I recently had the pleasure of wasting two minutes of my life that I'll never get back watching a video about a resource-based economy. For those who don't know, the Venus Project has, at its goal, the creation of what they call a "resource-based economy." What is that? Well, the short answer is communism. The long answer is also communism...with robots. To the Venus Project, systems of exchange create unequal statuses among people (even barter apparently is not equal enough), so their answer is the abolition of states and the implementation of intelligent resource management such that everyone's needs are met. No hunger, no thirst, no lack of medical care; these are all the stated end results of abolishing property ownership, money, and governments, replacing traditional social structures for resource management with a system of technology.
Sounds idyllic right? That's cause it's an absurd disaster waiting to happen.
There are a couple of interrelated problems with this system, but I think it can be best summed up by the contradiction that arises from the stated goals on their website:
In a Resource Based Economy all goods and services are available to all people without the need for means of exchange such as money, credits, barter or any other means. For this to be achieved all resources must be declared as the common heritage of all Earth’s inhabitants.
Okay, chief, then riddle me this: if all resources are common heritage of all people, how can all goods and services be available to all people without some system of exchange? The only way this is even conceivable is if those providing services are enslaved to those who desire the service. Never mind the massive flaw in the reasoning that all resources are the common heritage of all people; there's a reason why the tragedy of the commons is an economic problem that is debated to this day. Simply saying that everything belongs to everyone solves nothing, and it creates way more problems than the ones you're trying to solve in the first place.
The solution proposed is to use technology, which, in their mind at least, tries to circumvent the fact that making goods and services available to everyone for free enslaves the producers. Never mind the question of who controls the machines; that's conveniently ignored since everything is commonly owned. All that aside, though, no magical robotic system is going to make communism successful. Communism, like it's preceding socioeconomic step socialism, are incapable of accurately dealing with the myriad goals found among the myriad people it's supposed to be practiced on. It's called the economic calculation problem. Essentially, if a central agency or group (in this case, the machine intelligence that doles everything out to everyone) attempts to allocate resources, it will be unable to allocate them efficiently because it lacks the necessary information to do so. There's no way of accurately accounting for the ever-changing ocean of goals and desires that human beings dream up.
Want to know something that does accurately measure people's desires and demands? Prices!
I know, I'm a greedy, heartless capitalist for supporting prices, and, by extension, systems of exchange. Here's the thing though: prices allow people to make decisions based on the scarcity of goods as compared to how immediately they're being used. Prices reflect the demand of a good against the supply of that good. Thanks to prices, we can realize that a turkey sandwich is worth less than, say, an ingot of gold; turkey sandwiches are easy to manufacture and the goods necessary to produce them are plentiful, whereas gold is much rarer and in vastly higher demand. Prices allow individual market actors to make economic decisions about how best to use their time and their own resources in exchange for others, to achieve the greatest ends they prefer.
Without prices, there's no way to determine which goods are best applied to what ends. Without prices, resources are allocated to whatever ends the central authority (machine intelligence - I mean, really, who wants to be ruled by machines?) decides are best suited. This ignores the vast number of other ends those resources could be used for more efficiently, and it creates mountains of waste. Central planning, even when done by an impartial computer, fails every single time.
What's the best way to express prices? Money!
Money is simply something that can be substituted in place of actual goods or services, rather than trading the goods and services themselves. Sure, barter works, but it's burdensome on everybody. How many eggs can I get for my gently-used pair of Nike sneakers? The question sounds absurd, but that's essentially what needs to be answered in any barter system: how can wants coincide when everything has to be traded at a 1:1 exchange?
That's where money comes in. Money - real money, not fiat currency - is generally not easily reproducible, is more valuable in exchange than what it could be used for, and is portable, among other qualities. Jared Howe has a pretty good write-up of the difference between money and currency, and what makes good money, so I won't delve to deeply into it here. What is important for this particular discussion is that, because exchanges between people are the only way to accurately allocate resources as efficiently as possible, money becomes a necessity to reduce the burden of those exchanges.
Magical robots and feel-good rhetoric don't change economic fact. Kudos to the Venus Project for trying a new spin on communism with machines though! Nothing like calling a machine intelligence Dear Leader instead of some crazy guy in a gray track-suit with crazy hair and Coke-bottle glasses.
Andrei Chira is a vaper, voluntaryist, and all-around cool dude. Formerly a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne Division, he now spends his time between working at VapEscape in Montgomery County, Alabama, contributing to Seeds of Liberty on Facebook and Steemit, writing short fiction, and expanding his understanding of...well, everything, with an eye on obtaining a law degree in the future.
