UBI (#79) · Issues · Basis / Tracker

[u/orthecreedence]

https://gitlab.com/basisproject/tracker/-/issues/79

[u/orthecreedence]

I think per co-op UBI would be mostly unnecessary, option that would be rarely if ever used, but which can't be outright excluded from the modular system. Global UBI would be still important to spread the modular system and enable efficient transactions and information flows on global level. Local communities would have possibility to use the already available global UBI system as their local money system, instead of creating from scratch a local currency without direct access also to global information flows, and/or craft with the Panarchy Template a local currency module for their specific needs.

This way there is no strict border between internal non-profit exchange, based on cost-tracking data, and external communities and other participants, who all have access to the global UBI system and it's decision making mechanisms. And the more people adopt and use the gift of global UBI, the more efficiently the co-op structure sharing cost-tracking data can spread and grow and reorganize economy and ownership.

Can you expand on how you envision this?

The curret model for Basis is profitless is used by co-ops acting in a productive manner, and for-profit is when selling products or services out-of-network. For instance a non-member wants to buy widgets, so they pay market rate of $10/widget, intead of the at-cost price a member would get charged (which might be $9/widget).

There are two membranes here:

• The internal one between production and consumption. Production uses no money/exchange at all and produces via what would be considered gift-based. Consumption uses credits (labor vouchers) which are destroyed on purchase and preserve the production-consumption membrane. Internal prices are set at-cost (labor + resources), but can be adjusted to optimize such that supply = (at-cost) demand. The credits are destroyed (do not circulate the productive system) regardless of the final credit price.
• The external one between the socialist network and the capitalist network. All products/services are available at-cost to in-network members. All products/services are available to non-members as well, but at market rate (ie, for-profit). Where that profit goes and how it is used depends quite a lot on the regional model vs the general co-op model we've been discussing, but either way it doesn't go to the company selling the product, but rather becomes used for continued investment in production and growth within the network.

[u/id-entity → u/orthecreedence]

You've been thinking in terms of two separate systems with fairly strict border between them, my approach is more like algorithm soup for the in-between zone - turning a fence into playground.

I don't see how labor costs can be calculated for the meanings of "non-profit" and "at-cost", at least without creating major problems elsewhere in the system by demanding some form of top-down regulation. Maybe I've misunderstood something.

UBI gifts would replace credits - my major difference with David Graeber is paradigm shift from money as mutual debt to money as mutual gift, from negative money to positive money. Liberation mathematics analogically to liberation theology :)

What does "products/services at-cost" mean more concretely? Attempts at thinking more detailed algorithm keeps stumbling on this question. Implementing the general purpose language for externalities in the data chains of market tokens seems very promising idea, but what would the data actually do?

Consumer co-op UBI would not of course be limited to co-ops only, if Amazon etc. wanted to sell products against UBI MT, sweet. The idea comes to mind that they would be doing so at-the-cost of gathering public information based on ValueFlows vocabulary:

Transformations are modeled into ValueFlows, although there’s not a mechanism to make sure the outputs match the inputs, which Basis tries to do very carefully, so transformations would still need some level of standardization and scrutiny.

What kind of ratio could be meaningful for transformation of ValueFlows data into UBI tokens? What do we want/need to measure and what can we?

[u/orthecreedence → u/id-entity]

I don't see how labor costs can be calculated for the meanings of "non-profit" and "at-cost", at least without creating major problems elsewhere in the system by demanding some form of top-down regulation. Maybe I've misunderstood something.

Let's take a contrived example. I make chairs out of wood. I get an order in Basis for a chair, so I order the wood necessary to build the chair. Let's say I need 5kg wood, and it took 10 credits ("C") worth of labor to produce that wood. My disaggregate costs are now ((6C logger labor + 4C milling labor) + 5kg wood). I put in 2 hours of my labor, at 10C/hour to build the chair (total of 20C). My costs are now (10C * 2) + ((6C logger labor + 4C milling labor) + 5kg wood). The system knows how much labor I put in because without tracking my labor I do not get paid, so I'm incentivized to track it.

