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Comparison Table
(This section is still a mess. It is completely unorganized)
Capitalism: the unsystematic exploitation of production by private owners under the protection of the law
Feature
Capitalism
Creditism
Who Governs
Imposed (Command & Control)
democratic member-run bottom-up
integrated collective intellegence
Ownership
Private Owners. Economic dictatorship.
Communal & Private. Economic democracy
Information
artificial general intelligence
integrated collective intelligence informed with AGI
Incentive
Winner-take-all all competition: win-lose
Aligned with private profit and individual gain
Cooperative competition: Omni-win
Aligned with public interest and common good
Personal Credit motivates contribution, Bonuses incentivize solving problems, Flow currency rewards work for common good
Who Profits
Owners or shareholders of fictional entities
People
Motive
Extrinsic Motive
Extrinsic & Intrinsic Motive
Credit Creation
Credit is created by nations and banks. It is issued to control labor and Capital for trade. The Credit has us.
Credit is created by society. Credit issued to incentivize labor and for access to capital for use. We have the Credit.
Resource Availability
Private market
Open market
Resources
For profit via Resource Extraction
For human needs via Resource management
accounted for in public databases for transparency
Data guides sustainable extraction and production/Advancement guided by human values
more collaboration, less waste
Accounting
Trade based
Flow based
Purpose of Economic System
people serve the economic system
economic system serves the people
Resource Use
extraction, consumption and waste incentivized
ecological sustainability incentivized
Valuation
people, resources, and other objects are valued in terms of their utility to profit
individuals, families, communities, and ecosystems are valued in terms of their existence through being taken into account, having the right to credit, and receiving credit. Individuals are valued in terms of their contributions to communities and ecosystems through earning extra personal credit. Communities are valued through receiving community credit. Individuals are valued as members of communities through receiving community credit.
Credit System
Centrally-controlled, usury based credit system. Economic dictatorship.
Decentralized credit based system. Economic democracy.
Value System
extrinsic economic values and necessities imposed, and at cross purposes to other intrinsic and extrinsic values creating social, psychological, and ecological degradation
extrinsic economic, social, and ecological values aligned with other intrinsic and extrinsic values creating social, psychological, and ecological cooperation
Result
Unstable centralized debt-based system self-terminating. Finite
Stable distributed credit-based system. Infinite
Jobs
based upon control and domination
based upon voluntary cooperation
Housing
Sports
profits from conflicts and wars,
prevents conflicts and solves them non-violently, promoting lasting global peace.
2. Thriving physical and psychological well-being
profits from long-term symptom management and disease
focus on optimizing health and preventing diseases
Control of Information
Incentivizes hiding information for competitive advantage.
Transparent, open, information sharing world.
Quantity of goods and values
Relies on scarcity for relative valuation.
Aims to engineer scarcity out of the system, promoting abundance for everyone.
Thriving diverse ecology and biosphere
only recognizes extractable and accumulatable wealth
prioritize a thriving ecology and biosphere, promoting a closed-loop, upcycling materials economy,
Maximum freedom and unique self-actualization
conflates self-actualization with wealth accumulation.
support individual freedom and encourage unique self-actualization, while promoting interpersonal intimacy and synergy
Good systems of choice making
governance and judicial systems are mediated by people who are economic actors themselves.
aim for unbiased, high-integrity systems of choice making
Anti-fragility and full richness of all complex systems
relies on simplified value metrics corresponding to simplified models of reality.
promote the resilience, antifragility, health, and aliveness of all complex systems
Anti-fragility in the presence of exponential technology
increases capacity for intentional and unintentional harm.
aim to develop wisdom and care commensurate with the power of exponential technology
Correction Measures
Punitive
Reaction Type
Interventionary
There are no rows in this table
See the Table above for one liners of these Incentives below to expand on them
Incentives in Capitalism v Creditism
Incentives in Capitalism
Desired Reality/Creditism
For-profit military industrial complex as one of the largest blocks of the global economy. Peace would mean bankruptcy. Ongoing war and threat of war to continually manage is optimal. War for any cause is profitable. Military contractors have massive lobbying resources, and major shareholders in decision making positions of military and government.
