[Meslocusist]

I think that, rather than energy accounting, labor should be the primary currency in technocracy. Energy is a tremendously unstable currency, given that production will constantly be increasing as society grows economically. On the other hand, there is an inherent stability to labor accounting: Assuming that one doesn't engage in senseless acts of destruction (which I suppose at times people do, but given technocracy I think that there could be fairly effective strategies to minimize gang violence and other forms of destruction, including white collar destruction, like accidentally crashing the economy), one has to contribute between 0 and 24 person-hours per day. Assuming that the society is capable of feeding itself without undue exertion, I think that a 35-40 hour work week should be sufficient, though this is not based on any calculations. The amount of person-hours per person will be more-or-less constant over time.

As the level of technology increases, there will be deflation in the cost of any given item, because fewer person-hours will be required to create it. However, I don't see any reason why this means that people should work less: If you can support yourself at level X on a 40 hour week when you enter the workforce, and the economy doubles in productivity when you leave it, if you are still working a 40 hour week, then your standard of living has doubled.

I imagine pay would be on average, one person-hour per hour of work (It would have to be, if pricing is related to hours put in), although subject to a multiplier due to productivity and skill (I suppose this multiplier would range from between .3 and 3 or so), since people tend not to be more than 10 times more productive or 10 times more skillful than other people, or 3 of each for that matter.

[Zerogouki]

This is predicated on the nonsensical assumption that all labor is equally valuable.

[Meslocusist]

I imagine pay would be on average, one person-hour per hour of work (It would have to be, if pricing is related to hours put in), although subject to a multiplier due to productivity and skill (I suppose this multiplier would range from between .3 and 3 or so), since people tend not to be more than 10 times more productive or 10 times more skillful than other people, or 3 of each for that matter.

However, do you have any more concrete suggestions?

[Meslocusist]

Well, I'm not sure if technocracy is sufficiently unified as a movement to say that in a technocratic society there would be no currency. However, not having looked into the issue I am plenty willing to admit that I may be wrong on this one with respect to the average technocrat.

But anyway: an economy is defined as "the wealth and resources of a country or region, especially in terms of the production and consumption of goods and services" (Oxford English Dictionary).

Energy is of course important. However, isn't the central focus of an economy the people that participate in it as opposed to the goods that it produces? An economy is essentially the way that people relate to each other in terms of objects that have a concrete value. As I said, it is somewhat difficult to establish an exact value for a person's labor, in terms of the multiplier that one is applying to the average wage of 1 person-hour per hour.

Nevertheless, it is possible to increase the amount of watts available per person- but it's not possible to increase the maximum amount of work that a person can do. This makes the person-hour a very stable currency that would enable good planning to occur and real costs to be established. That is not to say that energy is not a real cost, but ultimately I think that an economy should be designed to create the greatest good for the greatest number- though that is abstract, I think that it would be easier to do this if you do your accounting in person-hours instead of joules.

[Suska]

I thought the idea was that energy would be the currency, but for sure your reasoning about work is incorrect; you can't use something with hidden value or potentially no value. It isn't stable, it's anything but.

[Conscript]

How is this concept of a system based on abundance and distribution rather then scarcity and exchange different from communism? You even believe it will come around the same way, through the development of the forces of production.

You say labor shouldn't be used to measure value, but instead favor energy. What's the point? Labor is what will determine the availability of energy for consumption, and will never be entirely replaced by machines unless perpetual motion becomes possible. It sounds like you favor the development of labor's efficiency to create abundance like the socialists do, but just do it in the name of technology rather then the working class.