Motivation in an RBE - again

Once we have stopped doing work for its own sake, even if we have automated much of the remaining and truly necessary work, there will be the need for human input. Even Jacque Fresco and Peter Joseph accept that there will always be a residual need for human input even in the ultra-automated - 'cybernated' world they imagine when arguing for an RBE.

We seem to have the assumption that people are only motivated by money, but this flies in the face of many facts or apparent facts:

• There are many people working philanthropically who are plainly motivated by doing good rather than by money. Some do good in their professional capacity, some in their own time. If the latter could be freed up from doing whatever they have to do to get paid, to doing what they want to do, there would be step change in doing good.
• People drop out of the rat race - including from highly paid jobs - and not all go off to 'find themseleves' - many take up careers that they believe are more worthwhile.
• Money in itself cannot be an incentive, because it is useless until you buy something with it. Being motivated by making money (over and above what is necessary) is in effect being motivated by having more, or a prior, call on goods and services than other people. Is this really the motivation we want for our society?
• The studies explained by Daniel Pink in his TED talk (which can be seen on internet video sites), and other work.

If we were to have a money-free world, and some problem with motivation were perceived, would we bring back money as an incentive, or would we try to find other motivational means?

Save now to waste later

The budget cuts that face government at all levels mean very strict controls on money leaving the council's coffers. It barely seems to matter (with honourable exceptions) whether or not the money spent would have accrued genuine benefits - or even saved money - in the future. With some expenditure it may be straightforward to estimate the future benefits and confidently make the investment, but not all expenditure is so lucky.

An example springs to mind which may seem trivial, but it is illustrative. Staff in many organisations complain of lack of communication both up and down and across organisations, and so one way this is tackled is away-days, and in the public sector they are being banned - even just the cup of tea and power point ones. It makes it appear that it is accepted that these were a waste of money if we scrap them to save money - and the problem is the benefits are not too easy to quantity, even if the increased morale that comes from being included and from "bonding" is noticeable and intuitively oils the wheels and yields greater efficiency / effectiveness. It is more trenchant to point out that money/profit is no respecter of human values, but in the public sector, even a financial return on investment doesn't seem to be enough.

How money distracts our focus

In today's Metro (London), Oxfam expressed concerns at the decline in Christmas card sending because of the money that is raised through selling them.

I'm not having a go at Oxfam, or Christmas, but if Oxfam need money to feed the hungry, etc, we can actually just give them money without buying anything.

As I argue here often, what people want / need is a full belly, a roof over their head, and a source of information and communication (that's not an exhaustive list, but indicates life's necessities simply). As things stand they need money to get these, but it doesn't have to be like that, and by extension, we shouldn't need to buy Christmas Cards to make it happen.

Economic growth

The new series of In Business on BBC Radio 4 started this week with an analysis of Economic growth, entitled "Growing Pains. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00w228b I found it balanced, and was pleased that even those who defended it said that it wasn't an end in itself - something our politicians need to learn.

I think it is plausible that human ingenuity will grow infinitely, but some commentators doubt that it can grow quickly enough to tackle our planet's imminent problems by itself. it is plainly true that we have a finite limit on our physical resources - we are in a resource based economy in the general sense even if past economists have wrongly predicted when we would reach them. I think we need to start preparing for the inevitability now.

Economic growth sounds OK, or even good. That's part of the problem. It is technically an increase in Gross Domestic Product (or maybe Gross National Product - the difference isn't important in this context), yet it can include the productive value of clearing up after environmental disasters, or dealing with disease break outs. (Obviously dealing with them is a good thing to do in individual cases, but we don't want any more, just to get economic growth. What we in fact want is growth in healthiness, amongst other things).
And it's all very well scoffing at at attempts to measure happiness, but we do actually want to be happier, so why not try?

Some proponents of economic growth on the radio programme claimed that life expectancy has improved because of economic growth. Whether or not that is true, or whether its a cum ergo ergo propter hoc argument is not really the point. The increase in life expectancy is the thing being aimed for and what we should keep our sights on.

Student finance

I was near the student protests (or riots if you prefer Sky's epithet to the BBC's) in Whitehall today, briefly. There were loads of police and reporters around, so the controversy is certainly making work for them.

The issue of whether education should be funded by the general public or by the individual direct recipient of the education is a false dichotomy. A lot of the cost of education is the cost of tuition, because we have to keep tutors in work in the current system, and we have to withhold education to keep the price of it up so people can make money out of it - because they have to because of the system.

The internet is already bursting with tons of educational materials. There's a lot of rubbish there too, which is a problem, but it should not outweigh the powerful advantage of the good material.

