The Computer Accounts

If money exists only in computer accounts then there is no physical representation of money which can be transferred from person to person. There is no physical object to be counterfeited. Since the money is all in one central computer system, it is easy to keep track of and to control.

This means that no one can take your money without your consent. All spending is voluntary. Only the owner of an account can cause the balance in that account to be reduced.

This prevents money from being uncontrolable. This principle works in cooperation with the paying profession to make money moral rather than amoral. If you can't transfer your money to someone else you can't use your money to motivate any behavior you like whether good or bad. This means you can't hire people to hurt other people using money.

This is how money ceases to exist when spent. It is a simple matter of making the number in the account balance a smaller number. No other account has to increase by the same amount.

What Money can Buy

It is only necessary that goods and services which people actually desire must be included in those items so designated. Obviously, if nobody wants the things labeled luxuries then no one will want the money that can buy them. This category of goods and services is what motivates people to produce in order to gain money. The principles do not specify what items should be classified as luxuries because one would expect that classification to change over time. What constitutes a luxury today may be considered a necessity in years to come.

The principle also does not specify how the classification shall be arrived at. There are any number of possible ways by which goods and serivces might be classified. It could be done by votes of the population. It could be done by a special committee selected by boy scout troop leaders. It could be done by lottery. What matters is that there are lots of things that people really want that are in this classification. The more people want these things the more good they will do to get money.

First one should note that "free to all" does not mean that a person may just go take whatever is designated as a necessity from the person who owns it. It means that necessities are not for sale. It means that someone may give you some necessity if they choose to do so. If they do give you something you need someone else will credit their account according to the benefit you derive from that necessity. On the other hand if you accept the necessity and waste it, the person who gave it to you does not get paid. If you already have plenty of that necessity then you are not benefitted by possession of that extra necessity and they would not be paid. But if you give thati extra necessity to some other person who does need it then both you and the person who gave it to you would be paid. Therefore, this principle is not a license to take whatever necessities you like from their owners.

This principle is also not a requirement that anyone be forced to give their property to someone else. Just because you have more of a necessity than you need does not mean that you will be forced to give it to someone else. You can earn money by giving it but there is no excuse in this principle for punishing you for not doing so.

This principle is not a statement of obligation. It is merely a statement that no one is expected to pay for anything categorized or designated as a necessity. And it also says that there is no reward expected for going beyond the actual needs of the person being given a necessity.

There are more limitations on what is designated a necessity than on what is designated a luxury. All things which are actually required to sustain human life must be included in the goods and services labelded necessities. This would include food, clothing, shelter, medical care, and education. Naturally there are kinds of food which are luxuries and the same is true of clothing and shelter. Some medical treatment is optional and not required for good physical and mental health. Some education (though I can't think of any off hand) might be considered to be a luxury. So there would no doubt be some discrimination between the various items but so long as those things which are really necessary are included as necessities the particular items that fall into each category will no doubt vary.

As with luxuries, it really is not required that any particular group make the decision concerning whether a particular item or service is a necessity. But the designation needs to be made somehow by some group. (It is probably beyond the abilities of any one human being to make the decisions on the enormous range of goods and services offered in an industrial society.)

These two principles specify two categories of goods and services but do not mention the third major category of goods and services, namely capital goods and services. Naturally, anything not designated as either a luxury or a necessity is considered to be capital. Tools and raw materials are obviously not consumer goods. But some decisions will need to be made even there. One can use tools to pursue a hobby. Horses, for example, can be used to pull a plow and when doing so constitute a tool. But horses can also be used as sporting equipment as when they are ridden in fox hunts. In the latter case they would be luxury items. One would have to pay to acquire such a horse. But if one needed a horse to herd cattle then such a horse would be given and received as a means to produce benefit and the parties (the giver and the receiver of the horse) would each be paid based on the benefit the use of that horse provided.

The Paying Profession

This is the key principle of the money. The decisions of the payers are what makes money moral and controlled, and prevents its giving the appearance of a zero sum game and provides the third party in all money transactions. It also provides the mechanism by which a completely free market exists in the economy. All producers of benefit can be paid by any of the payers. What the payers have to give (money) is the same no matter which payer credits a producer's account. There are millions of producers and millions of payers. Therefore, the interaction of the payers and producers is a completely free market and will remain a free market.

On what basis will the payers make their subjective decisions as to how much pay should be given for the net benefit derived by others? On any basis each individual payer wants. The payers cannot be meaningfully restricted by rules imposed by other groups since the payers are the ones who pay for the enforcement of rules. Therefore the only meaningful restriction on the payers is how other people treat them.

If anyone else could pay they would have the power of payers without the restraints of payers. Power without restraints is corrupting and dangerous as history has shown.

To restrict the people who can be payers to a certain class (race, religion, national origin, sex, political party, age, or any other characteristic would give the appearance of bias on the part of the payers. The belief that the payers as a whole are biased would considerably reduce the power the payers exercise. Therefore, the payers themselves would probably allow to join any who wanted and since no one else could pay to enforce a rule against their desires their will would likely be done.

An unwilling payer would do a bad job.

This is the great balancing principle. This principle prevents the payers from being despots. This principle makes the payers completely vulnerable to the general public. This principle is why necessities must be free to all as needed. For if they were not people might become payers in order to get the necessities. Such people would not be good payers. This principle also means that the people who become payers are those for whom social rewards are more important than luxuries. This principle means that payers are difficult to bribe and even when they are bribed it must be on a small scale since otherwise it becomes obvious.

Since becoming a payer is a lifetime committment one is not motivated to become a payer for a little while to unfairly reward someone else who then becomes a payer in order to return the favor.

This principle almost guarantees that most of the volunteers will be older people who are at or beyond retirement age. Whatever their jobs were, they may be unable to do those jobs themselves but they are still quite able to judge whether others are doing them well. The older part of the population is much more likely to value social rewards than the luxuries that once were important to them. They are also likely to feel unimportant, worthless, and ignored after retirement and payers would not be ignored by producers since they are the source of money. Payers would have power and influence. Payers are important and respected as a group. Therefore, this principle not only keeps the payers power in balance by making them subject to consumers' reactions but selects that part of the population which would make the best payers and gives them a richer life.

Finally, it means that the payers would work cheap. That is, they would not consume more necessities when they became payers and they would consume no luxuries as payers so they would reduce their consumption as a result of their becoming payers. Therefore, though they would require some capital to be payers, they would be the least expensive to the economy source of labor.