of who has given and received gifts and what they were becomes more difficult for individuals to remember. This leads the economy to evolve into one based on the trade/exchange of items, or bartering. Eventually this will evolve into a token or money-based economy.

In a Resource Based Economy, the original collaborative concept of sharing and giving gifts to everyone within the community (as per their needs) is maintained, but the size of the social group can grow without destroying this sense of community. Any goods produced can be thought of as a gift to everyone else, to be used based on need.

A gift-economy may work so well because any individual fears being rejected by the group and so is compelled to do something of use to the group. It is not clear if this incentive would be required or not within an RBE; some believe that with enough automation and therefore a smaller percentage of human labour required there would be enough people willing to work; others believe there would not be enough incentive for people to educate and train themselves sufficiently to perform highly skilled jobs such as surgeons, pilots, etc.

Variations

In order to maintain an impartial and inclusive definition, a number of variations are described below. These variations are not required features of an RBE, nor are they a definitive expression of all the possible ways to organise an RBE.

Co-existent

An RBE can be a single global economy, or it can co-exist with other (money based) economies either as a separate state or within an existing state. This RBE society can operate as a business with the whole community having one large pot of money to trade with outside producers and consumers. Members of this society may be given individual allowances to spend outside the community, for example when going on holiday. If the community is living within an existing state then the laws of that state will hamper the effective operation of the RBE. For example a factory that produces consumable goods will have to pay taxes when selling them externally and in some cases may even cause taxable events when freely sharing those goods within the community despite the fact that the individual receiving the goods did not pay for the goods and has no money with which to pay those taxes. This may mean it is not viable to have some types of RBE operating within larger states/nations unless they can attain exemption from the relevant taxes.

Reward Systems

Although it's not a requirement within an RBE, it may be useful to have some kind of reward or merit system. Such a system would reward individuals who contribute more; and encourage those who produce less than they consume to start contributing more. The rewards could be any of:

Social status
Greater access to certain types of resource (luxury or scarce items, leisure facilities)
Priority to time or place limited resources (social events, housing upgrades)

The mechanism could be one or any combination of the following:

Karma: Individuals give each other a +1 or -1 value for helping or hindering them. For example: if a performer puts on a great show, the people who see it may choose to reward the performer by giving +1 karma; if someone is rude, inconsiderate, or fails to meet a commitment to someone else they might decide to give -1 karma. There are many variations on this system with more complex rules, different categories, timeouts and other features.
Production Ratio: The ratio between an individual's production and consumption. This could be based on the number of hours worked - with each item consumed having an associated cost in man-hours to produce and deliver it. The idea behind a production ratio would be that if everyone is producing more than they are consuming the society will be able to grow and flourish and anyone not pulling their weight can be identified and assisted.
Educational and Experience Points: In a monetary system, someone's educational and work history are used to determine their value to an employer. This is still important in an RBE to ensure only qualified people are working in skilled positions (for example: doctors, electricians, teachers, machine operators, etc.). In addition, qualifications and experience could translate into some kind of points or attainment-level that can be used as recognition for an individual's academic or contributory achievements.