An idea that has popped into my head a number of times goes like this:
* Have two economies, one planned and one free.
* For the planned economy, the government provides food, clothing, shelter, and other goods and services deemed essential for basic survival (basic medicine, electrical, plumbing, water system, sewer system, distribution of goods, public transport, gas, car maintenance, cell phone service, internet...).
* To opt into government products and services, you must pay credits for them.
* You earn credits by working jobs related to these essential services. One credit = One labor hour.
* Access to government services requires paying a monthly credit fee. Shelter could be 20 credits per month (5 hours a week). Food is 4 credits per month (1 hour a week). And so on.
* The idea is that by working something like 15 hours a week, you can have all of your essentials covered. Food, clothing, shelter (including maintenance), utilities (clean water, heating, cooling, plumbing, and electricity), internet, phone, transport (car repair, public transport, gas), and at least basic medicine if not full on healthcare would all be included within those essentials.
* People who are disabled, sick, or struggling can receive credits for free from people who donate. This simplifies charity and takes a lot of the guess work out of trying to decide which charities are worth giving to, how much one should give, etc. Very simply, just work more than the 15 hours a week that you need to cover your own basics, and donate credits to a public charity bank. This provides free credits to people in need who, for whatever reason, are running out of credits (perhaps because of needing sick days).
* Homelessness is avoided easily because you only need to work a few hours a week to access government housing. Plus, charity credits would prevent those who are struggling from being evicted from government housing.
* You can also bank extra credits for your own sick leave or for general paid leave. Though at only 15 hours a week, I don't expect many people needing vacation. In theory you could work many hours and amass a large number of credits, and... retire, more or less.
* A single payer healthcare system could be designed along these lines too. You pay credits into the healthcare fund when you are healthy and withdraw them when you are sick. This will depend on how healthcare is handled. I'm thinking that over the counter medicine, preventative care / family physician appointments w/ checkups, diagnostics, and basic prescriptions like pain meds and anti-biotics would fall under the government essentials. Basic dental care like yearly check ups and cleanings and cavity fillings could be included. Yearly eye appointments could be covered as well. More serious and specialized care and surgeries, and perhaps emergency care, would be covered under the open economy. Credits have a cash value. To prevent a few people from bankrupting the entire fund,
actuarial science could be used to create caps on how much a person can
withdraw (similar to banks and liquidity risk). So for credit-based insurance, you pay credits into the insurance each month, and if you need specialized or emergency care, you get credits up to a cap that are cashed out for your medical bills. You could have the insurance mandated similar to the Affordable Care Act where everyone is required to pay at least a minimum number of credits into the fund.
* Many people search for jobs but are rejected. Because the work is (usually) simple, and in constant demand, good work would always be available to those searching. And the rewards you get for the work are generous, increasing motivation. The idea is that with so many more people working than would be otherwise, many hands make light work; that's why it only takes ~15 hours a week to cover these needs per person.
* These services are very basic and designed to just cover survival. So government housing, food, and clothing would be not glamorous, fancy, customized, marketed, or anything like that. They would be designed to just cover the basics with zero fluff or fancy. If you want something more customized or with more personality, you will have to look to the open economy.
* This system prevents capitalists from exploiting workers. If an open economy job becomes toxic or exploitative, the worker can simply quit and survive fine on just 15 hours a week worth of work. This provides serious pressure on jobs to offer fair compensation, to not be bullsh**ty, to offer meaningful work, to provide a good work environment, and to treat the employee with respect.
* Very importantly – this system prevents abuse. If a teenager is abused at home, he can move out at a measly 15 hours a week. Same with abused spouses.
* This system prevents the alienation of labor. Your government labor is tied directly to the survival of yourself and others. No bullsh** jobs!
* This system promotes art, because it allows artists to easily support themselves while pursuing their art.
* This system prevents underemployment. At any time there are many people who are able-bodied and able-minded and could provide for society in a variety of ways. But with our current system, employment is an all-or-nothing deal. Either you don't work at all, or you work grueling hours and sell your soul. There are many stories of people who can and want to work but send out countless applications only to get nothing back. That's because labor is extremely expensive, and companies are encouraged to either not hire or only hire when they know they can get a deal on the labor (I've also heard that employment listings are dishonest but that might have been moreso in the PPP loan era, but I digress).
* The open economy accomplishes a number of things.
A) It provides goods and services that the planned economy doesn't offer. For example, government rations probably wouldn't include beer. So if you want beer, you'll need cash. More complex services, like specialized healthcare, would be privatized within the open economy. If you want to upgrade your living situation to a nicer apartment or a house, you'll need cash.