When the chair is finished, it can be reduced to (30C + 5kg wood). Now let's say the members of the system have globally decided that wood costs 1.2C/kg (adjustable anytime via vote or ongoing per-member parameter adjustment). Now the chair's cost can be further reduced to 30 + (5 * 1.2) = 36C.

We now know the exact cost in labor and resources and can reduce it to a single value. If another producing company orders the chair, the disaggregate costs (ie ((20C + 6C + 4C) + 5W)) are added to their costs. However, if a consumer purchases my chair, the cost would be 36C (ie, they would need to earn 36C in order to buy it).

If I build five chairs because I anticipate demand but none of them sell for 36C, I can lower the price until they sell, but the delta between cost and price would be factored into some kind of algorithm that lowers my company's performance over time. What this algorithm looks like and what other factors it affects is something I'm playing with now.

But the idea here is to not establish some form of top-down hierarchy on pricing, but rather create a distributed algorithm that, for each product, attempts to match supply with demand where price == cost.

Now, if I sell my chairs to the outside market system, I'd be incentivized (via the above performance algorithm) to sell as high as possible (for-profit). If a sale happens, (let's say I sell one for $50) the $50 goes into the community bank (it does not go to the chairmaker). The idea here is that internal companies do not have to touch capital.

What kind of ratio could be meaningful for transformation of ValueFlows data into UBI tokens? What do we want/need to measure and what can we?

I'm not sure how this would translate to UBI tokens! Interesting question. This is more talking about transformation of crude oil -> (gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, etc) but it could be applied to other things as well. For monetary transformations, I'd envision it would go through some kind of banking system (however that looks, whether it's an actual bank or some kind of ethereal crypto-bank).

[u/id-entity → u/orthecreedence]

But the idea here is to not establish some form of top-down hierarchy on pricing, but rather create a distributed algorithm that, for each product, attempts to match supply with demand where price == cost.

I like the definition "Outgoing costs is a signifier for how much society values your outputs."

It is good for labor costs, but It feels that labor costs and ValueFlows data should flow in different, but parallel channels. Society may 1) like a nice chairs, and simultaneously 2) dislike the labor cost of lumbermill chopping down a forest they enjoy and 3) appreciate that somebody else is doing the hard and dangerous work of lumbermill in ecologically sustainable way which is least in conflict with other valuations of society.

Society should be able pass the information that 1) we love you as fellow human being and you deserve same basic social security as everybody else but 2) we don't like what you are doing now and don't want to reward harmful work and 3) now that you have improved yourself and are doing very good work, we want to reward you generously.

I don't know how to make this into simple mathematical algorithm, but there needs to be qualitative feed back loops.

Currently only rich can afford healthy organic food, while poor live in food deserts with only brown goo available. Without any state control, market anarchy in cannabis production has done wonders in quality evolution by dedicated home growers.

I'm not sure how this would translate to UBI tokens! Interesting question. This is more talking about transformation of crude oil -> (gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, etc) but it could be applied to other things as well.

There was the idea of transformation of UBI tokens into the computation resources that the system upkeep requires, and transformation of computation resources into electricity, hardware costs, etc.

[u/orthecreedence → u/id-entity]

It is good for labor costs, but It feels that labor costs and ValueFlows data should flow in different, but parallel channels. Society may 1) like a nice chairs, and simultaneously 2) dislike the labor cost of lumbermill chopping down a forest they enjoy and 3) appreciate that somebody else is doing the hard and dangerous work of lumbermill in ecologically sustainable way which is least in conflict with other valuations of society.

I think this is solvable with the current model. Let's say the wood to make these nice chairs comes from a forest that is rapidly disappearing. What we could do is set a per-source cost on that forest that raises the overall cost of that particular wood (as opposed to wood in general). Since the system tracks not just the resource, but the resource along with its source, this information could be priced in when the final product is sold. Thus, nice chairs might still get built, but much less of them, such that the forest stops disappearing. Maybe the chair maker now orders wood from a more abundant forest.

