Becky Hargrove
From Labour Divisions to Mutual Time Priorities
Initial Publication, 21 August 2020, The Intentional Marketplace,
monetaryequivalence.blogspot.com
Chapter 5 Intro
In a sense, mutual time priorities are nothing new, for individuals and groups have always coordinated activities along such lines when feasible. However, as skills arbitrage began to dominate other forms of labour in the 20th century, a significant amount of human capital shifted away from these informal - yet necessary - areas of life. Along the way, smaller communities in particular have gradually lost many aspects of coordination and mutual support .
Unfortunately, today's time centered service markets lack sufficient structure to fill these missing gaps. Yet during a decades long rise of non tradable sector dominance, local neighbors became increasingly isolated from one another - not just during the course of normal workdays, but in other crucial capacities as well. Consequently, small communities have come up short since formal professional services emerged. Given the resource requirements of present day service institutions, they were never well suited, to substitute for what local places once sought to provide their own.
What's more, where sufficient skilled services do exist, they tend to require additional costs which contribute to present day fiscal and financial burdens - both nationally and locally. When cities and towns become overwhelmed with their own financial hardships, some citizens are compelled to leave once essential services shut down. Meanwhile, as budgetary logic leaves little choice in these matters, the nature of professionally skilled services is increasingly called into question as a solution for all concerned.
Perhaps one reason societies neglected to augment professional services with community options, is the extent to which automotive transportation brought the services of the city within reach of the countryside. For decades, it was not too difficult for (at least) some rural citizens to rely on cities for their skilled services needs.
Only more recently have the costs and commitments of automotive transportation made doing so more difficult - particularly as citizens age and become reluctant to travel. Nevertheless, decades of abundant automotive transportation options, have all but erased the memory of the range of services local citizens once made possible. Since the majority of such efforts took place on personal and voluntary terms, they were seldom recorded so as to make them available in an organizational capacity which might provide context for the present. So in a sense it is necessary to start from the beginning. How might we contribute to divisions of labour for time based services on more meaningful terms? As we turn our sights toward future potential for mutual time priorities, this consideration is an important aspect of the process.
How Does Efficiency Matter for Service Market Potential?
When mutual time priorities are missing from work spaces, it can also prove difficult to make room for coordinated mutual responsibilities in our personal lives. How could greater efficiency be achieved in these social alignments? Personal time coordination for one's employer is of necessity a one way street. Whereas time based markets allow economic reciprocity to extend both ways. Further, time arbitrage allows participating groups to create services wealth by internalizing costs as mutual time commitments.
Hence the previous employer defined efficiency, becomes time efficiency gains on both parts of the exchange. In the latter, a mutual rotating employer/employee relationship is simultaneously one of peers, which is why both sides become counted in the economic exchange. In the former circumstance of employer to employee, efficiency is mostly sought in the form of reduced labour costs on the part of the firm or organization.
In traditional employer relationships, there are specific labour costs which firms or organizations are normally willing to bear. In time arbitrage, labour costs transform into more closely managed time priority costs. This process increases the time commitment potential which participating groups can consider, as functioning work peers. In peer to peer service settings, participating groups can better align not only their workplace time management, but also that of their personal lives.
While personal gains aren't completely captured in economic context, many such gains can still be expressed as matched economic time. Importantly, what gets recorded functions not only as workplace commitments, but also those of personal endeavour in community relationships. Only recall that present day time costs tend to be shifted from organizations to individuals in ways which lack any recorded economic context at all.
In time arbitrage, each individual becomes responsible for roles which become part of aggregate output potential for the group in its entirety. In this context, efficiency matters insofar as what participating individuals and groups deem most worthy of the scarce time at their disposal. Best, technology in these instances is not so much about replacing labour, but instead augmenting the experiential nature of positive time value.
When mutual priorities are taken into consideration, economic efficiencies assume additional meaning in group context. Consider also a utilitarian framing, in which the maximum potential of matched time is an optimal efficiency for the greatest number. Since matched time is reciprocated at the outset, and both providers and recipients value the exchange, its experiential components makes the exchange worthwhile from a productivity standpoint as well.
The problem for traditional services generation in terms of efficiency and productivity, exists at aggregate levels which are not readily discerned by close inspection. For instance, we can't directly observe excess relationships of inputs compared to outputs, because much of this process occurs in separate institutional context - particularly that of formal educational requirements. Yet time arbitrage could reduce this productivity problem incrementally, via input and output synchronicity in decentralized settings where resources are reciprocally aligned.
