“Mark, you’re confusing importance with value. Just because something doesn’t have any intrinsic value doesn’t mean it’s not important. Gold will always be important because of its conductive and manufacturing qualities. To have intrinsic value however it must be important and scarce.
“Now let us take this a step further, what if all matter could be manipulated on the subatomic level? What if it was relatively easy to make not only gold but just about any element or molecule? The raw materials for just about anything you use or need from car parts, highway cement, clothing fibers, electronic equipment, food, or medicine would be abundant and available to everyone.
“The same would apply to energy. It would be possible to make energy fuel sources such as petroleum, coal, or uranium-235 but why bother when you can extract an abundance of energy from nothing; it can actually be ‘extracted’ from the space or vacuum between the molecules of the world around us? If everyone had access to Zero Point Energy why would anyone need to buy it?”
I had no idea how to respond to that. She was describing a world so far ahead of us that I’d never even contemplated it. What would we use money for?
“What would we use money for?” I asked.
She paused and then continued as if on a new subject.
“The energy and raw materials to make the things we need and want would be important but have no intrinsic value. What might hold more value would be the knowledge of how to use those raw materials to make the things you want...
“For example, you can have a 3D printer capable of making anything and let’s say that printer was easy to operate and program but if you don’t know the specifications of what you’re trying to make…”
“So in your society,” I said, “money is used to purchase knowledge?”
“Yes, but you need to remember the difference between money and currency. Money is the value of something; typically your time or knowledge. But money can’t be held or touched; currency is the physical placeholder we use to represent money.”
Shaking her head she said, “When raw materials are scarce currency is a good medium of exchange. This is because the value of a raw material changes relatively slowly. The value of a certain piece of knowledge however can change dramatically and very quickly depending upon who has access to it. Compared to that currency is very inflexible; so currency is a poor medium of exchange for knowledge.
“Think about this: New knowledge is a one-time consumable product. Most often the true worth of a piece of knowledge is not known until long after it has been made available and we see what people have been able to do with it. So how do you set a price on the initial sharing of that knowledge? While only you have that newly discovered or otherwise rare knowledge it is very scarce and we can only guess at how important it might become to others. However, once that rare knowledge is shared it becomes available to all and therefore isn’t scarce and has little value even if it might be the greatest breakthrough known to man.
“Several of us have enjoyed studying your music industry and for years now it has been encountering the same issues. Music is simply a specific type of information or knowledge. With the advent of digital music all access restrictions to a performer’s creation were effectively removed. Artists are struggling to be reimbursed for their creativity because most people can access their music for free. Even the most famous of artists make their wealth from their live performances or promotions, not the creation with the real value—the music itself.
“The price you pay for knowledge, which includes information such as music, should be dynamic; in other words, if the knowledge benefits many people, even over time, the price should grow and if it benefits few it should shrink. Also, if it turns out to be incorrect or harmful it should subtract or have a negative value.”
I was incredibly intrigued by what she was saying but if this was some elaborate sales pitch or negotiation I instinctually knew this would be the time to let her think her fish had slipped the hook… “Jaki, are you trying to tell me that your society uses some magical form of super currency that we’re going to have to buy from you to fit into galactic culture? Because I’ve got to tell you I come from a whole planet of entrepreneurs and they’re not an easy sell.”
Ignoring me completely she continued, “What earth societies have traditionally used for money or currency will not fulfill these requirements but, ‘respect’ will.
“Respect for knowledge, or more specifically, the specialized application of knowledge is the money of the future.”
Damn, she had me back on the hook.
“For example, let us say I want to build a bicycle. I have plenty of raw materials and energy and I have a 3D Printer that is capable of printing all the parts as well as access to online databases that can tell me how to assemble it. What I do not have is someone that can ask me the questions I did not even know to ask; determine what I want to use the bicycle for and recommend the tire size, gear ratio, frame composition, size, and style pattern that will best fit my needs.
“I could probably look up those entire datum and eventually come up with the right answers (most of the time) but the specialized expertise of someone that can do that for me quickly and easily is valuable to me and I pay them with my respect—a respect that grows every time I ride my bike.
“You already have something similar happening on your internet. If you read a great book, see a good movie, or eat at a nice restaurant you can go online and write a review or indicate that you ‘like’ it. Likewise if your experience was bad you can leave a bad review.”
“Are we talking about giving respect to individuals or businesses?” I asked. “Do you want every person on earth to have a website where people review or rate their performance?”
“Mark, it is not so far-fetched. Granted it is very primitive but you already have what you call social media. Some of those sites specialize in professional profiles and some are personal profiles. Most businesses on your planet check out a person’s professional profile before hiring them because they want to see what kind of references and recommendations they carry. They then check out the personal profiles to screen out the immoral, unethical, or just plain stupid candidates.
“Earth is a long way from having the advanced information systems that we use but you have already started down that long path of societal evolution.”
This was a lot to absorb but I felt like I was keeping up.
“So how would an economy based on respect work?” I asked.
“Let us say I am a bicycle specialist and I am in demand because I am good at it. I can only make and/or design so many bicycles at a time and maybe I have decided that I want to devote three days a week to it. So how do I decide who to help with bicycles and who to turn down? I would look at their reputations.
“If one of my requests comes from a highly respected homebuilder for example, I would probably give him or her priority. Why? Because I might want him or her to build me a home some day or more likely I would want their recommendation because it would carry more weight than a lot of others.”
“That doesn’t sound very fair,” I said.
“In your existing social media, professional websites are set-up to highlight the recommendation of the CEO of a well-known company, for example, because it is more impressive than the recommendation of your brother who is jobless—is that fair or unfair? If I have earned the respect of a good man is it fair for you to prevent others from knowing it? Is that not kind of like stealing from me?
“The real problem with understanding this concept of respect as money is that your controllers have indoctrinated your society to think that the word ‘fair’ means equal. It does not; in all advanced languages it means equitable, which is very different. Besides, who should decide if something is fair or not? Fairness is subjective. Do you really want to give that type of power over your lives to a small group of people again?