Imagine you have a successful business within the capitalist economic system, but at the same time this new paradigm has been up and running for a while, and so you decide you’d like to experiment with a single project run via this new framework to see how it will go by comparison to the usual way of doing things. Or perhaps you want to know where your skills will be of use in a post transition Resources Based Economy.
This article is a hypothetical scenario of how that might play out for a few different circumstances ( both during and after transition ), just to give you an idea.
investment services:
Ok, so let’s say you’re in the investment services sector, and a bunch of people invest their money with your business, which you then invest on their behalf.
It’s highly likely that your clients don’t have as much knowledge as you in the investment sector, or they don’t have as much time to give it focus, hence your role – so they’re probably unaware they could actually invest their money directly, or they don’t have time to deal with it … but also, different investment expectations come with different levels of risk and return, so perhaps your role on their behalf involves diversifying their investment portfolio, both to reduce and spread risk, while maximising gains. Whatever the case, you’re there to do a job on their behalf.
Ultimately you probably don’t care much about the bigger vision here, and neither do your clients, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be investors. In fact the whole system is predicated on the assumption that you don’t care, because what we know from the status quo is that people are quite happy to invest in death and destruction, so offering them an alternative is of no interest unless they personally give a crap about such an alternative agenda.
Within the investment world, the following key factors determine where money gets invested:
- risk versus return: if two investments offer the same return, which has the lower associated risk;
- return on investment: if two investments constitute the same risk, which offers the better return;
- duration of investment: if two investments offer the same risk and return, which offers it faster;
- exit strategy and exit options: how do I get my money back out of the investment – ie: how locked in am I?
So regardless of any bigger vision and purpose to the entire framework, an investor ultimately doesn’t care so long as you’re offering them good answers to these questions.
For the greater vision of OE to occur, we cannot allow for permanent parasitic “owners” while other people work as systemic slaves, but in order to gain access to resources from the status quo, we must take into account the expectations of investors.
Thus we have a quandary:
how do we attract investment without undermining the very reasons for doing any of this in the first place?
The answer to which is roughly as follows:
- nobody is given permanent ownership;
- everyone is a “shareholder” – even those not associated with a project ( but that’s another story );
- everyone’s inputs ( labour, intellectual property, and other resource inputs ) are counted as “investments”;
- a market competitive ROI “hurdle rate” of return is negotiated with financial investors;
- this is a competitive bidding process, so projects get funding at the best possible rate;
- project staff are paid a salary for work, but this salary is based not on negotiation, instead by algorithm;
- if project staff voluntarily sacrifice some salary, they can count this as additional investment;
- since staff are giving their time ( whereas investors are not ), they are also investors by algorithmic significance of project contribution;
- staff investment ROI thus has ongoing influence, since they’re at work almost every ( if not every ) day;
- so it behooves the interests of staff to contribute the most significant work they can, and to ensure that all other investors are paid back sooner rather than later – because the sooner you pay back a purely financial investor, the sooner their investment’s ongoing influence is reduced, and eventually eliminated ( from a purely capitalist economic standpoint );
- in this way, investors get their exit strategy built in, alongside a reduction in risk, and a maximisation of the speed of their returns – so this actually constitutes an extremely good option;
- after investment earnings are returned, an investor’s money is therefore freed up to invest into the next project, or something else entirely … and what they sacrifice for this is simply the perpetuality of any investment, and an actual status of ownership, but otherwise it’s actually the better option – ie: why would you care if you didn’t actually own something, if instead you got reduced risk, faster and competitive returns, and plenty of opportunity for new investments?
So the purpose and role of an investment services business during transition, it to facilitate this iterative investment process for investors who don’t want to spend their own time and efforts doing so, and so you might manage an investment fund or bank, that becomes an institutional investor in the projects undertaken within the OE framework, via the buffering interface of the OE Ethical investment hedge fund, which prevents direct project ownership, and thus prevents undue influence or sabotage of the objectives and principles of the broader OE vision.
The OE ethical investment hedge fund would provide your business with the necessary information for you to create investment portfolios for individual clients or just whole parcels of money coming from multiple clients. Although all of this would be restricted to some degree by the investment strategies and processes being employed by the OE fund itself, which is responsible for keeping all monies working ( earning ), and yet available as possible. So for this reason, the OE fund divides all moneys into 4 areas:
- long term: money which has not yet been allocated to a specific project is placed into long term ( low risk ) investment;
- medium term: once a project successfully passes certain milestones and development stages, and both a timeline and budget for further development is established, money moves from long term to medium term, in line with such a project timetable;
- short term: as the project start date nears, money is moved from medium to short term, and divided into development parcels associated with specific project stages;
- ready cash: short term investment money is then transferred to ready cash in those parcelled units, and dealt out to project requirements as they arise – thus the OE ethical investment hedge fund also acts as a bank for projects.
So as an investor, your expectations are aligned and assessed versus the expectations of others in a bidding process, and your investment is then effectively purchased and invested according to these 4 elements of the OE fund’s own investment strategy.