Time synchronicity also means that perceived labour costs are not borne by society as a whole, but rather by the participating groups which are willing to apply knowledge and skill on directly reciprocal terms. By entering shared time relationships on symmetric terms, the input and output of knowledge production creates a relative market constant, which in turn sets up a sustainable knowledge continuum. Not only are aggregate knowledge gains duly noted, matched time allows participating groups to generate services which do not engender external (general equilibrium) production losses and their associated taxpayer burdens.
When we conceptualize mutual time priorities, efficiency also derives from the standpoint of productive experiential transaction. Part of what particularly matters for providers and recipients alike, is choice in terms of how personal commitments are applied. Even though there is importance in how we "save" time, saving time is nonetheless of secondary importance, in relation to how we hope to "spend" our time.
Once time value is designated as an economic unit, we can highlight what we hope to experience, before we assume the tasks of labour time reductions. While some labour time reductions are needed, given the scarcity of everyone's time, again, we save our priorities before we start to consider what can be cut in terms of mutual obligations. Here lies an important difference between time arbitrage and skills arbitrage, because in the latter, employers are responsible for determining what to cut, rather than individuals. Whereas in time arbitrage, efficiency is more closely associated with positive time quality.
Make Room for Both Practical Endeavour and Intellectual Callings
Much of the personal energy which goes into mutually designed time priorities, would be more challenging than the routine expectations of traditional workplaces - even if occasionally more daunting! Time arbitrage suggests broader definitions for beneficial work, than what employers generally seek from the skills arbitrage of their employees.
Likewise, the work we decide to take on depends on the extent of our current life commitments. There are sometimes major differences between work we perform because bills must be paid, versus work we enjoy regardless of pay. For instance, those with a full set of monthly obligations which include others, are be more willing to opt for practical aspects of matched time, than during life periods when monthly expenses are relatively minimal.
However, one way to ensure ample time for challenging endeavour, is for groups to establish low maintenance environments which are also more temporary than the norm. Locations which are available for a limited amount of time could especially be well suited for such purposes. These low cost arrangements along with their associated infrastructure and building components, would allow group participants to spend more time in mutually desirable work of a more intellectual nature. Nevertheless, in some instances, pursuing personal challenges will also mean circumstance where one does not require fully matched schedules for the duration of personal projects involved.
Sometimes, physical proximity to others is most helpful in terms of simple corroboration or feedback for one's personal projects. This approach nevertheless is similar with projects which benefit from team input, along with an associated form of group time arbitrage which can augment these arrangements. Simpler or practical aspects of feedback are useful in many instances, since some also lack social networks or extended family relationships which would otherwise provide learning stimulus that includes tacit considerations. Even though we can gather much needed information via digital media as well, it definitely helps to have opportunities for discussing relevant concerns with others, before making decisions and acting on them. Economic context for being able to do so, will only become more important in the years ahead.
Generally it is not a good idea to wait till one's "golden years" for a majority of meaningful challenges and excursions. We could all be more careful as to the activities we hope to pursue later in life. For one, we never know when health issues may arise, and health signals in particular are notorious for not providing advance warning! For instance, due to COVID-19, many are already starting to realize that for people over 60, life may never be quite the same as it was before. At the very least, in the event of pandemic going forward, recorded group interactions would make it fairly simple to trace contacts at a community level. In other ways as well, it's not always a simple matter to pursue meaningful experiences later in life. Hopefully, a shared group context for common aspirations in this regard, could help move up timelines that make such aspirations more feasible.
When Does DIY Still Apply?
Even with well functioning markets for time value, not everything in life needs to be slated for matched activities with others. A considerable portion of what we do to increase our own skills capacity, will also be accomplished effectively on our own time - by and for ourselves. In these instances, do it yourself learning could be likened to what we achieve in DIY home projects. When we can readily improve our circumstance on our own terms, while the results might not represent potential gains to group activity, they still contribute to wealth building on our own behalf. Understandably, some of the most confident individuals in society, are people who are adapt at doing for themselves wherever possible.
Still, much of time arbitrage includes the experiential element of wanting to spend time with others, to share what we've previously discovered or perhaps mastered. Once we take time on our own to learn something, time spent with others may become more meaningful, via shared input on commonly held interests and personal challenges. For that matter, learning processes from a young age contain plenty of do it yourself time, before peer to peer and peer to mentor relationships become profitable. Even simple measures regarding do it yourself healthcare needs, could prove useful educational material from a young age.
When is Speed Most Important in Our Work?
Many of us are accustomed to moving quickly to get things done where possible, in part due to traditional workplace expectations. Sometimes - especially when deadlines loom - speed is an important factor for what we accomplish. However, much also depends on the nature of the work involved, and what is at stake beyond specific activities.
Time arbitrage could offer more flexibility in terms of speed, in part because services final product tends to have fewer connections to other activities which need coordination in the same time frame (emergency situations are an important exception here). In many instance participants could opt for more relaxed and deliberate processes rather than rushed circumstance.