Lasting global peace – Conflicts prevented and solved non-violently when needed.
A for-profit health care system that makes no money on healthy people, makes a little on permanent cures, makes the most on long term symptom management…makes even more if side-effects require additional treatment (upsell/cross-sell); maximizes lifetime value of a customer (patient) the earlier they start treatments; loses income from anything that promotes health and prevents disease; can only use patented synthesized chemicals to have high enough margins to cover the upfront cost of FDA regulation and later class action law suits (so natural substances and chemicals with expired patents are ineffective); optimal profits involve keeping people alive and able to make $ to pay for health care as long as possible, while utilizing as many disease management products (meds) as possible.
Thriving physical and psychological well-being for everyone. Robust health optimized, disease prevented, and where health issues do arise, they should be cured as completely as possible, as quickly as possible, addressing all causal dynamics, utilizing all the tools available, with minimum side effects.
Information as competitive advantage, incentivizing hiding information, protecting it as intellectual property to keep it from being useful to others, and actively creating and promoting disinformation. Where our economic interests require others to behave in particular ways, and the information they are exposed to regarding us is part of what influences their behavior, our interest is to control the information they are exposed to, and to tailor it to influence the behaviors we are seeking, aka manipulation. Marketing is rarely telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. It would be disadvantageous to do so. It is about maximizing effective spin within the limits of what we can get away with. The same with the information we share with investors, employees, regulatory bodies, etc. With competitors, just like when we fake left then run right in sports, we might find advantage to create and share overt disinformation.
A transparent, open, information sharing world. Where all the information that could empower people is readily available; all interests are aligned with what is true and systemically positive; disinformation is identified and discarded, etc.
Choice making (governance) can only be as good as the relevant information fed into the process (sense-making). [Partial and/or corrupted information make good choice making impossible.]
Scarcity as a primary source of relative valuation. Where the (perceived) scarcity of something increases its desirability and per unit worth. Eg, air has no economic value, because it is abundant enough that I don’t need to consider it. As a result, economic calculus will encourage choices that burn oxygen and pollute the air. Diamonds were perceived as scarce so not everyone could have them abundantly, so having them conferred some kind if differential advantage. Their relative valuation compared to say sapphires or quartz was based primarily on the relative perceived scarcity of each. As a result, when we started finding huge mines that revealed that diamonds werent as rare as previously thought, the major diamond selling companies started destroying and hiding the diamonds (creating artificial scarcity) to keep the price high. Zirconia’s that are more perfect by all metrics that diamonds are judged on, are worth less because it’s known they aren’t scarce. So the environmental and human damage of mining continues to provide lower quality diamonds, that are perceived as valuable because of legacy ideas of value, when we thought they were scarce.
In a system where valuation is proportional to scarcity, abundance is the death of value.
Abundance of all meaningful goods and values for everyone in the system. Where scarcity is intentionally, progressively engineered out of the system as an essential design goal. Where economic valuation is rigorously connected to real value.
An economic system that only recognizes extractable and accumulatable wealth. Where nature (the commons) doesn’t have a balance sheet. So unlike interactions with other economic actors that also have balance sheets, interactions with nature don’t have to be equitable, don’t require consent, and don’t require the ledger to balance. “Industrious” has largely meant ‘good at extracting value from nature and externalizing costs (waste) to nature effectively’.
Living trees in a forest have no economic value. Turned into lumber, they do. The same with living whales vs whale meat. We measure extractable and exchangeable wealth. And we optimize for what we measure.
If all the externalized costs of coal energy were accounted for and internalized, the cost would be orders of magnitude more and renewable energy tech would have reached grid parity when it was first invented and would proliferated globally long ago.
