My suspicion is that the legibility and exactness of financial system won’t be repeated for other kinds of “social credit”. The keys that make the financial system work are:
Fungibility—a quantity of credit from A or B is equally valuable. This applies to money or “simple goods”, but does not apply to trust, liking, respecting, or fearing.
Fixed quantity—financial values are neither created nor destroyed (by normal transactions—there are underlying system actions that do change totals). Trust, liking, fear, and respect are not conserved in transactions.
Transferability—the previous two properties make it pretty straightforward to exchange at scale, leading to large benefits from specialization and trade. It’s not clear how status, power, or friendship can be made to scale in those ways.
My suspicion is that the legibility and exactness of financial system won’t be repeated for other kinds of “social credit”. The keys that make the financial system work are:
Fungibility—a quantity of credit from A or B is equally valuable. This applies to money or “simple goods”, but does not apply to trust, liking, respecting, or fearing.
Fixed quantity—financial values are neither created nor destroyed (by normal transactions—there are underlying system actions that do change totals). Trust, liking, fear, and respect are not conserved in transactions.
Transferability—the previous two properties make it pretty straightforward to exchange at scale, leading to large benefits from specialization and trade. It’s not clear how status, power, or friendship can be made to scale in those ways.