There's another consideration, regarding how participants perceive what quality product represents. Occasionally in traditional manufacture, the need to reduce human labour can lead to less than a
quality product result. However when people exchange their time on equal terms, they don't personally lose by taking the additional time necessary to achieve quality product.
Sometimes we also need to slow down when important decision making is part of the process. Shane Parrish offers an apt example in a Farnam Street blog post which highlights In Praise of Slowness by Carl Honore:
Fast eats time. One consequence of fast is that we make poor decision after poor decision. Those poor decisions don't go away never to be seen again. It's not like we make a bad decision and we're done with it. No, the consequence are much worse. Poor decisions eat time. They come back to haunt you...And in a culture where people wear busyness as a badge of honor bad decisions actually lead us to think that we're doing more.The Importance of Maintenance as an Economic Role
Kurt Vonnegut once noted how "Another flaw in the human character is that everyone wants to build and nobody wants to do maintenance." Indeed, building - whether intellectual concepts or physical structures - suggests personal autonomy and freedom, while maintenance may require taking orders from others, possibly working in relative solitude, or both. Not only would participating groups in time arbitrage need a willingness to share maintenance roles, many such roles require preservation to ensure existing wealth is not lost.
Should maintenance roles become neglected in multiple areas and disciplines, the result is entropy which starts to undermine systems of positive economic complexity. Sometimes maintenance is avoided because people prefer other forms of work, but it also becomes neglected when organizations desire additional means to cut costs.
Why does everyone want to build instead? Building is associated with status, which helps explain why historically - in spite of the advantages of widespread trade - nations seek to hoard manufacturing roles instead of sharing them with other countries.
However, building roles are also important because they are obvious sources of wealth origination. A primary challenge for the present is to align other forms of resource capacity - especially applied knowledge - to function as direct sources of wealth. When applied knowledge remains dependent on existing wealth (via taxation), governments tend to become stingy with their time based services distribution. When the process goes on too long, societies start to believe that building profits are no longer sufficient to maintain existing wealth. We need to ensure that vital forms of applied knowledge are no longer viewed as a drain on the primary resources of nations.
A Work Life That Individuals Could Return to As Needed
Time arbitrage also serves as a social contract for mutual assistance associated with safety net functions. Toward this end, the main request from governments might be for matched time to qualify as a form of basic minimum wage. However, instead of creating a fiscal obligation, time arbitrage would function alongside an asset structure which - as new wealth - meets its representation in the form of new monetary creation. Even though government work guarantees are a policy option to this approach, the fiscal assistance of the latter would be one sided - hence lacking the non hierarchical nature of voluntary mutual assistance. Instead, time arbitrage would create decentralized and local community options in response to unemployment issues.
Nevertheless, many will understandably desire work via more traditional terms where possible, especially when traditional employee roles include sufficient compensation to be worthwhile. Indeed, in the prime of life, many would remain able to secure more desirable forms of work for decades at a time. However, some citizens who are (eventually) born into time arbitrage systems, may desire to return at various points in life and even maintain limited levels of time matching. After all, doing so would make it simpler to one day return to the relative security of time arbitrage - especially to gain additional time insurance security for retirement needs. For some, these communities would be the home one hopes to return to eventually, once "greener pastures" and other opportunities have already taken place.
What's more, a home community option might only become more important as Social Security (here in the U.S.) becomes less able to address ordinary retirement needs. What's more, this is assuming that we are able to keep our retirement system intact. Older citizens would especially find walkable communities desirable, should they reduce traveling or perhaps abandon automobile ownership altogether. Doubtless, there are millions of younger citizens as well who would gladly adopt lifestyles which don't require the expenses and obligations of auto ownership.
In short, being able to return to time arbitrage communities as needed, could help prevent life's inevitable setbacks from spinning out of control. Even for those who no longer have family members in such knowledge use systems, one's recorded work share history from younger days would still provide a functional memory for local citizens, as to what one is capable of. Indeed, any time insurance accrued with older citizens during the years of one's youth, would still be there for one's eventual retirement needs as well.
Local Community as New Networks for Combined Specialization
Today's professionals sometimes carry extensive burdens, in the extent of knowledge they are expected to acquire before they can finally begin their working lives. Whereas time arbitrage would function as a stair step and incremental approach to acquired knowledge, from a young age. Not only would more specialization be appropriate where knowledge requirements are extensive, when specialization requires specific procedures, these learning processes would be distributed more broadly among group participants than is the case in professional organizational patterns. An incremental approach would allow learners to assume active roles in applied knowledge, via "learn as you go" processes, well before they have the chance to forget what has already been absorbed.