A thriving diverse ecology and biosphere. Where new products are made from old products, obsoleting waste and environmental damage from resource acquisition, in a closed loop, upcycling materials economy. With nutrient and microbiome rich soils. No industrial pollutants in the environment. Healthy coral, large fish populations, old growth forests, protected natural areas and nature integrated with the human built world, etc.
Private ownership at the core of the system, where accumulation equals advantage, and having more resource increases the capacity to create more resource.
Where interest bearing pools of capital grow faster than the total economy. Where more resources grant access to the financial services to create more resources, while debt accrues interest creating greater debt…leading to inexorably widening wealth gaps, leading to class stratification.
Where being born into more resources generally means better education, health care, and opportunity for success.
Where holding on to accumulated wealth in the presence of poverty requires rationalizing that behavior and turning off avenues of empathy (abstract structural psychopathy).
Where real intimacy is limited between people relating across economic class differences.
Where self actualization gets conflated with wealth accumulation.
A system that supports the maximum freedom of individuals and encourages their unique self-actualization…while encouraging the greatest depth and breadth of interpersonal intimacy and synergy.
All people having access to the best resources of health care, education, and creativity that are technologically possible.
People incented to create and to support others to create…and to connect meaningfully with other humans…to appreciate the beauty of the world and to add beauty to it.
Governance and judicial systems mediated by people who are themselves economic actors in the system the are ruling on.
The economic incentive of the lawyer is billable time, not ideal legal advice. Economic interests with more capital can afford to hire more lawyers to lobby for legislation in their interest. Judges and governors, police and senators, are all economic actors outside of their role, who can be advantaged or disadvantaged personally by choices they make, meaning they are always wearing multiple hats. Elected officials require campaign budgets that equal favors owed if they want to be re-elected.
Capitalism and representative democracy together will always become crony capitalism.
Good systems of choice making, not damaged by vested interest. Choices that require the participation of many people, and/or that will affect many people, that need maximum integrity and minimum bias.
Processes for resolving conflicts that are structurally oriented to prefer optimal conflict resolution.
Abstract simplified value metrics corresponding to simplified models of reality, that are the basis of what we optimize.
A simplified economic metric like GDP grows from war and mindless consumption and decreases from reusing or sharing products, making higher quality goods at a lower cost, or decoupling happiness from consumption all together.
The real value of a tree in an ecosystem involves an indefinite number of metrics to an unspecifiable number of beneficiaries. Nectar to pollinators, homes for birds and squirrels, food for aphids and the ants that harvest them, fruit for animals, sequestering CO2 from the atmosphere, creating O2. Stabilizing the topsoil, preventing flooding and runoff. Symbiosis with the mycorrhizae and mycelial network that connects the whole forest. Etc. It might be positively affecting coastal ecosystems hundreds of miles downstream because of its effects on preventing runoff. Benefitting the genetics of other plant species by the pollinators it supports. Benefitting people that won’t be born till after it dies, through these distributed effects.
All of this value is complex. And it is worth nothing on anyone’s balance sheet yet. With dollars as a simplified value metric, we can extract that tree from its environment, decontextualize it from the system that it co-evolved with, and turn it into 2×4’s. Now it’s worth $1,000. To one beneficiary who owns it and claims it on their balance sheet. And can now exchange it for other extracted resources. This slaughtered animal might also be $1000. And this person’s labor. And this piece of intellectual property. All now exchangeable abstract wealth, none of which could have been exchanged in their contextual environments for the real complex value they served.
We do the same in medicine when we assess health by a few biometrics that are easy to measure and affect, so we give statins to bring LDL down, which they do, at the expense of toxicity of many kinds to many systems that we generally don’t measure.
The same with measuring a child’s value by their IQ or GPA. We sacrifice other areas of life that matter more to optimize those value metrics.
Simplified value metrics are the foundational source of all externalities.
