1. The Untapped Potential of Time Value

Becky Hargrove

Time as Wealth, Chapter 1 
The Untapped Potential of Time Value
Initial publication, 10 August 2020, The Intentional Marketplace,
monetaryequivalence.blogspot.com


Chapter 1 Intro

Might it be possible to create new wealth on more direct terms, through the purposeful and productive application of our time? Greater purpose and autonomy in our working lives is possible, if we coordinate more of our time based work preferences with neighbors and resources that could be locally managed. A decentralized approach to new wealth creation - especially for services generation - could prove advantageous for individuals and communities alike.

Many important applications of knowledge and skill are now too dependent on revenue sources which are subject to competing demands. However, it is possible to sidestep these constant revenue struggles by turning shared time priorities and preferences into direct sources of economic activity. Even though doing so would require plenty of effort to understand and implement, the long term payoff would be immense, as it would help ease society's need for long term debt and budgetary obligations.

How could our work based time preferences contribute to economic dynamism and sustainability? After all, we've relied on tradable sector wealth as the main revenue source for services generation, as long as anyone can remember. Nevertheless, we also have economic options for establishing services generation on more directly negotiable terms.

More specifically, time based reciprocity - via symmetric means of mutual time matching - could function as viable units of wealth. The new economic unit would result from the cancellation of two mutual time obligations on the part of matched recipients. A primary challenge in this method of time arbitrage, would be to gradually increase the internal value of skills capacity and personal ability of each participating group.

While some meritocracy is warranted for the acquired skills involved, internal management of the process allows everyone involved to contribute to - and benefit from - continuing human capital gains. Since each person takes ownership of their participation in organizational processes, their applied knowledge functions as a valid part of a decentralized whole. Each individual would be able to contribute to new pools of applied knowledge and skill, which in turn could lead to productivity gains that extend well beyond traditional services generation.

Consider how direct forms of services generation could provide long term benefits. When time based services are instead proffered through indirect revenue sources, this automatically limits who can take part in the production and consumption processes involved. Consequently, in recent decades, too many of us have resorted to either learning to perform vital services on our own behalf or else going without. Consider how inefficient our non tradable sector activity has become in this regard, in that we are often compelled to do something ourselves if it is to get done at all. Yet our tradable sectors have long been able to coordinate a wide array of skill sets, and they frequently do so with prices that make their product accessible to all. Hopefully, we can learn some organizational positives from our tradable sector activity in the near future, so that non discretionary product and services become more accessible as well.

If we can create more direct market for time based services generation, we could ultimately realize output gains in these activities which rival what tradable sector activity has contributed to the vast wealth generation of recent centuries. At stake in all this is a need to rediscover, how we might provide assistance and mutual support for one another.

Creating A Marketplace for Time Value

While direct forms of services generation would be partly about skills acquisition, these new markets best illustrate how each individual stands to benefit from shared time experiences. That is, participants would gain a better understanding not only what they hope to provide, but also how others are affected - hence respond in kind. Person to person feedback is important, yet many current institutional structures leave little room for it to routinely occur And even though acquired skill sets are important, sometimes they are a secondary consideration in the care and maintenance of services based relationships.

What we might provide for one other at a personal level, is quite different from the labours of goods production. The gift of personal attention is one of human maintenance, in contrast with the relatively solitary work we assume for maintenance of physical products and environments. In contrast with the work of tending to others, the economic work of tending to things is still relatively well coordinated in the markets we already utilize.

The real potential for our shared time value, lies in the hopes and dreams of what is increasingly a knowledge based economy. There is an interactive nature to applied knowledge which gets lost in the mix, when time based services generation is indirectly organized. Where personal time commitments to others are largely based on external reward, one almost forgets their potential for experiential value.

