Summary Graphic

The Public Economy (Autumn 2018)

    This is a plan for an economic renaissance that combines the best of capitalism and communism. Many popular ideas such as basic income, trade skills, free schooling, and environmental protection are melded together in this plan.

Part 1, what would this new economy look like?

The Resource-Based Economy

    The economy is a giant video game. The current economy relies on game rules like loans, interest and debt. The Public Economy would be resource based, meaning things like wood, water, and iron would be given the actual value, with money serving as a points system in the game. All the resources available on Earth would be surveyed and considered part of the Earth Bank. Environmental scientists would ultimately be in charge of overseeing the management of these resources, making sure they were harvested and used in sustainable or low impact ways. A digital map will be created showing where the resources are, how much is there, how long they will last if harvested at current rates, who is harvesting them, and where they are going. Anyone working in the fields of resource management, such as lumberjacks, farmers, oil drillers, and miners, would be part of this global web of environmental workers making sure our civilization has a stable flow of raw materials without jeopardizing the natural systems of the planet. When it is established what resources can be safely harvested, those resources would then make it to the market. Renewable and abundant resources like wood and water would be fairly cheap, while scarce or non renewables such as precious metals and coal would be more expensive.

    This global economy wouldn’t be a government, but in a lot of ways would serve as one. Most people’s daily lives are influenced more by their role in the economy than what laws their local governments are passing and enforcing. In other words, this system would be the main factor “governing” people’s lives, but it is not meant to be an executive or legislative organization. The goal is to manage the resources of the world so we can use what we have without ruining things, as well as to tie our currency to these resources so that money would be backed by something of real value, and to make sure harvested resources are distributed fairly.

Schools and the Basic Income

    Changing the economy without changing schools is a pointless endeavor. (It’s also pointless to try and reform schools without an overhaul to the economy; the systems are linked.)  Right now we have it set up as “go to school, get a job” but with the Public Economy, going to school would be your primary job. (Or at least your default job)

    Elementary School would mostly remain the way it works now, with the focus being on language, basic math, and social skills. Students would generally “graduate” from this around the age of 10, or 4th grade.

    After this, students would spend the next four or so years (junior high/middle school) doing hands on work. They would be able to explore skills like cooking, gardening, sewing, carpentry, computer science, engineering, and other trade skills that are needed in society. The goal here is for students to learn a little of everything and find what trades suit them. There would still be some time for lectures and more “scholarly” subjects in classrooms, but for the most part students would be spending this time outside or in workshops and labs. Also, there would be plenty of opportunity to develop their language and math skills, but it would be more naturally tied into their other work instead of treated as separate courses.

    Once a student has figured out what they like doing they would “graduate” from middle school and begin their apprenticeship. These years would sort of be a combination of high school and college and there would be no rush to graduate on time. In fact, the whole education system would be loose in terms of timing; students can take as much time as they need. The bulk of a student’s schooling years would end when they finished their apprenticeship in their chosen field. This is when they would have the big graduation ceremony usually held for high school and college. However, learning is a lifelong goal, so graduation would hardly be the end.

    As you can see, the main purpose of school would to be to directly set people up with training for a job that is useful to society or their own lives. Subjects that don’t directly relate to a job (such as history, philosophy, and general science literacy) would be exposed to students through short lectures meant to pique their interest and cover the basics, and then if they wanted to know more they could be directed to resources in the library, local museums, or teachers who specialize in the subject.

    Now that the student has graduated from their apprenticeship, they would formally join the guild of their field.

Guilds

    Guilds are meant to replace corporations. It is important to have large scale projects like skyscrapers, space programs, and movies, and guilds would be big enough to work on these projects. Guild personnel would also be distributed for small projects so you could have a local team fix your roof or car. People in charge of the guilds would be masters in their trades, and would therefore have already climbed the ranks and know what it’s like to do the jobs of the people they lead. Guilds would need a lot more organization than this essay will cover, but generally some umbrella guilds would include:

Trades- for things that need to be built or repaired like carpentry, mechanical, engineering, etc...

Research- for new discoveries in history, astronomy, medicine, etc...

Arts- for entertainment and culture, like movies, music, games, fashion, etc...

Defense/Rescue- for firefighters, police, national guard, etc..

Health- for farmers, nurses, doctors, ecologists etc..

Education- for teachers, museums, libraries, etc...

Finally, the “home guilds,” for personal life (cooking, sewing, gardening. etc) These would be smaller local guilds. An example is a local neighborhood expert that helps guide their neighbors with gardening or tailoring.

    Not all work would have to be “guild work.” The guilds would be an extension of the school system and therefore part of the public economy but there would be room for private enterprise. This would probably mostly be creators and small business owners.. The main restriction to private organizations would be an employee limit of around 150 people. This way, the owner could realistically know everyone working for them.