Any time a person suggests a one-system-for-everybody way of living and personal interaction - look for the gun. Because these 'solutions' always require that people be forced to comply.
Some people really want to be communists. Some want to be capitalists. Some atheists. Some devout. The only "system" that is peaceful is one that simultaneously allows 'all of the above.' (And it ain't Democracy, folks.)
so true free market where people can decide if they want to work for shareholders or team up with other workers and get an equal slice of the profit.
In the RBE we are more free because we truly can decide what we want to do without having to worry about costs.
Well, I suggest we all live collaborating and helping each other out. If the system is broad enough and logical enough it is a natural progression.
By definition the RBE is non coercive so your comment doesn't apply.
I'm beginning to think so.
There's just no way any central planner, be it a machine, a person, or a group of people, can possibly factor in all of the economic information necessary to allocate resources efficiently. It always leads to waste. Human action is spontaneous; people don't make calculations for ends until they think up the ends they want to pursue.
Not only that, but think of every innovation in history. How can a central planner possibly create new and varied ways to use resources more efficiently? They're operating at a handicap to begin with.
I think I agree with you on this. "Central planning can never work" is a broad statement that's hard to prove, so I want to be careful, but I can't think of a single instance involving human behavior where it has worked on a large scale.
To be innovative and control a lot of people, a central planner would have to be practically omniscient AND not care about preserving the status quo or even its own existence.
There is the theory that we live in a computer simulation. A machine that could simulate all of the known multiverse would perhaps be powerful enough to deal with the amount of information needed for economic decisions, but could it understand humans? I think it's impossible.
That's where it really falls apart. Even if you were to assume that a single entity, however it is composed, could possibly have access to all the information available at all times, there's no guarantee that it could perceive of how best to use resources, much less imagine new and innovative ways to use them.
For our meager purposes here on Earth, it's enough to say the information requirement is simply too extensive to ever be achievable, but even barring that, innovation happens spontaneously. It rarely, if ever, happens as a result of careful planning (though, even if it did, the eventual end goal would still be a product of spontaneous thought, as someone had to think the goal up in the first place to begin the carefully planned process of achieving it).
Once again, I repeat that the objective is not a central planner. The objective is having access to all the information needed. In the past the only way to do that was to have all the information in the same place/computer, so that is why Jacque's descriptions could be misunderstood. The difference is that in the RBE he always made it clear that EVERYBODY has access to all the information and we all are free to take decisions on what to create or do according to that information.
great post
Thank you!
Great post Andrei!
As a person who's worked with computers most of his adult life, believe me when I say the last thing that I would want is a society run by a computer. The people at Zeitgeist and the Venus Project really have not a clue what they're talking about. Computers aren't smarter than we are, they're very dumb in fact, and they can never be any smarter than the humans who program them and they don't have access to nay more information about the economy than we do. The best we can hope for is a computer model based on the price system, and even then, the computer probably won't make better decisions than we can.
I just posted an article on why capitalism is bad - I'd love for you to check it out
Capitalism stems from private property norms, which stems from the ownership of one's body. So unless you're going to start spouting off that individuals don't exercise exclusive control of their bodies - and thus that consent doesn't matter - you might want to take a step back and rethink your premises.
I understand what you say and also understand what the utopian RBE dreams about... but, i still think the actual system has more slaves than ever in human history and we need a change to get out of this dark age... most of humanity is not happy at all and there is no reason to that to be...
So what solution you propose?
at least they are trying... I think the world is not ready for that but at some point in the future we need to make a better world for everyone don't you think?
and Ai would be the only "brain" fast and big enough to be able to look at all the variables and aspects at the same time and get the answers for how to do things better... is just to much for a human brain...
The problem you're going to run into is the fact that value is subjective. There is no such thing as inherent value in anything, and, no matter how close your averages get, they will always fall short of individual preference. Thus even an AI capable of calculating these human needs would have to look at some reference, which, by its nature, would be subjective.
The solution I propose is decentralization. We don't need a robo-communism. We need progressively smaller states, until the largest political unit is a township or a county. This would dramatically decrease the amount of power that groups would be able to levy against each other. Combined with a strong adherence to private property norms, resource allocation would be much more efficient than it could ever hope to be now, while still protecting human liberty.
that wouldn't work. If you look at history then you see that in the USA there was the article of confederation and states were like mini country. It didn't work as it made trade harder, no uniform currency and the states would pay for the national defense. We need a national defence in case we get invaded or their is a war and it is more effective then 13 different state (only 13 states back then) working together. What we need is a weak central government that deal with national issue and the states deal with everything else.