A marketplace for time value would especially focus on work that is other oriented, instead of just object oriented. Mutual employment could readily carve out an economic space which emphasizes the voluntary nature of personal commitments. Mutually agreed upon employment would make it possible for our shared experiences with others to occur in the same time and place. Initial recipients of time based services would respond with their (agreed upon) offer for the total transaction, afterward. As participating groups work to uncover the potential of time value, they continue seeking out work options which hold meaning for all concerned. It's not a stretch to suggest the result of one's efforts is more than a residual part of the work processes involved.

Markets for time value could create a stronger framework to codify the human factor in basic economic relationships. Hopefully, our future workplaces will more closely represent actual wants and needs, in terms of time value everyone has a chance to provide. Once our personal attention to others qualifies as a recognizable commodity, perhaps we won't hesitate so often, when our own personal circumstance could be improved by the assistance of others in our own midst.

Time centered attention is worthy of economic trade value. When individuals are free to contribute experiential services on economic terms, everyone gains. In The Origins of Wealth, Eric Beinhocker explains how trade increases the carrying capacity of a landscape and makes everyone better off. One wonders, why hasn't time value potential already been pursued in a broader marketplace context? Likewise, the economist Diane Coyle observed that neither the time required for either production or consumption are taken seriously in economic theory: "They should be, and all the more so in a services-intensive economy where the technology is above all reallocating people's time use and making some services far more efficient (albeit in a way we never measure)."

What is especially important in this regard, is that time is such a fixed and scarce resource. All of us have the same amount of time allotted to us in the course of a day, but many of us lack the ability to use it as efficiently and effectively as we desire. Even though it isn't practical to measure the amount of skill individuals need from others in any given moment, it is certainly feasible to measure both the nature of mutual time commitments, and the extent to which group participation increases options for skilled services over time. Hopefully, we can do a better job of measuring services generation in the near future.

Rebuilding Societal Support For Mutual Assistance

Neighbors were often willing in the past to form lifelong friendships, in part because of the possibilities such relationships created for mutual assistance. Alas, the informal nature of this approach - while it meant greater social cohesion - lacked economic context. As other forms of production became linked to formality and monetary compensation, many of the more useful neighborhood contributions to social welfare gradually fell by the wayside.

A marketplace for time value would be stronger if it included a monetary base. Even the most basic wage would provide additional incentive for neighbors to reach out to one another, once again. One way to initiate such an approach is to integrate useful services of all kinds into local educational activities. An educational framework as a starting point could encourage lifetime community connections. No matter one's skill level or age, each individual could be encouraged to participate to the fullest of their ability.

As things currently stand, one problem with K-12 education is that it inadvertently cuts off neighborhood connections once people graduate from high school. The expectation in many communities is that young graduates will move elsewhere for better opportunities. But with a little luck, a marketplace for time value could help restore economic prospects in communities where people already live.

One advantage of locally generated assistance, is that service definitions could become more open ended than what is normally expected in professional settings. Only consider that once decisions are made to go to a hospital or doctor's office, specific skill sets also need to be fully compensated, even if they are not actually deemed necessary for the recipient's circumstance.

Local mutual assistance - with time based preferences as the main negotiating factor - could offer more flexible options than what many professional services provide. Even when specific skills or knowledge come into play in these settings, they would often be of secondary importance for provider and recipient alike. A less formal service provision makes it easier for people to volunteer help, especially when others need emotional comfort in moments of uncertainty. Personal attention such as this could often prove invaluable for neighbors who live alone.

Services Generation From an Individual and Group Perspective

With the advent of professional services, it became difficult to leave room for personal preferences in a broad economic context. And much of what we hope to experience in mutual interaction - particularly intellectual challenges - isn't necessarily on the menu in many economic settings. Nevertheless, in markets for time value, groups would only become free to fully pursue such challenges, once participants are empowered to assume responsibility for group outcomes. I believe this to be the truest sense in which free markets for services generation could flourish.

The best functioning market for time value would include individuals of all ages and abilities, regardless of their current level of social and economic connections. Some of today's arbitrary separations in terms of age groups, have occurred in large part due to the transportation patterns created by the automobile. Hence nothing short of walkable community is needed, for daily activities which might once again bring all generations together. Fortunately, we can create new community centers which bring a wide range of service possibilities within close reach, while preserving automotive patterns around this community core.

