A Call for Time-based Economics

Or how Counter Strike’s anti-cheating mode may be a step towards fully automated luxury communism.

It was the 1st of May, 2013 when E-Sports Entertainment Association League (ESEA) user ‘1Scrappycoco’ discovered the reason why the Graphics Card on their PC was slowly grinding to a halt. As the dump of the computer’s Task Manager revealed, the anti-cheat client for Counter-Strike that they had recently downloaded, contained a Bitcoin mine hidden deep within it. They leapt onto the forums to show what they’d found — turns out many others were also affected. A major scandal in the gaming industry followed — despite only mining $20,000, the company has agreed to a $1 million settlement with the state of New Jersey to avoid criminal prosecution. Unsurprisingly, the two programmers that created the software update and ‘accidentally’ released it into the system were fired. ESEA’s reputation was badly tarnished and is still recovering.

This somewhat underhand attempt at mining extra revenues from the software they had developed may have left a lot of people unimpressed, but for me the incident poses a potentially very interesting alternative to the standard models of funding new products and services. Most people do not have computers which are compatible with the Bitcoin ‘mining’ link, but this is not a fundamental obstacle at this stage. Rather, let’s look at how we can better conceptualise new models of income and investment in post-industrial societies.

A subscription-based economy is nothing new, but it is now fast becoming the preferred model of transaction for many businesses. Netflix is a prime example here with many thousands of films and TV series available for a monthly fee. This membership costs less than buying a DVD and since many subscriptions also come with a free trial, customers can try new things that are relevant to their interests and with a smaller financial commitment. Adobe has announced that instead of having to buy their Creative Cloud for up to $2,500, new users can now simply pay a $10 to $75 monthly fee in order to use it — a move overwhelmingly supported by the design industry.

Whilst it often true that this payment model makes many products more affordable, it is likely that it also ends up simply making even more money for the manufacturers of these products/services. Gamers often encounter the problems related to this type of monetisation: on the surface, micro-transactions and DLCs (downloadable content) are a fantastic, convenient model — small updates that add elements to the game can be bought for a small fee. This allows developers to continually support their game post-release without worrying about making a loss or having to make an entirely separate sequel, which could take years of work. Unfortunately, this model has had its share of abuse recently with companies charging outrageous prices for absolutely insignificant upgrades to the game. Consumers obtain objects that have a physical presence in the game world, a sword for example, but also realise that the virtual reproduction of the item is costless: there is in fact no logical reason as to why the developer needs the sword back! The clash can easily produce hostility if the players believe that they have to agree to unfavourable conditions that appear cynical and serve only to maximise the developer’s revenue.

All of these transactions can be done in seconds and are symptomatic of a new relationship that we have with technology, one where we expect the machines be programmed to do most of the work for us.

This is the theory of ‘Fully Automated Luxury Communism’, an idea and ideology that in the (near) future, machines could provide for all our basic needs and humans would be required to do very minimal work — perhaps as little as 10–12 hours a week. In the post-industrial age, we will have to create a political environment where automation is not synonymous with job scarcity and crushing inequality, but rather is seen as an opportunity to discover new approaches to understanding our relationship to commodities. How can we achieve having all these services and possibly even hardware with an almost non-existent entry price?

The following is an idea of how we could get there— please keep in mind that this model would only be possible to work in the post-revolutionary society, but it’s easier to strive for a better world if we have a rough idea of how it could actually work! This is exactly the problem that the left often suffers from and is criticised for — not providing meaningful alternatives, especially in economics.

The core of inequality, to put it simply, is some people not being able to access the stuff that other people can. In practice, if all commodities were free and available to everyone, economic inequality should technically be eradicated. Word ‘economic’ here is important as social equality can only be achieved by abolishing our judicial systems, all types of prejudices, institutional or not.
For the purpose of this text, I want to stick with a plan for material goods, specifically electronic products and a possibility of a new type of monetary transaction for them.