B) The open economy allows for individual freedom and autonomy, both in doing business as a business owner and as a customer looking for products and services the government doesn't offer. If you want, you can operate entirely outside of the planned economy. So there's still plenty of room for innovation.
C) The open economy provides products and services that compete with the government. This prevents the government from being monopolistic and allows for greater customization and potentially increased product / service quality for the customer.
D) Specialized jobs, like lawyers, doctors, engineers, and so on, require intense training and work schedules. These professionals do not have the means nor desire to work the 15 mandatory hours to partake in the government economy (in some cases professionals will do some moonlighting, but it's not expected). And we as a society do not want to force a pediatrician to abandon their more essential pediatric duties to do some plumbing on the side. So we need the open economy to provide for those individuals who work specialty jobs that take precedent over the more basic work they would be doing otherwise.
In theory, these professionals could still avail themselves of the government services. They would just have to exchange some of their cash from their salary for credits and use those credits to enter the system. Or, even more simply, credits could be offered as part of their compensation package, or the government could treat certain open economy work as essential and give dual credit.
*
The credit value of labor could be dynamic. More specialized and yet
essential government jobs, ones that require certification, for example,
could grant more than 1 credit per labor hour.
*
Many government jobs would still give a salary. For example, access to
air travel would probably not be included under the survival essentials.
But the government still has an interest in regulating air travel. So
these regulation jobs would be part of the open economy and pay a
salary. Political jobs would be considered specialized and part of the
open economy.
* Maybe instead of a "gold standard" there could be a "credit standard" backing up cash to control for inflation and to keep the value of cash stable and fair relative to the credit. Cash could only be printed according to how many credits are being issued. The free market decides how much a credit is worth in cash.
* A challenge for this system is the value of labor. One hour of work as a licensed septic tank engineer is not the same as one hour of work as a trainee in janitorial duties.
* One approach is to have the two currency system as described above. Another option is to totally separate the two economies. Credits represent participation in essential jobs, but do not necessarily represent value. If you think the value of your work is more than participation, then you are encouraged to seek work in the open economy. On the other hand, if you are an artist whose work has little economic value, then you can easily support yourself by helping build houses for 15 hours a week while pursuing your art.
You could get dual credit for working essential jobs but in the private sector. So a septic tank engineer working for a private company could apply to a government program and receive not only a salary through the private company, but credits as well. Same with jobs like specialized healthcare. For folks who work in non-essential roles, like entertainment, they will have to either work an extra government job on the side to support themselves or support themselves entirely through cash. Credits are tied to you as a person and cannot be bought or sold. Credits expire after X months (3 months on a tighter model, or up to 12 months on a more liberal model), encouraging consistent work. Retirement would have to come from the open economy (or children could support their parents through charity credits). Credits perhaps could be donated in limited capacity. For example: you can give to blood relatives or to legal guardians / dependents. And you can give to a general charity that randomly distributes charity credits to those with qualifying disabilities / illnesses.
* At any time there could be a gap between what the government promises and what it delivers. For example, the government promises everyone shelter, but there might not be enough housing to deliver on this promise. Ways this could be addressed: A) The government contracts out work from the open economy to address the housing shortage, or buys out houses / apartments on the open market and marks them as government housing. The government taxes the open market and uses the tax money for this. B) The government prioritizes work towards building new housing, offering extra credit incentives until output stabilizes with demand. And C) The government can increase the credit cost of shelter, encouraging people to either split rent, live with parents, or pay for open economy shelter with cash, freeing up government housing.
* On top of all the social safety benefits that this system would provide, you could still have a cash-based universal basic income along the lines of what Yanis Varoufakis recommends. Have a Universal Company that owns a public equity trust. To enlist your company on the public stock market, you must give 1% of total preferred stock to the Universal Company. When dividends are paid, the Universal Company gets cash and disperses it as a universal basic dividend to all American citizens 18 and older. In our current crony capitalist system, profits are privatized and losses are public. A universal public dividend helps amend this: Now profits are public too. This provides massive stimulus to the economy, especially since this cash would largely count as disposable income since people's basic needs are met through the 15 hour a week program. This also helps prevent companies from getting away with rampant greed, lowers inequality, increases individual freedom, and mitigates exploitation.
No idea how viable any of this is. At least this could make for an interesting set up for a story.
Really, I just want to have credits like in Star Wars 😁🤓