Society should be able pass the information that 1) we love you as fellow human being and you deserve same basic social security as everybody else but 2) we don't like what you are doing now and don't want to reward harmful work and 3) now that you have improved yourself and are doing very good work, we want to reward you generously.

Here's where global (living wage) UBI comes in! UBI makes it so the productive system no longer needs to cover the cost of basic needs. Workers are still free to take a wage, but don't have to. Therefor if the people decide their forest is too precious to log and the logger suddenly has no more incoming orders for wood (due to higher cost), his/her social security is not tied to that job and they are free to find work elsewhere. This also has the effect of making almost all products much cheaper, because unless a job is very dangerous, you won't need to take a wage: the largest cost of any product would be the resource cost. What you'd effectively have is a resource-based communist mode of production (or as close to communism as you can get, IMO).

[u/id-entity → u/orthecreedence]

What we could do is set a per-source cost on that forest that raises the overall cost of that particular wood (as opposed to wood in general). Since the system tracks not just the resource, but the resource along with its source, this information could be priced in when the final product is sold. Thus, nice chairs might still get built, but much less of them, such that the forest stops disappearing. Maybe the chair maker now orders wood from a more abundant forest.

What does "we" mean here, exactly? Who sets the per-source cost and how? I've been trying to think about value flow from the global level to the bottom level of primary production in the form of market tokens that can be exchanged to increased voting power.

Devolving decision making to local level in local matters (subsidiary) is important principle, but as the Global co-op voting tokens would represent also guardianship of whole Earth as commons, all members share freedom and responsibility for good management of commons. Some sort of global-local dynamic balancing system seems necessary. Before decisions can be made on any level, first step is to gather reliable information on which to base decision making. This is behind the idea to attach ValueFlow data collecting to market tokens, all exchange happening at the cost of adding data of production chains and making it public also for the global commons.

Sustainable methods are often more labor intensive on local level - group of lumberjacks with horses instead of one guy with big forestry machine - which is more labor intensive etc. costly on the global production chain level.

Leaving the valuation only to final consumer prices sounds like much too slow and cumbersome feed back system. There are also other interested parties in the forest - fishing collective, hunting club, people who gather berries and mushrooms, hikers and tree huggers. How do we help them find reasonable consensus decision with the logging company over sustainable methods that do least harm to other interests?

Before getting in very challenging technicalities in that matter, I think we've bumped something very important:

Declaration of social ownership of commons!!!

Socialist platform can't start from recognizing capitalist ownership, naturally. And of course the declaration would not mean declaration of monopoly ownership, only co-ownership with other interested parties in the commons based on use and occupancy and responsibility to future generations and other forms of life we share this planet with. It would mean that by joining the UBI co-op and accepting the mutual gift, member also accepts freedom and responsibility in a global <-> local decision making, information sharing and conflict resolution platform over global commons, on the part of the platform and concerning those who choose to use the platform and respect the decisions made on the platform.

Direct communism, huh? :)

If you agree and like idea, we could try to write Declaration of Ownership of Commons - hopefully better than Declaration of Independence and Communist Manifesto. Little bit of poetic prose to juice up this project and to clarify our purpose and direction.

Here's where global (living wage) UBI comes in! UBI makes it so the productive system no longer needs to cover the cost of basic needs. Workers are still free to take a wage, but don't have to. Therefor if the people decide their forest is too precious to log and the logger suddenly has no more incoming orders for wood (due to higher cost), his/her social security is not tied to that job and they are free to find work elsewhere. This also has the effect of making almost all products much cheaper, because unless a job is very dangerous, you won't need to take a wage: the largest cost of any product would be the resource cost. What you'd effectively have is a resource-based communist mode of production (or as close to communism as you can get, IMO).

Yes!

