When one looks at new ways of organizing society, one immediately needs to solve the problem of motivation. People need to want to participate in these new social structures and they need to be motivated to spend effort in them.
What kind of motives do humans have?
Let me expose a few prior theories before expressing my own thoughts on the matter.
Moneyless Societies :
From the wikipedia article on Peter Kropotkin :
"In The Conquest of Bread, Kropotkin proposed a system of economics based on mutual exchanges made in a system of voluntary cooperation. He believed that should a society be socially, culturally, and industrially developed enough to produce all the goods and services required by it, then no obstacle, such as preferential distribution, pricing or monetary exchange will prevent everyone to take what they need from the social product. He supported the eventual abolition of money or tokens of exchange for goods and services."
I have recently read Ursula Le Guin's "The dispossed" in which she describes such a world.
I will try to describe it as accurate as I can, given that I have not read Kropotkin's books.
The main concept seems to be that of voluntary cooperation. This means that people form groups that they participate in. They have the ability to choose the group they will join and the work they will do. They are also able to use the social product without limitation. In other words, there is no explicit motivation mechanism to work.
With regards to free riders, Ursula points that the main mechanism might be peer pressure. If someone continues not to participate, then people eventually reject that person socially and most probably materially. There is no explicit mechanism other than people eventually refusing to give him what he wants.
My thoughts on this model :
First of all, this is a decentralized model. There is no central authority by design, even though it might eventually emerge by necessity. This allows people to create groups concurrently and in isolation, trying to fulfill both personal needs and societal needs.
From an individualistic point of view, one can form a group to work on something he likes. It could be a group about movies, food, role playing, or fast cars. The main limitation I see in this model is that members of the group have to be the same people that like these things. In reality, though, this is not possible. Someone might like good food but he is not a good cook. So, with this model, it is impossible to motivate others to work on things you like as an individual.
From a societal point of view, this model assumes that society has a common notion of what is important. After this common view of society's goals is established, people can work on these goals and be sure that their work is appreciated by others. The same rule applies within the groups that form because of individual needs.
From the above, we see that this systems lacks one of the basic properties that the market system has: transitivity
In a market system, person A gives money to buy a product from B that b uses to buy something from C, if C also wants to buy something from A.
A -> B
B -> C is the same as if A -> C.
A multitude of products would not have existed in Capitalism if that property was not there.
For example, I like role playing games. Society as a whole does not. Thus anyone who worked on developing rpgs would not participate in creating societal value according to this system.
Examples where it works and ways to enable it:
This model works well or better than market capitalism on many tasks.
Money is not good at signaling, motivating people in two cases:
A) There are many cases where Society would benefit as a whole that does not require an individualistic motivation. The protection of the environment, helping cities after earthquakes or providing necessities to region under famine are examples. Creating groups that build community projects, provide free health care to poor people, or help stray animals are other examples.
Let me give you a counter example that shows the inefficiency of the market.
When the hurricane Katrina passed through New Orleans, what could the market do to help the city?
It could increase the wages of the communal workers and similar jobs so that a lot of people would be motivated to help. Someone would have to pay for this surge in prices. But the increase of wages is not a motivator in this case, even if the state did provide for such an increase.
Disasters require signals that would organize a big number of people very fast so as to handle such events. The main issue here is not the motivation but the self-organization of a big number of people, the software that can enable such a thing.
B) There are cases where the individualistic gains of a person are not monetary. Social respect, fame, or simple self-fulfillment are good reasons for someone to participate.
Wikipedia is such a project where the joy of writing the facts outweighs the burden of the work. Hobby groups on research, free software, electronics have similar motivators.
The way to enable this is to understand the reasons why one does something and to make it visible:
Metacurrency follows this direction.
I will point one example : The stackoverflow site has a reputation system that rewards people that provide good answers to questions.
Capitalism and the market :
Having already compared it with Kropotkin's system let me point and possibly repeat a few things.
The market provides a single mechanism of signaling and that is the price of a good (and possibly the quantity needed).
Since the prices are set by corporations in a decentralized way, it is a decentralized system. Cooperations between companies are formed in the same way as in Kropotkin's system, in a voluntary way but property rights and Capital effectively determine those relations. The system eventually leads to centralized structures.
The main characteristic of the market is that it has a method of measuring the abstract value of the contributions of each person. (if we disregard the exploitation of the workers for a moment).
That measure is not very good because it can fluctuate due to temporal changes in demand and supply, but it is nonetheless a decentralized measure.
As we have seen from my critique of Kropotkin's system, its absence of a transitivity property, such an abstract measure is needed to account for the cases that his system cannot function.
Ryaki provides the same system that the market provides, since there are prices but it avoids being centralized or exploitative.
I believe that a society needs such an abstract measure in one way or the other.
Social Welfare :
The main characteristic of welfare is that the workers' motivations are their salaries but it is provided for free to the individual, the society as a whole pays for it.
Here, the workers(doctors, nurses , social workers etc.) cannot sustain themselves simply by the joy of providing a social good, they require in exchange tokens of abstract value.
From the point of the beneficiary, there is no method to restrict the use of this social good. From a societal point of view, this is good. People of need would serve society better if they were helped even if they cannot afford the expenses. Many times, they do not.
My opinion:
Ryaki as a system that provides a measure of abstract value is necessary but not enough to enable better social processes. Thus, we need to think of methods to enable the other systems as well in the cases that they are better. We need to build software that create motivation signals to enable them.