Walkable settings for daily routines, would be one of society's best means to help restore autonomy to individuals who otherwise tend to be assigned unnecessary supervision during the course of the day. Yet many of these individuals - given suitable platforms for mutual engagement - could once again resume greater responsibility for all that transpires in the course of their day. There is also a budgetary element to this individual need for personal autonomy. After all, societies would not be so burdened with the costs of care, once cared for individuals are also responsibly tasked with taking care of others where possible.

Alongside the aspirational elements of market design, practical elements are also important. As to the latter, Alvin Roth explains market design basics in an interview, "One thing about markets is you have to bring the participants together...One way to make the market thick is to coordinate on a time when people will come together to trade...Market design is about understanding how the rules of the marketplace change performance, and how we might help markets perform better if we see markets that are having difficulties."

Time Value as Economic Exchange

A more complete array of human capital could potentially flourish alongside present day economic activities. However, unlike tradable sector output, human capital does not readily respond to output gains on the same exponential terms, since time is itself scarce in nature. For this reason, output gains in knowledge and skill need measuring means which extend beyond monetary representation and traditional scale concepts. By keeping records of what we achieve together in a common time frame, we highlight understandable patterns which initiate the relevant processes.

Allowing the vast majority of citizens to assume meaningful production roles, is also an efficient way to scale time based services generation. Even though many activities are being successfully automated, we need to ensure that everyone remains economically engaged to a degree most citizens can remain confident in mutual reliance. As more economic activities continue to be automated, now is the time to make certain that citizens don't go without valid work and meaningful social connections.

Even though present day institutions remain willing to pay us for our labours and efforts, their ability to do so is limited in some crucial respects. Just the same, in any event, we are responsible for life's basics and for taking care of ourselves. Some are quick to reason that jobs are a cost, hence not necessarily available when needed most. Only recall, however, that time commitment priorities represent our own personal cost. Indeed, we seek to apportion and manage time, so as to live up to both personal aspirations and mutual obligations. If jobs happen to be scarce, so is our time! We all deserve to have more negotiating capacity and personal autonomy in the creation of our work spaces, but we have to establish a stronger foundation of self responsibility in order to get there. In all of this, our actual time availability to fulfill societal obligations is more scarce than some institutions recognize. Clearly, we could benefit  if our shared time priorities held greater economic value - especially in relation to what money can buy.

Only consider the extent of time based services which are still funded by redistribution and debt creation, despite the fact much of this existing order is being challenged. Perhaps the challenges wouldn't seem so harsh if we could also tap into our time as a direct source of wealth. When our skilled services are dependent on other wealth sources, they also tend to be excessively hierarchical. While such hierarchies can be convenient in certain respects, their organizational capacity is nonetheless faced with its own built in limits. We need the option of services generation patterns which are more horizontally aligned, so that all citizens have reasonable hope of assuming active roles in wealth creation.

Debt funding for skilled services is also a major part of today's political struggles. Once societies become burdened with excessive debt, they become increasingly reluctant to fund a full range of services. Unfortunately, societies often regress when they cannot agree on the particulars of continued services funding. Hopefully such a regression is not inevitable this time.

The Purposeful Action of Mutual Employment

Our time is what we make of it. Nevertheless, as a society we could do much to improve its economic value - not only for our own purposes and intentions, but the priorities others hold as well. A concise coordination of mutual time agreements could help people develop abilities which otherwise lack economic context, especially in the local workplaces of smaller cities and towns. Mutual assistance possibilities go well beyond the limited roles our service institutions are now able to provide.

Symmetric time alignment gives our mutual time priorities a valid economic expression. Once our time becomes capable of purchasing that of others in the present (instead of a delayed future), human capital gains additional freedom of expression. Importantly, the duality of choice can allow all individuals to develop their negotiation skills from a young age, beginning with mutual educational assistance. Only recall that when the capacity to negotiate for personal needs is extended to all citizens, greater social civility is just one positive result. The possibilities of mutual employment could help strengthen social connections, as people regain confidence in their ability to create something of worth for others.

