I’m too lazy to go find the citations, but other people have pointed out two objections to this concept, and I find them compelling:
A norm of exchanging cash for assistance makes it very difficult for “the poor person” to get assistance when they have a bad day and, for example, just need someone else to do the dishes that night.
1a. Financial situations can change, and “the poor person” next year might be the same human as the one offering cash today.
Open-ended transactions build relationships. By paying for the favor, that closes the transaction.
2a. Maybe a deeper relationship with a roommate is not desired?
2b. Maybe the person you ask for a cheerful price can quote $0 (or something else obviously trivial like $1 to bake a cake). That seems like the most effective way of indicating “asking me for a cheerful price will backfire and damage our relationship, rather than maintaining it.”
2c. Maybe in some circles, relationships can be mediated by cash, and it’s just among the ~80% of everyone who hold money at least somewhat sacred and/or budgeted that such a scheme doesn’t work.
Always gotta convert $ to utils before analyzing “willingness to pay” from people with even a 20% difference in wealth, income, or ready cash. At least if you want to answer questions about “is this market serving all stakeholders well?” and not just “what is happening?”
A norm of exchanging cash for assistance makes it very difficult for “the poor person” to get assistance when they have a bad day and, for example, just need someone else to do the dishes that night. 1a. Financial situations can change, and “the poor person” next year might be the same human as the one offering cash today.
A norm of exchanging “democracy dollars” (UBI coin) would alleviate this issue, since everybody is entitled to a regular supply of UBI coin, preventing people from getting locked out. If you’re still too poor after you’ve used your supply of UBI coins, that’s because you’ve already been taking a good bit more than you’ve been giving in return.
Are DD fungible for “can pay my taxes $”? By definition of a tradeable good, yes. How much friction is there in that trade? From the linked post, it looks like very little: you just go to the bank and sign over your 100 DD and get whatever the exchange rate gives you in $USD.
Yes, they are fungible for dollars by design. But personally, I’d rather do the dishes in return for DDs than the same value in USD, because I suspect that such a preference can be justified using Functional Decision Theory (related to the fact that the expected value of being a random person in a society that uses mainly DDs is better than the expected value of being a random person in a USD society), and also because I have a strong preference for being friends with the type of person who maximizes DDs rather than maximizes USD.
So if you don’t want to be doing the dishes tonight, you better not sell all your DDs for cash
I really like the idea of this sort of currency but I feel like if it’s easily fungible for dollars, then it loses power as a separate concept and is subject to the market forces of Wall Street trying to make $$$ from manipulating it some way or another.
Of course, whenever multiple currencies exist, there will always be exchanges whether official or black market. However, I think there should be careful thought about what sorts of friction or limitations should be in place to preserve the intent of the currency.
Maybe you only allow it to be associated with real individual people and possibly have caps on balances or transactions but maybe that would make things worse somehow. Hard to say without serious study.
I’m too lazy to go find the citations, but other people have pointed out two objections to this concept, and I find them compelling:
A norm of exchanging cash for assistance makes it very difficult for “the poor person” to get assistance when they have a bad day and, for example, just need someone else to do the dishes that night. 1a. Financial situations can change, and “the poor person” next year might be the same human as the one offering cash today.
Open-ended transactions build relationships. By paying for the favor, that closes the transaction. 2a. Maybe a deeper relationship with a roommate is not desired? 2b. Maybe the person you ask for a cheerful price can quote $0 (or something else obviously trivial like $1 to bake a cake). That seems like the most effective way of indicating “asking me for a cheerful price will backfire and damage our relationship, rather than maintaining it.” 2c. Maybe in some circles, relationships can be mediated by cash, and it’s just among the ~80% of everyone who hold money at least somewhat sacred and/or budgeted that such a scheme doesn’t work.
is also the flaw in using willingness to pay as the criterion of wanting something.
Always gotta convert $ to utils before analyzing “willingness to pay” from people with even a 20% difference in wealth, income, or ready cash. At least if you want to answer questions about “is this market serving all stakeholders well?” and not just “what is happening?”
Willingness or ability?
Exactly!
A norm of exchanging “democracy dollars” (UBI coin) would alleviate this issue, since everybody is entitled to a regular supply of UBI coin, preventing people from getting locked out. If you’re still too poor after you’ve used your supply of UBI coins, that’s because you’ve already been taking a good bit more than you’ve been giving in return.
Are DD fungible for “can pay my taxes $”? By definition of a tradeable good, yes. How much friction is there in that trade? From the linked post, it looks like very little: you just go to the bank and sign over your 100 DD and get whatever the exchange rate gives you in $USD.
Yes, they are fungible for dollars by design. But personally, I’d rather do the dishes in return for DDs than the same value in USD, because I suspect that such a preference can be justified using Functional Decision Theory (related to the fact that the expected value of being a random person in a society that uses mainly DDs is better than the expected value of being a random person in a USD society), and also because I have a strong preference for being friends with the type of person who maximizes DDs rather than maximizes USD.
So if you don’t want to be doing the dishes tonight, you better not sell all your DDs for cash
I really like the idea of this sort of currency but I feel like if it’s easily fungible for dollars, then it loses power as a separate concept and is subject to the market forces of Wall Street trying to make $$$ from manipulating it some way or another.
Of course, whenever multiple currencies exist, there will always be exchanges whether official or black market. However, I think there should be careful thought about what sorts of friction or limitations should be in place to preserve the intent of the currency.
Maybe you only allow it to be associated with real individual people and possibly have caps on balances or transactions but maybe that would make things worse somehow. Hard to say without serious study.