Commune math
Nov. 9th, 2009 03:19 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
blimixEvery once in a while, I have thoughts about a planned community: Something like a commune, but accommodating friends (I hope) of vastly different incomes. Just now, I thought of using a sort of hyperbolic rent/work scheme. The idea is that members contribute both work and money to the commune (thereby covering basic needs: Shelter, food, security, a reasonable amount of utilities, health care as needed and possible), and can choose to do less work if they contribute more money (or vice versa), but *not at a fixed rate of exchange*. (Work would presumably be a mixture of skilled work and rotating grunt work, though I would not attempt to draw a precise line between the two.)
My first attempt at a formula is this: (dollars/week + 50) * (hours/week + 5) = 2250
(The "2250" could be adjusted as needed to account for inflation and the financial needs of the community.)
Each week, for example, you could: Work 5 hours and pay $175; work 10 hours and pay $100; work 15 hours and pay $62.50; work 20 hours and pay $40. If you really want to, you could earn a free ticket by working 40 hours a week, or pay $400 and do no work, but the hyperbolic nature of the curve discourages either of these options. (More on this below.)
There are a couple of ways to look at this. You could see the rent as kind of a tax: Wealthier people will likely pay more and work less. But it would be a voluntary tax, as they could always opt to work as much as everyone else, and keep their money. Meanwhile, those who can't find jobs won't starve -- as long as the commune has enough income from others (or from the fruits of their labor).
Or, as I do, you could see this curve as an opportunity for each person to find a niche tailored to the monetary value of their time. If your figure your time is worth about $13/hour, you could work 8 hours and pay $123.08 per week (because working an hour less than that would cost an extra $14.42, and working an hour more would save only $12.37). If you work a minimum wage ($7.25/hour) job, you could most efficiently work 13 hours at the commune and pay $75 per week from your job earnings. If you hate that job so much that you'd gladly donate two hours at the commune to save yourself one hour of customer service hell, then work 20 hours and pay only $40 per week.
No matter where you are in the curve (except at the ends), you're surrounded by people putting more work into the community than you are (and who are saving less money per hour thereby than you are) and people who are putting more money into the community than you would comfortably be able to. And yet you gain all the benefits of both.* It's a situation made of win.
If you have any income, then you probably want to avoid the "free" 40-hour option -- that 40th hour saves you only $1.14 in rent -- unless you (laudably) enjoy volunteering your work.
The low end of the scale is very steep: The difference between working working 2 hours and not working at all is $128.57. This is to encourage people to participate in the community, even if only to a small extent, so that there's an emotional investment in it. You're less likely to litter if you've had to tidy up the grounds once or twice, for example.
Of course, there are all kinds of adjustments available: A surcharge for nicer housing. Reduced work expectation on students, the elderly and disabled. Increased value to donated work that requires an expensive education (such as medical).
(BTW, rent would be calculated by *average* weekly hours over a long period, so that you don't get shafted by a varied schedule. I'm not trying to be mean here!)
* Just to show that this "benefit" from those around you is not just rhetoric: Consider you, your yuppie friend Alice, your bohemian friend Bob and your impoverished friend Carol. Alice works 5 hours and pays $175. You work 8 hours and pay $123.08. Bob works 12 hours and pays $82.35. Carol works 17 hours and pays $52.27. Alice and Bob work an average of 8.5 hours, and pay an average of $128.68. Hence, on average they work more than you do (by half an hour) *and* pay more than you do (by $5.60). But that benefit is not just at your point on the curve: Bob gets the same benefit from you and Carol, who average half an hour more work than he does, and $5.33 more than he pays.
Why this works: Since each person can choose their point of maximum efficiency on the curve, everyone else on the curve is, from their perspective, contributing less efficiently -- that is, everyone else is contributing *more*.
(Math people: There's no particular need for it to be a hyperbolic curve. I just wanted something smooth and simple, with a negative slope, a positive second derivative, and a steep start. I'd certainly be open to other ideas, if you care to make a case for them.)
(Gratuitous link: Sinbad comic. It starts out okay, and becomes hilarious.)
My first attempt at a formula is this: (dollars/week + 50) * (hours/week + 5) = 2250
(The "2250" could be adjusted as needed to account for inflation and the financial needs of the community.)
Each week, for example, you could: Work 5 hours and pay $175; work 10 hours and pay $100; work 15 hours and pay $62.50; work 20 hours and pay $40. If you really want to, you could earn a free ticket by working 40 hours a week, or pay $400 and do no work, but the hyperbolic nature of the curve discourages either of these options. (More on this below.)
There are a couple of ways to look at this. You could see the rent as kind of a tax: Wealthier people will likely pay more and work less. But it would be a voluntary tax, as they could always opt to work as much as everyone else, and keep their money. Meanwhile, those who can't find jobs won't starve -- as long as the commune has enough income from others (or from the fruits of their labor).
Or, as I do, you could see this curve as an opportunity for each person to find a niche tailored to the monetary value of their time. If your figure your time is worth about $13/hour, you could work 8 hours and pay $123.08 per week (because working an hour less than that would cost an extra $14.42, and working an hour more would save only $12.37). If you work a minimum wage ($7.25/hour) job, you could most efficiently work 13 hours at the commune and pay $75 per week from your job earnings. If you hate that job so much that you'd gladly donate two hours at the commune to save yourself one hour of customer service hell, then work 20 hours and pay only $40 per week.