Mutual employment also suggests a broader workplace perspective, as societies address changes in traditional employment due to automation and technology. Even though reasonable levels of employment still prevail in traditional institutions, the unemployment issues of less prosperous cities and regions have never really gone away, since the earlier decline in local manufacturing options. Mutual forms of employment could help restore economic dynamism, in many a left behind community.

Time Value as a Unique Economic Record

One reason why time centered service markets have been inadequate in relation to other forms of resource capacity: These services have not proven easy to measure. David Perell explains why this is a problem in terms of legibility:

We are blind to what we cannot measure. Not everything that counts can be measured, and not everything that can be measured counts. But people manage what they measure, so society repeats the same mistakes.

An inability to measure time based service contributions, helps explain the numerous missteps societies have made in the creation of time based service markets. Consequently, we still struggle to create wealth in human capital which can sustain economic balance with other forms of resource capacity. A more accurate measure of mutual time commitments in services generation, could go a long way to resolve this problem.

In order to gain economic validity, time arbitrage processes between individuals (in participating groups) would become part of local permanent records. Often, basic aspects of these transactions, such as time and place, would be sufficient for daily recording. However, unique offerings of knowledge and skill would also be recorded and shared, as they suggest more applied knowledge possibilities in each local continuum.

Services Output as Economic Growth Potential

Would a marketplace for time value contribute to additional verifiable output? While some of this general equilibrium gain would accrue in terms of time value instead of full monetary representation, the result would still be one of broader market access in services for all concerned. Presently, even though services in the U.S. are almost 80% of the economy, much is based on definitions of specified output in quality, which is not the same as quantity. Indeed, it's a paradox that services occupy such a large percentage of GDP, given how these markets are constructed in relation to the productivity of tradable sector activity.

Unfortunately, many of today's high skill time based services are structured in ways that limit not only consumption, but also the extent of production potential. However it is impractical to attempt a direct response to the lack of overall access (such as negating the need for professional credentials) due to the ways in which these markets affect the framework of the vast majority of existing wealth.

Rather, the main problem for credentialed workplaces is that their intangible nature makes them largely impervious to long term production gains. For this reason, it is more efficient to start with a clean slate for applied knowledge which could work alongside these traditional services institutions. After all, additional markets for time value are needed, since earlier institutions will continue to be limited by existing equilibrium constraints, due to their dependence on other sources of wealth.

Time Priorities: What do Participants Actually Want?

How to know, whether the time use priorities we hope to exchange may prove useful or otherwise meaningful for others? Time arbitrage in the form of mutual employment, will always involve a certain amount of experimentation.

Just the same, the uncertainty of changing tastes and preferences holds true for entrepreneurs of practically all forms of product. The main difference in a time centered services context, is that group participants would gradually become entrepreneurs of time value. Hence a coordinated matching of time preferences would cover everything from simple empathy and basic skills offerings, to personal "windows" into discovery processes and intellectual pursuits. By way of example, sometimes the personal tutor and weekend babysitter might exist in the same provider, when recipients are quite young.

Of course, like many market offerings, consumers can't always know what they want unless it is presented as a viable possibility. Which is why special calendared events which highlight potential skills offerings, could be such a plus for participating groups and their communities. These are also instances when an initial phase of offerings is established at the outset, then the recipient (or possibly a family member) negotiates for a follow up skills offering. Here the mutual time coordination factor is also important, since providers would be influenced by what they can readily accept from others in return. Clearly, more than skills sets are involved in these exchanges, since these exchanges include not only the proximity of convenient space and time, but also personality preferences. In some ways the process is actually similar to the spontaneity of what friends have always sought to provide for one another.

