Harmonizing Economics via a Complementary Currency System with Potential to Recession-Proof Economies, and Enhance Cultures.

​(June, 2023) A further exploration of the concept first presented in January, 2015.

​Overview & Proposed Details

Basic unit cash is redeemable at a 1:1 ratio to primary currency, and expendable only on primary housing, food, utilities, and non-luxury transportation. Basic units are distributed via basic income to all citizens who accept them, yet they expire. Once a basic note expires, only Creative Collective Members may trade-in expired basics for primary currency at a 1.) personal multiplier rate and 2.) amount dependent upon an octave level in relation to how much they receive per UBI distribution cycle. UBI recipients may choose to receive basic units on a daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly basis. 

Octaves, modeled on the music scale of doubling frequencies, times periodic UBI amounts of 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, etc. determine the maximum conversion balance into primary currency per cycle. Octaves are scalable, therefore expandable and not necessarily limited. 

Leveling up octaves and multiplier rates can be determined by participation, inventiveness, demand, project scope with transparent documentation, and other market forces such as what’s considered essential and/or deemed worthy. There could also be ways to differentiate population dense cities/regions from rural communities, age range, industries, etc.

Scale and octave levels could also be based on multiples or exponents of Phi, or maybe some other way, depending on what future accumulated data, expert economic opinion, and public consensus suggests to be the best, such as minimum wage, a maximum monthly cost of basic level housing, the typical price of counter-serve lunch fare, or another standard to establish a fair base.

If UBI cash and the primary currency are both sourced by the treasury, then the UBI cash stays local, while the primary remains global. In the USA, the IRS’s Personal Income Tax Department could become an obsolete bureau with this #BetterWayForward.

Members may save expired units, and naturally, trade them with other members. Creator Collective members may form groups, collaborations, organizations, firms, etc.- to conduct business/operate at elevated octave ratios. E.g. music bands, restaurants, grocery store suppliers, factories, etc. 

UBI recipients may join the Creator Collective with intent to create and share something productive in a positive way, and are then offered fair and equitable rewards - with incentive to aspire, accomplish, and achieve via a Trade-In Scale:  

Basic Member Level 

(1x) - Productive Endeavors 

(1.618x, or Phi) - Productive & Beautiful 

*Phi - Mathematical “Golden” Ratio. 

Enduring beauty, if maintained, qualifies

the Phi-rate to be applied in elevated levels.  

Elevated Level (Productive &)

(2x) - Efficient, Effective, or Inventive

(3x) - Two of the above   

(4x) - All three 

(5x) - Wonderful     

(6x) - High Quality

Top Tier

(7x) - Premiere                

(8x) - Magnificent           

(9x) - Exquisite

Question: Who decides who and what projects get elevated?

Reply: First off, similar to current systems, any person engaged in the economy can participate creatively with primary currency, however if they’re willing to join a collective, they then open-up their work for review, and scrutiny of course comes with that. Administrative support professionals can operate the logistics of peer review and discourse in self-organizing, trial-and-improvement based, fractal-type fashions where successful models are developed, information gets freely shared via open feedback loops, and what’s successful gets replicated and/or expanded upon. Elevated members may be obligated to review new proposals and other people's work, for say, an hour or two per week, or month. 

But if everybody’s basic needs are secured, who’s going to do the dirty jobs? 

When prices go up to compensate essential workers, it offers more opportunities to design ways to make undesirable jobs obsolete for humans, via ingenuity, invention and/or automation. Some people want to work, and there will likely always be work that needs to be completed by humans, therefore the market will still play a part in what labor is worth. Volunteering also provides benefits in non-financial ways, and the more people who “find their calling,” and accomplish achievement, (or at least aspire to achieve and accomplish,) the better society becomes as a whole. 

Also consider, two essential workers may each regard their current job to be pitiful, but if they traded jobs, they’d both achieve greater fulfillment. The job of admin support professionals would be to facilitate a good fit for all involved, to where willing-to-work participants become eager-to-work aspirants, considering the pay could/would enable their prospective creative endeavors in addition to improving their standard of living and/or quality of life. Hopes and desires aren’t always achieved, yet the pursuit of happiness is an inalienable right, according to the U.S. Declaration of Independence. Some may have to abide until they achieve, but the choice to not abide, or to quit a job, is also the right of anyone working in the USA, proclaims the U.S. Constitution.

Question: If an elevated member has a personal multiplier rate of say 5x, they could simply trade 100 basic units from any UBI recipient for $200 (or another currency) and keep $300. Therefore, what’s to stop an elevated member from becoming a trading exchange service? 

Reply: Would that be a bad thing? Shouldn’t an elevated member get to choose who to reward and support financially? Of course, for the elevated member, time then becomes an issue- how much energy do they want to expend being a type of bank teller? Once financially secure/comfortable, how much more do they need? However if there’s an intriguing project the elevated member is hiring for, this becomes a way for other members to participate and earn more. Coin it: Enablement Economics. Colloquially called the “EnableMint.”

