guts4roses.org: do what you can and take what you need

summary of guts4roses.org:
 1)	people who like the current competition economy can continue working in that old economy
 2)	on top of this old economy a new economy will arise in which people:
 a)	do what they can
 b)	take what they need
 c)	dare to trust that others in this new economy will do the same (points a) and b))
because of point c) this is called guts4roses.
guts4roses.org: stop trading, start cooperating

i want to look at what can go right, viz that with everything we do we can take all relevant concerns into account.

most people believe this will never happen, that people don't want to take each others concerns into account. from an evolutionary perspective i believe this will happen and this is the way to go:

as we speak there is a growing amount of people that does want to take each others concerns into account, they are sometimes called the awoken. so the question now is: what does an awoken economy look like?

i believe it is not possible to construct an economic paradigm in which members take each others concerns into account even if these members don't want to. so an awoken economy will have to be populated exclusively by awoken people.

i believe an awoken economy will not replace current economy but instead will be a settop on top of the current economy. the interaction between the two being that an awoken economy functions as a regular economic entity inside the current economy.

here i will define guts4roses, which is a concrete example of an awoken economy. we call this awoken economy guts4roses because it's members have the guts to trust each other that they will take each others concerns into account.

note that an awoken economy necessarily is a cooperation economy, for in competition there is no taking other concerns into account. this implies that any other awoken economy will cooperate with and in priciple could merge with guts4roses.

so now we contruct guts4roses. the main paradigm twist in what follows is that we don't use homo economicus as a model for human behaviour but the notion of awoken people. while constructing guts4roses we will operationalise this notion of awoken people, each time indicating such an operationalisation with [awoken people].

guts4roses in one sentence is: 
do what you can and take what you need.
as apposed to:
do as you please and take what you desire.
guts4roses.org: open source cooperation economy

suppose we have
�	a group of awoken people
�	and the resources they have access to

now we want to answer the following two questions:
�	who does what?
�	who gets what?

firstly, [awoken people] take each others concerns into account. so guts4roses is transparant, for to take each others concerns into account it is necessary to know of each others concerns.

who gets what:
[awoken people] only take what they need.
this means there is abundance for i believe it is true what gandhi said: this world has enough for everybodies needs but not for everybodies greeds. but then the answer to the question as to who gets what is straightforward: you just take what you need.

this implies that guts4roses works on the basis of collective ownership.

nota bene: a priori this only holds for raw materials, because as soon as labour is necessary (for gaining these raw materials for example) interaction with fellow members is needed. so we have to answer the other question:

who does what:
the core of guts4roses is a planning which continuously evolves. this planning results from a planning process which continuously improves. this planning process is facilitated by the bank of the future. it goes like this:

at each point in time the economy is in a certain state and has a certain planning. as the planning gets executed the state of the economy changes and the planning changes into the remainder of the planning. but there are more reasons to change the planning as we go, eg the advent of new goals. in this way the planning is continuously evolving.

the planning is the result of a planning process which is not fixed. we improve this process as we go. the in- and outputs are fixed though:

the planning process takes for inputs the inventories of:
�	people
�	resources
�	goals

the planning process has for output:
�	planning
�	in particular an answer to the question as to who does what.

the planning process utilises a knowlegebase of actions from which it constructs the best way to reach the goals using the labour of the people and the resources. as the planning process searches to reach all goals the suggested actions take all concerns into account (concerns are also goals).
[awoken people] take responsibility for themselves and the rest of the world.
so this is what they want.

consequently the transparant environment which facilitates guts4roses and hosts the planning process consists of
�	databases for people, resources and goals, including their history (implying the state of the  economy)
�	the current planning
�	knowledge base of actions
all the elements of this environment continuously evolve. any change in people, resources, goals or the knowledge base can result in a change of the current planning. this is the bank of the future.

there are 3 stadia of economic activity:
�	autarchy
members operate isolated and self sufficient
they set their goals, plan their activities and use the available resources
�	cooperation
same as with autarchy but instead the members cooperate
in particular they plan in advance, everyhting is made to order
�	entrepreneur
same as with cooperation but instead members set goals for which at the time of setting the goal no customer is known yet
they can make estimates of produce needed based on the rich amount of data available in the transparant environment

so if someone needs something he can take that, if available. note that labour is just as much a resource as any tangible asset is. consequently if someone needs your labour he can take that. if what he needs is not available he can set a goal to that effect and the current planning is changed in order to incorporate this new goal. if there are no members to cooperate with the fallback is autarchy.

if someone sees a possibility to improve a production process he can allocate investments by setting a goal to that effect and again the current planning is changed in order to incorporate this new goal. any improvement of a production process leads to an update of the knowledge base of actions so that everyone can use this improved production process. this is the open source nature of this cooperation economy.

note that at this point in the conceptualisation there is no balance between the goals someone sets (for himself and/or others) and the labour he is suggested to do. this is where [awoken people] trust each other that they set goals in order to take up responsibility for themselves and the rest of the world. in their transparant environment they have all relevant data to help them make useful decisions and evaluate these afterwards.

also note that entrepreneurial risk is borne by all members of guts4roses together. this again is because [awoken people] trust each other that they set goals in order to take up responsibility for themselves and the rest of the world.
the timebank guts4roses: exchange labour

now what if you don't fully trust your fellow members? rules can be added in order to transfer from trust in people to trust in the system. i call this a projection of guts4roses. of course such rules need to be maintained, eventually by armed force if necessary.

by adding different sets of rules to guts4roses many of present day alternative economic initiatives can be modelled. in other words: many initiatives can be seen as a projection of guts4roses. thus guts4roses can be used as a theoretical framework by means of which these initiatives can be put into perspective.

one such model is the timebank. when members don't trust each other to do as much as is needed they can add just one rule to guts4roses, viz the goal that members take just as much as they give. the transparant environment already keeps track of all labour executed. using this information it is possible to calculate the amount of labour that was needed to achieve a specific goal. this amount is the price of the goal in hours, called timebanks. the timebank rule now reads that members can buy produce with the timebanks they earned.

note that in this concept the notion of value is still not used. value is necessary in negotiation which in turn is necessary to cope with scarecity.

i will not elaborate the concept of timebanks here and now for there are some problems to be solved with the introduction of timebanks, eg: what happens with finished labour when someone else finds a cheaper way of producing?

but i just want to live my life the guts4roses way.
to live like a monkey or to live like a monk,
that's the question

here are some differences between guts4roses and current economy:
�	onwnership has been replaced with stewardship
�	guts4roses have no transaction costs
�	when people want to join they are welcome because efficiency will rise
�	innovations are welcome without limitations because they are no threat to existing concerns
�	the fallback of guts4roses is autarchy instead of unemployment
�	the bank of the future does not only keep track of currency balances but also of goals and impacts
some differences between the timebank guts4roses and current economy:
�	the timebank guts4roses exchange hours of labour (timebanks) instead of money
�	the exchange is focussed on efficiency instead of on the accoumulation of value

question to all of you: who wants to participate in what way?
you can add a way yourself or choose from this list:
�	start a community
�	elaborate the guts4roses concept
�	write a tool to facilitate guts4roses
�	make a simulation
�	organise a contest with a renown jury (for a logo or a marketing plan)
�	start the guts4roses economy
�	inventarise existing projections and think of new ones
�	reorganise existing organisations along the paradigm of guts4roses (this also furnishes a way of gaining funds for guts4roses)
�	figure out how existing organisations can become a partial part of guts4roses