This post covers some "nuts and bolts" of potential social coordination, for service activities at basic levels of community. In normal circumstances of everyday life, the further up the income ladder an individual goes, the more coordinated services one tends to either buy or expect - whether in one's own environment or in other forms of high density group focused activities. Lower income individuals tends to compensate with educational materials for consumption, by utilizing broadcast (one to the many) knowledge sets to use on DIY terms. How could more coordination happen for lower income and those presently unemployed?
Here, the primary problem for lower income is that credentialing prevents further economic activity (services production) of such gained knowledge in many cases for anyone but oneself. Presently, not only does that slow both knowledge use and aggregate wealth potential, but it calls into question the value of further capacity for educational media outside the bounds of formal education. Allowing coordination of knowledge with informal methods would make the spread of knowledge product (separate from time use) a more valuable option for both providers and consumers.
Implicit in this post example is the option of eventual monetary compensation, for focused and directed economic activities that are "unseen" in present market based terms. Local coordination for services product could provide a more beneficial alternative to guaranteed income plans, which would simply reimburse long term unemployed for survival needs with nothing expected from them. Another similar option in guaranteed income terms is the creation of auction settings for lower end economic activities i.e. on present day "odd job work for others" terms. That is, the primary coordination involved in the latter setting, would be the normal circumstance of boss and employee.
Whereas the system suggested here involves multiple coordination and time arbitration sets in groups of entrepreneurs (free markets in skills use), and it also utilizes a base monetary income. Another important difference is that base income would be targeted to localized services to production choices on the part of the population, reflected in regulatory options. Those choice sets would depend in large part on the degree to which communities opt for innovative habitat technology. By bringing down the costs and burdens of housing, a base income for services coordination would go much further than if housing was defined in high maintenance and heavy resource use terms. By bringing services time use into accordance with (global) tradable production norms, it would be possible to measure individual income to consumption standards that local economies would elect to use - standards that would also define base income.
Why would "outsiders" elect to be a part of skills based communities such as this? Pre existing sets of credentials would not be necessary. However, those who desire to participate would need to take the time to understand of how the local economic system actually works, in order to take part in its benefits and expectations. The primary element for local participants is that of being entrepreneur of one's skills sets. As an adult, committing to some combination of the more basic skills sets (a certain weekly amount dependent on ability and community need) would qualify individuals for local property permits (holdings). From there, one could also participate in the local 3D technology in some capacity. One element here might be recyclable "jigsaw puzzle" building components with plastics, for instance. While recyclables could provide a local option for direct skills match potential (less money needed), other building material components (local resources or otherwise) could also come into play for business ventures in tradable product beyond one's actual community.
What are we coordinating for? Real growth in services product...yes - but in social terms which relate to more than just pragmatic aspirations. It helps to stress this because as people continue to plan for the privatization of services, the same restraints remain which have been an issue in public formations. Presently, people would not be able to pay for more services in the aggregate than they have been able to provide from a tax base. What's more, service product in many instances is so unlike the product which is separate from our time, that it is hard to compare the two in traditional economic terms. However, our time limitations are not unlike a strict gold standard in terms of availability. What provides true choice is our ability to overcome those limits, by making time the constant across the entire services spectrum.
Otherwise there would be no way to optimize knowledge use as applied to populations in any aggregate sense. For instance, when health services participation is allowed to overcome other service needs in terms of valuation, the effect is the same as a diminished quantity of "time gold" at a society's disposal. One reason this perspective is important: as Ezra Klein points out, 5 percent of people presently account for about 50 percent of the health system's spending. And healthcare spending is presently about 1/5 of actual GDP in the U.S.
When we consider possibilities for community coordination, what is the product we wish to arrive at? Social product exists in many forms, and it helps to consider the kinds of resource based dimensions which services actually exist within. That makes it far easier to coordinate what actually needs to be accomplished, and also to recognize that such product - while existing within measured time, is nonetheless capable of being layered into a number of capacities at once. In the past, groups engaged in multiple responsibilities carried out as simultaneous activities. Before most of those activities were labeled as economic, they became separated from one another. What was separated and why? Which separations are actually beneficial and completely necessary?
Some of the activities we elect to take on affects the degree to which corresponding sets of activities even take place. For instance, if most of society was economically engaged, how much of a system would we actually need to address criminal activity? Right now there's simply no way to know. Plus, some of the most basic coordination challenges include supplementing and replacing those which public funding no longer covers. How do we accomplish this in terms that are non-hierarchical, decentralized and open? Multiple use environments with movable infrastructure allow us to move around the mental and physical components to see what actually works. How much of a flexible legal system would actually be needed in such circumstance?
Each community would create different settings for knowledge use that come to resemble snowflake patterns, all of which start from a common base of recognized need. First, decisions regarding infrastructure have to be made, and from here, outlines for educational possibilities and beginnings for healthcare options. Other coordination sets would involve combinations of travel settings for both locals to other places, and visiting knowledge use providers from other areas. Markets in services would become the domain not just of a handful of universities and high profile businesses, but every community which aspires to distinguish itself in some capacity.
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