The Ethical Economy
When I was at reboot8.0 a couple of weeks ago I was pointed in the direction of this white paper entitled “The Ethical Economy”. The premise is that a new form of economic organisation is emerging – based on peer-to-peer production, cooperation, sharing and social utility. It is worth reading if only as it collects coherently some of the cultural, behavioral and economic trends that are emerging in today’s networked global knowledge economy. That said I was in disagreement and/or uncomfortable with some of the ideas and solutions outlined, especially the idea that some ‘universal minimum income’ guarantee would free us (collectively as a society) to let our innate skills and creativity free and in so doing create further wealth and prosperity. Perhaps I’m too old or too cynical but I don’t see this happenning. For one thing I have very little faith in the ability of governments to manage this kind of concept efficiently. I might even agree that a no-questions-asked flat income (per person, every person) might be a good thing – if only for the massive amount of money and unproductive resources it would free up; resources that are currently spent micro-engineering (with the inevitable introduction of bureaucratic and political corruption that arises.) However one idea that did strike a chord (although I’ll admit there are devils in the details, so easier said that done) was the idea in creating a true and transparent market to foster free and fair competition for government (collective) research resource. Basically, my interpretation would be that technologies are allowing us, perhaps even forcing us, to rethink (in many if not all instances) the need for a centralized / top-down governance paradigm for allocating collective resources. To be clear it is not that this was a bad mechanism historically, indeed it probably was optimal given the circumstances; however to cling to it in the face of new developments facilitating better governance and resource allocation paradigms will ultimately be futile.
Or something like that…