Information changes quickly, and the knowledge of some fields has exploded in part to the many different countries which now participate in these processes. Hence some percentage of acquired studies become obsolete before professional graduates can even apply in the workplace what they have learned. Importantly, this also helps explain why human capital in some areas has become so expensive for societies to maintain, since much of it is expressed as scarce time services hours. One danger for some nations, is an inability to support learned professions to the extent supply side capacity remains secure.
Technology could also contribute to simpler learning procedures for citizens who commit to applied knowledge in local settings. Of technology, Ricardo Hausmann explains:
Technology is three forms of knowledge: embodied knowledge in tools and materials, codified knowledge in recipes and protocols, and how-to manuals, and tacit knowledge or knowhow in brains. We can have more tools and gadgets, more books and manuals, or more documents at our disposal on the web, but we do not have the capacity at the individual level to ram more stuff into our brains. For technology to grow, it needs to imprint different bits of knowhow in different brains. Societies become more knowledgeable not because individuals know more but because they know different things.The same divisions of labour which function so well in tradable sectors, given the chance, could also function more efficiently in non tradable sector activity. Group time arbitrage especially provides opportunities for people to observe one another in close range, when knowledge diffusion is best achieved via the efforts of teams.
Experimentation as a Platform
Experimentation in social structures could produce outsize rewards, by encouraging individuals to stay in contact with others to a degree that new services patterns become a natural part of life. Many could benefit from regular community prompts for shared time, especially those who lose the impetus or ability to remain in close contact with others as they age. Community prompts for social engagement would reinforce the economic framing for personal interaction. Not only would ongoing calendared activities encourage regular communication, but also lead to useful activities and shared experiences as sources of comfort and inspiration.
Ultimately, social prompts could prevent individuals from becoming too isolated in their own communities. In other words, shared calendar scheduling routines could function as socially and monetarily reinforced habits. For that matter, social isolation tends to occur because we are creatures of habit. Sendhil Mullainathan stresses that habits are so powerful, we overemphasize the present by persisting with them: "One study estimated that 47% of human behaviors are of the habitual variety." Indeed, trying something new is sometimes painful. What if we don't like what we get? That means forgoing something we felt certain we would enjoy, hence is an immediate cost.
Design for Spatial Life/Work Flexibility
There is actually a relative constant in the amount of time people are willing to spend commuting to their jobs every day. According to Jonathan English, it works out to approximately 30 minutes one way. Alas, as transportation achieved greater speeds, cities grew in size to reflect those transportation gains. One difficulty in this circumstance is that our ability to walk places in order get things done, has been greatly compromised. As streets grew more congested, it became increasingly difficult during the course of a day to apportion time among varied purposes.
However, there are other considerations as well. Large cities allowed companies and organizations to become very selective about skills sets for hiring, which in turn led to wide differentiation in income. Now, imagine this process in reverse. One benefit in utilizing time value symmetrically, is that small communities become able to accomplish many more purposes despite limited population densities. In other words, walkable community becomes feasible alongside productive economic complexity. For some, that combination would be the best of both worlds.
Walkable community means greater flexibility in work options for all concerned. The authors of one study noted that "Older Americans, even those who are long retired, have strong willingness to work, especially in jobs with flexible schedules."Only consider how a variety of activities within easy reach, could encourage older citizens to remain engaged in their communities for as long as they are able.
Part of services experimentation, depends on actual numbers of citizens and their natural inclinations. According to one study for example, people regularly return to a maximum of 25 places during specific life periods. Apparently this extensive project (40,000 mobile traces from four different datasets) was the first of its kind to investigate people's mobility over time and study how their behavior changes. Estimates such as these may provide useful clues for local design patterns in new communities, where shared interests can become an important part of the process.
Time Utilized Equally is Still Scarce Time
There are differences between coordinating our time equally with others, versus expecting to match as though though our efforts will equal out. Alas, since this isn't always possible, how we mutually manage time priorities with others is a matter of patience and understanding. When we are considerate of efforts on offer, and in turn do the best we can, everyone has a chance of benefiting from the exchange.
Acknowledging the reality of mutual time scarcity, provides a clean slate for sharing knowledge and skill through purposeful group alignment. Nevertheless, time scarcity means we still have to carefully choose the moments we are able to share with others. Our availability for time matching might be even more limited, should we presently lack common interests with others in our midst. In such instances, there's a good chance we also need to be our own best friend and support system. However, with a little luck, these could also be life moments when there are tremendous sources of inspiration from afar - inspiration which after making its own demands on our time and energy, gradually transforms us and prepares us to reach out to others once more.
Time Utilized Equally is a Natural Coordination Mechanism
When people coordinate mutually desired activities according to the time at their disposal, a natural price taking process for services is set into motion. As resource capacity becomes better established, individuals become better able to discern accurate price signals in relation to existing group priorities.
