Contributism? Gift Capitalism? Welcome to my new economic vision.

October 19, 2020 I (Simeon) patent and concept the concept of Contributism/Gift Capitalism/Nominalism. Nobody can use this without my permission 

 Preface: I've been working on creating a better economic system for years. Everyone knows Capitalism is not the best we have. The future could be epic. Some say it's been a fools errand. It isn't. Prove me wrong.

 In this paper I will introduce a new economic system that can fix a lot of the world's problems at once: One that provides limitless justice, peace and security. Freedom from want, poverty and hunger. Nothing is truly perfect. Problems will always exist. But we can do far better than the shitshow we currently use. 

 

Contributism will allow near-infinite money to be created to fund large projects and social programs with zero taxes and zero inflation. Money is the root of all evil. We know this. How much better would the world be if we could guarantee everyone free basic food, shelter and housing? What about healthcare and childcare? There are more than enough resources in the world to feed and house everyone. Abolishing money is the first thing that must be done to make the world a better place. There are several better systems available, but GC is the best. More Info Gift Capitalism/Contributism is a gift economy that operates on a principle opposite the market economy. Instead of your workplace deciding the value of your work, the place you consume or shop decides how much your job is worth. This is akin to how real gifts work. It's the giver of the gift that decides how much it's worth and how much to give you.

 Every store evaluates all professions and assigns them an hourly salary value. This is done on it's own. Independently- One store may say teachers should earn $50k per year while another says they're worth $65000 per year. Stores set prices on their own and award store credit. It depends. Competition between stores ensures that wages remain fair and honest over time. 

One problem that immediately pops up is how to comparison shop between stores. The answer is easy, and it's called Normalization. Everyone has a phone app that lists all prices and all salaries for all professions at every store. Simply punch in your job and go- In effect, this app can lead you to the stores that give you the best value for your money. Even though each store can reward the same profession differently, you would naturally go to the store that "pays" the most. Normalization gives everyone a figurative salary of $100000/year that's used for the purpose of comparing prices across stores. This is amazing. If store A pays your profession $50k per year but the other store pays $75k per year then prices in the app for store A would be higher. Prices would be displayed online based on profession so they would appear different for everyone. Shopping would be done online by filling out an order then bringing it to the depot to fill it. Imagine that the same item may appear to cost $1 for someone and $2 for someone else based on their store salary. Calculating normalized salaries is done by dividing $100000 by $50,000 (or whatever salary they choose for their profession) and multiplying it by the headline price (say, $3 for milk). You would pay $6. If your store salary is $50K- Because all prices are listed online, you can submit your order and quickly find where prices are lowest. 

Once money is spent it is deducted from your $100,000 base salary. It's important to know that this number is only used for calculating-Not everyone is paid the same amount of money. A person with a job widely considered valuable will pay lower prices than someone with a less important job. The big idea is that jobs society respects will pay well, while less important jobs won't. Business accounts and preventing fraud. Every person who shops at a particular store grants that store a portion of a $50,000 stipend. If you spend 5% of your salary at a particular store in a month, then the store earns 5% of the stipend to re-up and buy more product. The stipend is the same for all people regardless of job. This naturally encourages conservation and resource sharing. A wealthy magnate's money is useless if you think they are corrupt or doing a terrible job. My system takes money's power away. Running a business requires setting salaries for every profession that exists. Different stores may adopt various salary codes, with competition leading to the best ones winning. You would use the app to be aware of each store's salary ahead of time. Normalization makes the real salary irrelevant though, and solves two problems at once. Metrics: Normalized Prices- A figurative salary of $100K is used to normalize salaries for the purposes of comparison shopping. Everyone's prices will be different based on profession and store preference, even for the same item. You may pay three bucks while I pay seven. It all depends on how much each store values our occupation- 

 Top Salary- The numerical salary for your profession, listed at the top of the app. Can vary between stores- Average price: The average price of all goods sold in a store. Useful for comparison shopping. and listed on every store's profile. A single recommended default salary code may also exist too. Stores decide how much or if to offer bonuses for good work. Your workplace logs the number of hours you work, with a double-sting system existing to stop fraud. If you misreport the number of hours worked you could lose your business, cash and personal possessions to whoever reports you. If you're a worker, you will lose your home and everything you worked for. Seriously. It isn't worth it. When two businesses wish to trade, the collected number of store stipends they have earned is placed into an account. You can trade these accounts just like money, except that they are based on a store's average earnings per month. If you earn an average of $3000 per month, (total earned-total spent/mths operational) then you automatically gain $3000 of store credit good at all stores. This credit stacks up monthly. 

Business credit cannot be reconverted to tokens. The less you earn and the longer you stay open, the less monthly store credit you earn. Eventually you will run out of money and shut down. When spent, store credit goes on the spent side of your balance, leading you to have less for next time. Ensuring Productivity A government agency tracks the economic output of each corporation and compares them to others in the same industry. They rate businesses and stores may, at their discretion, use this information to offer or retract bonuses. 

Productivity uses average earnings in Normalized Store Credit per employee-hour worked. First, take the number of employees and number of hours worked across the entire economy along with total store earnings in a week. Average and calculate. Compare this to an individual store's average earnings per employee-hour, and multiply it by the basic salary found in the store's notebook. This forces people to be productive. If too many employees are hired, then a store's averages go down, lowering income and bonuses for all. The slacker will soon be kicked out. Managers can rate employees and post these ratings to their profile for suspective businesses to check out. These ratings are not public and would only be revealed if you want to be eligible for bonus income. That way, bad ratings need not ruin your life. Perhaps nothing would pop up except a few red lights. 

