Day 164: Equal Money Capitalism - Preparing the Road for Change

Note: The EMC is an entirely new project that was started 3 days ago. We’re at the moment in the phase where we are brainstorming by answering questions. It’s a messy process – but an effective one to get all the relevant points addressed. So – also note that points will evolve and change as we go as we are not setting things in stone, but on a journey towards designing the EMC. The principles upon which EMC is based are laid out in the previous blog-post. From those principles, we work our way towards what life in EMC would practically be like and how the system will function from an economic perspective.

CHILDREN

When a child is born, the parents' company/companies will allocate an equal profit share for the child - which will be added to the parent's profit share. Every parent will have a company - because everyone will be employed.

UNEMPLOYMENT / FULL EMPLOYMENT

If unemployment exists - the government must step in to create jobs where possible - because employment is a basic human right.

ROLE OF GOVERNMENT

The government will still play a role to provide everyone with their basic human rights such as healthcare, education, housing, sanitation, roads, employment etc. So - the government will fund these points through taxes. The only tax that will exist are the value-added tax on products - this will be part of the labelling of products - where it'll show the percentage of the price that goes to tax and for what the tax will be used. There will be no need for an income tax to redistribute income in a fair way - because income will be distributed fairly from the get-go.

WILL VAT GENERATE ENOUGH INCOME TO PAY FOR ALL THE INFRASTRUCTURE: SANITATION, CLEAN WATER ETC?

VAT will be added to each product in a way to make sure there is enough within the common pool of money - which is the tax - to ensure all the basic rights can be provided. Also consider that with all military expenditure falling away - there will actually be quite a substantial amount of money available to governments with which to fund these projects.

DEBT

In terms of debt - whether it will be erased at the moment of implementation of EMC: all debt will be forgiven - it was not real to start with in any case.

MENIAL TASKS

All the jobs that no-one will want to do will disappear - the same point to the EMS applies- technology will have to be developed to replace those points - like self-cleaning toilets and stuff like that - it already exists.  All jobs of slavery that one wouldn't do if it weren't for the need to survive will go *poof*.

Initially, some jobs which are not nice will still have to be done, as the specific production processes to create particular technology/machinery has not yet been adjusted during this transition period. So for a moment, those jobs will still have to be done until the transition is complete - this will become part of the compassion department because you are doing it for the betterment of everyone. These type of jobs can be rotational in nature.

ROLE   OF EQUAL MONEY CAPITALISM WITHIN EQUAL MONEY SYSTEM

EMC is a transition to EMS - though it can still be seen - once an EMC is in place, whether it is desired/necessary to transition to EMS. In the end - the result is what matters, and this is always Equality and a Life Worth Living.

ABUSE

Abuse is psychological disorders as it harms innocents and we will prevent harm in every way possible, corruption will be very difficult in EMC. Remember the profit share motive is not one that allows boundless profits--it allows equal profits based on a life value.

OVERSIGHT IN EMC

Within EMC the principle will be that everything is to work in harmony with each other. Therefore - dependent on which level a point of disharmony occurs, it will be addressed accordingly. If there is a worker within a company that is not acting in a way that is best for the company as a whole - this point will be addressed by a tribunal within the company. If it is an entire company that is behaving in a disharmonious way - it will be addressed by government departments.

PRICING

Pricing on products will no longer be based on expensive or cheap-- or making profit --but rather sustainable pricing that ensures enough money in circulation to make the system function effectively.

Profit is not to be understood in the same way as it is now. At the moment - profit is what is left after wages have been paid and production costs are covered. Within EMC - there will be no wages - your profit will be your wage. So - every time a product is scanned when it is bought - the computer sees what percentage of the price is allocated to whom - and immediately the money-allocation happens accordingly. So - there's no need to wait a year to calculate profits - it will be immediate.

