For the concept mentioned here, see:
The world of Netec is a voluntaryist world. People sign up to nets and work for them. Also, they get services from certain nets, often for free. A basic income, or basinc for short is one such service. There are multiple different kinds of nets in the Netec world. It would seem most natural that people get their basincs from local govnets, because they are the closest match to the governments we have today. It might also be conceivable that peacenets pay out basincs for their subscribers.
It is not sure how the core of unconditionality can hold in a post-governmental world in which states have lost their power. When people get basincs from nets, it would seem that subscribing to that net would be a basic condition for getting a basinc. However, it could be conceivable that wealthy and powerful nets like Earthnet, or very generous nets hand out basincs to everyone, irrespective of location or subscription status.
But let’s first let’s see how basincs actually work in the Netec world. It needs to be noted that the monetary system in Netec is based on currencies that I call flux currencies. They have the following properties (by definition)
- A flux currency is a digital decentralized currency, a cryptocurrency
- Flux currencies have conditional demurrage, meaning that above a certain amount of money you have in that curency, everything above that will be automatically devalued by a specific percentage per year
- Flux currencies allow for continuous transfers of money over time, unlike current currencies which require discrete transfers
- Flux currencies are not mined directly. They neither have Proof-of-Work, nor Proof-of-Stake mechanisms for money creation. What can be mined though, are mining tokens, which may attract reputation. Mining tokens may be traded, but all trades are absolutely transparent
- Flux currencies allow users to make transparent verified transactions, for example for verifying that you paid a certain organisation a specific amount at a certain time. This mechanism is used for the voluntary taxation system.
There are two basic types of flux currencies (four if you add the additions at the end of this post), depending on the mechanism of money generation:
- B-flux currencies generate money in the accounts of everyone. In other words: They have an integrated basic income.
- R-flux currencies generate money for users in proportion to their reputation score.
- BR-flux currencies do both at the same time.
So, it’s the B-flux currencies (including the BR-flux currencies) which generate the basincs. But who stands behind those B-flux currencies? The answer is easy: Nets issue their own B-flux currencies.
Now why would nets issue B-flux currencies instead of R-flux currencies? Well, they might see the necessity to provide for social security or for economic stimulus through more equitable distribution of money. A B-flux currency could also be seen as net-internal general insurance.
But this setup comes with a few problems: Nets issuing B-flux currencies make subscriptions to them quite attractive. People could be eager to join dozens of nets, as a result getting dozens of basincs. If subscription to a net is the only requirement to get a basinc, then people would most naturally auto-subscribe to all such nets who issue B-flux currencies. There are a few possible solutions to this issue:
- Make it hard to get accepted into a net that issues a B-flux currency
- Leave it to the govnets alone to issue B-flux currencies
- Disallow members of a net to join other nets who also issue B-flux currencies
- Make receiving a basinc conditional, for example by requiring a certain level of interaction with the net issuing the basinc – this might result in some kind of attention economy
- Make receiving a basinc conditional on strictly following the rules of the net. When rules are strict enough, joining many such nets at once would be quite difficult, because you would have to follow multiple rule sets at once.
- Simply accept that people auto-subscribe to all kinds of net issuing basincs and reduce the level of the basinc to a minimum – those would be called micro-basincs then (issuing a micro-basinc might be an advertisement strategy for a net)
Due to the voluntaryist nature of the Netec world, it is plausible to assume that all these approaches would be adapted in parallel. Different nets would take different measures to avoid the problem of nets issusing basincs to people that they don’t want to grant basincs to.
So, it would seem that people would get a whole bundle of different basincs:
- T-Govnet basincs from the T(erritorial)-govnet they are a member of.
- A-Govnet basincs from the A(ssociative)-govnet (tribe / culture) they are a member of
- Professional basincs from nets that are hard to join, for example because they require certain qualifications / certifications
- Attention basincs that are issued for interacting with a certain net to a specific degree. Though this mechanism seems to deserve its own category in its own right: It would be an attinc (attention income), issued through an A-flux currency
- Conditional basincs that are only issued if a member of a net is in conformity to certain rules of a net. This probably also deserves its on category of condincs (conditional basic incomes) issued through a C-flux currency
- Micro-basincs issued by moderately generous nets (or nets that want attention, but not through issuing attincs)
Condincs might be issued for example for people (and nets) who share all their data freely and openly. Or for people or nets who satisfy certain ethical standards.
The social behaviour of people is guided more by reputation and different incomes (positive reinforcement) rather than (the threat of) violence (negative reinforcement). In the wealthy and technologically advanced world of Netec this works rather well. For the cases in which that doesn’t work, there are still the peacenets with their inhibitors who prevent people from committing acts of violence against others.
Do you see any problems with this kind of system?