What kind of motives do humans have?
Let me expose a few prior theories before expressing my own thoughts on the matter.
Moneyless Societies :
From the wikipedia article on Peter Kropotkin :
"In The Conquest of Bread, Kropotkin proposed a system of economics based on mutual exchanges made in a system of voluntary cooperation. He believed that should a society be socially, culturally, and industrially developed enough to produce all the goods and services required by it, then no obstacle, such as preferential distribution, pricing or monetary exchange will prevent everyone to take what they need from the social product. He supported the eventual abolition of money or tokens of exchange for goods and services."
I have recently read Ursula Le Guin's "The dispossed" in which she describes such a world.
I will try to describe it as accurate as I can, given that I have not read Kropotkin's books.
The main concept seems to be that of voluntary cooperation. This means that people form groups that they participate in. They have the ability to choose the group they will join and the work they will do. They are also able to use the social product without limitation. In other words, there is no explicit motivation mechanism to work.
With regards to free riders, Ursula points that the main mechanism might be peer pressure. If someone continues not to participate, then people eventually reject that person socially and most probably materially. There is no explicit mechanism other than people eventually refusing to give him what he wants.
My thoughts on this model :
First of all, this is a decentralized model. There is no central authority by design, even though it might eventually emerge by necessity. This allows people to create groups concurrently and in isolation, trying to fulfill both personal needs and societal needs.
From an individualistic point of view, one can form a group to work on something he likes. It could be a group about movies, food, role playing, or fast cars. The main limitation I see in this model is that members of the group have to be the same people that like these things. In reality, though, this is not possible. Someone might like good food but he is not a good cook. So, with this model, it is impossible to motivate others to work on things you like as an individual.
From a societal point of view, this model assumes that society has a common notion of what is important. After this common view of society's goals is established, people can work on these goals and be sure that their work is appreciated by others. The same rule applies within the groups that form because of individual needs.
From the above, we see that this systems lacks one of the basic properties that the market system has: transitivity
In a market system, person A gives money to buy a product from B that b uses to buy something from C, if C also wants to buy something from A.
A -> B
B -> C is the same as if A -> C.
A multitude of products would not have existed in Capitalism if that property was not there.
For example, I like role playing games. Society as a whole does not. Thus anyone who worked on developing rpgs would not participate in creating societal value according to this system.
Examples where it works and ways to enable it:
This model works well or better than market capitalism on many tasks.
Money is not good at signaling, motivating people in two cases:
A) There are many cases where Society would benefit as a whole that does not require an individualistic motivation. The protection of the environment, helping cities after earthquakes or providing necessities to region under famine are examples. Creating groups that build community projects, provide free health care to poor people, or help stray animals are other examples.
Let me give you a counter example that shows the inefficiency of the market.
When the hurricane Katrina passed through New Orleans, what could the market do to help the city?
It could increase the wages of the communal workers and similar jobs so that a lot of people would be motivated to help. Someone would have to pay for this surge in prices. But the increase of wages is not a motivator in this case, even if the state did provide for such an increase.
Disasters require signals that would organize a big number of people very fast so as to handle such events. The main issue here is not the motivation but the self-organization of a big number of people, the software that can enable such a thing.
B) There are cases where the individualistic gains of a person are not monetary. Social respect, fame, or simple self-fulfillment are good reasons for someone to participate.
Wikipedia is such a project where the joy of writing the facts outweighs the burden of the work. Hobby groups on research, free software, electronics have similar motivators.
The way to enable this is to understand the reasons why one does something and to make it visible:
Metacurrency follows this direction.
I will point one example : The stackoverflow site has a reputation system that rewards people that provide good answers to questions.
Capitalism and the market :
Having already compared it with Kropotkin's system let me point and possibly repeat a few things.
The market provides a single mechanism of signaling and that is the price of a good (and possibly the quantity needed).
Since the prices are set by corporations in a decentralized way, it is a decentralized system. Cooperations between companies are formed in the same way as in Kropotkin's system, in a voluntary way but property rights and Capital effectively determine those relations. The system eventually leads to centralized structures.
The main characteristic of the market is that it has a method of measuring the abstract value of the contributions of each person. (if we disregard the exploitation of the workers for a moment).
That measure is not very good because it can fluctuate due to temporal changes in demand and supply, but it is nonetheless a decentralized measure.
As we have seen from my critique of Kropotkin's system, its absence of a transitivity property, such an abstract measure is needed to account for the cases that his system cannot function.
Ryaki provides the same system that the market provides, since there are prices but it avoids being centralized or exploitative.
I believe that a society needs such an abstract measure in one way or the other.
Social Welfare :
The main characteristic of welfare is that the workers' motivations are their salaries but it is provided for free to the individual, the society as a whole pays for it.
Here, the workers(doctors, nurses , social workers etc.) cannot sustain themselves simply by the joy of providing a social good, they require in exchange tokens of abstract value.
From the point of the beneficiary, there is no method to restrict the use of this social good. From a societal point of view, this is good. People of need would serve society better if they were helped even if they cannot afford the expenses. Many times, they do not.
My opinion:
Ryaki as a system that provides a measure of abstract value is necessary but not enough to enable better social processes. Thus, we need to think of methods to enable the other systems as well in the cases that they are better. We need to build software that create motivation signals to enable them.
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