Publishing my initial model for hypercapitalism

skilesare

I posted a stupid question a couple of weeks ago and got some good feedback.

@ChristianKl suggested that I start building a model of hypercapitalism for people to play with. I have the first one ready! It isn't quite to the point where people can start submitting bots to play in the economy, but I think it shows that the idea is worth more thought.

Analysis:

http://www.hypercapital.info/news/2015/4/19/a-published-model-of-hypercapitalism

Runnable Code - fork it and mess around with it:

http://runnable.com/VTBkszswv6lIdEFR/hypercapitalism-sample-economy-for-node-js-and-hello-world

I'd love some more feedback and opinions.

A couple of other things for context:

hypercapital.info - all about hypercapitalism

Overcoming bias about our money

Information Theory and the Economy

I posted a stupid question a couple of weeks ago and got some good feedback.

Analysis:

http://www.hypercapital.info/news/2015/4/19/a-published-model-of-hypercapitalism

Runnable Code - fork it and mess around with it:

http://runnable.com/VTBkszswv6lIdEFR/hypercapitalism-sample-economy-for-node-js-and-hello-world

I'd love some more feedback and opinions.

A couple of other things for context:

hypercapital.info - all about hypercapitalism

Overcoming bias about our money

Information Theory and the Economy

But you can also write the opposite parable:

Crusoe has finished planting his most fertile fields and is preparing to plant his remaining seed in the less fertile adjoining land when the stranger arrives.

S: I have found some excellent fields, too far from your home here to be of any use to you, but which will serve me well; and I need only some seed. I see you have some excess, which will be much more productive in my fields than in yours; might I borrow it, and easily repay after harvest?

RC: How much seed will you repay me, for each I lend you now?

S: One seed for each; my religion would forbid any other arrangement.

RC: The land I intend to plant them in is not so lush, but even so I expect to reap many times the seed I plant. Where is my self-interest in placing it where it will yield less?

Moral: some goods decay, but others can compound themselves--or, more often, create other goods that can create other goods in a long chain that ends with more of the first good.

The role of money is to make such long chains implicit; a positive real interest rate reflects that such chains are possible for most goods, and any exceptions will increase in price faster than interest accumulates.

In your story RC incurs no opportunity cost for planting seed in and tending a less efficient field. There should be an interest rate as a function for lending the last Nth percent of the seed based on the opportunity cost of planting and harvesting the less efficient field, which at some point crosses 0 and becomes negative. The interest rate drops even more quickly once his next expected yield will be more than he can eat or store for more than a single planting season.

If RC is currently in the situation where his desired interest rate is still positiv... (read more)

3skilesare11y

I love your counter-parable. It does an awesome job of showing what massively complicated thing we are discussing. Land, money, consumables, exponentionables(your seeds), all have very different characteristics and drivers. Interest, investment, production, savings all are slightly different ways of talking about some of the same concepts. I'm trying to get to the bottom of this statement and am having some issues: [...] Could you unpack it some more? You can correct me where I'm wrong, but I think what you are getting at is that the current abstraction of money and the idea of interest paid for borrowing it is optimal enough to reward the people that put up the cash for the value that it creates? And if a good isn't one of those exponential type things, the price just keeps going up faster than the interest rate because of its implicit limitedness? Do you think RC would be more willing to make the more productive choice if he could benefit from all of the upside that lending the seeds produces or only the amount that is agreed upon? I think what I'm trying to get at with hypercapitalism is that we want RC to seek out the best use today instead of the best use tomorrow because if he waits until tomorrow all the work that could have happened to day can never be redone.

9skilesare11y

This is a great comment and I've been thinking about it for most of the day. Just wanted to let you know I'm thinking on it and will respond in a bit.