A new idea how Finland can evolve to the next level as a society from the inventor of Copiosis Perry Gruber, regarding Sitra competition:
As with the rest of the world, Finland faces an awesome opportunity. Our current global economy asks humanity to boldly go towards a future where current practices are a thing of the past. We simply can’t continue to allow market-driven debt-based, global economies to dominate society.
What’s more, deep within those socioeconomic structures is the prime source of our global problems. Simply stated, the amoral, uncontrollable, transferrable nature of money used in debt-based economic systems motivates and rewards amoral, uncontrollable human behavior, resulting in near-catastrophic destruction of not only the natural environment, but human socieities too.
Accumulation of money is called wealth. There are many ways to accumulate wealth. In rarified global society, where decisions are made which affect domestic and international policy, such decisions are made in favor of wealth accumulation. Even decisions made seemingly in the interest of society are made with wealth accumulation in mind. The thinking goes: Keeping the people in jobs and happy keeps us in power, perpetuating our ability to accumulate our wealth.
We know wealth accumulation results from legal activities. We also know wealth accumulation can happen from illicit activity. Illegal means are often a shortcut to wealth accumulation. So such tactics are seductive. And successful. That’s why so many people do it or at least try to. It literally is all about the money.
Like all looming catastrophes so far, humanity can avert our path to self-destruction caused by the money we used, which motivates and rewards amoral human behavior. Imagine Finland in the near future where all citizens have access to all the food, housing, medical care, basic clothing and education at no cost. If they already own homes, their mortgage is reduced to zero. If they have other debt, that debt is reduced to zero as well. Finns no longer have to work jobs to earn money to pay for things they need. Instead, they are free to pursue their passions, including helping the natural environment thrive, helping other people or animals, building and making things, or even working internationally.
In this future, each person can do whatever he or she wants with his or her time. If you do things improve life on earth, you are richly rewarded. You can use those rewards to obtain high-quality, desireable, durable goods and services that far exceed today’s goods and services in every way. In this future Finland, there are no banks. There is no money. Government is very small to non-existent. Crime has been reduced to zero. The rich are rich, but so is everyone else. For the first time ever, everyone has the same opportunity to contribute to the world in whatever way they desire and be recognized and rewarded for that work.
In this future, Fins aren’t the only ones living such lives. People around the world enjoy these same levels of prosperity. All necessities are easily distributed world-wide, so there is no scarcity of resources. Luxury goods too are available to all. As a result, most crime, corruption, all hunger, all homelessness, most conflicts (including international ones) are soothed or eliminated entirely.
Industrially, all fossil fuel production is halted and replaced totally with a diverse renewable energy portfolio, while the fossil fuel industry and its investors are left whole. Gradually, new transportation options replace combustion engine technology world-wide. Investors in this sector are also left whole. Physical and mental health through all generations improves as a result of the deployment of millions of healthcare people in all sectors dedicated to improving people’s welfare with no cost or budget constraints preventing such work.. With all necessities provided, people live easier are less desperate. Focusing on their self-actualization helps amplify their well being.
Corporations all become sustainable, net-zero operations over time, as the costs to doing so drop to zero. Corporate personhood is ended, leaving organizations free to operate, but without the wealth and power leverage they have to dominate global society.
The one percent have nothing to fear in this new future. Their wealth is preserved, but the power of that wealth is eliminated. The rich are still free to get richer, but that new wealth is moral, supporting a better society wherein all activity makes life and the planet better.
This sounds like an incredible, impossible future reality. But it is not impossible. It is being built today using an invention that does away with debt-based economies and the kind of money we use today. A small, world-wide team of volunteers are creating projects and building the infrastructure across the planet to make this utopian-sounding future our world-wide reality. There are two projects currently in operation and another 12-15 forming throughout the world, including Spain, Greece, Laos, and Israel. Find out more at www.copiosis.com
On Wealth distribution:
Wealth distribution is a problem when the accumulation of money (wealth) also means the accumulation of power. In democracies, wealth allows the wealthy to influence elections and legislative processes through lobbying (hiring someone to represent your interest as well as influence the law-making process in your favor). In capitalism and every other traditional economic system, wealth also allows the wealthy to control all factors of production – land, capital and, most importantly, labor. The wealthy then employ the factors of production in ways that increase their wealth while minimizing their costs, including labor costs, leaving the not wealthy at an economic disadvantage.
In Copiosis, none of this can happen because the wealthy’s power doesn’t exist as it does in democracy and in capitalism. As part of the Copiosis transition, the wealthy get to retain their wealth. However, their wealth is converted into Net Benefit Rewards (NBR). NBR is not money and doesn’t work like money. It can not be transferred from one person to another, so even if government existed in Copiosis (which it doesn’t) a person with a lot of NBR can’t use that wealth to “buy” politicians or laws. Such a person’s NBR can’t be used to control labor either because that NBR is not transferrable, meaning it can’t be used to pay salaries. Other people’s NBR comes from the Payer Organization as a result of the algorithm measuring the benefit they produce.
The only thing a person with a lot of NBR can do with all that NBR is buy luxuries. So being wealthy in Copiosis simply means you have more access to luxuries than others….for a while. There are no restrictions on what others can do to be rewarded with NBR so it’s possible for ordinary people to become “rich” with NBR too. What’s more, since everyone has all their necessities provided at no cost to them, they already are more prosperous than they are today. So there is less envy of the wealthy due to their wealth.
On the algorithm
The algorithm is designed to measure results of people’s actions. Any act is NBR worthy so long as that act produces more benefit than harm. The algorithm functions today and is used in two ways in our demonstration projects. In a spreadsheet calculation and in our software. I must reiterate that the software is being used today. With it we have rewarded over 30,000 NBR.