There's an apt corollary to this process, in tradable sector commodities and goods. These contain understandable price signals which result from a full utilization of available resource capacity. Time arbitrage attempts to accomplish the same, only in this instance complete resource capacity becomes the economic time potential of the group.
Contrast this approach with skills arbitrage, which - since it only captures a portion of human capital potential - faces difficulties in offering accurate price signals in time based services for entire populations. Indeed, when careful observers question whether general equilibrium value is a reliable construct, time value imbalances are an important part of the equation.
Start Simply and Move Forward Gradually
Time arbitrage does not have to be overly complicated at the outset. For that matter, some would start with assistance as simple as being present for others. From here, group participants can build momentum via skills and suggestions, once relationships are better established. Building trust understandably takes time, insofar as mutual time priorities are concerned.
Some participants may experience stress while getting used to direct negotiation, if their opportunities for this valuable process have been limited in the past. For those who struggle yet desire to stay engaged, patience is key. It's okay to ask others for additional assistance in basic negotiation processes, indeed doing so is encouraged. Even if people have ample opportunities for social engagement when young or at least in the prime of their working years, these social graces can be gradually lost again as one ages, especially for those who become isolated.
One place to begin, is activities we enjoy providing for friends and family. Might group participants enjoy sharing some of these activities? Likewise, the older we are, the more likely we have accumulated experiences or skills we would still enjoy sharing with others, even if we don't often have the chance to do so.
These are just some of the possibilities that can be discussed in exploratory group settings. Just thinking about what people already have to offer in the here and now, helps exploratory groups get beyond thinking about time commitments as extensive repetitive blocks of single skills. Plus, smaller communities need more skills variance and smaller time commitments to specific skill sets, than what cities tend to require.
Even when starting out, it helps to consider the bigger picture in terms of matching possibilities. What might we have done differently in life early on, had someone been available who could just listen and offer feedback as needed? Answers to this question need hardly be as complicated as one might imagine.
Bringing Economic Meaning to Our Personal Best
Although our labours for employers allow us to pursue a personal best in terms of the skills they seek, what if this "institutional best" is only part of our identity? When we create economic value for what may have been hidden time priorities, we lend economic meaning and structure to spontaneous forms of our personal best.
Our personal best also tends to be more a process of internal competition. It's less about competing with others in certain skills sets, than a focused intent to exceed our own previous efforts. When we apply this to the developing entrepreneurship of our time offers, market potential emerges as we shine a light on the subject of our interest and passion. In a marketplace for time value, we bring additional meaning to our personal best.
For Ourselves or for Others? Clarity is Needed
If we believe some work activities to be vitally important, do we actually have willing takers for that activity we wish to provide, or would the individuals we have in mind select something different if they are able? In particular, some aspects of housework fall into this murky category, and since some prefer that housework become a paid component of GDP, this choice dichotomy needs to be emphasized. But what if something we enjoy cooking isn't exactly what family members want to eat everyday? Matched exchanges for economic purposes are time dependent. Each of us only wants or needs so much of certain activities or provisions, before we shift toward different sets of activities and provisions.
What's important in this regard, when considering housework as economic potential, is the extent to which a considerable amount of housework in the course of our lives is voluntary. When we want to do something specifically for ourselves, this is not economic nor does it need to be, because we would do it in any instance if we could. For much of our lives, the majority of our housework we choose not because someone else needs it, but because we want what those activities provide for our own circumstance and experience. Economic framing for what we do is most functional, when it encourages useful and important activity which benefits both providers and recipients equally.
That said, there are some important exceptions in domestic responsibilities which could benefit from a marketplace for time value. Some of the most important in this regard, are routine maintenance activities that few can really afford to do on a full time basis because doing so simply does not pay the bills to an extent one can live a normal life. How to know when domestic responsibilities could benefit from an economic framework?
We know the difference, when we may be willing to fulfill those responsibilities, yet doing so means having to neglect or possibly even set aside permanently, other important life priorities. It's worth detailing these differences in how we conceptualize marketplace for time value, because we no longer have the forms of extended family which once once provided a vital form of social insurance for times in life when family members happen to need an exceptional amount of assistance. And some of the twentieth century institutions which evolved to fulfill these needs, are essentially out of reach of lower income levels. Consequently, here is where a marketplace for time value is particularly needed.
Consider how present day markets also tend to some of these responsibilities with low paid work. Again, the problem for these workers is that - like family members - they may have to set aside other life priorities should they be expected to shoulder these responsibilities in ways that mean other life priorities need to be permanently set aside. Again, this is why time arbitrage would emphasize a sharing of work at all skill levels, so that all participants can retain the ability to be fully responsible to one another and live normal lives.
