Human beings, and Bonobos and Chimpanzees, and all species that niche as cultural beings through the use of memes, have an innate drive to share their abundance. In scarcity, primates are competitive and will kill for the scarce resources that they need, but with abundance, the resources are instead invested in the other. In environments of abundance, the most resilient way for primates to exist is through sharing.
Kins have always shared their surplus. Translated into modern civilization, we’ve created states that mediate the distribution of surplus. But there is also another organisational entity that distributes surplus, but on a smaller scale — the co-operatives.
These co-operatives use a business model where they invest their surplus into their community of costumers. This creates a more resilient community as costumers receive a form of safety net, and it also gives co-operatives a competitive edge as costumers have incentives to harness dividends.
The pattern here is that human relationship where profit flows from powerful to dependent do exist. Streams of shared profit do exist. Streams of basic incomedo exist.
If a model for citizen dividends already exists, might it be possible to improve on it ?
Basicincome.co(op) is an attempt to do that…..basicincome.co
Universal Basic Income on a Co-Op Dividend Scheme
Johan Nygren, inventor of the Bitnation DApp Basicincome.co
4 comments:
But humans only share with those they consider to have contributed
It's amazing how everybody in the basic income movement seems to ignore that bit. No contribution, no food. It's innate.
Plus if a co-operative is making a profit sufficient to pay a dividend then very simply they are overcharging. Granting a post-hoc discount is no better than simply charging less in the first place - which is what a genuinely competitive retail market does in the first place.
@Neil Wilson
many people choose to consume from co-operatives. the profit is distributed, but people are still interested in the profit, and one dividend-scheme is that those who consume the most get the biggest share of the profit.
profit is still an incentive, but the reward is given to consumers rather than the executive CEO.
with the basicincome.co system, the profit incentive is shifted from consumers to network, the incentive-design is distributed even more.
and this system only gives dividends to those who have consumed, and thence contributed
Neil, right, but humans couldn't be any other way. The problem with basic income is not with such human attitudes or behaviors, which conceivably could be changed, but because this innate behavior is entirely rational and necessary. Basic Income as a solution to economic problems is so bad, so stupid, destructive and tyrannical that it needs to be criticized more strongly.
"and this system only gives dividends to those who have consumed, and thence contributed"
Reduced prices gives 'dividends' to those that consume, and that is the system we currently have. As you can see it is working great (!).
Distributable profit is not an incentive in a business unless you own the profit.
The best co-op idea IMV is the equal wage co-op - where everybody working for the co-op is a member and they all get paid the same.
The 'manager-worker' concept can work very well - even if the internal politics gets really hairy sometimes.
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