It is also therefore entirely possible that the OE fund could operate in the other direction too, investing some of its money ( long and medium term most likely ), in the external opportunities of the existing market, and perhaps in some cases via an existing fund which has control of such investment opportunities.
real estate and property developers:
Ok, so what about if you’re a real estate investor or property developer, is there any way you can interact with the OE framework and vision? The answer once again, is yes.
- firstly: as per the previous section about financial investment, it is also possible to invest other ( non-currency ) assets via the OE ethical investment hedge fund. Various projects are going to need real estate in/on which to operate, and the fund itself will be looking for long term investments in the capitalist economy, for those monies that are not yet allocated to a specific project timeline;
- secondly: some aspect of a project might involve property development services, for which your business could sub-contracted, and this could involve either a direct and full payment for services, or a discounted rate, where the discount amount is translated into a financial investment as before;
- thirdly: you might have idle time for a property, and you could “donate” this idle time to a non-commercial project being undertaken within the framework – although such a donation would potentially still provide you with a benefit, I’m merely distinguishing the differences in ROI expectation between an investment and a donation, but they’re both otherwise treated approximately the same, they’re just differences of priority possibility and probability of investment returns;
- fourthly: you might have a property development project which you’re willing to undertake under the arrangements of the OE framework, so you begin that planning via the framework, and eventually receive funding through it – the main difference being that if you want to invest your own monies and other resources into the project, part of such an agreement is that such investments can only occur via the OE ethical investment hedge fund, and you’re also agreeing to give up ownership of the project to the OE Trust, of which you and everything else on the planet is a beneficiary – thus your share in profits both as investor and project staff member ( beyond your salary as project staff ) for working on that project, is now according to the algorithm of profit sharing, and the end goal of the project is modified to some degree, such that it is designed to reduce deleterious and increase beneficial ecological and social consequences ( at least in comparison to how it might otherwise have been developed ).
tradespersons and professional services:
Projects will be looking for project staff, and you could offer your services to a project either as a sub-contractor ( after budget allocation ), and/or as a project contributor prior to such budget allocation; this includes being a project founder using the framework – ie: inserting your own ideas into the project development process of the framework.
As above, this means sacrificing your intellectual property to the trust of which you are automatically a beneficiary, along with every other living and non-living element of the ecosystems of Earth – the difference being that the insertion of your intellectual property into the framework is also an investment, therefore it also counts toward the significance of your overall contribution – and since no project exists without its foundational concepts, the insertion of your IP has a direct impact on every single other input to that project, and is therefore the most significant of all inputs ( to some degree – though this can change over time, as the significance of that initial input is diluted amongst all other inputs ).
So you don’t actually lose out by giving up exclusivity of IP, but instead you’re simply releasing your project to achieve its maximum potential.
For example:
- you come up with an idea for a movie script;
- you put that idea into the framework as a project;
- you also work on it as a project contributor ( though you don’t have to );
- at some point someone else decides to create a TV series based on your movie;
- both ideas go forward, even though they may have different production teams;
- even if you never directly contribute to the TV series, it wouldn’t exist without your idea;
- thus you automatically benefit from its production as the original source of inspiration;
- this TV series can best benefit from your movie by acknowledging the association;
- thus there’s a greater incentive to acknowledge than deny, but no negotiation of profit sharing is required, as it all occurs by algorithm … and when capitalism finally loses all influence, there’s no incentive to deny it at all.
Approximately the same scenario can play out for just about any type of project.
retailers:
You might think retail would die completely in a non-property/trade/currency-based economic paradigm, and perhaps it would, but I suspect it actually won’t, and here’s why.
People currently love buying things, and not entirely because we’re a consumer society under capitalism, but also because they love comfort, fun, and creative / technical expression of themselves and their ideas – for which they still need material things.
So in the future when capitalism no longer exists, people with retail experience under the status quo could still perform a vital role, but they’d be doing it on their own terms, with greater enjoyment, and no pressure to “sell”.
If for example you have a bunch of people producing certain resources, because they want access to scarce resources, but perhaps they don’t have time to focus on the retail aspect, they could send samples and stock to a retail specialist, who just focuses on learning the differences between various options, and fulfilling customer need.
You as the producer just focus on doing what you do as a creator and technician, the retailer doesn’t have to pay you, they simply need to prove to you that they’re good at what they do, and provide information to you about likely demand for such goods. Neither of you are motivated to over supply the market, as this would constitute deleterious ecological consequences, but instead you’re motivated to accurately supply the market, and to produce such goods in the most ecologically sensitive way.
If stock at the retail end is not used in one location, it can be supplied to another location, since it is of lesser ecological consequence to supply it instead of wasting it, and others would specialise in the transportation of such goods, to reduce the ecological impact of transport waste.
Thus people can enjoy retail “shopping”, but they no longer pay for things, they simply acknowledge receipt of that which is in abundant supply, and prove merit for access to that which is in scarce supply, with the retailer taking partial credit ( alongside the producer ) for the consequences of such supply.
So producers are motivated to maximise product benefits, minimise deleterious production consequences, and working with the retailer, to accurately fulfil human needs.
conclusion:
Hopefully these examples are generic enough for you to be able to imagine any other scenario, though you may need to read other pages and articles of this site to get the bigger picture – I’ll go into all of it in greater detail in the upcoming series of books.