Social money

A Social Money Proposition

The Boba doesn't like me, and I don't like her. That's fine. I keep coming in because I like her product. Which makes a pretty general statement about capitalism.

What does money represent? I usually thought of it as "social utility"; people give you money when you produce something that is useful to them, and thus, has utility in the society. Which is a pretty stark view of how people view each other, and while it is representative of only a very narrow aspect of how we value each other, money ends up being the most important aspect of our lives because its how we eat, have a safe place to sleep, and improve our daily lives in various ways.

So this introduces some interesting caveats. Should we reward people for producing social utility? By which we can include anything that makes daily life easier; cell phones, internet, vehicles, medicine. Clearly higher quality goods make life even easier; fast internet, phones with alarm clocks built in, vehicles with anti-lock brakes. So one, we want to consume high quality goods, so the production of high quality of goods has to be incentivized. And that's how we get the modern better goods = more money schema. But that means also, that we're giving the means for a very high quality of life to people who produce very high quality goods. This has a number of consequences. For a start, it means that the highest quality goods are being traded amongst the producers, and the greatest social utility is concentrated at the top; T-Mobile executives can buy Ferraris, and Ferrari executives buy the best surround sound systems by Bose, and Bose executives buy the newest fanciest phones on the market. Circular, all funded by the millions of people who rely on T-Mobile for their cell phone service.

But from a more social perspective, do we believe that these executives, who (in the cell phone service example) have provided some considerable utility for millions of people that they've never met, deserve the rewards that their massive profits confer upon them? Yes, each person who buys into their phone service did so voluntarily, and so on some level must believe that the price of service is fair; thus, they did "fairly" acquire those millions of dollars. Nonetheless it seems like a fluke that someone who might not be very nice, who organized this massive operation but who doesn't directly make an effort for the betterment of my quality of life, has an absolutely fabulous quality of life because I, and others like me, funded it. On a social level, wouldn't we prefer that the nicest, kindest people got to have the nicest things? Or that rewards were proportional to actual effort, and not (as is made possible by current technology) reward-duplication without effort duplication?

If we preferred to reward people we liked, instead of acquiring the best product (bang for our buck), then the meaning of money would change drastically. Because if we only bought from people we liked, then the acquisition of goods would be secondary to the social connection built. In addition, we wouldn't be giving money to persons so that they could buy the best goods; they would, in turn, use that money to make transactions with people that they liked. Thus, if there were persons who produced very high quality goods but weren't well-liked, then those goods would never be distributed. And we would all be living in a lower utility state. Phones that don't get good coverage, slow internet, etc. But perhaps the world would be a nicer place. And maybe, actually quite probably, social issues would be massively advanced. Greater support for companies that were environmentally responsible, that treat their employees with respect.

But just as likely, and this has certainly been seen before, cyclic cliques would form; communities that only do business within their own ranks. International business would be extremely limited if existent at all.

Its important to note that this theory is different from reputation-based business. While such a model can be supported by personalities, the purpose is still nonetheless to track down the best quality goods, bang for buck etc. What I propose is a system is rewarding pro-social behavior, almost independent of goods or utility produced. Nice guys get paid more, even if the work they do is produces less utility. Which they would turn around and spend on other "nice" companies and services from "nice" people. Basically, having lots of money would mean, instead of "I have many people's lives faster stronger cleaner etc.", that "lots of people thought that their daily interactions with me made their lives better." And so old people who had been nice to everyone their entire lives would have plenty of retirement savings. And assholes who pissed everyone off would have nothing. And if we chose to support them, it wouldn't be called "welfare."
There's a rhetoric surrounding welfare, that tax dollars are supporting people who deserve a better quality of life but for whatever reason don't have the means to acquire it for themselves. But if money were distributed on the basis of social, moral "deservingness", then (I believe) even fewer people would argue that these people "deserved" to be supported.

Of course there is a major hole in this monetary theory, don't think I don't see it. If money is distributed on the basis of social agreeableness, then do goods and services still have monetary value? How much should niceness modulate the cost of goods and services? How would higher quality goods be valued, compared to their low quality equivalents?

I postulate that compensation would follow a social norm, similar to how tips for restaurants currently work. There would be a widely accepted baseline, modulated by personal opinion. In my mind, EVERYONE would make approximately $10 an hour. Property distribution would be completely different; the end of front yards, homogenous condo complexes, frequent parks. If rent still existed, it would reflect construction and maintenance costs, modulated by personal opinion.

So, if a society existed that focused on community cohesion, what would happen to all the loners, the deviants? They would probably create their own community. Over in that corner. And reinvent the system that we currently have; I don't care what you're like, I care what you can do.

And seeing where my opinion is on this, I should find myself a new Boba shop.