Time as a Representative Store of Economic Value

Many useful time options tend to be deemed "priceless" as if outside of monetary reach, or else the other extreme, in the sense of supposedly useless. But how often do such categorizations represent a net loss for all concerned? As Charles Handy emphasized in The Hungry Spirit,  "Anything that is unpriced, is ignored by the market." This helps explain why many who would proffer services to others end up ignored, particularly if they lack strong social connections in their own communities. Alas, social viability is often necessary, in order for economic possibilities to follow.

How can we reconnect those who have inadvertently ended up disconnected? Once markets for time value are established, people would gain consistent opportunities to reexamine earlier assumptions regarding human potential, much as markets in general have brought value to countless other resources which once held little value.

The fact that time is our most valuable - yet scarce - resource, suggests it would greatly benefit from a more reliable economic framework. Since markets for time value are also local service markets, time and place factors are paramount, for much that occurs in these transactions. Plus, what each individual brings to the table in the exchange, is already a form of final product. This services designation is significant, since personal efforts become substantiated in ways that go beyond a labour residual definition.

In the latter, where our work becomes part of a larger institutional whole, it's difficult to disentangle our contributions to employers from what represents their final product. Often when we work as someone's employee, our labour is considered an intangible which is consequently difficult to measure, Whereas in time arbitrage, the time priorities in mutual employment already represent final product. In other words, our efforts also register as a specific form of economic activity. For this reason, mutual employment could actually prove easier to substantiate, in terms of what is achieved for services generation.

Services Exchange as Value in Use

A marketplace for time value makes it feasible for mutual employment to function as value in use interchange. It's the value in use designation which creates such potential for additional economic access. Today, many high skill services have been given over to a value in exchange framing, which - in a world of vast wealth - means they tend to be treated as luxury items. While some applied knowledge is of course quality in the sense of extreme dedication and skill, many related activities were once more broadly shared by general populations. It's the latter activities in particular, not to mention the knowledge enhancements many basic skills are now capable of, which deserve a broader audience.

However, a value in use designation also improves the long term production potential of a broad range of services. How so? Productivity especially involves the relationship of outputs to inputs. And mandatory high quality designations have vastly increased human capital input requirements, in relation to the output that scarce time (in time centered services) can actually achieve.

Consider why this matters. Unlike expensive human capital applied in settings which may result in exponential output (think tradable sectors), the output of non tradable sector time based product remains limited by natural time scarcity. Since similar organizational costs still apply, is it any wonder valuable time becomes priced as a luxury item? Consequently, knowledge providers for time based product often have to make up the difference, by making all of society responsible (think government subsidies etc.) for what they can no longer realistically charge their own customers. This process is especially evident in today's healthcare.

On the other hand, a value in use designation would allow the diffusion of knowledge to be internally compensated by mutual time reciprocity. In other words, the costs of acquiring human capital would be spread evenly through each participating group as a time continuum, so that society would not bear these additional costs for applied knowledge. It's a process which could also allow a gradual restoration of long term productivity gains, since more services generation would be organized similarly to the internal resource reciprocity models of tradable sector activity.

Symmetric Coordination as Non Rival Applied Knowledge 

Symmetric or reciprocal matching of economic preferences and priorities, could allow individuals and groups to more fully account for the time they actually have. With platforms in place which encourage mutual matching, each individual's time scarcity becomes more manageable. The process becomes symmetric once time matching is equally apportioned and structured to occur within a relatively short window. The main exception to this simple wealth creation standard, would likely be when our time commitments serve as insurance, so we can seek the personal attention of others during later years and other times of need.

Consider how symmetric coordination makes possible a long term applied knowledge continuum. Otherwise, applied knowledge can occasionally lose its continuum through time, especially since high user costs means it needs to be carefully guarded on rival terms. Even when knowledge providers can be readily compensated via exponential output gains (when time value isn't final product), the rival designation often still applies because of initial expenses in acquiring pertinent information and applicable procedures.