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Day 163: Equal Money Capitalism - Redefining Profit

Note: The EMC is an entirely new project that was started 2 days ago. We’re at the moment in the phase where we are brainstorming by answering questions. It’s a messy process – but an effective one to get all the relevant points addressed. So – also note that points will evolve and change as we go as we are not setting things in stone, but on a journey towards designing the EMC. The principles upon which EMC is based are laid out in the previous blog-post. From those principles, we work our way towards what life in EMC would practically be like and how the system will function from an economic perspective.

OVERTIME / FREE TIME

The point will be to optimize FREE TIME

Overtime - working past your regular hours. There will be no need for overtime, it will be unnecessary, because it is not your labour that holds the value - it is your life and all life is valued equally. Overtime would only come into play when for instance a natural disaster occurs and those assisting are required to lend a helping hand for longer than usual because the situation demands so in that case, one doesn't get paid for overtime - because it is a point of compassion and understanding - and to show that one is more than a self-interested human. Overtime now only exists so people can make more money - so they can buy more stuff - in EMC - you will have enough money to buy what you actually need. All economic slavery jobs where people are forced to do it to survive will end if people do not have to do it

Will we have more free time in an EMC - definitely - as we employ all the labour of each person - it will take less time to get the same job done. Every person will still work the same amount of time - this must be agreed on by all. For those whose jobs simply doesn't take up that much time or if a person's job is replaced by that of a machine - the Compassion Department of the Company will take care of you. This Department of the company creates jobs that will benefit society as a whole.

HOLIDAYS

There will be holidays, probably more than now - because with all the unemployed people that currently exist that are integrated into the labour force, each one will require to put in less time in the production process, it would be cool for everyone to have like 2 months off a year so that you can go and travel and stuff.

While you're on holiday, you will still receive your profit share of the products that you helped produce, because your added value helped to create the product.

 HOLIDAYS AND CHILDREN

 For those who have children - holiday time will be when your children are off school, for those who don't have children - it will be during the school time.

WHAT IS PROFIT-SHARE?

Currently profit is the money a company makes after they have covered their costs, including paying out wages. In an EMC - profit comprises of all the added value that is placed on resources - which is your labour. Therefore - within the price, the percentage share must be included of each one that was part of the creation of the product in such a way that each one ends up with an equal share of the company's profits, so - there will be no need for wages - as the profit becomes your wage.

EQUALIZING WAGES – COOPERATION AMONG CORPORATIONS

If a company at any time makes more money than they need to provide each one with their equal share of the profit as well as covering their costs - those monies will go into a fund that is responsible for assisting companies that are not making sufficient to cover their costs and provide each one with their fair share. That way a balancing effect takes place so that all companies are not only cooperatives in how they cooperate internally - but all cooperate with each other as well.

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Day 162: EQUAL MONEY CAPITALISM - The Way Forward

Equal Money Capitalism

Equal Money Capitalism will be the necessary transition step to as a global society towards establishing an Equal Money System as presented at www.equalmoney.org.

We are thus here starting a project of investigating what Capitalism should be like according to its very own principles - and thus, what requires to be adjusted within the current Capitalistic system to make it a system that works for everyone.

Within this first blog-post, we will give a rough outline of the points that will be taken under consideration and worked out into further detail as we go.

Employment

One of the current problems is unemployment. Employment is the means through which each one acquires the means with which to sustain themselves - as, in return for one's contribution, one receives an income. Therefore - full employment is not a negotiable subject - because if one is not employed, one loses all means of supporting oneself.

Capital as Life

At the moment - capital is referred to as intermediary goods - such as machinery and warehouses. Within Equal Money Capitalism - capital will refer to Life and include resources and people. Therefore - to value capital, means to value Life - and thus, all capital and all Life should be valued equally. For this - full employment is again a necessity.

Free Stuff

Within Equal Money Capitalism no free stuff will exist. This is one of the basic principles within economics (and physics) - There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch (TANSTAAFL). With anything that is produced or consumed - there is always a cost. If this cost is not represented and considered within the pricing of the particular good or product, one is in fact stealing. Currently, free stuff is used to compete for consumers at the cost of the labour force creating the goods - because they will be paying the difference.