The best defense is to not have enemies.
country will always have enemy.
Not if we make sure to make everyone to be free to do what and establish communication that aims at resolution. Presently we do not do that because war is a racket. Our countries have monetary interest in NOT resolving conflict.
Gold has been a uniform currency since time immemorial. It's relatively straightforward to judge its purity, and it has functioned superbly as both a store of value and as a medium of exchange for thousands of years. Blockchains are another solution to the issue of non-standard currencies. I could very easily envisage a world that runs on thousands of different blockchains; it's not much different to how exchanges operate now.
Ultimately, decentralization is going to lead to more freedom. Even if a fiefdom crops up that is wicked and evil, its wickedness is restricted to its borders, and everyone else around won't stand for that shit. However, robo-communism isn't going to be the way to get there.
precious metals and cryptocurrency is the way to go. I agree with decentralization but it needs to be state level with a small federal government.
I disagree, but we've all got different opinions. In the interim, that's certainly the most stable system of governance.
Absolutely. The reason why Jacque talked about centralizing was because in his time there was no other way for us to have access to all the information about the resources and processes going on on the planet. If you read The Best That Money Can't Buy, you see that all that is really being called for is an open access to all the information about the planet and high tech algorithms to be able to extract information from it all. There is no decision being taken by computers, there is just calculation and measurement.
That's not what the Venus Project is suggesting. It is suggesting AI-administered communism.
No thanks. Hard pass.
Have you read The Best That Money Can't Buy?
I’m in the process of building a network of ecovillages and community centers whose intent is to empower the individual, so they can improve the world. Its purpose is for the advancement of education, through the practice of art, music, exploration, permaculture, and holistic loving.
We function as a resource based economy, where instead of customers coming in, and proceeds going out to a select group of individuals, we have a system where members come in, and increase the functionality and resources of the community, until just like a seed reaching mitosis, it splits, and another community is formed.
All of it is voluntary, and creates a modality where members of our community have access to thousands of dollars of equipment, for a very low cost.
What do you think about this project?
Do you have questions, or suggestions?
I want to learn.
"Man can't fly"
That's a non-sequitur.
Nothing is possible until we succeed. It can take millennia but eventually there is a significant change in our capacity to control matter or adapt to differences. For instance: for the first time ever in history we now can produce plenty for everybody to live a life of luxury. That is a game changer.
Centralized planning once size fits all is not what is being called for. That is a misunderstanding. Monetary profit is enemy of the Common Good. To continue to use money is suicide. Open source sociocracy managing an ecosystem of money-free networks is the solution and is what us RBErs are creating.
Value is subjective. Prices are what allow us humans to gauge the value of a good relative to the demand within a given space for it. If, for example, I know that a bag of nails is 2 Steem over at Store A, then I can reasonably deduce that this is the average going rate. If, however, I see they're going for 1 Steem over at Store B down on the opposite side of town, I can see that one store experiences a greater demand for the same product and adjust where I go to purchase that product accordingly. Without prices, this is literally impossible. Economic planning by the individual absent a price system is logically impossible; there's no way to measure and compare the relative utility of unlike things.
Yes. We can compare things with values that actually matter. Such as sustainability, how little energy was used, how recyclable it is, how much time it saves, how durable it is, how much it facilitates lives, how much it is apreceated, how healthy it is, etc.
Most of the comparison of tools or devices is not price related.
Sustainability planning with a price system (a metric completely opposite to sustainability) is impossible so in this system we are marching to our demise.
No need for enslaving anybody. People are motivated my mastery, autonomy and purpose.
Also, the tragedy of the commons is a straw man
https://www.metafilter.com/74505/The-Myth-of-the-Tragedy-of-the-Commons
I agree that people enslave ourselves. After all we all go to jobs we hate. Break our backs to put food on our tables only to have lazy liberal scum vote in more taxes so we have to work longer hours only to have the system of wealth redistribution steal more of our resources through government enforced theft.
That is right we have the right not to go to work only to be put out on the streets and have our families suffer because of our choices, but we are trapped in a pattern of debt bondage. You are right slavery is a choice we make.
Lmao. No.
no what?