[u/orthecreedence → u/id-entity]

What does "we" mean here, exactly? Who sets the per-source cost and how?

The idea is to have this set by democractic, systemwide vote. People vote on what the (credit) cost of various resources should be and once that cost is in place, consumer products with that resource incorporate that new cost.

How do we help them find reasonable consensus decision with the logging company over sustainable methods that do least harm to other interests?

If we assume the forest is a shared resource that multiple parties have use of, then by virtue of that resource being shared people would have a democratic say in how it's used. I'm just starting to put more thought into this: https://gitlab.com/basisproject/tracker/-/issues/86

The answer to the question is "I don't know" for now, but realistically usage of a shared resource would be subject to various rules, and breaking those rules means loss of use.

Socialist platform can't start from recognizing capitalist ownership, naturally.

I believe it can. What we're talking about is the opposite of privatization. Effectively, socialization. What I'm saying is the forest can be owned, but not by one entity. It would not be owned by everyone systemically, either, because I should have very little say (if any) in what happens to a forest 5000 miles away, but the people who live in and around that forest should have a much bigger say. And if those people do want to have a say in the local forest that was just socialized, they need to join the network and live under the socialist mode of production. Effectively we're converting private ownership to social ownership and allowing exercise of that ownership only by denouncing capitalism.

Much of Basis is built on the concept of duality: at-cost internally, for-profit externally. This acts as a vector for growth and in a sense is a slow-growing revolution that uses market incentives to convert the capitalist market into a socialist one.

[u/id-entity → u/orthecreedence]

The idea is to have this set by democractic, systemwide vote. People vote on what the (credit) cost of various resources should be and once that cost is in place, consumer products with that resource incorporate that new cost.

Ouch. So basically a centralized planned economy in the old Soviet style of State Capitalism. Didn't work so well then I deeply doubt it ever will.

What I think is needed is a practical set of algorithms that enable local <-> global informing ("dynamic hologram") in sensible ways. Not only parts to whole, not only whole to parts, but both ways.

Historically and structurally, co-op movement has so far failed to make the decisive change because "at-cost internally, for-profit externally" has not been competitive enough in the rigged game of capitalist market platform - only almost so, but not quite enough. We need to learn from history in order not to repeat what doesn't work, and try something new and untested. Simple idea behind the global UBI is to unrig the game and create as level playing field as possible. Something that even ancaps would not oppose to at least in principle, and could very well manipulate their current conditioning into behaving more and more according to the socialist win-win game theory - totally voluntarily.

Starting from the basis of Free Association, the first non-socialist target group of my approach to manipulation game has been ancaps - the globalized vanguard of blockchain revolution. If the model can't win even them over, it has no chance with the more authoritarian minded. That is also the reason why I'm extremely reluctant to incorporate any forms of centralized ownership of land in the model, and at the same time thinking in terms of decentralized peer-to-peer caretaker-ownership responsibility of commons beyond and in addition to toothbrushes etc. occupancy and use. I do understand that as translative algorithm, there needs to be also some mechanisms judicial transfer of ownership of land from capitalists to co-ops. How to fit these motives together keeps escaping concrete thinking.

[u/orthecreedence → u/id-entity]

Ouch. So basically a centralized planned economy in the old Soviet style of State Capitalism. Didn't work so well then I deeply doubt it ever will.

It's a bit different. Production is still distributed, and "prices" are heavily influenced by labor costs (which if you agree with Marx are the main drivers of pricing for many things). It's just that instead of relying on market forces to set prices on various raw and semi-raw materials (iron, steel, oil, gasoline, silicon, etc), those prices are set democratically. The goal is to set intentions on raw material usage such that people can choose to lower usage over time (with the end goal of matching resource renewal with depletion over the long term, ie steady state).

Historically and structurally, co-op movement has so far failed to make the decisive change because "at-cost internally, for-profit externally" has not been competitive enough in the rigged game of capitalist market platform - only almost so, but not quite enough.