Turning complex, contextualized value, into simple or complicated, abstracted, extractable and accumulatable or tradable value….is entropy. Evolution is defined by increasing orderly complexity leading to increased synergy and emergent properties. This is what nature does. This is the opposite of what we are doing when we simplify complex value. This form of economics is fundamentally anti-evolutionary, anti-resilience, and anti-wellbeing.
Anti-fragility and full richness of all complex systems: ecology, physiology, psychology, culture.
Resilience, antifragility, health, and aliveness are proportional to self-organizing complexity. Both the safety and real value of a civilization depends on its alignment with these fundamental complex systems.
Developing exponential capacity to affect reality with our choices, within the context of an economic system based on win-lose gaming dynamics and cost-externalization, so we are exponentially increasing our capacity for intentional and unintentional harm.
Exponentially increasing power, with anything like our current frameworks for choice making, is unavoidably self-terminating.
Antifragility in the presence of exponential technology.
Developing the power of god’s requires developing the wisdom and care of god’s.
There are no rows in this table
In a Creditism system, the new game of life and work would be drastically different from the current system. Here are some key points:
Overall, the new game of life and work in a Creditism system would be one that is more fair, just, and sustainable than the current system. It would be a system that allows everyone to reach their full potential and contribute to a better world.
Here are additional examples that illustrate what Creditism entails:
Capitalism
Centralized, Private, For Profit, Competitive, Unstable, Command & Control, Amoral, Finite
Creditism
Decentralized, Open, For Purpose, Collaborative, Stable, Autonomy, Moral, Infinite,
Capitalism uses a worker’s physical and mental energy
Possessing v creating
Creditism: the power of money is based on the inherent value of each person.
Civilization = sustainable management of the commons & equitable access to the market.
Creditims is the way. Making progress possible..
Creditism creates better lives, a level playing field, democratic communities, safer markets, a just society, clean world, great schools, no debts, no taxes, no insurance, no banks, no financial institutions, more leisure, liberty preserved, sovereignty for each person, healthy world, democratic community development, common resource management, healthcare for all, less inequality, more choice, stable economy, 21st century infrastructure, resource and species preservation, environmental sustainability.
Death Economy vs Life Economy
continuing environmental devastation, growing social and
economic inequality, and the continuing centralization of political
Power vs open democratic access in all personal spheres.
Comparison Table of systems and institutions
The table below shows the institutions of each economy together for quick comparison.
FEATURE
CAPITALISM
CENTRALLY PLANNED SOCIALISM
PARTICIPATORY ECONOMICS
Ownership of Productive Property
Private
State
Social
Division of tasks
Hierarchical
Hierarchical
Balanced Jobs
Decision making
Authoritarian
Authoritarian
Self-management
Compensation
Ownership, contribution to output, and power
Output and privilege
Effort and Sacrafice
Allocation
Markets
Central Planning
Democratic Particpatory Planning
There are no rows in this table
Putocracy (banks control Credit) vs Democracy (decentralized Credit control)
Capitalism
A finite game of maximizing the use of common resources and collective action for private gain, leading to ecological overshoot and a zero-sum logic of extraction.
own property, extract value
winner-take-all competition, it produces scarcity, poverty, and constant war. Most concerning is ecological overshoot, and with 8 billion people on a finite planet, change is now urgently necessary.
an economy based on the zero-sum logic of extraction
Creditism
An infinite game of sustainable use of common resources and collective action for public gain, based on the collective prosperity of abundance.
manage property, create value
Regenerative, redistributive, networked, humble, anti-fragile, fractal, dynamic, mutualist, optimistic, emergent, ubiquitous
an economy based on the collective prosperity of abundance. Such is the promise of the Information Resource Economy.
unlimited knowledge growth – the beginning of infinity.
Sovereign: real power, beyond democracy
participation, people coordinate their productive actions with one another.
Opportunity: or compelled to Duty? eliminate War, Economic/Ecological Collapse
Resource sovereignty: Communities impacted by resource extraction should make decisions and act as stewards of nature.
