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Sat 7 Nov, 2015 07:30 am
I would like to discuss a particular proposal and any opinion and suggestion would be highly welcome. This is about the possibility to create a market for inner motivations (values and metavalues), aimed at allowing individuals to exchange documents testifying the practical utility of these motivations in personal and professional terms. Indeed, I feel that exchanging only "actions" (expressed by good and services) constraints greatly the ability for individuals to publicly express themselves, in a condition that Marx defined alienation.
By values I mean criteria for judging reality, which might be moral (such as solidarity and honesty), organizational (such as propensity to innovate and availability of leisure) and cultural (such as liberalism and collectivism).
By metavalues I mean rules and principles used to choose one's values, aimed at satisfying some fundamental human needs. Such metavalues might include quality of one's relations (motivating for instance the choice of professionalism and honesty).
For instance, if a subject A felt he lacks the kind of resources needed to deal with his customers, he might receive from a subject B a document describing the importance of a value such as honesty, and he might transfer to B a document testifying the practical utility of another value (for instance, economic wellbeing). Such kind of documents might be transferred also in exchange for good and services, and, therefore, values would become a means of exchange like money. Every metavalue, on the other hand, might be exchanged with other metavalues or values.
This would provide an economic incentive to live personally experiences connected with some values and metavalues. Moreover, these exchanges could provide great benefit with regards to issues such as pollution, financialization of the economy and the excessive influence of lobbies.
Such transactions represent one of the proposals that I outlined, with greater detail, in my book "Exchanging Autonomy. Inner motivations as resources for tackling the crises of our times", with a view to promoting individual autonomy in our societies. Indeed, by functional autonomy I mean the condition whereby one's values are the cause and not the consequence of one's social role, and by existential autonomy I mean the condition whereby the perception of one's dignity is allowed by metavalues and not merely by values. Thank you for reading this.
@marcosenatore,
You're welcome Marc although it needs a lead-in, perhaps including a typical example of its use
...while always recommend at least a carriage return tween paras
When I was only 13, a shallow youth to be sure, I had yearned for "somewhere I could go" in order to respond to a particularly troubling email from an otherwise friendly acquaintance: How I should react, how might he respond, whether in fact on moral grounds I should even do so. Therefore, having since achieved a measure of wisdom (I hope), I would herewith like to discuss one possible approach, while your opinion or any further suggestion of this sort is most welcome
To accomplish this noble end, my proposal entails the creation of a market for.....
@dalehileman,
thank you. In terms of an example of transactions involving values and metavalues, in my book I referred to environmentalism. In a nutshell, if a business tried to expand its market by offering non polluting products, and targeting also consumers who initially are not particularly sensitive to the protection of nature, the firm could transfer to the new potential customers some documents testifying the practical importance of environmentalism. The firm would thereby become an intermediary between groups of consumers who have a different approach to a given value, and it would have an economic incentive to do so.
@marcosenatore,
Okay Marc, I begin to vaguely comprehend
Hoping we might hear from some of the others
A market is established by PRACTICAL social awareness which is then translated in factual value in economics...in the case at hand on some of the specifics mentioned it will come as usual naturally in tandem with enviromental changes and the pressures that give rise to an actual NEED to deal with the problems involving our common future in a global world.
In sum, its not an idea that some ppl come up with, its the natural development of social needs that translate into economic accountabillity...
@Fil Albuquerque,
Thank you. In my book I proposed the exchanges of values and metavalues exactly to go beyond the paradigm for which social needs alone can lead to economic schemes. In a situation whereby the judgement on the world is a mere function of one's social role, the same rationality of individual choices has to be put into question, not to mention the idea of impartial spectator that was outlined by Adam Smith. Maybe, social awareness can be not only a cause, but also an effect of the use of market instruments.
@marcosenatore,
Marc, is it self-pub or did you sell it to pub hse and if the latter, accepted after how many submissions
@dalehileman,
hallo, it is a self published book.
@marcosenatore,
Yes but only after the natural triger of a factual social aknowledge need starting rolling that loop...what I mean is that economics like everything else is always subdued by "natural law"...some ppl have the impression it is the product of human creation and invention...not my cup of tea...we do as we must.
@Fil Albuquerque,
while I can go along with the idea that economics springs from natural tendencies of humanity, I also think that it can be dealt with in different ways. Amartya Sen highlighted the existence of a moral approach to economics, as well as an engineering approach. I would say that exchanges of values and metavalues would be in line with the first approach.
@marcosenatore,
Quote:hallo, it is a self published book
Hi, I wrote a book once, "The world, as told to the young man in short words," 77,000 words of one syllable each
Our kids and family friends liked it, but when I queried 50 pubs, only one wanted to read it. However, after I shipped off a printed copy they didn't even acknowledge its receipt
@dalehileman,
good. In my case, I have a sense that my book might be too much interdisciplinary for some hyperspecialized publishers, and I am trying to market it by myself.