On the other hand, where symmetric coordination is possible, knowledge diffusion becomes an incremental stair step process which gains from ongoing reimbursements and support. Or, one might imagine the organizational capacity as a "lock stitch" effort. Because time based "debts" are immediately reimbursed, there are far more opportunities for applied knowledge to transpire on non rival terms. In these instances, knowledge protection would not be required for the costs of organizational capacity, since the time arbitrage process is capable of creating compensation along the entirety of the relevant continuum.

There is a relational aspect of symmetric and non hierarchical alignment as well. Much of today's hierarchical organizational capacity relies on broadcast means for the spread of information and knowledge. While this approach is often sufficient for individuals in many normal routines, dependence on broadcast means for one's survival still leads to problems, if what is really needed is individual attention in pressing circumstance. When economic relationships can also be aligned on symmetric, non hierarchical terms, individuals become more naturally inclined towards mutual reliance.

Matched Time as a Standardized Commodity

A major benefit of time value as a standardized commodity, is the extent to which it makes time value more fungible for all concerned. How might one think about fungibility? JP Koning explains:

Fungibility exists when one member of a population of items is perfectly interchangeable with another. So for instance, your grain of wheat can be swapped with my grain without causing any change to our relative status, we would say that wheat grains are fungible.

Consider that Koning is also describing the nature of commodification processes. Interchangeability in goods is desirable since it tends to increase both production and consumption. However, while we are used to thinking about economic gains from commodification in goods, it's not quite so simple to envision this process as beneficial for time based service costs. After all, the latter tend to represent someone's actual level of income!

This is why time value commodification would need to take place in participating groups where everyone gains from services commodification processes. Otherwise, the reduced monetary compensation of time value as standardized commodity, would make it difficult for many individuals to meet daily expenses. A network of corresponding efforts becomes necessary, before "good deflation" in services commodification becomes a desirable reality. Each participating group would require access to innovation that leads to good deflation in the costs of their physical environments, as well.

Time Use Functionality as a Price

Even though we aren't always consciously aware of it, our time already functions a natural price. Each of us experiences the same time scarcities, and needs to manage the same amount of time in the course of a day, month or year - whether for our own benefit, or for existing obligations to others. Yet unfortunately, much of our instinctive feel for time as a natural price, has become muted.

Since present day workplaces mostly arbitrage for certain specific skills, one may end up devaluing other important skills and personal qualifications. Years can slip away while we engage in excessive workplace repetition, perhaps even to the point of burnout. However, when monetary compensation is the primary means to maintain personal responsibility, there may be little choice. In any event, regardless of income level, many could benefit from local platforms which allow time based personal priorities to function as valid price points. Such platforms would give individuals the chance to manage their lives more meaningfully and effectively.

Time Arbitrage as Internalized Mutual Coordination

By no means should arbitrage be associated solely with financial dealings! Even when we're not consciously aware of doing so, we employ arbitrage regularly in our own lives, to determine best means for utilizing the resource capacity at our disposal. A marketplace for time value could make it feasible for us to arbitrage and manage time priorities more efficiently. Nevertheless, there are important differences between time arbitrage and skills arbitrage which will be explored in a later chapter.

Mutual employment especially gives new meaning to time arbitrage, since it allows us to better manage our personal lives alongside our working lives. Time arbitrage as an economic formality, would include records of matched services generation, once participating individuals make mutual time purchases. Since the process creates new wealth at the outset, the costs of mutual employment are internalized so as to require little or no dependence on other resource capacity or redistribution.

Time Value as Tangible Product

Knowledge use systems can be designed to bring more tangible quantification to services. Currently, the intangible nature of many time based services is not only a problem for long term production potential, but also a lack of economic access in general. Arnold Kling expresses his own concerns in this regard: "The fact that intangible investment leads to very divergent outcomes can help to explain rising inequality."

A marketplace for time value could simplify the nature of many time based services, by illustrating how a combined network of services generation might function in its entirety at local levels. Besides the obvious benefits to those who take part in terms of recorded personal interactions, cumulative knowledge gains which would also be recorded and preserved for future efforts.

