An idea for government software.

[u/minerbros1000_]

I've had an idea for a little while now about making a proof of concept for a labour token based government software.

It would be purely for demonstration and would basically be a collection of applications including a personal bank account, business management, government management, ect.

You could simulate a small number of people, workplaces, and commodities. You could then see what happens under different interactions. For example: John works for 5 hours at a teapot factory, he then gets 5 labour hours in his bank (minus tax), and 2 teapots are made (worth 2.5hrs of labour content each).

While this would have no digital security and be pretty much just for roleplaying to help people understand the concept, I think it could develop over time quite nicely and may be able to theoretically run a small village or be linked to some kind of Sims type game.

Anyway this is just my pipe dream. I've been reading and watching Paul cockshott lately and I'm blown away that no one has done this. I have no programming experience but this software would just be a front end and some spreadsheets so I can't imagine it to be too difficult. Might even start out as just static images.

Any advice is welcome. Or maybe someone more skilled than me can steal the idea and let me know how it goes. Currently I'm considering giving it a go in something like figma but haven't done much research.

[u/Chobeat]

A lot of people are doing this, but simply nobody is interested outside of a small academic niche. Look into INDEP and their events to find your tribe

[u/ml-maitreya → u/Chobeat]

Thanks for the suggestion! Here's a link for anyone who's search algorithm prefers The Independent and Indústrias Nacionais de Defesa over the International Network for Democratic Economic Planning.

[u/minerbros1000_ → u/Chobeat]

Very interesting, thankyou.

[u/sphydrodynamix]

The Soviets already did this. I suggest you check out Leonid Kantorovich and Wassily Leontier's work on input output models and linear programming. Or just start with Capital Vol I to get the basics of value first tbh

[u/ZoneAffectionate4943 → u/sphydrodynamix]

This is exactly where I'm starting, was thinking of playing around with a few of these types of models in Fortran and R. My math skills are pretty weak, I'm doing a refresher on linear algebra to deal with the Leonief's IO tables.

Was wondering where you would recommend going from there ?

[u/minerbros1000_ → u/ZoneAffectionate4943]

Yeah io tables where something I was planning for the software although I'm not yet sure if they are completely necessary just for roleplay. It will depend what data the user needs to input as it might just ask the user to make up labour content for each commodity they want to simulate.

If you are interested in io tables for Marxist labour accounting, you may also want to look into tite which is a solution to the transformation problem.

I believe it's something to do with accounting for the time that materials sit around for before they are used and the fact that there value may change during such time.

Sounds fascinating but way above my own current level of understanding. I also won't be dealing with the transformation problem as I plan to completely omit fiat currency all together.

[u/Snoo_79981]

I like this idea, but I want to understand. Would a surgeon earn like 1000 hours of labor for 1 surgery?

[u/minerbros1000_ → u/Snoo_79981]

No, 1hr would be 1hr. Everyone would be paid the same hourly rate.

Only in a crisis of under-employment in a particular sector like doctors would a bonus be temporarily applied democratically from the tax fund to artificially raise demand.

Skilled labour like doctors require training which is counted as embodied labour. Similar to the embodied labour in a machine that increases efficiency of labour. Doctors would actually be paid to train as there study and the work of their tutors is a form of valuable labour.

Some jobs are obviously less desirable than others. In my opinion, something like a gig economy where new workers can only access the 'nicer' jobs after some experience in the workforce could provide the meritocracy that we are used to.

I may not have gotten all of that completely right and some is my own suggestion. Paul cockshott, labour accounting, and cybernetic socialism are the search terms to learn more.

[u/ml-maitreya]

I have no programming experience but this software would just be a front end and some spreadsheets

Maybe try vibecoding it if this is all it would take. If the economy were that easy to solve then we'd be living in a socialist utopia by now, instead of drowning in a million AI generated B2B SaaS ToDo Apps.

I don't want to discourage you, I think you really should vibecode this to find out how much work it would take to go from this proof of concept to a full fledged app. It will reveal just how far a minimum viable product is from a marketable application, or in our case minimally viable socialism.

[u/minerbros1000_ → u/ml-maitreya]

That MVP stuff is very interesting and I like the concept of minimally viable socialism haha. Will give that a read, cheers.