    There would absolutely be a lot of overlap in these skills, and people would be encouraged to have at least two fields they could work in. Keeping track of everyone’s skill levels leads us to the next topic: identification.

Identification

    Keeping track of everything could be complicated, so citizens in this economy would have an account to help manage it all. This account would be like a combination of social security number, bank, resume, social media, and passport.

Social Security Number-this would probably need a new name but the general point of it would be the same; it’s your own code and you get it at birth.

Bank-since the currency is digital and for-profit banks would be a thing of the past, your money would be kept on the account. Physical money and other trade goods can still exist for traditional bartering, or if you simply don’t want to leave a record of your purchases.

Resume- your account would keep track of your education and what skills you’ve learned. It would sort of be an ongoing diploma that shows your proficiencies and work history, making it easy to apply to various jobs.

Social media- an email account and public profile will be a part of this account. People can choose how much information they want to post on this profile, and other social websites and email services can still exist outside of this. A citizen’s official account will also be how they access the map with all the resources on it. This map will have a news and history feature to it, explained in more detail later.

Passport- This digital account would have a physical ID used for all the stuff physical IDs are used for, including travel.

Income

Basic Income;

    Everyone will receive a basic income benefit. When someone is born, their basic income goes to the parents or caretakers, then it would partly transfer to the child when they start their apprenticeship, and finally fully transfer to them when they graduate. At this point they would begin a career in one of the guilds and would likely earn extra money on top of the basic income. The only requirement for maintaining the basic income benefit is to be enrolled in some form of education. It’s unclear exactly how semesters and courses would work at this point, but the general idea is that you have to be continuing your education to receive the basic income benefit, and there would be many ways to do this.

Max Income:

    Maximum income would be a feature of the public economy to ensure people aren’t able to horde too much private wealth. It’s hard to say at this point what the actual max income would be, but a ballpark of roughly 100,000 dollars a year with a million in savings is probably a good goal to think about. (The actual numbers are going to be different in the new system, but this value is meant to give people an idea of the kind of wealth levels they could achieve before hitting the cap.) It would be okay to earn more than this amount, but the overflow would have to be spent quickly. Someone earning 130,000 a year would be able to direct their extra 30,000 to a program they support, such as a certain movie studio, field of research, or town development project.

    The point is to spend the money. Buy art, pay for live performances, invest in projects and products you enjoy.  This is where aspects of capitalism will be useful. In the public economy, spending the currency is essentially voting. Trends will come and go and the market should reflect that based on votes. Money spent goes back into the system, balanced to cover the costs of the resources involved. This way, the money in the public economy starts in the hands of people, and is then transferred to the “earth bank” when people or groups purchase resources, or items made from resources. The Earth Bank balances this income with what they give out in the basic income and other labor. The money is spent and the cycle begins again.

Public Basic Items

    There will be a line of public basic items that will have open source plans and be produced by the schools. Students of engineering will be learning how to make these items while actually making them. These items would be things like household appliances, gadgets, and vehicles. A short list of some items:

Washer/dryer machines    Cell Phone            Smart Phone

Refrigerator                       Laptop    Desktop Computer

Stove                                Game Console Computer Heating/AC

Toaster Oven                    Speakers     A few car models

Microwave                        TV/Monitors   A few truck models

    The resources to make these items would be provided to the schools as part of school funding and would come from the Earth Bank. (This goes back to the point of treating schools and the economy as one system.) When people buy these items made by teachers and students, the currency goes back into funding for the school

Teachers Guild

    Many teachers will also be professionals in their fields. Take the example of a car mechanic. A veteran mechanic might run their own garage, but the garage and tools would be part of the school system. (This would be like when a teacher is “given” a classroom.) This garage would be staffed by students working in their apprenticeships.

    

    The teachers guild would have three main groups:

Trade Skills/Shops/Studios

    For the hands on trade skills

Museums/Classrooms/Libraries

    For research and academic learning

Early Childhood and Development

   For elementary school and social behavior.

Needs

Food and Health

    Food and health need to be more closely related. Farmers and gardeners would work locally to ensure a food supply that is healthy and fresh. More access to minimally processed foods will decrease many public health issues.

    Hospitals would be run more like schools and local fire/police departments, meaning it is a town/city job and profits aren’t a part of it. Other general healthcare would be available outside of the emergency atmosphere of a hospital, such as personal dietitians. These dietitians help you make a meal plan that is tailored to keep you healthy and is also full of food you will actually eat. Subscribing to a meal plan like this would mean you could have your food regularly delivered rather than having to go grocery shopping. Food markets will still exist, as will junk food, but these items would be purchased separately, not included in your subscription. General cooking literacy will help make the basic food from the subscriptions more interesting to eat. This meal plan would most likely be included with a basic income.

