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Main article: Economic Systems
Last time we clarified some terms with regard to Lem’s “gift-giving” economy. We will call it instead the Subjective Ratings Based Economy (SRBE). In this economy, we use each individual’s personal ratings system to evaluate economic “deservingness” of claims. My alternative to this would be to vote on a ratings system that the community would use for handling economic claims and “deservingness”. We might call this a Community Ratings Based Economy (CRBE). Our own personal ratings system would still be functional but for economic distribution, we would use the community system.
It is too early to analyze the merits of each approach numerically but we can probably say that the SRBE has less predictable outcomes. In CRBE we can engineer the outcomes, particularly wealth distribution, to some community standard. Indeed, it is the prospect of egalitarian wealth distribution that attracts me to it. In SRBE each individual uses their own ratings. However, SRBE is more democratic, in a direct democracy sense, and might lead to a more accurate result since it includes more detailed individual knowledge. The ratings system will, of course, allow communities to use either approach.