In a resource based economy, all education would be distributed freely and widely. Lectures would be streamed live round the world and recorded for future use. And because people would not be doing pointless, empty work (or socially destructive work) they'd have more time to absorb education, and share their own knowledge and skills. Technology would be fully exploited to help achieve this.

Take money out of the equation conceptually, just for a moment, and it is easy to see how the goal of education is personal growth, the promulgation of knowledge and understanding - that kind of thing. But acquiring money becomes an end in itself, just as it does in every field. In the current system if the true aims of education can be delivered while money is being made that's fine - an exact parallel of the role of money in many other  elements of life - but making money comes first, because of its position as the economic life blood on which everything else depends.

Self replicating machines

The BBC World Service Technology programme, Digital Planet, ran an item on 3D printing, featuring http://www.freedomofcreation.com/

This is not simulating 3D like an image, but using lasers to actually 'sculpt' an object. One of the particularly intriguing applications was using the 3D printer to print the parts to make another 3D printer. Currently they can only make it print 50% of the parts as electric motors and circuit boards are beyond their reach.

I also liked the idea of shoes that can be put back into the machine, with bit of waste plastic, and then "reprinted" in the same design but a larger size. Brilliant for children.

It appears that freedom of creation want to spread these machines around quickly, which is good. In a resource based economy, technological breakthroughs would always be shared, so that their advantages can quickly accrue to as many people as possible, and so that improvements and refinements can start. There would be no secrecy to safeguard monetary profits - the only profit would be to humanity, thorough improving our lot sustainably and reducing the need to work.

Food waste; the value of work

There's an article in today's Metro (London) about Foodcycle, a charity that uses food destined for the bin to cook meals that it then sells at budget prices in its cafes, one of which is near Crouch Hill Station, not all that far from where I work.

At the moment, the cafe at The Station House only opens on Friday lunch times and at the moment they're only using food from two supermarkets and a Marks & Spencers. Don't get me wrong, this is a brilliant enterprise, but let's just take a step back and look at it critically.

• Food shops throw edible food in the bin. Read it again. Food shops throw edible food in the bin. (Individuals also waste food, I know).
• This charity - heavily reliant on volunteers - is stopping this on a small scale, and this is referred to as shops 'donating' food.
• There are people/families in this country who cannot afford the time and/or the money (and or do not have the skills) to source, cook, and eat sufficient healthy food .

One of the ideas of an RBE mentioned by Peter Joseph in a recent talk, is that eating out uses, or can use, food more efficiently. There is, or should be, less waste. Of course, without money, people would go to a restaurant / cafe and eat what they wanted (no more than they needed) and wouldn't feel constrained to gorge to get value for money. It seems likely that eating would be primarily through communal eating places. But it's surely fundamental to any sane economy that edible food should not be thrown away. This admirable charity is saving some, but where is the national effort to conserve this vital resource.

The Metro article also speaks well of the enterprise because it provides work for people to do. Again and again this casual assumption arises. There is no value in work in and of itself. It is only what the work achieves that can be valuable. Think about it, suppose there were some organised system for collecting unwanted but still edible food. Suppose it was a robot of some sort and no human labour were needed to operate it. Wouldn't that be profoundly sensible, even though it didn't create jobs?

This casual, wrong assumption is revealed in the call out section of the article, where one key point is "young people lack the skills that are needed to find gainful employment and affect their community positively". This is ambiguous - it could mean that they lack the skills to find gainful employment and they also lack the skills to affect their community positively, but I think the point being made might be that finding gainful employment is how you they will affect the community positively. I can expose the wrongness of the casual assumption by deleting part of the sentence, and rendering it:

"young people lack the skills that are needed to affect their community positively". This speaks of the need for training and education, and not of the spurious merits of work in and of itself. If people devise a way to make it so less human labour is needed to achieve the same outputs, that is a good thing, even though it is the opposite of creating jobs.

There is a sentence in the article that would suggest, if it weren't for the rest of the article, that they do get it. "Volunteers collect the unwanted[!] produce and turn it into nutritious meals in unused professional kitchen spaces. Meals are then served to those in need in the community, thereby helping to address issues of food poverty and poor nutrition while furnishing young volunteers with valuable skills."

• Edible food cannot be described as 'unwanted' while there is malnutrition and starvation anywhere. They mean 'unsold'. The shops can't get money for it. Good old money, eh?
• The food (a physical thing) is nutritious, not the meal (an abstraction), but I'm probably just being picky, here.
• Unused kitchens - yes a wasted resource is being used validly in this project. More please!
• There shouldn't be any food poverty and poor nutrition. A rich country like the UK is well placed to eradicate this easily, but it is true of the planet.
• Yes - upskilling (forgive me) people by having them do something constructive is exactly right. But I'm not talking about future employment, because there is no value in work in and of itself. It is only what the work achieves that can be valuable.