Sustainability: The economy's throughput should remain within the regenerative capacities of natural resources. Doughnut Economics is already doing this
Circularity: The flow of energy and materials within the economy should be as circular as possible, minimizing the extraction of resources and generation of waste.
Socially useful production: Production should satisfy needs and contribute to well-being.
Small, not-for-profit cooperatives: Businesses should pursue social benefits, be governed democratically, and take the form of cooperatives.
Certain forms of work organization, energy and food production would have to be abolished alongside technologies invented solely for the supervision, control and regulation of human labour and the freedom of movement. However, a distinction should be made between the technical elements of contemporary machinery by themselves, and the arrangements they assume for the purpose of producing surplus value.
cyber- socialism, where people’s needs would be evaluated on a global scale in real-time, and production would be adjusted accordingly.
we all can agree we want to shift to an economy that prioritizes ecological sustainability & provisioning human needs (and one that produces for 'use value' over profit/exchange value - & rejects how GDP narrowly fixates on the latter)
Second, we can agree that solving the ecological crisis requires a shift away from the anarchy of the market under capitalism and toward planning
I think the crux of the disagreement is here. JBF seems to assume the productive forces are already 'fully' developed - and all we must now do is reorient and degrow production...whereas I would argue capital severely limits the development of PF to only what is profitable.
I do agree with Engels cited here. The goal is not necessarily to increase production but to create the maximum conditions for human freedom. But, I think the reverse is also true: the goal is not necessarily to decrease aggregate production (as degrowth calls for)
I also think it's straightforward that solving climate (or transforming an economy 80% powered by fossil fuel) v. much requires developing the productive forces (much of which capital won't invest in!)
Not to mention imagine what it would take to do what I presume Foster (and Engels) advocate: give 8 billion + humans adequate water, electricity, food and other basic needs. Can we do this without growth in the production or the pf? Doubtful.
Also how sad would it be to win socialism only to prohibit further development of the PFs?!? Fusion power? Curing cancer? We still have so much to accomplish (and again it is capitalism that holds us back). Socialism is not stasis!
The part that Nature contributes is always free of charge; it is the part contributed by human labor that constitutes value and is paid for.
They are turned from people into objects by a system of universal commodification
Liberty = freedom with responsibility.
Sovereignty is self rule.
Opportunity is equal open access to all the resources and communities on earth
Capitalism
Communism
Socialism
Ownership
Private
Collective & Private
Public
Economy
Free market
Command economy
Mixed economy
Wealth
Unequal distribution
Absence of wealth
More equal distribution
Production
For profit
For social benefit
For social benefit
Government
Minimal intervention
Centralized planning
Significant intervention
Incentives
Profits and self-interest
Common good and solidarity
Social welfare and equality
Class
Class distinctions
Classless society
Reduced class distinctions
Individual
Individualism
Suppression of individuality
Emphasis on community
Innovation
Encouraged and rewarded
Deprioritized
Encouraged and socially useful
Capitalism
Communism
Creditism
Definition
Economic system based on private ownership of the means of production and the creation of goods and services for profit.
Economic system where the means of production are owned and controlled by the state, and goods and services are produced and distributed according to need.
Economic system that emphasizes the use of credit to finance economic activity, rather than traditional forms of investment.
Ideology
Emphasizes individualism, competition, and free markets.
Emphasizes collectivism, cooperation, and central planning.
Emphasizes the importance of credit and financial markets in driving economic growth.
Inequality
Allows for income inequality, as wealth is accumulated through private enterprise.
Aims to eliminate income inequality through the redistribution of wealth.
Can exacerbate income inequality, as those with access to credit have an advantage over those who do not.
Ownership
Private ownership of the means of production.
State ownership of the means of production.
Private ownership of the means of production, but with an emphasis on using credit to finance economic activity.
Competition
Encourages competition between firms to drive innovation and efficiency.
Competition is less emphasized, as the state controls production and distribution.
