NationStates Jolt Archive

m'friends and i are trying to make a country. we know it's nearly impossibly, but it's worth a try. right now we're stumped on finding a good economic strategy. we want to be able to reward the people who do the most work(the people who don't work would die). yet we want to avoid having any system of money. anyone have any ideas please?

Force everyone to do good deeds and then nuke them.

In heaven, you don't need money.

You know there has been books written on this subject. Here is a link to one. I actually own this title. It is interesting to say the least.

http://www.loompanics.com/cgi-local/SoftCart.exe/cgi-local/smpagegen.exe?U+scstore+sbpb7621ff8e628e+-p+-c+scstore.cfg+17028

Hopefully this will seed your imagination. It has been done before!

You know there has been books written on this subject. Here is a link to one. I actually own this title. It is interesting to say the least.

http://www.loompanics.com/cgi-local/SoftCart.exe/cgi-local/smpagegen.exe?U+scstore+sbpb7621ff8e628e+-p+-c+scstore.cfg+17028

Hopefully this will seed your imagination. It has been done before!

i didn't mean about creating a country in general, only need ideas to solve how the economy would work, but this looks very interesting, thankyou.

A Christian socialist system like that mentioned in the New Testament would be excellent.

Could you explain what your complaint about money is if you want a system where:
we want to be able to reward the people who do the most work(the people who don't work would die)
It seems money would work there, but I might not have all the information before me. If you are content on living with subsistence conditions you could always go with the barter system (one guy makes socks and pants so he can trade them to the guy who farms corn).

There are certain necessary tasks that none wish to perform (trash collecter). Therefore, instead of money, there are get out of being the trash collector for a day free cards that are traded. Then people will to better so they don't have to periodicly do the unpleasent tasks.

Well, you can take out the market all together if you have a small enough nation.

Operate communally, everyone shares the products of the community equally. Of course by your conditions, those who do not contribute to the community will not reap the rewards. It really is that simple if you have a small enough group of decent individuals, and you want to get rid of money.

There is really only one other system to eliminate money besides Communalism, and that's Barter. A fine choice either way.

Good luck with forming your own nation. :D

m'friends and i are trying to make a country. we know it's nearly impossibly, but it's worth a try. right now we're stumped on finding a good economic strategy. we want to be able to reward the people who do the most work(the people who don't work would die). yet we want to avoid having any system of money. anyone have any ideas please?Government controls everything. workers are monitored by government employees and their reward would be basic necessities and luxuries. work and you get food for the day. work hard and you get a tv for the night. don't work, and you don't get food.

Medicine would be controlled. Only if you are sick, do you get medicine.

Government employees are the cream of the graduates (thus you want a government job, you need top grades.

and when you retire, you get the average of your output. if you were always a hard worker, you are given enough food for you and your family plus you get luxuries (TV.)

What kind of country are you going to make?

To monitor everybody's "hardworkingess" you would need a gigantic bureaucracy, which often hampers efficiency, though.

we want to be able to reward the people who do the most work(the people who don't work would die). yet we want to avoid having any system of money.

a system of gold star and smiley face stickers?

A Christian socialist system like that mentioned in the New Testament would be excellent.
Yep... share all that you have, but if you lie about it get nuked by God. :rolleyes:

What they said above but simpler. Don't work? Get Shot. Everybody else shares the wealth.

Pretty sucky if you ask me, since there would be no incentives to improve/develop/invent, but what te hell, it's your story.

Hmmm, 3rd party [most likely goverment] controlled and measured monetary system. Basically, the goverment keeps track of all your 'credits' and controls how much people earn for different tasks. Taking into account supply/demand of goods and services and wage scaling depending on the desirability of each job. People could still work as much or as little as they wanted, the goverment could ensure no-one ever got TOO rich and welfare would be better as a safety-net payement wold be easier to control and scale.

Puts a lot of faith in the governent though and elections would probably turn into 'which candidate will pay my job the most money?' type of thing.

NOTE : I don't advocate this, just an idea. It's a little too red for me and I think money is fantastic, except that the governments far too often forgets what the purpose of the economy is.

Barter.

Barter.

The problem with a barter economy is that nothing can get done easily, as theres no storage of wealth.

The problem with money is that its just a way for people to store wealth. Gold was valueable because it was pretty and used for jewlery, it was also valuable because it represented wealth. A gold coin was worth its weight in gold, no matter where it was minted.

The problem is, people are focusing on money as the issue to be eliminated, but what you need to do is eliminate WEALTH, as an idea.

Once you do that, put into effect actual communism. Becuase it'd work.