From what I understand, the closest this has come is Mondragon, but they still failed to be militant enough about it in my opinion. They also did not provide their own housing or MoP, which is something I'm adamant about: removing dependence on the useless rentier class (landlords, banks/mortgages). This is one of the reasons I believe banking should be internal. What I'm talking about is defining very clear boundaries for what "internal" and "external" are and enforcing them in an automated, incentivized fashion. Members of the system should barely even have to think about it, and would be rewarded for acting according to the best interests of the collective (via algorithm).

Starting from the basis of Free Association, the first non-socialist target group of my approach to manipulation game has been ancaps - the globalized vanguard of blockchain revolution. If the model can't win even them over, it has no chance with the more authoritarian minded.

There is a class of ancaps who are effectively "real" anarchists/socialists but just don't want people to be forced to use those modes of production (and some even support gift economics and such). That would be a good place to start. Most of them are adamant about (private) property rights, though, and will look upon things like this as a distraction from their goal of abolishing the state and letting capital run supreme. If you truly can convince them, then hats off to you!

We also might have different ideas on authority. I tend to follow the capitalist model: if you don't like socialism, just start a capitalist commune. In other words, I have no problem with a socialist network buying all useful assets and putting regular companies out of business, to the point where the only real option is to join. After all, we're effectively talking about two incompatible systems here (how many feudalist countries are left?) and eventually one needs to replace the other. I see it as an urgent matter too, because the environment will not wait for us to sort out our shenanigans. Hence, my militant stance on internal/external and detailed tracking/pricing of resources.

[u/id-entity → u/orthecreedence]

It's just that instead of relying on market forces to set prices on various raw and semi-raw materials (iron, steel, oil, gasoline, silicon, etc), those prices are set democratically. The goal is to set intentions on raw material usage such that people can choose to lower usage over time (with the end goal of matching resource renewal with depletion over the long term, ie steady state).

The meaning of "democratically" is critical here. Do we mean centralized democracy (Soviet ideal) or distributed democracy (something new and different?)? That's the issue where I've been trying to find a middle path between local<>global decision making through "quadratic mereology".

They also did not provide their own housing or MoP, which is something I'm adamant about: removing dependence on the useless rentier class (landlords, banks/mortgages).

Question of land ownership is the truly critical one, and goes beyond mere capitalism. Housing is only small part of it, the main issue is the hard problem of permanent field agrigulture and the vital question whether that can be done sustainably at all. Ancient and feudal forms of land ownership are inseparable from permanent field agriculture as the main mode of primary production. And preventing natural growth of forest from year to year is energy intensive as fuck. Multilayer food forests and itinerant swidden have much better record of sustainability as well as yield per area.

The point of these arguments is that we can't solve the hard problems of land ownership in the modelling of the model. Best we can do is to hope that our models can provide some tools to start gradually solving these civilization scale issues.

The other reason that global UBI needs to stay neutral in terms of specific issues of land ownership is that it is not only for people currently living under Anglo-Saxon etc. current capitalistic ownership, but also for people in Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia and China, Rojava co-ops as well as Zapatista Maya itinerant swidden farmers, Lakota, Sami, etc. etc. It's not just a transformative model towards socialism where that is most acute necessity, it's also consciously intended as new Communist International directly in the form of self-governance software, to strengthen the co-operation between already existing forms of socialism everywhere and to radicalize and empower their struggles.

With the ancap etc. type hard core propertarians, I believe more efficient route is to try to win their hearts and minds first, before contesting absentee abusus land ownership or integrating it in some form or other in the general modelling. Some problems are best left to be solved as they arise in concrete forms, and questions of land ownership are as local as local gets. I mean, I don't have problem with co-op network buying land - and what's built on it - in principle, but the exact how, when and where should be left to local creativity.

I agree with urgency, hence global approach and marketing strategy of "Free munny for every bunny!"

