Value Cells and Cell Networks
I’ve been rattling on for a couple of years about the fact that I did not have any idea how the transition to the Post-Financial world could be achieved peacefully. That alone made it easy to label this set of ideas as pure fantasy. Herewith, a modest proposal for how the change might done, and how we can start on it now.
The first concept to understand here is the Value Cell.
The cell, of course, is one of the primary building blocks of life. It’s a simple concept really: a bag that separates the material inside from whatever is on the outside. It’s also interesting from a systems point of view.
Without going into General Systems Theory too deeply, we can conceptualize a System as having three main components: Inputs, Processes, and Outputs. A System, then, takes inputs and processes them into outputs. The beauty of this approach is that it allows you to view the Processes as Black Boxes. That is, at the top level we can ignore the details of the processing and just look at the inputs and outputs . Later we can look inside the Process and figure out what systems are inside that. The Systems approach, allows you to analyze something complex into easier-to-understand layers.
So from that very general context, let’s define a Value Cell (VCell) as something that outputs Value. A Value could consist of goods or services, anything from pies to lawn service to brain surgery. Now, out in the larger world, interesting things start happening when we consider interactions with other cells. The output from one cell may then serve as the input to another one. Then the value that the second one outputs may be the input to a third. After that, perhaps the outputs of the first and third cells might be the inputs to a fourth, which might be used by two other cells as inputs, etc, etc.
Let’s imagine a restaurant as a cell. The inputs are raw foodstuffs and the outputs are meals. Customers come in and pay for the meals and leave. They’ve exchanged one value (money) for another value (meals). Now notice something over there at the table by the kitchen door. Employees are eating, too, but they don’t pay money for their food. Instead they exchange one value (labor) for another value(meals). So the processes inside a cell may be (and usually are) different from how the cell interacts with the outside.
Now let’s stretch the idea a little. Let’s imagine a hospital. Again, “customers” exchange value (money) for value (health services) and employees get these services for free. Because this hospital has no preventive care services, they enter into a partnership with a clinic that outputs preventive care. As part of the agreement, the hospital workers get free preventive care and the preventive care workers get free hospital services. The hospital makes a similar deal with a physical therapy service, and now each of the three services gets free treatment from the other two. Now we have a Value Cell Network (VCN).
The services don’t even have to be closely related. For instance, an auto repair shop enters into an agreement with a cleaning service: the shop gets free cleaning, the cleaning service people get free auto care. Such a network could expand indefinitely. That’s a Post-Financial Economy (PFE).
Because of our habitual Malthusian attitude that there isn’t enough to go around, the tendency, even in a PFE, is to try to make sure that we’re always getting a “profitable deal” with these network agreements. Likely as not, such an agreement will fall apart or never get made in the first place due to perceived inequities. If instead we adopt a Fullerian view that the problem isn’t scarcity, it’s distribution (and nobody is saying that that’s going to be easy), then we can relax a little bit.
Let’s take a look at another example. In this case, it’s a VCell called the Piano Rehabilitation Hospital (PRH) that’s already beginning operations. The premise of the VCell is to take in ailing pianos, nurse them back to health and either return them to their owners or, if the piano is acquired by the PRH, distribute (output) them at the end. Here again there are two forms of distribution. Inside the VCell or VCN, they are distributed to the workers; outside the VCell or VCN they are sold for cash. As yet, the VCell has no network connections. Now let’s say Annie wants to have a piano for herself and her kids to play. She comes to the PRH, looks over the selection and finds one she likes. “How much is that piano there”, she asks.
“It’s $850 cash”, says the helpful salesperson, “Or you can trade labor for it.”
“How much labor?” asks Annie.
“We don’t measure it in hours,” says the salesperson, “Let me explain by showing you around.”
The salesperson takes Annie on a tour of the place. At first glance, walking through the shop, it looks like a regular repair shop, but since it’s Monday morning, there’s a meeting going on, and no one is working on the pianos at the moment. The salesperson opens a door to a brightly-lit room where all the workers are sitting around a conference table. One worker is standing at a whiteboard explaining some numbers.
The salesperson introduces Annie, and the workers greet her warmly and show her to a seat. The woman at the whiteboard, Judy, continues her presentation.
“Last week we finished six pianos and sold two. We took in $1800 for those two. We have three bills that need to be paid totaling $475, so that leaves $1325 for distribution. Also, I’m going to propose that Walter here has worked here long enough to earn his piano. What do you all think?”
The workers discuss Walter’s contributions during the time he has been there and agree that it seems enough for him to have earned the piano they have set aside for him. You see, Walter is on a different compensation plan from all the rest of the workers. He’s not on profit-sharing, he’s been accumulating value towards a piano. Nobody quantifies this, no hours worked valued against the piano. The decision is made by his co-workers that he’s contributed enough.
Judy asks, “How about it, Walter, will you be staying with us after the piano’s delivered?”
“Yes,” replies Walter, “I’ve really enjoyed working here, so I’d like to stay.”
“Great!” says Judy. “If everyone agrees, we’ll convert Walter’s plan to profit-sharing.”
There is applause for Walter, and the meeting breaks up. Judy walks Annie into the office.
“Does everyone working here start out working for a piano?” asks Annie as they are sitting down.
“No. That’s just one option. Jake is a saxophone player and doesn’t even want a piano, but he likes the work and the compensation plan and the company, so he’s been here for five years now.”
“How does the compensation plan work?”
“It’s pretty simple, actually. After the outside expenses are taken care of, the profits from any sales are distributed evenly to the workers.”
“Evenly? So I could come in for 10 minutes one day, turn a couple of screws, and qualify for profit sharing when the week’s done?”
“Not exactly. If you don’t spend much time here, the workers won’t vote you in for the week. It’s cumulative, though. If you could only work a couple hours a week, you would get voted a share every month or so. But most of the benefit to working here is going to be the VCN. Right now we’re finishing up exchange deals with the hospital, a hardware store, and our cleaning service.”
To be continued….
I hope from this you can see the possibility for enterprises that can bridge between the FW and the PFE, then adapt smoothly to the new way of doing things.
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