Emphasizes competition between borrowers for access to credit.
Innovation
Emphasizes innovation as a means of driving economic growth.
Innovation is encouraged, but the state controls research and development.
Emphasizes the importance of innovation in creating new financial products and services.
Efficiency
Emphasizes efficiency in production and distribution.
Efficiency is emphasized, but may not be as important as meeting social goals.
Emphasizes the efficient allocation of credit to promote economic growth.
Role of government
Limited role in the economy, with a focus on protecting property rights and enforcing contracts.
Central role in the economy, with the state controlling production and distribution.
Limited role in the economy, with a focus on regulating credit markets and ensuring stability.
Social safety net
Relies on private charity and social safety net programs to provide assistance to those in need.
Social safety net programs are provided by the state.
Social safety net programs are provided by the state, but may be limited due to the emphasis on credit-based financing.
Economic growth
Emphasizes economic growth as a means of improving the standard of living for all citizens.
Economic growth is important, but may be secondary to social goals.
Emphasizes the importance of credit and financial markets in driving economic growth.
There are no rows in this table
Riegel, “new approach to Freedom”
“SELF PRESERVATION is the first law of nature, and self advancement is the second.
“Yes, man is selfish, for his first law is self-preservation and his second is self advancement. Therefore selfishness is the sublime law of being. But to be intelligently selfish, man must win the respect and cooperation of his fellows, and here is where the social order stems directly from the individualistic. Before man can win cooperation, he must be able and willing to give it, and to do so he must develop himself materially and spiritually. Until he has attained the selfish level of cooperation with his fellows, no social order exists. Society could not have got started on the socialistic principle, ““from each according to his ability;" it began and develops on the principle "to each according to his ability".” ”Cooperation comes into existence when men are able to gratify one another's desires, and this ability arises when they can produce more of a given thing than they have immediate use for. In other words, cooperation finds its expression in exchange. Whatever promotes exchange promotes cooperation and economic and social advancement. Conversely, whatever impedes exchange is anti-social. Exchange, then, is the criterion of social and economic progress. The growth of freedom is entirely the growth of unhampered exchange.”
“Natural law, inspiring personal enterprise, induces man to help himself by helping others. To advance himself, he must contemplate and gratify the wants of others, who in turn gratify his wants through the process of specialization of labor and exchange. Thus we see that personal enterprise is cooperative and social. The individual cannot determine his vocation or activity in contempt of the wishes of his fellows, for it is they who decide the value to them of such activity and reward him accordingly. Every man is the servant of every other man. This is the law of life. Therefore the most intelligently selfish individual is the most socially minded, productive, creative.”
“money circulation is a credit chain in which the issuer is the first and last link.”
The effect of issuing credit as debt money in circulation is to inflate it, thus reducing the power of each unit. This is reflected in higher prices for everything. With a greater number of monetary units bidding for a given supply of labor, goods, and assets, and banks needing to collect their interest, the prices must rise and perpetually rise they do. They call this inflation. Higher prices benefit only the banks and owners at the expense of everyone else. This Game A economics continues because there is no limit to credit, to numbers.
“Labor, as services, is indeed the sole commodity dealt with in exchange, and its value is determined by exchange. Now if money is based upon value, and the only value lies in human services, mental and manual, it may be seen that all money is service money.”
Article I, Section 8, Clause 2:
[The Congress shall have Power . . . ] To borrow Money on the credit of the United States; . . .
Article I, Section 8, Clause 5:
[The Congress shall have Power . . . ] To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures; . . .
Capitalism:
- Private ownership of property and means of production
- Competition determines prices and distribution of goods and services
- Profit is the main motive for economic activity
- Competition leads to monopoly stifling innovation and efficiency
Communism:
- Collective ownership of property and means of production
- Central planning determines prices and distribution of goods and services
- Goal is to create a classless society where everyone has equal access to resources
- Emphasis on cooperation rather than competition
Creditism:
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