When economic activities prove difficult to measure or decipher, societies may become less willing to support them. Reciprocity involves trust, and when debt instruments for intangible services become so complex no one knows how they will be reciprocated, the nature of these activities is increasingly called into question. Debt based budgetary approaches are understandable, but these institutional processes involve so many unknowns they are not completely reliable. The more we can clarify reciprocal action and bring it into the present, the better our chances of maintaining economic stability for the long run.

Debt Reduction and Sector Balance

Given the fact service sectors now occupy approximately 80 percent of GDP, societies might seek to reduce indirect services representation eventually, so that governmental debt burdens can be eased. Chances are, present percentages for indirect services generation are already too high to maintain political stability in some advanced economies.

The good news however, is that once services formation becomes more directly aligned, 80 percent as representative of services activity may not too high a number, should individuals continue to prefer them relative to other economic options. In other words, tradable sector activity could remain at approximately 20 percent of all GDP, yet provide adequate access to a wide array of goods for all concerned. After all, this is how efficient much of our tradable sector activity has become.

However, time based services in non tradable sectors would benefit from organizational patterns which allow them to function alongside tradable sector activity as originating wealth sources. One way to envision such a process, is by applying knowledge so it actually creates a starting point for new communities. Knowledge use could be thought of in this context as a "knowledge prior" where new wealth creation is feasible. Once we successfully reduce dependence on originating wealth sources, the secondary markets of tax funded services can finally come into better balance with tradable sector activity. Indeed, once populations have the ability to access knowledge more efficiently, tradable sector activity might experience greater demand than is currently feasible, since discretionary markets have been crowded by the organizational capacity of non discretionary markets for some time.

Time Value as a Safety Net

For the United States in particular,  a marketplace for time value could help address shortcomings in today's Social Security arrangements. Even those who are otherwise well prepared for retirement face uncertainties regarding healthcare needs. In this instance, highly skilled time value has risen beyond what many in society can monetarily support. Hence healthcare could especially benefit from broader efforts to create more economic value for all human potential.

Recent immigration across the globe also provides a stark example of revealed differences in time value across society. As governments struggle with the budgetary burdens of healthcare services for their own citizens, they become more reluctant to accept further immigrants. All the more so, as demographic pressures mean more citizens seeking care which comes from a limited pool of healthcare providers. Nevertheless, immigrants have long contributed to many vital time based services, especially in the care of older citizens. As the economist Timothy Taylor notes, more family members may need to stay home to provide unpaid care for family members in the near future, given that further immigration is now being discouraged.

Just the same, familial assistance for elderly citizens is not always an optimal solution. For example, Atul Gawande observes how senior citizens sometimes prefer institutional assistance to that of their own family members. Much depends however, on whether the relevant institution makes personal autonomy more likely than what is possible at home. At the very least, a marketplace for time value would make a degree of autonomy more feasible for elderly citizens of sound mind. Platforms for mutual assistance- given the right conditions - could certainly provide encouragement for senior citizens to take part.

Monetary Equivalence for Time Value

Fortunately, a time based marketplace could ease existing inequalities by moving the value of time toward a closer approximation of monetary value. This approach is also a real economy or supply side approach. Only recall what is often said regarding what monetary or fiscal policy can't accomplish. These explanations are actually a powerful reference to real economy institutions which inadvertently act as deterrents to progress and economic dynamism. But this seeming wall of intransigence need not mean we are powerless to do anything, especially since time arbitrage and the purposeful lowering of living expenses in these settings, could be an appropriate real economy response.

As to nominal considerations regarding economic stability, discussions regarding inequality can be misleading, for they tend to be framed in nominal rather than real economy terms. If this weren't enough, the problem of money illusion make issues even more confusing, which only encourages more arguments over nominal wage differences rather than consumption potential.

What's really at stake could also be termed lifestyle illusions. However it is no longer easy to live a purposeful frugal life, since societal expectations around money are caught up in a myriad of regulations which reduce the possibility of doing so. Perhaps the fact such expectations appear as though set in stone, explains why inequality issues continue to be fought on nominal terms (and government redistribution) instead of real economy potential.