Homes

    Ever since cities came into existence there has been a real difference between city living and country living. Most of this difference comes from land ownership, so we will start with that first. In the Public Economy no one will actually own land, but professional farmers, homesteaders, and “landlords” would be in charge of “their” land, similar to how classrooms and shops would work. These land managers would be skilled in trades like agriculture, carpentry, plumbing, or whatever else is necessary to maintain their piece of land and any structures built on it.

    Neighborhood teamwork and community would be very important, since neighborhoods generally have a theme. Rural neighborhoods would be able to coordinate their gardens, share resources like trucks and power tools, and even organize local part time fire, rescue, and schools/daycare. Urban neighborhoods would look a bit different. There would still be plenty of gardening to coordinate, but homes will mostly look like apartment towers, not driveways and lawns. It is important to house most of the Earth’s population in cities to keep our resource use efficient. Big cities like New York and Boston will find ways to adapt, and new micro cities can form around current commercial districts. Just about anywhere there is a big shopping plaza would be a good place to build a tower, making the area a micro city. College campuses are a good model to follow when planning these areas, especially because the school system in general will take up most industrialized land. This means many apartment buildings could essentially be considered “on campus housing” and the lower floors would feature shops, studios, or galleries run by the people who live upstairs. Other more family oriented towers would exist on the edges of the campus/commercial area. Towers should be designed with rooftop public parks and gardens.

Wants

    Vacations

    Traveling is very important, and part of an ongoing education. There will be field trips for all age groups, and many of these would be free or serve as a way to maintain your basic income benefit. A general example would be to fly to some other city, spend two days with guided tours, and then have three days to yourself to wander around or choose additional tours. This would be a great way for citizens of the world to learn about each other.

    Travel wouldn’t always have to be so far away. Exploring your local “day trip” radius is also crucial for understanding how your home fits into the global mesh.   

    

    Movies, Music, Video Games etc..

    Many small scale media works could be produced in the school media labs with a crew of a dozen or so people. Bigger projects, like blockbuster movies, advanced video games, and touring shows could be funded by ticket sales and crowdfunding.

    Vehicles

    People will be less likely to need their own car due to public transit options and ridesharing, but the desire to own cars and other vehicles will still be there. This includes airplanes, boats, trucks, motorcycles, etc... Owning a vehicle comes with the responsibility of maintaining it, and most likely these owners would be trained mechanics as well as trained operators.  

    Toys and Collecting

    Toys and other collectibles will still be produced, but more efficiently. With 3D printing and other techniques, toys and gadgets could be made to order rather than produced by a company that hopes you will buy them. This would mean most lines of toys would be available for longer periods of time and the quantities produced would reflect demand. This should cut down on wasted resources due to unwanted products, and the dynamics of what becomes rare and collectable would also change. Not to mention there are already decades worth of things on the planet just waiting to be restored and played with.

Part 2, the plan to get us from here to there.

Make a map

    The most important first step is also the easiest to accomplish. We need to make an interactive map on the internet, like google earth, that shows our economy in real time. It shows where all the resources are, who is harvesting them, where are they going, and how they get turned into things like smartphones and houses. The idea is to make the workings of the economy very transparent.

    This map would be fairly easy to make in terms of budget and resources. A University (like UMass Amherst) could make a project of it, and have students and professors code the platform, while research students find the data. The map can be launched quickly with whatever data is easiest to get, under the expectation that more will be added as time goes on.        

    Alongside this economic research would be historical. The map interface would have a timeline slider so you could go back in time and watch events happen across the globe. It could even start with the literal formation of the earth in space, but pangea is also a nice start point. Sliding the timeline will help users form a more complete picture of global history. Zoom right in on your city and watch the years play out or simply see how all the famous events in history are linked. You could watch the history of recent weather play out over long term to get a better idea of climate cycles, or follow troop movements during various wars.

    After the map is up and running with this first round of information the idea will have a chance to spread as more people explore the map. Once the current economy becomes easier to understand, we can figure out more specific details about how to convert things to a public economy.

Rally the banners

    ACLU, Greenpeace, Sierra Club, Amnesty International. Various unions, if not all unions. Various charities, if not all charities. These organizations mostly exist because they know the game is rigged, and they do work to make the impact less harmful. The public economy would target the rigged game itself, and hopefully accelerate the goals of these organizations. Getting their endorsements and expertise will be crucial.

USA Government:

    There are a few movements in the federal government that would help plant seeds of support for the public economy.

1. Tax the wealthy, and use this money to fund schools, including state universities.
2. End Citizens United to get the money out of politics.
3. Ditch the electoral college and implement a ranked choice voting system.