This system, given time, would likely result in the successful folks choosing to develop others and the culture, thus enabling more, as opposed to the current way where some folks continue to accumulate money they won’t ever spend (extraction capitalism) simply for the sake of having more. 

Question: If all citizens are eligible, how do Creator Collective members join and elevate?

Reply: Options are numerous, and potentially varied, though accepting UBI should be simpler than obtaining a government ID and debit card, and joining the collective could be as simple as registering to vote. 

Question to You, The Reader: What’s the best way to establish Creator Collectives? 

Proposed: credit union type locations, all connected via the internet similar to modern online banking. UBI cards would work similar to debit cards, basic UBI cash could be receipt paper with bar-codes, and ATM-type exchange machines (a standard in modern casinos) can be placed wherever ATMs are, including post offices.

Creator Currency Octaves could be the first currency in history that's backed by art and creation, and is exclusively earned, and not potentially won, inherited, stolen, found, etc. Then imagine instead of a bunch of gold bullion locked up in Fort Knox, each Creator Member Collective branch gets to display a gold bar in bulletproof glass, with finger holes small enough so the public can touch it but not take it, to back-up the dollar, or just for historic affect. Within view of the gold display, there can be post-up boards / display screens for community-chest type projects to pay expired basics forward into.

Members create online profiles, gain the ability to send/receive UBI cash and expired basics without a fee, and develop/manage a shareable portfolio. Web services can include job boards, stated goals/achievements, opportunities to solve known problems, transparent peer reviews, admin support, etc. 

Elevating Member Level could be based on factors such as how much expired UBI currency one earns per month for say: musical performances, artists who sell original art, people who prepare and serve food at a restaurant that accepts UBI cash, etc. Similar to construction crews who build low cost housing and high-quality roads based on union-negotiated rates, other types of project teams could have collective-negotiated rates and pay scales. For those who invent, their peer group(s) and/or local admins can verify the concepts, and depending on the benefit to society such as resources saved or safety gained, and depending on how they profit personally, they can be rewarded individually via an elevated multiplier rate, and/or a greater amount of UBI cash to trade in each month (higher octave level.) 

The Assumption: Each person should benefit if the system is established to enhance the culture, efficiently reduce costs and waste, mitigate human suffering, and heal/improve nature.  

Intended motive: Make extreme poverty obsolete, ideally overnight, realistically in less than 60 days, while still providing incentive for essential work, participation, and creation. Extreme poverty is defined as: homelessness and starvation due to financial strain.

Prediction: If implemented properly, within five years, “extreme wealth imbalance” will be ‘problem solved.’ Before then, it’ll be ‘problem mitigating.’ 

If UBI cash is considered income equality, and creators are enabled with equity incentive, does “Equitable Economics” ring better than “Enablement Economics?” That EnableMint pun still sounds fashionable; and the phrase “Harmonized Economics” can be reserved for when these concepts become proven by at least one country's economy. Until then, #EquitableEconomicsViaTheEnableMint is catchy enough to get some mainstream press, right? How about a real discussion in congress?

Acknowledgement: Updating a developed economy's currency system is a monumental task, and on a generational timescale, a global economic transition seems likely in the near-to-mid-term future - considering the current ways have been deemed unsustainable. Therefore, what better alternative than to “improve and adapt?” If “collapse and regress” ensues, it’ll likely be short-lived, and the article “X-Cents” offers a Universal Currency Assurance Plan just in case governments become/remain obstacles to a better collective future as opposed to facilitators. As long as humans are surviving, it seems there will be a marketplace where people trade products and services, and since society has come this far, it appears within reach that technology and the human drive / entrepreneurial spirit could elevate economics, nature, and humanity into a flourishing age of Collective Thrival. #SurviveToThrive

Instead of a late-stage capitalism type of central bank mandated to “maximize employment and stabilize prices by moderating long-term interest rates and the money supply,” imagine a benevolent nation’s treasury established to “enhance both the public, and culture, with an effective and sustainable monetary system that ensures human wellness via fair foundational guarantees, appropriate incentives for essential work, and equitable rewards for beneficial creation.” Creative Currency Octaves and UBI can achieve these goals and much more with a complementary currency system that could be implemented, in theory, overnight.

What other mechanisms could be developed to ensure fair incentive and deserved reward that’s both equitable and appropriate, while also assuring a high standard of professionalism for essential work? Compared to how currency is currently earned / won / found / stolen / inherited / marriage absorbed / divorce divided / etc., can it be considered efficient? Effective? Inventive? 

If better ways are possible, #AimTowardsBest.

Additional Ideas Presented @ BetterToBest.wixsite.com/book/visions

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