Learning as Mutual Exploratory Processes
Learning in general has different meanings in a 21st century economy, than the specific functions people were often expected to learn in - or for - workplaces in earlier centuries. What is especially important, is that the education of our youth is wasted, if it is mostly conceptualized as creating "good citizens". Indeed, even if this were the expressed intent, it's difficult for anyone to become a good citizen, if exposure to knowledge leaves no room for one perceptions or interpretations as part of the actual learning process.
How we feel about what is presented to us, is an experiential process which brings our identity into the setting, thereby making it more likely that shared knowledge becomes part of our long term memory. Knowledge is useful not only for thinking and doing, but also for experiencing. Time arbitrage could help both providers and receivers manage the experience so it creates more value for both. A focus on the experience itself, makes it easier to get beyond knowledge as rote or fixed, and creates additional context for reasoning and logic. It's not just about what knowledge can supposedly do, but also the extent to which mutual participation in knowledge creates additional interest for all concerned. More than anything, the peer to peer educational framing creates a two way street for participation.
AI Adaptation at a Grassroots Level
Just as technology has reduced labour hours in relation to final product, artificial intelligence could reduce the labour hours which otherwise would make further investment in human capital necessary on our part, before learning inputs translate into time product output. However, AI assisted reductions in human capital inputs could occasionally prove more effective where specific procedural roles are most obvious. Even though AI presently adds benefits for proprietors and upper management, it holds great potential to improve economic outcomes for individual skills capacity, not to mention the economic potential of millions of small communities.
Digital memory reduces the hours necessary for human capital input, in relation to output for time based product requiring knowledge and skill. How so? By requiring less mental "storage on the part of specific individuals. The result would be greater efficiency for what both individuals and groups alike are able to achieve, in terms of overall services coordination. Artificial intelligence could bring greater value to the symmetrical alignment of mutual priorities which contribute to a dynamic services based marketplace. Once time based priorities become capable of purchasing the time priorities others value, wealth aligns in a result of greater aggregate output in relation to input.
Eventually, digitally assisted mutual employment could lead to greater market capacity for a wide range of services generation. Since time based product is important for all concerned, everyone has a personal stake in time based services outcomes. This is why it is so important to integrate technology more directly for activities which are integral to our everyday lives.
Decades earlier, there was little need for many individuals to be personally invested in technology outcomes which were primarily associated with tradable sector production. However, much has changed. Should AI remain mostly limited to upper management, our time based services markets and personal potential as human beings, would remain incomplete. Importantly, becoming part of AI technology processes also allows us to define and preserve the forms of time based activity that are most important to us. Some are vital because they allow us to pursue our intellectual challenges. Others hold meaning because they can strengthen our mutual connections at local levels.
New Roles For Generational Knowledge Transfers
One of the more unfortunate aspects of formal schooling, as it gradually unfolded, was the loss of generational knowledge transfer in local communities. Is it possible to recapture some of what older generations were once able to pass down to their children? In part, it's the loss of these roles which has not only led to isolation among the elderly, but has left them bereft of meaningful roles in old age.
However, once local communities are able to create applied knowledge continuum, the wisdom of earlier generations will not be so readily lost. In particular, older citizens would share with younger citizens what their generation brought to local communities in their youth and prime, for these applied efforts would remain part of each community's economic history. Since even cutting edge knowledge relies heavily on past knowledge gains, this reliance could once again be reflected in the earlier contributions of older citizens.
Communities which take part in the creation and maintenance of a local knowledge continuum, would encourage all local citizens to take part during the course of their lifetime to the best of their ability. While this process would look different from the generational knowledge transfer of earlier times, there would nonetheless be parallels that bring a more practical and useful side of education back into community participation as a whole.
The Knowledge Production Factory as a Diverse Bookstore
It's possible to envision knowledge use systems such as time arbitrage would employ, both as a intellectual production factory and a diverse bookstore at the same time. While the symmetry of matched assistance can create greater time efficiency for individual and group alike, the bookstore concept suggests ways in which different applied and experiential knowledge might grow a local knowledge continuum, over time. In particular, the bookstore framing of sectional possibilities, could build a momentum for long term growth and preservation of knowledge.
Imagine local services generation as a knowledge production factory. Whereas many knowledge based services have required extensive input before services output ever became possible, time arbitrage allows services generation to become a more one on one process in terms of provider and recipient. In other words, education, instead of being a decades long process of input requirements, becomes a process of wealth creation in terms of individual enhancement. Each person contributes to the other in a building block process to share information, knowledge and skill.