Read 1984. On second thought, don't. I don't trust you with that knowledge.

m'friends and i are trying to make a country. we know it's nearly impossibly, but it's worth a try. right now we're stumped on finding a good economic strategy. we want to be able to reward the people who do the most work(the people who don't work would die). yet we want to avoid having any system of money. anyone have any ideas please?

Outside of increased foods/goods, non-reinbursment rewards, honors, or promotions...I can't think of anything. ;)

Lemme guess though, you essentially want a "classless" society? That would eliminate 'promotions', but you might still honor them. There's a great old quote by old Bonepart about men working themselves to death for a medal.

I mean, look at what happened to the man who made the AK-47 in Russia? He got a citation from the government and some praise...and that's about it. A paltry sum for the designer of the most popular automatic weapon in the world, eh? But that's how the system worked over there. He now makes some damn fine Vodka these days.

Seriously, you can't come up with a decent incentive program for good workers? Have you never worked yourself? Break times/vacations, increased rewards (non-monetary in your case), meeting famous people for dinner, honors, parties, choice housing...or even good parking, etc.

If you're still stumped, read the "Wu-tzu" on rewards. His methods for stimulating the men were the stuff of legend. Simply be consistent, generous (but not TOO generous), swift, and certain. Same thing goes for punishments; if you're gonna kill someone, kill them regardless of rank or prestige, if you're going to reward someone, do it no matter if they are a Prince or a Stableboy.


"The ultimate reward is Honor, not awards, at odds with the times of wars with no lords."

-Samurai Champloo opening theme

Just use money.

Just use money.

...somehow, I was expecting that from you, once I saw that you had posted.

You cant get rid of money. Lenin tried that - biggest mistake he ever made. You cant barter goods because you cant necessarily even out values. A potato for example may be worth a carrot to one person and 50 carrots to another. It cant be done.

...somehow, I was expecting that from you, once I saw that you had posted.
...how???

...how???

Projection of future actions based on prior activities.

Figure it out from there.

Projection of future actions based on prior activities.

Figure it out from there.

S...st...stalker!!!:eek::eek::eek:

*flees from Lanquassia*

What prior actions?

m'friends and i are trying to make a country. we know it's nearly impossibly, but it's worth a try. right now we're stumped on finding a good economic strategy. we want to be able to reward the people who do the most work(the people who don't work would die). yet we want to avoid having any system of money. anyone have any ideas please?
check out the UDCP manifesto. we have a no-money system
http://udcp.11.forumer.com/viewtopic.php?p=294#294

S...st...stalker!!!:eek::eek::eek:

*flees from Lanquassia*

What prior actions?

In other threads that I've seen you post in. :D

In other threads that I've seen you post in. :D

So you HAVE been stalking me!

*Gasp!*

*so proud of myself. lol :D*

Are you a psychologist? How could you foresee my exact response???

So you HAVE been stalking me!

*Gasp!*

*so proud of myself. lol :D*

Are you a psychologist? How could you foresee my exact response???

Yes, I'm a psych major and I have a profile on you.

....I actually said that once, when I was younger and full of shit. >.<

Nah, doesn't take much to get a feel for how a person will post on threads.

Yes, I'm a psych major and I have a profile on you.

....I actually said that once, when I was younger and full of shit. >.<

Nah, doesn't take much to get a feel for how a person will post on threads.

COOL! WHAT AM I GOING TO SAY NEXT?

Barter system perhaps?

I don't think anyone can reeally abandon money overnight without causing chaos. There would have to be some sort of transitional system of tokens, or coupons, in between.

Communists would call this the 'withering away' of the socialist state into a highter phase of communism, but noone's ever a)tried or b)described how to do it. Maddening.

Well, you can take out the market all together if you have a small enough nation.

Operate communally, everyone shares the products of the community equally. Of course by your conditions, those who do not contribute to the community will not reap the rewards. It really is that simple if you have a small enough group of decent individuals, and you want to get rid of money.

There is really only one other system to eliminate money besides Communalism, and that's Barter. A fine choice either way.

Good luck with forming your own nation. :D

hmm, i should have included more information, but this is pretty much what we were thinking, and because of this we got into the problem of how to reward people who worked more, otherwise people would only work to the minimum. we plan it only to have 500-1000 people(500 is the minimum ammount of people to keep a human population continuing, so more than that, but not too much) the government(whole of the people) would have certian people that keep records of how much people work, then they decide how many people are needed to work at each job based on output and demand. we don't want to divide it up equally, as that would make people get the same things for doing different ammounts of work, but people don't need more than a certian ammount of things, so what could be used?there wouldn't make any exceptions for anything. can't figure out what the incentive for people to work more would be other than benifit of the entire state, except for maybe some sort of rankings system, but then, what would be the benifit or rank?

check out the UDCP manifesto. we have a no-money system
http://udcp.11.forumer.com/viewtopic.php?p=294#294
Money would be abolished, in favour of a system based on the principle of “from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs”. All members of society would produce, and in return take what they need for free. Various types of contribution to society would be accepted.