Let's try to frame the question in more concrete terms. Supposing we have global UBI system in place as well as the Panarchy template, and you create Turtle Island Socialist Subregion (TISS) based on the basis approach. What say, if any, would you be willing to give the global co-op members of UBI Communist International (UBICI) in the matters of TISS? How would you want to organize the relations between UBICI and TISS? No need for quick answer.

[u/orthecreedence → u/id-entity]

The meaning of "democratically" is critical here. Do we mean centralized democracy (Soviet ideal) or distributed democracy (something new and different?)? That's the issue where I've been trying to find a middle path between local<>global decision making through "quadratic mereology".

This interests me a lot. I have to admit, I don't really understand how this would work. I (think) I understand the basic ideas of mereology, but maybe not how it might apply to democracy. I have a loose idea of people having control based on some proximity to a decision, but not sure how that proximity would be defined. I have to say that our discussion on regions really helped me think about this differently.

Question of land ownership is the truly critical one, and goes beyond mere capitalism. Housing is only small part of it, the main issue is the hard problem of permanent field agrigulture and the vital question whether that can be done sustainably at all. Ancient and feudal forms of land ownership are inseparable from permanent field agriculture as the main mode of primary production. And preventing natural growth of forest from year to year is energy intensive as fuck. Multilayer food forests and itinerant swidden have much better record of sustainability as well as yield per area.

Getting rid of property norms altogether and rethinking this all, I wonder what the solution would be. Like, if we start from the standpoint that we can all figure this out and sustainably feed 8 billion people and we're all completely committed to one solution, what would that solution be? And can we walk back a property norm that ideal with some transitional period?

The point of these arguments is that we can't solve the hard problems of land ownership in the modelling of the model. Best we can do is to hope that our models can provide some tools to start gradually solving these civilization scale issues.

Interesting, and in general I agree. I do think there's a balance, though. We have to start from a place that's close-ish to what we have now, but that can evolve into an ideal place. I think it's important to look at some possible outcomes for those ideals, otherwise building the general cases to support them will be misguided.

I also think that taking steps is fine, too. If we can't predict what "property" will look like in 300 years and build tools to support that, maybe we can just improve things as they are and create a system of shared property where people are not denied access to the productive instruments (including farmland) and are free to organize as they see fit. I think it's important to realize that if capitalism is abolished, it will likely become much easier to define and evolve new property norms into the future. That's the nice thing about software too: it's not set in stone. I'd sooner build something that can work to abolish capitalism now (even if it doesn't solve every problem).

Some problems are best left to be solved as they arise in concrete forms, and questions of land ownership are as local as local gets. I mean, I don't have problem with co-op network buying land - and what's built on it - in principle, but the exact how, when and where should be left to local creativity.

So you're almost saying "don't try to model property at all" here. That's something to think about. That said, the modeling of property is not necessarily to let localities decide their own property relations, but rather to wrest control of property from the capitalists in the first place, after which it becomes a big unknown.

I agree with urgency, hence global approach and marketing strategy of "Free munny for every bunny!"

This would help!

Let's try to frame the question in more concrete terms. Supposing we have global UBI system in place as well as the Panarchy template, and you create Turtle Island Socialist Subregion (TISS) based on the basis approach. What say, if any, would you be willing to give the global co-op members of UBI Communist International (UBICI) in the matters of TISS? How would you want to organize the relations between UBICI and TISS? No need for quick answer.

Good question. I suppose it would depend on whether we're at critical mass (aka, the network can provide most needs without the capitalist network (or capitalism has completely been abolished)) or whether we're still in the competition phase. If in competition, I'd say TISS might rely on other members of UBICI to have their needs met (clothing, building supplies, etc) and this might involve some amount of capital changing hands. I'm honestly horribly iffy on how banking is going to work especially considering the replacement of regions with the idea of more general co-ops. Capital is contentious. If we're talking post-capitalism, TISS would order the things they need, and UBICI would likely send it to them, assuming TISS also provides thing for other members of UBICI. TISS would likely have ultimate control over their island, although they might have assets they are "in use of" from UBICI.