While specialization and intellectual challenge would be a part of ongoing activities, they would not necessarily be expected to comprise the main purpose of social interchange in every instance. Greater flexibility in this regard, allow knowledge and information to be more flexible in both interpretation and application. Time arbitrage can allow knowledge and skill to reflect the local nature of circumstance in which it is applied, and spontaneous responses as we learn to once again keep up with one another in useful social interchange.
Finding Meaning in What We Do
How to explain, why work matters so much for how we live our lives? Many have noted how unemployment often feels as though an almost existential loss of meaning. Timothy Taylor describes how even economists struggle to explain to students, why loss of work becomes so disconcerting:
It's straightforward enough to note that elevated unemployment leads to loss of economic output, lower tax payments, and greater need for government welfare benefits. I can refer to evidence on how unemployment is connected to social ills like bankruptcy, divorce, depression, and even suicide. But this listing of consequences, while a necessary part of teaching the economics of unemployment, doesn't quite touch the human heart of the issue.In other words, these descriptions don't touch on work as an immersive experience for one's soul, which goes beyond simple notions of utility or practicality. For this reason, Taylor sought out a more meaningful example with an illustrative poem from Marge Piercy:
"To be of use"
The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half submerged balls.
I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
who do what has to be done, again and again.
I want to be with people who submerge
in the task, who go into the fields to harvest
and work in a row and pass the bags along,
who stand in the line and haul in their places,
who are not parlor generals and field deserters
but move in a common rhythm
when the food must come in or the fire be put out.
The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.
(Marge Piercy 1973)
There's a balancing act to finding meaning in our work which - with a little luck - becomes more obvious to us over time, as we try to make the most of our efforts. Sometimes we are fortunate enough to find personal meaning in sufficient quantities in both our work and in private lives.
But what if it is difficult to do so? Sometimes our intellectual challenges are not our actual workplace options, particularly in the short term. To some extent it depends on how those challenges resonate with us at a deeper level. If we feel certain they do, then we try to keep these challenges close, even as we seek out more pragmatic and useful work in the present which others clearly need, and can reimburse us for providing.
Hence what we hope for, is to be able to choose workplace options that still leave space and energy to pursue work which is meaningful to us for reasons we can't always fully explain to others. It should be noted as well, we should not wait too long in life to pursue work which holds particular meaning for our soul. We simply don't know the extent to our abilities to return to such work later on in life, when sometimes we lose the physical and mental stamina which are necessary for such pursuits.
As to human capital investment and the work that challenges us, this also tends to change as we age. More specifically, it helps to cover our bases when we are young with a wide range of studies, because these are precisely what is more difficult to learn as we grow older.
Economic Inclusion Leads to More Output, Less Reliance on Merit
When we find ways to include more individuals in our mutual priorities and services exchange, the result is greater service options for all involved. While insistence on quality product is understandable, it should not be enforced in ways that leave too many individuals and communities on the sidelines in what has become a knowledge centered economy. Hence where skill is lacking, a primary community goal would be to ensure more individuals gain the skills that residents seek.
Since the goal is not to isolate the best talent but to improve all talent in these settings, one could imagine human capital in time arbitrage as a farm in which all plants are encouraged to grow to the fullest extent possible, which means irrigation and soil improvements apply to all plants, not just the strongest ones.
Fortunately, this rationale for economic inclusion, has a substantive economic framework in terms of long term growth potential. Ultimately, total factor productivity and growth gains in GDP, depends on hourly contributions to workplace activity. What we already observe is that the more output, the greater the economic potential. Less reliance on merit means greater output, and fortunately it is feasible to improve all output without automatically culling that which has previously been deemed not suitable for inclusion.
Work Journey and the Path to Completion
When we become responsible for the management of our own time, there may also be a tendency to become our own harshest judge. What about personal projects which never realize full completion? Much depends on the nature of these projects, and the fact many don't necessarily have to result in a culmination point which resembles what is achieved in more traditional workplaces.
Still, when we set goals which make clear what needs to be done within specific time frames, deadlines in turn become our friend. Once we achieve what we set out to do, the sense of accomplishment we can gain is quite warranted. And in many instances, looking back on earlier projects which may have lacked a similar sense of completion, we may recognize how earlier efforts were part of a process of evolution in identity. Sometimes we are not yet ready to present to others, what may in fact be not quite complete in our own minds. In these instances it becomes more a matter of making peace with our own level of evolution, for it is no quick matter in life to determine how our own observations could prove unique or relevant. All the more so, given the high level of interchange in today's dialogue.
Not Utopia, But Utopia Isn't the Point
Not every start up or endeavour will work out, nor should it be expected to. However, the ones that do, would give individuals and groups new economic options which otherwise would not have seemed possible. New communities would give life to recent ideas, plus new settings for those who seek common ground in in time coordinated context.
