[extropy-chat] Bloodless Redistribution of Wealth (wasSingulartarians)

Wed Dec 28 22:22:39 UTC 2005

Any idea to help other people can only be beneficial.  I agree that the idea
  is a little "tacky", but I think it would work.  Ego is what makes a person
  crave money, therefore, it would seem very likely that your idea might work.
  Just an opinion
  Anna

The Avantguardian <avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com> wrote:

--- spike wrote:

> Do tell! Keep in mind however that the government
> already has such a system, which it has been
> struggling 
> for years to suppress: donations to the political
> party of one's choice.

But donations to political parties is nowhere near the
same thing. It is not money being spent by the wealthy
for the public weal, it is instead a method by which
those individuals ensure that any incoming government
does their bidding. It is done so that government
caters to the interests of a small minority, often at
the expense of the public at large.

This ugly situation is what makes me so reluctant to
divulge my idea. Last thing we need is for the
government use this additional money to buy more
missiles, bombs, and bullets. Defense contracts makes
up the overwhelming majority of public expenditure,
and we spend more of our hard earned tax money on
these things than the rest of the world combined. Who
exactly is the enemy? Arabs with box cutters? Or are
we just trying to pick fights wherever we can?

I for one would like see us reach a point on
production possibilities curve that allows for more
butter and fewer guns. Or barring that, the goverment
ought to share all the guns it is hoarding with the
rank and file of it's citizenry. After all, I would
feel far safer and more dignified with a .45 in my
carry-on luggage than with some TSA mouthbreather
feeling me up in the airport. But I digress. 

Any money raised by my idea ought to go to
humanitarian causes. Agencies such as the NIH, NSA,
NASA (especially their NEO deflection guys), Social
Security, Medicare, or even the National Endowment of
the Arts. In short, it would probably be for the best
if congress kept its greedy and inept mitts off of
this "fund".

My idea is relatively straight forward. It is based in
large part on my thoughts on the economic principle of
diminishing marginal utility. Money, like any other
commodity, is subject to this phenomenon. In a
nutshell, you have one widget, it is exceptionally
useful. You get a second widget and it is a little
less useful. If you have a hundred widgets than you
will probably not get much use out of your 101st
widget. The same would apply to money. Bill Gates's
first billion was probably very useful to him. He
might even have thrown a party to celebrate. His 40th
billion, however, he probably hardly noticed.

So if money is subject to the law of diminishing
marginal utility, what possible motivation is there
for amassing huge amounts of it? Is it simply how
billionaires keep "score" of who is the better at
playing the "game"? The problem is that what is to
them a "game", is to the people on the bottom rungs on
the social ladder, no less than life and death. So do
people with multiple mansions, yachts, private jets,
and luxury cars continue to amass personal wealth at
the expense of the poor because they are sadistic and
enjoy watching people suffer? I think not.

I think that there are several forces at work here.
For one thing, the structure of the economy is such
that it allows for a certain critical mass of wealth
beyond which it is very difficult to actually "spend"
ones money. Anything one buys becomes an assett and
the naturally diversified investments of people that
are looking for something to do with their money bring
fairly steady returns. If they give money to charity,
they get some of it back in tax write-offs. In short,
it is difficult for the truly wealthy to "dispose" of
their disposable income.

Another factor is the role of money as a status
indicator. I believe it truly becomes how billionaires
establish their "pecking order" or "keep score". To
saddle them with with laws prohibiting them from
amassing further wealth would be like telling an
olympic runner that she is not allowed to run faster
than a certain speed.

In view of these thoughts that I had, my challenge was
to find a way to appropriate the wealth of the
super-wealthy without harming them or endangering
their hard-won social status. Short of complicated
reforms of the banking system and retooling the very
concepts of interest rates and insurance, the best and
simplest idea I could come up with was "vanity money".

The idea is similar to that of vanity license plates.
Every year the U.S. Treasury Department removes some
of the old currency from circulation and replaces it
with about $20 billion dollars worth of crisp new
bills and coins. My idea is rather simple. They say
the capitalists motto is "he who dies with the most
toys wins". I say why wait until the billionaires die
to tally the score? Let them enter the "hall of fame"
during their lifetimes and reset the "game". So we set
up a government service that would allow the treasury
department to sell off (either for exorbiantly high
set prices or competive auction style bids) the
various denominations of currency for a given year.
The idea being that for a few billion dollars, all the
bills or coins of a given denomination issued within a
defined time period would feature the "winner's"
picture on it. 

What greater honor could a capitalist society bestow
upon its most successful capitalists than to print or
stamp their faces on its currency? This is a positive
sum solution because despite the loss of a sizable
portion of the donors wealth there is concomitant
validation and possibly even increase of their
percieved social status. And if the money so recieved
is managed properly, our children get educated, our
elderly get their medications, and extinction from
plague or asteroids gets averted. It's win-win all the
way around. 

The Avantguardian 
is 
Stuart LaForge
alt email: stuart"AT"ucla.edu

"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed. . ."

- Albert Einstein, "What I Believe" (1930)

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