Hello all,
I wanted to open up a discussion about a concept that has been fermenting in my mind for quite some time. Before going into the details, I wanted to share some realizations that I feel I worded out recently after experiencing different lifestyles (in Northern Europe, Kibbutz & Urban Kibbutz in Israel, Africa & USA).
I think that one of the key things that we missed on Human Happiness in our current western society is The Community.
Having a community, or a rather big circle of close friends (that does not need to schedule an appointment to come and "hang out") is paramount to human happiness.
Moreover, it makes Economic Sense. Especially when considering factors such as Raising Children. In some parts of our earth, the concept of two parents raising children by their own in an isolated manner, like happens in most of the big Western cities, would appear insane. In a community lifestyle, there is less pressure on the parents since the child will be occupied in the roaming group of community kids his age (making up games and entertaining themselves), and when required to do the parenting jobs it is most of the time shared between the other members of the community.
The concept I am thinking of is creating a community that is like an Urban Kibbutz, and oriented at big Western cities. It consists an highrise building (similar to the notorious urban Condos), where all the households are part of the Community. Each household will pay a Fixed Rate of monthly payment based on their number, and in return will get all the necessities required to live (Health, Transportation, Education, Water, Heating, Groceries & Internet).
All the excess money will be Invested or used to purchase Shared Luxuries based on what the community members vote to do.
All of that will be managed through software based interfaces with the lowest amount of "Human Touch" as possible.
The pros for the above:
1. Why big Western cities? A lot of humans choose to live in big Western cities due to the cultural experiences, work & education possibilities. Where many humans are concentrated, there are more options for Art, Education, Culture etc. However, since these are places that are concentrated with a lot of individuals, acting together as a community makes the most economical sense, mainly due to the ability of having Shared Buying Power. I believe that with Shared Buying Power, it is possible to achieve financially feasible lifestyles in the Big Cities, thus gaining the Big Cities pros without its obvious con of Cost of Living. Imagine for example haggling a price for Services (Internet, Health, Insurance, Education) and Materials (Groceries, Cars) when you are representing a "big client" of 50 families instead your own single family, and what will be the savings in the long run.
2. Why Fixed Rate? The main problem why the Kibbutz & Other social movements failed is that the money that went into the Community was progressive rate based on your salary (like Taxes). This created a Crack over time where high earning families (who feel like they are the "hard working people") were funding low earning families (who they saw as "Lazy"). I believe that due to the Human Nature, in order for it to work in the long run it is better to have a Fixed Rate per family, and after the Fixed Rate is paid, if the family wishes to indulge in conspicuous consumption with their extras they are free to do so (without forcing them to share it with the community).
3. Insource talent - Everything that can be insourced from the community members, will be done low cost/free (and willingly) from the members. if one person is an accountant, electrician, IT, Dentist etc, they can give their services to the community in low cost/free.
4. So what happens with all the money? All the leftover money will be invested. The investments will ideally include buying local businesses that are close to the community, and ideally provide services to the community as well for free/low cost (i.e buying the local grocery store, that will continue to operate normally and provide income, but community members can buy everything there for 70% discount).
5. Shared Luxuries – Luxuries such as Gym, Music & Art shows, Parties/events are much more fun (and economical) when shared. The concept is to either buy or build from scratch a business that sells these services but for the community members it will be free (or almost free). The community can decide to buy the local Gym, or live music venue etc…
6. Shared Cars – The community purchases cars, which are free to reserve to the members anytime they want.
So why Computers? In other past social experiments, the Clerical caste got too much power since its position to determine allocation of community resources. For example, who gets the Car on Sunday. In this scenario, a human, that is driven by emotions, needs to decide that, which often resulted in either black market (I can make sure the car is yours on Sunday for extra cash), Nepotism and personal rivalry (I hate this guy personally no way he will get the car on Sunday).
Interestingly enough, I don’t know of any socialist experiment that was controlled by Computers. With the right management software, every person will be able to Vote on each Community Decision directly, view everything in the community (with most notably "where the money goes to") with complete transparency, and "reserve" every shared community resource with a click of a button. As opposed to other socialist tryouts, once everything is completely transparent and decisions are made directly by each person (not through Representatives), we might see a different outcome.
I gave this the fancy name of Cybersocialism.
What I am still contemplating is what will be the social glue that will produce Social Solidarity between the community members. Giving your material (money) to the community involves a lot of risk for the individual. Social Solidarity was usually glued by ideology (For example a Kibbutz), relatively similar homogeneous population (For example the Social System in the Nordic Countries works because the average Scandinavian doesn’t believe that the guy next door is a total asshole that tries to leech him out of his tax money and be "lazy", but they are rather "similar" after all and if "they win" then "I win") or shared struggle (For example a community/ghetto of immigrants in a big city, that stick together and form all sorts of economical/social bondages that are similar to the above).
Perhaps MMM type of people who went through the shared struggle of achieving FI and are also very Financial Aware, will be a strong enough glue to form such a community?
I would like to hear your opinions
Yours,
The Jester
