Austerity or Communism

by Glen Wallace

If we don't transform into more of a resource based economy in the form of a libertarian communist, socialist system, we will inevitably, gradually, slump into a global recession of austerity where the masses will be spending the bulk of their monetary funds in paying off debts to the rentier class. 

People are constantly working for free.  In fact, it could be argued that the new internet economy is largely built on the backs of individuals gladly toiling without remuneration.  It is through the efforts of the so-called users of Facebook with their millions of updates from millions of unremunerated man-hours of labor writing status update posts and uploading photos and videos that has drawn visitors to view the ads that generate the ad revenue that has made Zuckerberg one of the wealthiest individuals on the planet.  It is also difficult to calculate the massive amount of value added to Amazon through all the in depth product reviews provided by the site visitors -- also without remuneration.  Many of the top rated product reviews on Amazon read like something a professional writer might post as a magazine article.  But I don't think those reviewers are secretly professional reviewers, rather, I think they really enjoy the ideal of sharing their insights and helping their fellow humans.  I have written a couple of in depth product reviews myself without any remuneration just because I wanted to help other consumers. 

We need  to look into how we can build an economy that harnesses that innate desire to create and help the world.  The collectivism could be used to pool the resources necessary for the makers of stuff to make and invent. 

Hoarding for the purposes of financial gain and hedging could become a thing of the past.  There are whole warehouses around the world used for the sole purpose of storing copper in pallet sized sheets that are stacked on pallets.  The copper is stored as financial investment in the form of physical copper -- it is treated as investment just like many people invest in gold or silver by owning physical gold or silver.  I'm not necessarily disparaging the practice of hoarding metals, precious or otherwise, on the contrary, doing so is very understandable.  In the current world of economics there is all sorts of volatility that could threaten the value of traditional national currencies.  Ownership of metals can provide a hedge against such volatility.  The problem is that our current global economic model creates a demand for the hoarding of natural resources.  In a resource based economy, those resources, like copper, could be put to good uses instead of sitting in some remote warehouse.  We need an economy where there is no demand to hoard the supply.

Motivational Categories

By Glen Wallace

I'm thinking of modifying my motivation theory to having just two very general categorize of types of motivation; Social and Creative. In so doing the altruistic motive would be merged into as a subset of the Social motive.

The practice of engaging in computer games is a very popular activity that usually involves both of the basic categories. Even when a human is playing just against the computer I believe the social motive still comes into play. The human player ends up anthropomorphizing the artificially intelligent computer generated competitors. The human also brings imagination to play by imagining that there are real human spectators either watching the event on television or are in the stands viewing the event. And when the human does well against the computer generated components, in the mind of the human player, the same reward with the sense of having ones social status among both the competitors and spectators exists just as it would in the real world with real human competitors and spectators.

Why People Love to Work for No Money

If we are to abandon paying for work the question arises of what will motivate anyone to get anything done. Unfortunately, many subscribe to the jackass fallacy whereby people wont do anything unless they have a carrot in front to walk towards. Motivation is a complex subject that deserves careful study. But instead of examining the subject carefully, the entire modern western society is largely based on one simpletonic, poorly examined, poorly thought through belief that humans are required to have a paycheck to chase after in order to get anyone off their duff and do anything. It doesn't take too much examination to refute the 'humans are jackasses' premise. One only need look at the practice of engaging in hobbies to see that people engage in work and get things done, not only without being paid but usually the hobbiest ends up spending a great deal of money to make the work possible. Similar to the activity of hobbies is the activity of fitness and athletics. I'm a competitive distance runner and let me tell you it is a lot of work and I have never won any money and while it's conceivable that I could win a cash prize from a race, I'm certain I could never 'make a living' from competitive running. So why do I do it? What is the motive? Well this brings me to my theory that there are three basic primary motivators for any given activity and competitive running satisfies two of them; those being status and creative motives. The status motive pays heed to our very social nature and our tendency to frame ourselves in comparison with others. In any competitive activity whether it be athletic, business or academic the status motive clearly plays an important motivator role. But there is also the non-status social role of the camaraderie that one enjoys when sharing a hobby or athletic event or any other activity with others. Typically this social role of camaraderie becomes an strong motivator in the conventional work experience where co-workers become like a family and a worker looks forward to going to work just to be with that family. I believe camaraderie is an especially strong motivator in the military where every soldier in a unit feels a need to look out for their fellow soldier with the same zeal that they look out for themselves. I strongly suspect the military organization fully takes advantage of the social camaraderie motive to drive soldiers to work to lengths that they would never go to without that motive.

While the creative motive may seem to be an odd motivator for a competitive athletic activity, I'm using the term in a rather broad sense of involving any activity whereby work is mixed with the physical realm to create something that did not exist before the work was done. And I believe a 'something' that is created can include completion of a run. Additionally the planning of workouts and race strategy also involve creativity. Often times, creativity is the primary motive for hobbiests. Whether that hobby is gardening, painting, or wood working the spark of creativity is perhaps the strongest driver of the activity so that people will spend great amounts of money so they can experience the process of creating something. Therefore, in theory, an economic system could be set up whereby instead of paying people to do something that needs to get done, the only incentive necessary to attract employees would be to offer the tools and supplies for a worker to get the job done. And anyone with an interest in practicing that activity would flock to the job in order to experience the same creative rush that motivates hobbiests to engage in their activity. But status often also plays a role in motivating hobbiests as they compare each others projects. The third primary motivator is altruism - the desire to help others. Now one might say that those engaging in altruistic acts are doing it for selfish reasons - to make them self feel better or give them self a good feeling inside. That may be true, but that is true for the other two motivators that ultimately the fundamental motivator is coming from the felt state resulting from engaging in the given activity.

I think the role of parenthood employs all three motivators. I've even worked on jobs where co-worker moms have said that they consider coming to work a break from the job of motherhood. That just shows to what lengths people will go to do a difficult job that doesn't pay but instead costs a lot, such as motherhood, when the basic human motivators exist for a job -- and none of those motivators involves getting paid money to do the job.