Instead of enforcing set rental periods, it is possible to instead having them use-based. Think about it: all electronic commodities become free, but one only pays for the electricity that any particular gadget uses, all translated to a sort of credit system. In this world, one would pay no money in acquiring their smartphone, gaming console, fancy fridge, home robot, whatever it may be. Instead, the cost would be decided upon the time spent them interacting with the product, so the creators of these gadgets would have the incentive for making best and longest-lasting products as they’d want theirs to be the one used by most consumers.

The only thing that still holds us equal as humans is our available time to spend in this world — money can’t really buy that. There is a day / night cycle, we all need 8 hours of sleep etc, there cannot be a dramatic contrast between how much one person engages with certain products over the next person. Surely then, our economy should be based precisely on that.

In this model, statistics of usage would be recorded, money owed for electricity gets calculated in proportion as to what gadgets were used and therefore how much of it goes to the maker. Within certain devices there could be fractional sub-charges for the software used in them that would go straight to the developers and so on.

For any individual, this allows them to find the perfect equilibrium in their working vs. leisure/care time as the more they work the less time/capital they have to spend for certain items and the other way around.

This is something that, I hope, was in the minds of the people that made the ESEA hack, the Bitcoin mine that was only running while their mode was being used. Although obviously this was not done with the consumers’ consent and should not be overly romanticised…

There are four problems that I have thought about which could arise, no doubt there are others.

1. Privacy issues — there would be a second and potentially third party that would technically be aware of the habits of any particular household. Now of course this information could be encrypted, but it’s still a factor.

2. What would stop people from hoarding all of the devices since they are now free? A solution would have to be created where a household could only take on devices if they guarantee utilising it. From each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs, I suppose, but if that is regulated by the state that may present a load of problems all by itself.
On the other hand, to use a phrase from 2016 film ‘Madoff’, perhaps the disgraced Bernie Madoff character is right when he says ‘nothing makes a man want something more than telling him he can’t have it’. The fact that everyone will be able to have everything makes me think that they would not just hoard stuff, if there is a comfortable way for them to have precisely what they need.

3. Monitoring system would have to be put in place in order to prevent companies from fiddling with the records of one’s daily usage, all gadgets must have the same credit system that could not fluctuate in value.

4. Consumers hacking into the systems. However, this is where London’s public transport Oyster card scheme gives me hope — this system has seen various attempts at being compromised, but none that quite caught on.

The ‘communist’ factor of the fully-automated luxury communism can only be achieved globally: I can see a situation arising where perhaps people from more affluent parts of the world could benefit from such system and it would be once again built on the backs of the countries assembling the actual product. That would be catastrophic, but not surprising and something that should be fought against. It is precisely the main obstacle for FALC ideology — how to keep seemingly liberating mediums such as cars or internet serving people instead of profits.

This plan for Utopian Electronics would completely change our relationship to capital and hence, our understanding of class relationships. The people creating the products everyone is using would have the same chance at owning them, therefore reducing the alienation of their labour that Karl Marx was insisting on. The tech-savvy part of the population could work creating new, durable things, only because of their passion. And in the meantime, they can be learning Maori on Duolingo, gardening, going surfing or mastering some combos for Street Fighter 8.

Frequently Asked Questions:
(I will try keep updating these)

Q: How does this compare to capitalist practices where goods are offered at a heavy loss, but then the money is made back on the materials required to run them? Thinking about printers, or free proprietary software where the bet is that you’ll end up spending money on extra features.
A: Currently companies sell products with inflated prices due to their profit obligations to the shareholders, not how much it costs to make it. The cheap price of cartridge printers is probably still even more expensive that the production cost (not that it’s not a problem just how cheap the labour in the Global South is).
Think of it more like laser printer, where the cartridges allow to print a lot more so the cost per printed piece of paper drops dramatically. Also, the laser printer would be free.
What if there was a printer that could print infinite amount of stuff with no cartridges needed? That is the product that will end up being used more and so it will receive more incentive to be good. It wouldn’t be about how expensive the cartridge is, but how many people use the printer at any given time.

The people that can afford Downloadable Content in software/games are ones that earn more where as here people that could afford it probably have less time hence not being able to spend it anyhow.

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