Time Arbitrage as a Gate to "Everyone's Country"

For some, time arbitrage may seem "impossible" at first glance, because it requires system wide equal time access, as a first option. Where to start? Only consider the efforts that individuals are already making to coordinate within a myriad of time schedules, and the organizational structures which everyone takes for granted. Time arbitrage is really about further evolving the systems already in use, to provide more meaningful connecting points. Built in environment flexibility, would bring close density schedule coordination within reach.

Time (i.e. skills) arbitrage would be capable of providing benefits which are not otherwise possible. Equal time use brings a full range of services within reach (across income variance*), through internal support and coordinated decision processes. Whereas merit based or credentialed time use, frequently requires monetary compensation from an outside designated source.

Variance in time compensation  (as opposed to income compensation) makes necessary the transfer of wealth from elsewhere. Particularly in a mature general equilibrium, time compensation variance means increasingly tight controls on knowledge use. Insofar as labor is concerned, these controls (divisions of knowledge labor) have been in effect for more than a century.

While following a "Taylor" link (with John Taylor's recent activities still on my mind), I was reminded of an earlier Taylor (Frederick Taylor), whose work especially contributed to the knowledge use divisions of the present. While Frederick Taylor's theories once made it possible to hire more labor in aggregate, these divisions have also paved the way for the automated versions of the present - i.e. less labor needed.

Does that mean one's time use now has little representation, in any economic sense? How might one think of "efficiency" divisions in knowledge use, which have considerable bearing on present day rationale for time arbitrage potential? The vertical compensation flows which tended to sort knowledge "developers, demonstrators and drones", also meant that hard choices were necessary for knowledge use in aggregate.

Fortunately, horizontal service flows - capable of generating direct wealth formation - are a different equation. How might individuals respond, to what they perceive as vital elements left "out of the mix"? Instead of a few choices, many options would become possible. To be sure, individuals don't want too many choices in any given time frame. But at the same time, no one wants to be pigeonholed into choices which don't fit their preferences - particularly over time. Efficiencies mean different things to different people, thus the varieties of knowledge use and methodology in play would gain system wide reconsideration.

However, it is not easy to think in those terms when knowledge use has been vertically structured for so long. Hence the "societal ideal" remains imaginary, and most attempts to stray from established norms sound either utopian or dystopian, depending on the audience. For instance, consider some wishful thinking on the part of Thomas Piketty (which Scott Sumner highlighted in a recent post):

We are free to imagine an ideal society in which all other tasks are almost totally automated and each individual has as much freedom as possible to pursue the goods of education, culture, and health for the benefit of herself and others. Everyone would be by turns teacher or student, writer or reader, actor or spectator, doctor or patient.

Scott said, "That might be ideal for a college professor, but for most men that I have met during my life that sort of society would be a dystopia." Had Piketty given enough thought in his characterization of individual choice, he might have realized just how limited a vision it actually was.

The lack of ability for individuals to leave an imprint in present day social structures, has led to any number of imaginings which feel dystopic. One example, and the first one that came to mind after Sumner's dismissal of Piketty's vision, was a book I read in the late eighties: Sheri Tepper's "The Gate to Women's Country".

Only in reading the wikipedia reference, did I think about the strong eugenics component of that story. Indeed, eugenics in some form has been a reaction on the part of many, when too much of life becomes centralized and dictated outside of individual tolerance zones. One characteristic of centralization, is its intolerance for a well defined wide spectrum in equilibrium. Which only results in struggles everywhere, on the part of those who seek to affirm or deny the "working" equilibrium.

The best decentralized social processes, are the ones which can maintain complex economic characteristics. Unfortunately, these complexities tend to be captured and hollowed out by governments which impose their own standards on populations. How to maintain decentralized processes which are inclusive for all concerned?

For one thing, citizens need ways to remain directly involved with the production processes they depend upon, whether by investment in those processes, involvement in the definitions of product formation, or both. That disallows government from becoming an intermediary in those processes, because subsidies only end up distorting product formations and societal expectations.

It's not just about being free to imagine, but being free to rediscover how people are willing to spend their time among one another. That means creating contextual environments where individual choices and decision making processes might possibly seem realistic. Given the chance from a young age, many individuals never tire of mental challenges - even if those challenges take forms which mostly make sense to the ones who harbor them. The most important thing is not to be left with no challenges at all as we get older. Indeed, I cannot stress this enough.


*Even though equal time use compensates through the same wage in time arbitrage, income variance is a result of incentives within the entire (localized) group, in terms of the additional investments they make in the community setting. As a result, improvements over time in local real estate valuations, provide a direct link to one's personal efforts in skills growth potential, through holdings of local real estate composites consisting of flexible land use parcels and building components.