 Investment 

Investment will occur via an online crowdfunding system, with the government legislature determining what percent of GDP should be invested. No tax is required. In order to invest in particular businesses you might need to invest half of the money with the government matching the funds and overseeing the businesses to make sure cash is not wasted All purchases and patents for government businesses would be open-source so anyone could use or view them. Each person would be given a certain number of investment dollars to spend, either going to managed risk funds or directly invested in new businesses. A business would only be able to be invested in once it gets a certain number of signatures on a petition. Investors own the business and select the board of directors. You can also save.-

 Banking Banking would not really be necessary under Gift Capitalism as all money would be electronic. If you want to buy a house or car, you would simply buy it under installment. Cashflow problems are nonexistent under the business credit regime. Benefits Inflation is no longer necessary because generated money, once converted back to business tokens does not reenter the regular economy. Store tokens are generated to pay people and disappear when they are converted to business credit. All sorts of public programs can be funded with this system. Teachers can be paid, as can doctors and caregivers/cooks. Good deeds can be rewarded free of charge by providing suggested salaries. Taxes are not required but may exist. If they are used then they can be paid via community service, A lottery tax refund may be offered to a few hardworking individuals and some given away at random. This offers an element of unfairness. Tax rates shall be at around 30%. You will be offered a choice between entering a taxpayer lottery or forced investment into prediction markets. If you invest into prediction markets it is considered retirement income and you cannot withdraw said income for thirty years, even after the options close. This forces you to save, and the money is locked up for some time. Half of the revenue goes to the govt and half goes to you once the thirty years are up. This creates an effective rate of 15%, 

Creating new businesses will be far simpler. All you need to do is take your idea to the public, get a few petitions signed and rake in the cash. You will retain partial ownership of the business based on how much you invest, but most businesses will eventually become consumer cooperatives owned by local residents. Say you want to start a pizza restaurant. How would you do it? Today, you'd have to scrounge up the money or go to a greedy bank that charges usurious interest rates. Under Gift Capitalism, all you'll need to do is post your idea online and get it crowdfunded with local residents' investment dollars. Running a business would be a passion project. If you do a good job managing it and provide a welcoming place for people to eat, gaining good reviews you would be paid well as you shop at local stores. New housing can easily be built by creating a large-scale labor corps that travels the world to build. 

We can unify and merge the global economy by abolishing barriers to free trade and travel. Without economic pressure, the world can be free, beautiful and independent. Undersea water pipelines can be built to irrigate deserts and save us from the upcoming climate crisis. Imagine all the free freshwater flowing out of the mouth of the Amazon! Volunteer work will be fully funded. Neighbors can be paid a stipend to cook for each other and build community.

 How to implement 

 First step is to get businesses on board. No money need be lost in the transition. All existing money can be converted to store credit. Businesses should learn about the new system and sign up in droves, agreeing to accept work credits as payment once a critical number of other businesses accept them- see assurance contracts. Let's start by showing consumer and employee interest, then work with local government and trucking companies. Go door to door and present businesses with this plan. Pay them 25c to sign the petition and collect their email address/phone. Notify and build a network to deliver the software and post prices online. The base salary code should be created by asking everyone what they think their job is worth and averaging the answers. A weighted median approach could be used where the top 25% and bottom are thrown out. To prevent outlandish answers, a small tax of 5% on the final value will be levied against the final value of your profession wherever you shop. So if you think your job is worth $100 a day yet people only want to give you $50 per day you'll only be able to spend $45. This should nip most absurd evaluations in the bud. This code only gives stores a general idea of what people believe their jobs are worth. They would be free to refine the answers themselves to make things better. Just because the salary suggestion is $6000 doesn't mean I have to give you that much, All it is is a suggestion. Businesses will be given two months to switch to the new system once critical mass is reached. A mass movement of people can be built around this movement to rebuild the economy and free us from slavery to debt and taxation. A petition drive and Facebook page designed to educate people about the new economy can also be created. We could get on this today. With enough likes Gift Capitalism could go viral. The survey can be done online using Google Forms or data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which we can immediately hijack.  

The final step is uploading store prices to the web and building the necessary tech/apps for this. 

 Abolish Debt and Mortgages? Once earned, store credit is not directly transferable between individuals. To sell trinkets and items you'd need to open a business account and convert earned income to business tokens. Yard sales and such would operate that way. One way to change the system would be organizing a movement to seize and occupy houses, paying off the interest on all mortgages and helping renters buy their own property. Anything is possible with a nearly limitless amount of free money. New Economic Rights? I say yes. We all have rights. We have a right to a secure, comfortable and stable life working 18 hours a week or less. We have a right to a stable retirement and vacations. We have a right to open our own businesses and invest in each other. We have a right to food, clothing, shelter, water and healthcare. We have a right to a good education. We have a right to zero-interest loans for the purchase of cars and houses. The cost of default insurance should be baked into the price of the product. Lifecycle of a credit Credits are created by businesses to reward workers who do good deeds. They come from nothing. A worker brings an electronic work certificate to a store that verifies they've worked a given number of hours at a certain job. These certificates could be physical and could also have their businesses' name on them. They are not transferable between ordinary individuals. Once paid, the percentage of a person's yearly income is transformed into store credits stores use to replenish supply. Store credits can be used by store owners personally as well. If I value your job as being worth $60k and you spend $20k at my store, then I recieve $16k (33% of $50) in business dollars. This amount is the same no matter how much I evaluate your job as being worth. The only reason to value some work higher is to encourage progress.