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This post will be a bit long but I hope it’s worth it. I’ve been working out a concept of an ideal society over the past few days. I’ve been especially thinking about the problem of scarcity and how it affects the distribution of goods. Usually, scarcity is a problem when there are not enough goods for the people who want them. However, there have been certain goods, especially recently, that have the opposite problem: scarcity is non-existent, and it costs nothing to have it distributed infinitely (music, movies, other types of data). An article on Cracked actually explains the problem really well:

http://www.cracked.com/article_18817_5-reasons-future-will-be-ruled-by-b.s..html

In a quick summary, the article basically points out how advertisers are already convincing us to pay money for things we can get for free (tap water, music, etc.). This will have to happen in more and more areas as our increased efficiency leads to less and less scarcity. The article also points out how labor is eventually going to be less and less valuable; we’ve already replaced most manufacturing jobs with machines. What happens when less and less people are needed in the workforce?

My solution begins by eliminating all forms of currency, paper or otherwise. This is a pretty insane proposition, but I think it could work. Goods and services would be transferred without any money involved, and jobs wouldn’t be paid in currency. The way this would work would be by establishing several “classes” of jobs. So far, I feel that a 5 level system would be optimal, and it’d go like this:

Level 1-No job.

Level 2-Basic/introductory job. Examples would be introductory business positions, any type of job a high-school/college student would do, etc.

Level 3-Career job. Examples would be stable business positions, small business managers, bus drivers.

Level 4-Significant Contribution to Society job. Examples would be teachers, engineers, doctors, successful business owners.

Level 5-Exceptional Contribution to Society. Examples would be presidents, nobel prize winners.

The distribution of goods would depend on these levels. The greater availability of a good, the more levels it can be distributed to. If you are at level 1, then you can freely consume any goods or services available to level 1. If you are level 3, then you can freely consume any goods or services available to levels 1-3. And so forth. Here’s how it would work:

At Level 1 you would get everything that is essential to live the minimal standard of life: food, water, minimal housing, healthcare, and education at any level. Further, you would get everything that can be produced enough for everyone: data (music, movies, tv), maybe certain types of mass produced furniture, etc.

At Level 2, you would get everything Level 1 gets and anything that can be produced enough to handle Levels 2-5. I’d guess this would include small luxuries such as restaurants, easily produced cars, and so forth.

On each subsequent level, the concept is the same. Level 5 gets any goods available, and each level down gets what can be produced enough to handle that need.

Quick side note: If something can be produced for levels 3-5, there is no priority for that good in distribution. So a level 5 wouldn’t be able to “cut in line” in front of a level 3, it’d be first come first serve.

The other end of the equation involves how you decide which job gets which Level. To begin with, I’d assign a level to each job based on how much it contributes to society (as I did earlier in the post). But these levels would have to fluctuate depending on a few things:

1. Degree of difficulty

2. Education needed

3. Other appealing factors of the job

If any of those three factors is too high to justify the current level, the level should be raised. Here’s basically how it would work:

How much of a certain good needs to be produced to provide for the level it is currently being distributed to? How many workers does it take to meet that level of production (and how skilled must these workers be)?

If there aren’t enough workers, or not enough skilled workers willing to do the job, then you raise the level of the job to attract more/higher skilled workers.

This system would result in a different form of supply/demand economics. Raising/decreasing levels of jobs would be the focus of the entire “economy”. As noted already, raising levels of jobs would be the method of increasing interest in jobs to produce more of that good/service. If there are too many jobs at a high level, and as a whole the system of goods cannot support it, then you devalue the jobs that are not as necessary or have a high enough demand at a lower level to sustain the output of the good/service.

This might be clearer in my head than it is to a reader, so I’ll outline an example of how a real world example would work:

Imagine starting a business selling tacos. You get the ingredients from farmers for free, perhaps needing to arrange with the farmers for higher amounts of food than normal for your business. You file a petition with the government to grant you a certain number of “jobs”. Let’s say that, to maintain the business at first, you need 4 entry level workers. So you apply for that and get one level 3 job for being a small business owner, and 4 level 2 jobs as workers. To justify keeping these jobs, you need to produce enough meals for people. Let’s say you do, and actually you produce a lot of meals for people. Since you are providing goods to people (level 1 goods), your business has enough value to justify the jobs. If you produce less than enough meals, or if not enough people are interested in your tacos, then you are no longer providing enough meals to justify the 5 total jobs and would get either closed or downsized. If you produce more than enough, then you could apply for more level 2 jobs. If your business keeps growing, so would the amount/quality of the jobs.

Obviously with any system, there are going to be kinks that need to be worked out. But as a base theory, I think it could work. Unlike other “utopian” government ideals, it keeps the “profit” motive that drives competition and industry. Instead of striving for more money though, you are striving for a higher level job.