Hopefully readers will find something of use in the suggestions of this chapter and indeed the entire book, as a starting point for experimentation in new community. Even though I've often been skeptical of my own efforts, I've gradually gained confidence in conceptualizing services as an economic construct for the better part of the last two decades. Nevertheless there are many others who could do a better job than myself, in bringing a strong human focus to these potential economic settings and possibilities.
At the very least, I've tried to stress that economically, we are a long way from fully realized potential in time based services generation. A further exploration of these areas could mean more freedom in determining how we work and live among one another. There are so many processes of discovery which could eventually culminate in something more egalitarian and natural than what we are trying to live with presently, especially our current services institutions.
What's most important for prosperity and long term growth prospects, is whether or not we create the most economic utility possible, for as many citizens as possible. However, when it comes to time and place, the best way to achieve real services utility is at local levels. By focusing on core aspects of production and consumption in this regard, we create clarity in debates about natural scarcity and existing inequalities, as well.
Notes
Make Room for Both Practical Endeavour and Intellectual Callings
Horovitz, Bruce, 'Life will never be the same for people over 60 - even with a COVID-19 vaccine', marketwatch.com, 19 August 2020.
When is Speed Most Important in Our Work?
Honore, Carl, In Praise of Slowness: Challenging the Cult of Speed, (New York, NY: HarperCollins, 2005)
The Importance of Maintenance as an Economic Role
Vonnegut, Kurt, Hocus Pocus, (New York, NY: Putnam, 1990).
Local Community as New Networks for Combined Specialization
Hausmann, Ricardo, 'Does the West Know What Technology Wants?', Project Syndicate, 27 June 2018.
Experimentation as a Platform
Mullainathan, Sendhil, 'Why Trying New Things is So Hard to Do', New York Times, December 2017, Wood, Wendy, 'Habits Across the Lifespan', Researchgate, January 2006.
Design for Spatial Life/Work Flexibility
English, Jonathan, 'The Commuting Principle That Shaped Urban History', citylab.com, 29 August 2019.
Ameriks, John, etc. 'Older Americans Would Work Longer if Jobs Were Flexible.' NBER paper 24008, 29 November, 2017.
Stevenson, John, 'At any point in life, people spend their time in 25 places, phys.org, City University, London, 27 June 2018. Alessandretti, Laura, etc., 'Evidence for a conserved quantity in human mobility', nature.com, U.K., 18 June 2018.
Finding Meaning in What We Do
Taylor, Timothy, 'Marge Piercy on Why Work Matters', Conversable Economist, 2 September 2019.
Piercy, Marge, Circles on the Water: Selected Poems of Marge Piercy, (New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1982).
Economic Inclusion Leads to More Output, Less Reliance on Merit
Morgan, John and Tumlinson, Justin and Vardy, Felix, 'The Limits of Meritocracy', SSRN abstract 3216950, 21 August 2018.
Horovitz, Bruce, 'Life will never be the same for people over 60 - even with a COVID-19 vaccine', marketwatch.com, 19 August 2020.
When is Speed Most Important in Our Work?
Honore, Carl, In Praise of Slowness: Challenging the Cult of Speed, (New York, NY: HarperCollins, 2005)
The Importance of Maintenance as an Economic Role
Vonnegut, Kurt, Hocus Pocus, (New York, NY: Putnam, 1990).
Local Community as New Networks for Combined Specialization
Hausmann, Ricardo, 'Does the West Know What Technology Wants?', Project Syndicate, 27 June 2018.
Experimentation as a Platform
Mullainathan, Sendhil, 'Why Trying New Things is So Hard to Do', New York Times, December 2017, Wood, Wendy, 'Habits Across the Lifespan', Researchgate, January 2006.
Design for Spatial Life/Work Flexibility
English, Jonathan, 'The Commuting Principle That Shaped Urban History', citylab.com, 29 August 2019.
Ameriks, John, etc. 'Older Americans Would Work Longer if Jobs Were Flexible.' NBER paper 24008, 29 November, 2017.
Stevenson, John, 'At any point in life, people spend their time in 25 places, phys.org, City University, London, 27 June 2018. Alessandretti, Laura, etc., 'Evidence for a conserved quantity in human mobility', nature.com, U.K., 18 June 2018.
Finding Meaning in What We Do
Taylor, Timothy, 'Marge Piercy on Why Work Matters', Conversable Economist, 2 September 2019.
Piercy, Marge, Circles on the Water: Selected Poems of Marge Piercy, (New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1982).
Economic Inclusion Leads to More Output, Less Reliance on Merit
Morgan, John and Tumlinson, Justin and Vardy, Felix, 'The Limits of Meritocracy', SSRN abstract 3216950, 21 August 2018.