Not only does excessive focus on nominal wages detract from our time value potential, nominal income is a secondary consideration for the unique conditions and financial responsibilities we face. Real economy circumstance frequently change as we go through the course of our lives. The economic requirements of our personal environments frequently go through dramatic shifts and realignments, which affect not only what is required of us but particularly our discretionary options for both time and money.

Another important aspect of monetary equivalence for time value, is what traditional employment holds in store for many citizens in the near future. The main issue may not be how many have employment, but who can still command income which covers expected overhead costs in the majority of today's prosperous regions. Ryan Avent provides an astute warning in this regard:

Technology may surprise us - it often does - but the outlook for mass employment in productive, well compensated jobs looks dim...Meanwhile, the technology to eliminate costly labour will continue to improve...New technologies will create new, good work which might often benefit the less skilled. But it will not solve scalable mass employment. And it will not solve the problem of labour abundance.

Our time value will need to have a functional level of monetary equivalence, once the reality of limited nominal wages becomes more evident. Hopefully, as a society, we will be ready. If we are able to meet this challenge, monetary roles will also be relieved of social burdens they were never in a position to successfully address.

Time Value as a Response to Changing Needs

Why haven't these problematic structural issues already been addressed? One reason real economy issues still catch people off guard, is that the problems they pose have been so slow to fully develop. As Morgan Housel explains,

risks that hit quickly are taken more seriously than risks that accrue slowly over time, even if the slow-stewing risks cause more havoc when they burst.

Plenty of slow developing circumstance have in fact burst, which helps explain why our political arenas have become less stable in the last decade. If we are to productively move ahead in these unfortunate circumstance, we need to do so with as much mental clarity as possible, which means a refusal to get caught up in the social divisions that feed the fires of social disarray and destruction. This has become the time to focus on long term goals and hopes for the future, so the muddled circumstance of short term craziness might finally ease. There are long periods in life when societies and their governments understandably address short term instead of long term issues. In this historical moment, that approach will need to be temporarily set aside.

NOTES

Creating A Marketplace for Time Value
Beinhocker, Eric, The Origin of Wealth, page 90, (Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 2006)
Coyle, Diane, 'Taking Time Seriously in Economics', VoxEU, 21 August 2018.

Services Generation From an Individual and Group Perspective
Wallach, Eric, 'An interview with Alvin Roth, 2012 Nobel Prize Economist', The Sophist Magazine, 19 July 2018.

Time Value as a Unique Economic Record
Perell, David, '50 Ideas That Changed My Life', 10 May 2020, perell.com.

Time as a Representative Store of Economic Value
Handy, Charles, The Hungry Spirit - Beyond Capitalism: A Quest for Purpose in the Modern World, page 19, (New York, NY: Broadway Books, 1998)

Matched Time as a Standardized Commodity
Koning, JP, 'Two Notions of Fungibility', Moneyness, 17 August 2018, jpkoning.blogspot.com.

Time Value as Tangible Product
Kling, Arnold, 'Economics When Value is Intangible', EconLog, 1 January 2018, econlib.org.

Time Value as a Safety Net
Taylor, Timothy, 'Where Will America Find Caregivers as its Elderly Population Rises?', Conversable Economist, 11 June 2019, conversableeconomist.blogspot.com.
Gawande, Atul, Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End, (New York, NY: Macmillan Publishers, 2014)

Monetary Equivalence for Time Value
Avent, Ryan, The Wealth of Humans: Work, Power and Status in the Twenty-First Century, page 64, (New York, NY: St. Martin's Press, 2016)
Freeman, Richard, 'What Really Ails Europe (and America): The Doubling of the Global Workforce', The Globalist.com, Washington, D.C., 5 March 2010.

Time Value as a Response to Changing Needs
Housel, Morgan, Collaborative Fund, 'Repeating Themes', 14 June 2018.