CHAPTER –54- The New Economy

So far the entire three planet system had been running without any real
economic system for the last eighteen years. Everyone had just been too busy
to give it much thought. They were trying to get things working again. There
were few luxuries or special privileges to be had. Carl Marx would have loved
it, the state of perfect communism. The problem with that was that as soon as
all the pressing needs had been met people had a desire to acquire luxury
items, jewelry, and special privileges that if made available to all wouldn't be
luxurious or special. If a person wanted to have a splurge meal, there was no
restaurant that served such meals. If a person wanted to give another an
expensive special gift there was no place that manufactured such items and no
store that sold them. If a person wanted to spend a week on a cruise ship
seeing the sights there was no cruise ship. Everyone had tooth paste but it
came in a generic tube labeled “tooth paste”. So far what exchanges that had
taken place had been on the barter system. The planets need an economy.
That set off a two year debate on how such an economy could and
should work. On Mars, over the years they had dabbled in currency and an
economy only to abandon it in times of turmoil and crisis. Once again the
economy of Mars was working in a limited fashion. On Dedov they had a
vibrant economy until the planet had faltered. On Earth before the disaster
there had been a world economic structure so complicated that no one
understood it. What they needed on the new Earth was a simple system that
would allow people access to luxuries and special privileges that they had an
opportunity to select for themselves. Private ownership of property didn't seem
to be an issue with anyone on a planet that had formerly had enough real
property to accommodate nine billion people but now was home to only four
and a half million. No one wanted or needed private ownership of land.
Everyone respected the place where another person wanted to live, if they
didn't like it there were millions of other places to live. What these people
needed was some kind of enticement to cause companies to produce a better
product or induce a person to open an upscale restaurant.
What they came up with was a computer program that started everyone
out with the same amount of credits. The arbitrary number selected was ten
thousand. Everyone had a cell phone that could access the system but only the
individual that owned the credits could transfer a portion of them to someone
else. Everyone that performed a job that benefited society in general would
have an additional one thousand credits added to their account on the first of
every month. If someone wanted something that cost more than the credits he
had available he could borrow credits from someone else. The people all
agreed that this could, in time, evolve into a good system so the majority was
behind the idea.
Over the next hundred years that simple concept grew into a complex
three planet economy that actually worked. Within that flexible framework it
became possible to lend and borrow money, to receive grants to obtain luxuries
and special services, to open businesses to form partnerships to form
corporations to do just about anything anybody ever wanted money to do for
them. The system was not based on anything but the faith of the people.
Actually no economy has ever been.