Here are some possible objections, and my responses to each:

1. It puts too much control in the government

- This is true, and in the past giving that much control to governments lead to horrible things. But I honestly think things would be different in this system, as there is no money to corrupt. In every government since the invention of currency, money has equaled power. Controlling more of it means controlling more power. If you give government complete control of the currency (ala communism) you give the government complete power.

This system, on the other hand, has no money. No bribes are possible. Hiring a private army is impossible. Having the army be loyal to you, rather than the country, is impossible without money.

Further, in this system, the power is still with the people (I’m still for democracy). You vote the people with whom you agree with, just like you do today. If they do things that are corrupt, then you get rid of them.

2. People wouldn’t be motivated to work.

-I think evidence points against this. It is true, at level 1 (no job) you can live a comfortable life with food, water, clothing, etc. and never have to work a day in your life. Some people would choose this, and I think it’s a great thing that humanity could have this option.

But most people are not satisfied with just getting by in life. Ambition makes us want more and more goods, and makes us want to climb the social ladder.

Think of it this way: we already have welfare, food stamps, and ways to get free healthcare. You can never work and survive in life this way. Do you want to? Or you can work a minimally committed minimum wage job and get by decently well by yourself. Do you want to? Not to mention the fact that you can get free food, water, and shelter for life in prison.

I believe we naturally want to achieve, and not as many people as some fear would simply not work their entire lives. Which brings me to my next objection:

3. By having levels of jobs, you create a much more strictly defined class system in society.

-Yes, but this is intentional. A classless society sounds nice in theory, and I wish it could be maintained, but I don’t see how. I strongly believe in the idea of Thomas Hobbes that humans are naturally competitive-we want to be relatively better than those around us, whether from pride or from instinct. It’s one of the key sources of conflict that Hobbes believes inevitably lead us to war.

In our current society, we try to work our way up for higher paying jobs. Why? The extra money is a good motive, but are we really motivated solely by the ability to purchase more goods? I think it’d be foolish to claim that. What drives a lot of people, right or wrong, is the desire to be in the “higher” part of society. Working as a doctor, lawyer, or high businessman is considered high class. To prove this, think about the appeal of expensive cars, particularly Rolls Royce’s. Is there a practical reason to spend so much more on a Rolls Royce than a Corolla, or even a mid-luxury car? It obviously isn’t efficiency, and it isn’t power as there are other cars that are significantly faster than Rolls Royces. Yet having one is a mark of being high-class, and thus is sought after.

So basically, we as a society need classes to get us to strive to move our way up in society. I think this system works especially well, as the “high-class” jobs would be valued based on their contributions to society, rather than how well they can turn a profit.

4. There wouldn’t be enough goods produced to satisfy everyone’s needs.

-This is false. The only goods not still dependent on laws of supply/demand are those necessary for life. Food, water, clothing however, can be produced enough to satisfy everyone’s needs even with today’s technology. Money is literally the only thing standing in the way of this.

5. This would be impossible to transition into.

-This is almost true. In today’s society, it might be impossible. The only way this system works is in a global economy. There can’t be one country that has this system while everyone else uses currency, as it would end trade. In a global economy, we could maintain global dependence and trade.

The biggest problem would be goods that are not replenishable by labor, like oil. In today’s society, oil would be consumed almost immediately without money restricting its use. But, I don’t see this as a problem as this system would never be implemented in today’s society. It’s going to take a long, long time for a universal government to exist. By that time (when this system could be implemented), I highly doubt we’ll still be using oil or any other limited resource as fuel.

Why this system is needed:

As stated earlier, we are going to need less and less jobs to satisfy everyone’s needs. What happens to people who can’t find work?

Why this system is a utopia:

Think of what this system would entail. World hunger, gone. Poverty, gone. Corporate greed, gone. Petty theft, gone. Most crime, gone (poverty is the top cause of crime).

People would be able to pursue the life they want, and not have to worry about going hungry. Further, people would on a much larger scale work toward causes that benefit humanity, rather than what is profitable. Imagine how many people would work at charities, or start new movements to clean up the earth or plant trees. They’d all have jobs and be able to support themselves, all while improving the world. People would be able to do whats necessary to get the job they want, instead of taking an awful job they don’t want in order to feed themselves.

While it doesn’t necessarily entail it, war might end entirely. What is there to fight over (besides maybe religion)?

Lastly, it eliminates the problem of artificial scarcity. All businesses would produce the maximum number of goods/services that society would demand, rather than portion it out to those who could afford it. The new focus for businesses would simply be on quality of goods (so people will want it), rather than cost efficiency.

I hope those who read the whole thing found this interesting and clear. If there are any questions that I didn’t answer, please ask in the comments. Same if there are any objections. I may be foolish for thinking so, but I believe society is going to end up using a system like this someday. Hopefully it’ll be sooner than I’m predicting, but who knows.