Informed Decision-Making

Within Capitalism, the assumption is made that the consumer always has full knowledge available about the products they can buy - and thus, that they are always able to make informed decisions about the purchases they make - and that this mechanism, therefore - makes it so that only the best quality products are bought and stimulated to be produced, while inferior products will phase out. Obviously - this is currently not the case. The only point that is shared (and not even that comprehensively) is the ingredients. Labelling within Equal Money Capitalism will include not only ingredients, but also how the price was established - who contributed to the production process, what share of the profit goes to these participants - what are the externalities involved in terms of the harm that was caused towards the environment in the form of pollution and what resources were involved to produce the product, etc.

Equal Profit Share

Each contributor to a product will receive an Equal Share of the Profits. Herein, it is irrelevant how much time someone spent in contributing to the production of the good - what is relevant is the end product and whether the product would exist without the various contributors.

This will be an exciting time as we expand this proposal and develop it into an implementable system. So - stay tuned and visit http://www.quora.com/EMCapitalism to place any questions you may have.

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Day 161: The Principle of Equality within an Equal Money System

The principle of Equality is directly linked to the principle of Honoring the Right to Life.

Within our current socioeconomic and political system, Life is not valued as a Right, but something each one has to ‘earn’, and within that it has become a privilege. Money has become the medium through which one is able to access those goods and services that ensure one’s subsistence. One’s ‘Right to Life’ is not a given, but restricted to those who have money. This way of doing things within the current world system is reflective of what we value as a society, which indicates that money is valued over Life.

Many religions and ideologies promote the concept of Equality but have so far failed to bring the point of Equality to a level of practical implementation that can be lived by, where the concept of Equality merely remains in the realm of the abstract and ‘theory’.

Within an Equal Money System, the point of having ‘equal money’ is to assist with the psychological harmonization of the human into a harmonious character that no longer lives in fear of his own survival, but lives as Life, gives as Life and receives as Life - equally.

Since we’ve allowed ourselves to invest value into the concept of money, we use money, and more specifically ‘equal money’ as an interim step within the Equality Principle and the Equality Constitutional Development to bring about a psychological re-connection: through distributing money equally, we are “equally distributing value” through what money represents.

This is only a temporary point to rectify the psychological damage that has been done by money and our ideas of money, debt, power, choice, fairness, etc. Once this point of psychological disharmony has been corrected, money as a concept in itself will disappear completely as it will have lost all relevance.

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Day 160 - Stewardship in an Equal Money System

Stewardship

Nature and Symbiosis

When left to operate naturally, the plant and animal world exist in a symbiotic relationship with each other. Symbiosis is, in essence, a giving and receiving – a form of value exchange. When all parts of nature are allowed to exist in a symbiotic way – they together exist as a massive and complex life-support system, which human beings are meant to be a part of.

A profit-driven system has altered how we view and participate in nature, where we have started to take more than we require and virtually stopped giving back, hereby disrupting the balancing effect nature requires in order to be able to perform its function as a symbiotic life-support system.

Monitoring the Well-Being of Animals and Plants

In an Equal Money System the human being will reintegrate himself as a full participant of nature – where nature is not just something ‘out there’ anymore – something we ‘visit’ once in a while when we want to ‘get away from it all’. Instead, nature is part of our world and we are a part of nature. This means a rediscovering of what it means to be a human as a physical being and a redefining of our relationship with our environment. In order to best support ourselves, we require to best support that which supports us: which is nature. The challenge before us is therefore to restore the Earth to a state of being where it can operate in optimal conditions, as a smooth-running life-support system.

Where the human is involved with animals and plants, the human will monitor the well-being of those plants and animals and become a care-taker of the area that they are occupying – because there is a human impact. Any form of problematic development, such as soil erosion or human waste, as a result of human impact – requires to be managed by the human.