No matter where you are in the curve (except at the ends), you're surrounded by people putting more work into the community than you are (and who are saving less money per hour thereby than you are) and people who are putting more money into the community than you would comfortably be able to. And yet you gain all the benefits of both.* It's a situation made of win.
If you have any income, then you probably want to avoid the "free" 40-hour option -- that 40th hour saves you only $1.14 in rent -- unless you (laudably) enjoy volunteering your work.
The low end of the scale is very steep: The difference between working working 2 hours and not working at all is $128.57. This is to encourage people to participate in the community, even if only to a small extent, so that there's an emotional investment in it. You're less likely to litter if you've had to tidy up the grounds once or twice, for example.
Of course, there are all kinds of adjustments available: A surcharge for nicer housing. Reduced work expectation on students, the elderly and disabled. Increased value to donated work that requires an expensive education (such as medical).
(BTW, rent would be calculated by *average* weekly hours over a long period, so that you don't get shafted by a varied schedule. I'm not trying to be mean here!)
* Just to show that this "benefit" from those around you is not just rhetoric: Consider you, your yuppie friend Alice, your bohemian friend Bob and your impoverished friend Carol. Alice works 5 hours and pays $175. You work 8 hours and pay $123.08. Bob works 12 hours and pays $82.35. Carol works 17 hours and pays $52.27. Alice and Bob work an average of 8.5 hours, and pay an average of $128.68. Hence, on average they work more than you do (by half an hour) *and* pay more than you do (by $5.60). But that benefit is not just at your point on the curve: Bob gets the same benefit from you and Carol, who average half an hour more work than he does, and $5.33 more than he pays.
Why this works: Since each person can choose their point of maximum efficiency on the curve, everyone else on the curve is, from their perspective, contributing less efficiently -- that is, everyone else is contributing *more*.
(Math people: There's no particular need for it to be a hyperbolic curve. I just wanted something smooth and simple, with a negative slope, a positive second derivative, and a steep start. I'd certainly be open to other ideas, if you care to make a case for them.)
(Gratuitous link: Sinbad comic. It starts out okay, and becomes hilarious.)
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(no subject)
Date: 2009-11-09 08:44 am (UTC)In a less monetary sense, I find this is often the case for me with friendships. My skills and knowledge set are not generally very useful. However, every now and then I am vastly useful to someone, because I happen to know the right bit of psych info or the right bit of medical info to significantly help them, sometimes when they do not even realize they need help (which is why I'm so useful, because if they know and are able to go to a professional, that's great, but if they don't realize they are having symptoms that are serious then I may catch that). This means a few people have been greatly helped by me, but most of the time I seem amazingly useless. In fact, most of the time I am fairly useless.
As this is just with friendships, it isn't really a problem. But I'm not licensed in any of my skills, and the skills I have to a high level mainly require legal licensing to be used (even teaching under many circumstances). And I can't use any of them formally.
Not that I expect your setup to work for people like me. I mostly fall under the disabled category. But I think some people may have similar issues to a lesser extent. And some sources of value are incredibly hard to put a value on.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-11-09 09:07 am (UTC)When I (substituting cleverness for skill and education) put in an hour (and five dollars in parts) to do a job that would have otherwise been done by an electrician, plumber or mechanic for $70 (plus 300% markup on parts), what is that hour worth?
I have had many further thoughts on the subject, but this isn't the post for them.
Oh, and I'd hope that there would be ways around the licensing issues, perhaps via the fact that the participants are not getting paid for the work. (Though I'd hope that doctors, at least, have all the proper paperwork.) Also, the words "home schooling" and "tutor" might be useful for unlicensed teaching. But I'm pretty clueless about the legalities, or even the tax consequences, of all this.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-11-09 09:23 am (UTC)The tax angle would be a problem. Barter on any serious, ongoing scale will generally be cracked down on, because it's a way of avoiding sales or income tax. Pretty much the only massive loophole to that is between family members, such as a husband and a wife, where it is traditional to have one person work for free and be paid with free room and board and no taxes to be paid on it (although for the person working for free to be screwed if there is a divorce as their partner has been benefiting from their free labor but not contributing to social security as a normal job would, and thus that worker has no social security benefits - marriage is a legal mess).
There are likely ways around this, which may involve the community paying taxes on a bunch of the labor done. And yes, the your example is a good one.
Partly though I was just thinking about how expensive it is if you're not kicking in labor. That is intentional to make everyone put some work into the community, but if you can't do so or if what you have to offer is only useful every now and then, then the cost in money is high. Not everyone can get an optimal spot on the time/money slider, because there won't be exactly the right amount of work needing the right skill breakdown for everyone to contribute the amount of time they want to. If the community needs someone with plumbing skill then it doesn't matter if someone wants to give another hour toward the community if they absolutely can't do that task. You don't want a bad plumber just because the person is trying to kick in another hour.
It's easier on the money end of things, because you can hire someone who doesn't live there to do jobs nobody in the community wants to do or is able to do if you have enough money to do so.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-11-09 12:16 pm (UTC)On reflection this may be the same objection as
(no subject)
Date: 2009-11-10 03:06 am (UTC)Wow. Math is really hard.