 Reader John Frost at the Disney Blog has
suggested that some progressive group should write a game that
simulates a 'full cost' economy -- one where the full cost of what each
producer and consumer does, including 'externalities' (remediating
damaged and abandoned land, cleaning up pollution, replacing the
capacity of non-renewable resources, eliminating waste etc.) must be
paid for. In such a world, the costs of 'dirty' and high-consumption
businesses and the prices of their products would be much higher, so
presumably there would quickly be many fewer cars, much smaller and
lighter products, and a great deal more conservation. What would the
impact of this be on our per-capita footprint and global warming? On
family size and population? On the distribution of wealth? On levels of
poverty, population density, violence and disease in our society? My
immediate sense is that the world would look a lot more like
Scandinavia, where policies, education and social consciousness are
closest to such a 'full cost' model.
All of this assumes, of course, that a 'full cost' world would be enforceable and enforced,
that the polluters and wasters and despoilers of this world would
actually pay these costs, and pass them along to consumers knowing that
it would drastically reduce demand for their products. The alternative
is that, as is the case in the US and some other countries, the
government would (either because of bribery and corruption or out of
ideology) exempt, subsidize or turn a blind eye to enforcement, and
that, as in the case of much of the third world, there would simply not
be the infrastructure in place to enforce 'full cost' regulations, so
the status quo would remain or even worsen. My guess is that, if degree
of enforcement were one of the controllable elements of the simulation
program, we would quickly find the simulated world in a 'race to the
bottom', as those who complied with the regulations found themselves at
a competitive disadvantage relative to the cheats, crooks and evaders.
The
'full cost' economy is a mixed one, one where government regulation and
government management of some sectors of the economy (generally those
which offer the private sector an unsatisfactory ROI) blends with free
enterprise in those sectors of the economy which do offer a
satisfactory ROI. The problem with this is that what we have today is
nothing vaguely like a true Market Economy, even in those sectors where
corporations would have you believe market forces hold sway. Oligopoly,
massive government subsidies to large corporations, indemnifying
corporations from litigation by wronged
citizens, 'free' trade agreements that prohibit sovereign governments
from passing laws to protect the welfare of their people and the
environment from corporatist abuses, and other huge distortions have
produced what might better be described as a Corporate Welfare Economy.
 Suppose
instead we ran the simulation on the basis that the organizing and
communication power of the Internet and the increasing democratization
of knowledge it has brought about could allow us to shrug off this
flawed and failed mixed-to-Corporate Welfare Economy entirely, and
replace it with the Gift Economy? It might start with the existing elements of the Gift Economy --
open source, free libraries of information and entertainment,
scientific and social exchanges, Creative Commons, philanthropy and
file sharing -- and allow the players to represent either the pro- or
anti-Gift Economy sources, to see what the end-state might be: A true
Gift Economy that completely replaces the existing one, an even more
entrenched Corporate Welfare Economy where everything is privately
owned and nothing is free, or some kind of uneasy middle ground. Such a
simulation would provide:
- An understanding of when and how (and perhaps even if) a Gift Economy can succeed in the face of corporatist opposition,
- Some
sobering lessons about what the end-state of the Corporate Welfare
Economy -- a world of staggering inequality, repression and economic
slavery -- might look like, and
- A sense of whether a truly
mixed economy (one without the distortions that make describing today's
economy as a 'free market' ironic if not Orwellian) is actually
possible, and, if so, how real capitalism and truly free markets can be
kept free of these distortions.
Here's my speculation on what such a simulation would show:
- Size
is the enemy: Communities, governments and corporations that are large
tend to quickly become bureaucratic and dysfunctional, and then
hierarchical, corruptible and anti-democratic. The Gift Economy will
thrive in areas where these institutions are small, and struggle where
they are large.
- Education and culture will be the challenge,
not politics, economics or technology: If people believe the Gift
Economy will work, it will. If they don't it won't. They will believe
it if they are shown, if they see it, and if they hear from people who
have seen it work. That means it has to start small, and focused, and
build on its successes. And like 'Pay It Forward' it will require a
leap of faith. Everyone is capable of such a leap, but some will lead,
and others will follow.
- The Gift Economy must be physical as
well as virtual: For things that can be shared as bits, virtual is
fine, but many of the staples of our economy cannot. Our neighbour
gives us fruits and vegetables from her garden, another neighbour shows
me how to fix my lawnmower, and we pay it forward by helping other
neighbours build their garage, by working together to shovel neighbours
out after snowstorms, etc. The Internet can help us organize these
aspects of the Gift Economy, but ultimately much of it is local,
physical, community-based. So what do we do when there's snow on the
ground and there's no more fruits and vegetables? Do we still run the
Gift Economy peer-to-peer, giving out stuff from our cold cellars and
freezers? Or do we start to run co-ops, small community-based stores
(in the original sense of 'places of storage') and solar- and
wind-energy farms? And do we still give goods from these stores free?
Without quotas? And to whom?
- We need more self-sufficiency and
mastery of Gift Economy goods and services: Too many of us have either
no area of mastery, or our area of mastery if of no real value in the
Gift Economy. Such an economy needs more care-givers, mechanics, and
gardeners, and fewer lawyers, accountants and commodity brokers. My
guess would be that those of us in the latter category are going to
have to learn some humbling new skills quickly. And we'll be better for
having done so.
- Communities will become more Intentional: The
Gift Economy will allow us (and force us) to rediscover the true
meaning of community. And then we'll realize that the people in the
physical community in which we live aren't really the ideal people for
us to live in in a Gift Economy. We need to find people we love, trust
and respect. That will require a lot of us to move, and to search to
find their true community, their true home.
I know this is a
tall order for a software simulation. But maybe it could do more than
just show us how (and if) the Gift Economy could work. Maybe it could
also show us how to build model Intentional Communities for this next
economy.
Oh, and, of course, the software would have to be Open Source! |
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