Where humans are not a part of the environment, nature will take care of itself. For instance, if a certain animal or insect increases in numbers to such an extent that they become a negative or destructive impact on their environment – the forces of nature will bring about equilibrium through, for instance, some form of natural disaster that reduces the numbers. Those kinds of natural disasters, which bring about a new form of equilibrium, are part of the distribution cycle of nature. Or if, for instance, a rabbit population expands too rapidly in a certain area – it will cause predator birds to have more access to food, allowing more of them to survive and reproduce. Eventually these birds will be so big in numbers that they will reduce the rabbit population back to where it was. Having less food available, the birds will also reduce in numbers again. So, nature has a variety of ways to correct situations of disharmony and imbalance.

Unlike human beings, animals and plants are very proficient in using the least possible resources. They don’t have the tendency to simply hoard for the sake of having. That is why the form of competition that occurs within nature brings about actual equilibrium, whereas this is not happening in our economic system – because animals and plants will only compete for what is necessary and understand that if their environment as a whole exists in the most optimal way – they themselves will benefit most. Therefore, we will not be tracking every animal and plant to monitor the well-being of each life-form, we will, in essence, be tracking the human impact on nature. This will enable us to assist nature in re-establishing equilibrium where it has been lost. Our role as a human will thus be to rehabilitate nature as a steward so that it can correct itself and re-establish its expression into what it is meant to be.

It must be understood that nature, as a life-support system, has inherent value and that its importance does not only extend in so far as it gives us nice experiences – when we go to the beach or go for a safari-trip. Those experiences are of secondary importance and may not interfere with nature’s expression and optimal functioning. As said above, our interaction with nature will change, where we are not just ‘enjoyers’ of nature, where we no longer merely sit back and ‘enjoy the view’ – but where we are active participants – identifying where nature is struggling to maintain itself and step in with rehabilitative programs and projects – and thus, become a part of the flows of give and receive.

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Day 159: Energy and Equal Money – Blind Spot

Watch the documentary ‘Blind Spot’ for further perspective and background on the issue of energy:

With all the information that we have available on energy and the pace that we as society are currently extracting and consuming energy – we know one thing for sure: this cannot last.

We’ve constructed an entire society and lifestyle based on the availability of fossil fuels as if they are never ending, while in fact they are limited and will run out. This means that we’ve built a society that is beyond the capacity of the Earth to support and will thus inevitably collapse. This collapse is eminent – and the only question which remains is whether we are going to be passive spectators suffering the collapse, or active participants directing the collapse.

If we choose to be passive spectators, we will simply continue as we are doing things now, and through time, the standard of life will deteriorate for many and eventually some form of disaster will wipe out the virus humanity has become – to restore balance on Earth. In this scenario, we don’t have much of a say and things will just ‘happen’ to us where all we can do is react to the economic and geopolitical disaster as they come along, but it will already be too late to do anything substantial, and much unnecessary harm and suffering will take place.

On the other hand, if we choose to be active participants, we can guide the process of collapse. This means that we won’t just be ‘victims’ of things happening to us, but where we can direct and guide the process of the collapse in a way where we minimize harm and suffering, and can put into place a point of transition where we can minimize the ‘shock’ of being cut off from fossil fuels while moving to renewable energy sources and sustainability.

This collapse, does not only entail the moving away from fossil fuels as our main energy source. It also consists of re-defining our lifestyle as what it means to be a human being as part of a greater Ecological System called Earth, which will affect our decision-making in relation to energy consumption.

Being active participants in the process of collapse, is the preferred route to take – as it lies within the principle of Prevention is the Best Cure.

The main principle guiding decision-making in relation to energy will be that of what is Best for All, both here and for those in the future – to ensure that we do not in any way overshoot the carrying capacity of the Earth and repeat the mistakes of the past.

 It will be the end of the world as we know it, but not the end of the world at large. A decrease in energy consumption and move away from industrialization based on consumerism does not have to go hand in hand with a decrease in the quality and standard of living. Within an Equal Money System, we will in fact do quite the opposite, where we will achieve optimum living conditions with a minimal and sustainable use of energy.

How?

