Awesome article. One point I disagree on, I think it is appreciation, not attention, that is the raw material for “creative money”. I think in this lies the answer.

Money was invented to track and collect debts. As soon as money was in place, commerce could commence in a more meaningful way. Money is the standardization of relative value. However, we didn’t then realize that man does not live on bread alone — a society needs more than material things to be healthy. Just as we as people do, society needs culture and art and connection. For 3000 years the artists have had no real value in our society, at least not qualified, or only so by the merchant class, or as Marx would say, the owners of production. However we hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal and that every man and woman of the human race has a right to basic survival, and has value in that they can both appreciate and create art.

In light of these two things I propose a new currency. Let’s call it ‘feels’ for now. Feels are fundamentally different than a dollar in that every person gets one feel each day, and if it isn’t given, it’s lost. It will be tracked like a virtual currency, a standardized way to show our appreciation of art and all that moves us. The dollar is becoming machine money, money for goods created by machines, the product of automation the value of which cannot be denied, but should also not be inflated. I propose that a feel is generated one per day for each man woman and child on the planet — one day’s wage for being human. A universal guaranteed income based on our humanity. As nations, societies, and communities become able to trade necessities for feels, as will happen when surpluses are achieved in necessities, inevitable as it seems with technology, then feels will become sufficient to guarantee all the necessities for all in that society. Ideally it should cover all we need, just as a society if it is able, and as it is able, should take care of the least of these. Empower the artist class, empower those who labor for love to receive the love of their fellow man, and equip us to communicate that love to each other.

The beauty of creating a separate, virtual currency, is that it can be put in place without disrupting current financial markets and economies. It can be adopted slowly, only as it becomes viable.