Or to put it another way, all those prosperous planters, merchants and shipbuilders in the colonies could care less what King George was up to until he raised their taxes. The ones that tended to benefit by his policies instantly lined up behind him.

The others, we call “Patriots”.

I have a suspicion–or a hope–that if traditional capitalism continues to fail large numbers of people, people will ultimately create a different economy that re-enfranchises them and leaves the capitalists out in the cold. That’s one way to interpret bitcoinage and talk of “reputation markets”, and the radical idea of open source that you can prosper by giving it away. I sense an underlying theme of trying to break out of, or circumvent, capitalism with systems harder to game and subvert, that spread the benefits more widely and equitably. The impulse to economic democracy may be wounded these days, but it’s not dead; and the 0.1% is foolish indeed if it thinks the present plutocratic order will last forever.

Keep an eye on the millenials, too. I think they’re quietly building their own world in parallel with ours, and their rules are unlikely to be our rules–these are the kids being told that capitalism offers them a bleak future any more, and we can’t expect them to just roll over and be poor because the gray-haired Establishment says so. I’d suggest that if we don’t want them cannibalizing our pensions in 20 years, we should do better by those kids today.

How do we manage to continue talking about economic theory in a highly politicized environment? Do we need a new board to signal a more serious atmosphere? Want to moderate the “Economics” board?

At this point Tom would be howling about central control. I can see that as a problem too.

I have had an intuitive itch about how this could work since the 80′s.

The mechanics are where it gets interesting. That is were I desired discourse.

“Cashless” seems to have many meanings, from the mundane one of the use of electronic bookkeeping instead of pieces of paper and metal discs, to a society that dispenses with the concept of money altogether, like Ryker snottily pronouncing that he doesn’t need money in the Federation’s 24th century cashless economy.

What do you mean by “cashless society”, Rob?