The main point which is currently driving the high rate of energy usage is that of self-interest, which is linked to the profit-motive driving society. Through removing the profit-motive and removing self-interest, we can adopt a new style of production of goods and services, where what will be produced are goods that last a lifetime – where possible – and that are always the best they can be.
As part of the removal of self-interest and the profit-motive, any form of branding and competition between various organizations producing the same product in slightly different ways to ‘win over’ customers – will also disappear, which in itself will result in a drop of energy requirement in the overall production processes of goods, as such rivalry is in fact counterproductive to responsible energy management and conservation.

Any product designed and produced, will have been done so based on the accumulation of all the information and knowledge available regarding materials, methods, production processes, technology etc.-  to align all points within the production and consumption process to what is Best for All.

Within this, concepts such as the application of death-dating/planned obsolescence and redundancy will disappear – which again will result in a significant decrease in the use of energy resources, as well as others, as we won’t be re-producing the same product every two years or so for the sake of driving the economy in the name of profit. Additionally, we will no longer participate in the promotion of psychological obsolescence either – such as for instance the desire to always have ‘the newest phone’ or only buying the products of a particular ‘brand’ because we’ve identified with the brand and want to evolve with the brand’s product line. This form of relationship with goods in society was not always existent, and was a relationship introduced and implemented to accelerate the redundancy of goods for the sake of continued production and consumption in the name of profit. Such relationships are in fact a form of dysfunction, as we shift our attention and focus from creating harmonious relationships between all living things, to developing and creating relationships of harmony between ourselves and our objects of desire. Within this, we’ve created our own ‘separate reality’ with a ‘fake’ form of harmony which only exists within the individual itself – causing actual disharmony as harm and damage to real reality as the physical.

The problem with this harmony in relation to our desires is that it does not last, and in the end, it runs out as the ‘novelty’ wears off – and that is where we will want the next phone and the next phone etc. There is no logical or reasonable explanation why one would want to move from one phone to another, where the only reason one can come up with is because ‘ I like it’ and ‘it fits with who I am’. This ‘who I am’ then becomes a disharmonious disorder that is imposing on the physical reality a consequence because you are forcing your disharmony unto the harmony of nature to its detriment – which evidently, is not Best for All.

The goal is thus the reduction of energy usage paired with the production of optimum goods – and to within this support Dignified and Responsible living on Earth.

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Day 158: Prevention is the Best Cure - Equal Money System

Prevention is the Best Cure

Decision-making within an Equal Money System will adhere to the Constitutional Principle of ‘Prevention is the Best Cure’. This implies that with every decision made, all possible ramifications, consequences and outflows must be considered in order to design the policies and regulations in a way that do not cause unnecessary harm to the current or future generations of plants, animals and humans.

The moment disharmony exists, it indicates that the point of disharmony was not adequately prevented. Becoming aware of such a point of disharmony places us in a reactive mode. A reactive mode always takes place after the harm as a result of disharmony that has already occurred, and thus, it is in essence ‘too late’ as the harm cannot be undone. To design a regulatory political system based on reactive measures is therefore unacceptable, as it implies that we wait for harm to take place before action is taken. Currently, policy and regulations are mostly based on the interest of select groups. This causes harm to manifest on other levels that were not included in the equation, causing us to continuously be in a reactive mode as we attempt to correct the mistakes of our past. This is why it is so important to always design policies and regulations according to the Principle of What is Best for All, as it will enable us to prevent disharmony before it occurs.

Obviously, taking action before harm takes place also reduces the amount of resources that go into correcting mistakes and dealing with the consequences of carelessness. A simple example is nutrition. There are countless ills that are currently caused through inadequate nutrition, among which are diabetes, heart conditions, cancer, impaired cognitive functions such as memory capacity, and so on. Treatment for such ills requires a whole range of resources and is time-intensive. If the source is corrected, which is the diet, the ills are prevented as well as the need to use up resources for their treatment.

Initially, policy making will still largely involve correcting the mistakes of our past, as there were many, and thus many consequences. However, as we progress as a global society within the ability to prevent disharmony and to direct all matters in a harmonious way, we will be able to bring children in the world knowing that we’ve taken all preventative measures to allow them to live a life without harm. And thus, the principle of fear as it is now part of society will have been addressed and will no longer form part of our co-existence.

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