Very very very good! except one thing, people would have to be allowed to take an amount equal to the share of the work they did and not more(it probably says that somewhere else in the manifesto, i only got to that and thought it was nearly perfect) and that people only need a certian amount of things, so it's still kind of stuck at that. what would people want besides what they need to live and entertainment and stuff?

A no money system, hmm, well you could eliminate the idea of class, priveledge and hiarachy! ... and then institute a government filled with people who have the privelege to decide how much "hard work" is being done by everyone, and what everybody's "needs" are. Oh I guess you'd have the eliminate the idea of independent thought and freedom too. Shouldn't be a problem.

Very very very good! except one thing, people would have to be allowed to take an amount equal to the share of the work they did and not more(it probably says that somewhere else in the manifesto, i only got to that and thought it was nearly perfect) and that people only need a certian amount of things, so it's still kind of stuck at that. what would people want besides what they need to live and entertainment and stuff?
well i can't quite tell if this is sarcasm or not, but...

a) the system is more long term than what we're all used to under capitalism. with our current system, you put in a day's labour and you get rewarded with money to exchange for other things, for that day's work.
with the UDCP system you put in your lifetime's worth of labour, as does everyone else. hence, for your lifetime, you are entitled to have the products of another's labour for "free" in exchange for giving away freely the products of your labour. its a more long-termist approach and, admittedly, less accurate (as it works on the principle that over your lifetime the amount of goods & services you consume will roughly balance out to be similar to everyone else's)
this is also why there has to be penalties for not contributing to society
and a technological network would enable direct interface between the economic agents of demand and supply which could produce, in theory, a more efficient system than the 'trial and error' of capitalism

it also assumes the common socialist prerequisit of at least some form of widespread altruisitc nature, or at least an acceptance of equality as a social goal


b) yes, this is a re-evaluation happiness, wants and needs; away from the consumerist culture that promotes having "things" to make you happy

well i can't quite tell if this is sarcasm or not, but...

a) the system is more long term than what we're all used to under capitalism. with our current system, you put in a day's labour and you get rewarded with money to exchange for other things, for that day's work.
with the UDCP system you put in your lifetime's worth of labour, as does everyone else. hence, for your lifetime, you are entitled to have the products of another's labour for "free" in exchange for giving away freely the products of your labour. its a more long-termist approach and, admittedly, less accurate (as it works on the principle that over your lifetime the amount of goods & services you consume will roughly balance out to be similar to everyone else's)
this is also why there has to be penalties for not contributing to society
and a technological network would enable direct interface between the economic agents of demand and supply which could produce, in theory, a more efficient system than the 'trial and error' of capitalism

it also assumes the common socialist prerequisit of at least some form of widespread altruisitc nature, or at least an acceptance of equality as a social goal


b) yes, this is a re-evaluation happiness, wants and needs; away from the consumerist culture that promotes having "things" to make you happy

i wasn't being sarcastic, rarely ever do. for what you said with b) what will be the incentive for people to work beyond the ussual? my friends and i were just talking and we figured that people wouldn't need to work beyond however much they feel they need to in order to get the food they want, so that seems to solve that problem also, i'll send them all messages and ask what they think about this system right now.

i wasn't being sarcastic, rarely ever do. for what you said with b) what will be the incentive for people to work beyond the ussual? my friends and i were just talking and we figured that people wouldn't need to work beyond however much they feel they need to in order to get the food they want, so that seems to solve that problem also, i'll send them all messages and ask what they think about this system right now.
great :)
i mean its not a flawless system, i'm sure, but it is a coherent and tangiable solution.

as for your question: good question! something i don't think we've covered (at least not that i can remember)... i would imagine either exactly what you said, or the introduction of production quotas (getting a little too govt controlled for my liking there though), or simply through convention: its pretty standard to work 9 to 5 - there's no reason why this standard can't be maintained. and in a moneyless society without the endless, unsustainable drive for more and more economic growth, working a bit less wouldn't be that bad anyway.
sorry to be a bit vague but i'm pretty tired now :(

anyway, i'll raise the issue on our forum soon :)
i mean, we've covered the issue of worker disincentives to not supplying labour, but not the question of how much labour is acceptable as contribution to society...