This seems like a pretty sensible account to me. (Does anyone see any obvious flaws?)
This is similar to how currency is exchanged. Assuming some reference point, perhaps an event which society deems is equally valuable for all agents (that is, society values it equally regardless of which agent experiences it), there exists a Utility Economy, in which there exists a comparative advantage; Agent Alpha and Agent Beta serve each other, producing more Society-Utils by trading than either could alone.
Could you explain this a bit more? I’m not sure I understand. (FYI, I know almost nothing about currency exchange.)
I don’t know much about it either, but the basic principles I’m trying to transfer are:
a) N different nations have N different currencies. Agents 1 through N have Agent1-Utils, Agent2-Utils...AgentN-Utils.
b) They are able to interact in an international market by setting an exchange rate between their currencies. In this case, we propose the extra step of creating a single societal currency, which would be analogous to a “World Dollar”, so that we need only N different conversions (Agent i to Society, i = 1..N) rather than N(N-1)/2 (Agent i to Agent j, i = 1..N, j = i+1..N), and the responsibility to set conversion rates is a societal, rather than individual, responsibility.
Admittedly, this analogy has its own “utility monster”—a nation which is economically powerful enough to manipulate exchange rates. However, that doesn’t quite exist in the “Utility Economy” unless one agent is powerful enough to bend society to their whim, in which case it’s not so much a utilitarian society as a dictatorship.
This seems like a pretty sensible account to me. (Does anyone see any obvious flaws?)
Could you explain this a bit more? I’m not sure I understand. (FYI, I know almost nothing about currency exchange.)
I don’t know much about it either, but the basic principles I’m trying to transfer are:
a) N different nations have N different currencies. Agents 1 through N have Agent1-Utils, Agent2-Utils...AgentN-Utils.
b) They are able to interact in an international market by setting an exchange rate between their currencies. In this case, we propose the extra step of creating a single societal currency, which would be analogous to a “World Dollar”, so that we need only N different conversions (Agent i to Society, i = 1..N) rather than N(N-1)/2 (Agent i to Agent j, i = 1..N, j = i+1..N), and the responsibility to set conversion rates is a societal, rather than individual, responsibility.
Admittedly, this analogy has its own “utility monster”—a nation which is economically powerful enough to manipulate exchange rates. However, that doesn’t quite exist in the “Utility Economy” unless one agent is powerful enough to bend society to their whim, in which case it’s not so much a utilitarian society as a dictatorship.