Introducing the Abundance Score
The ‘credit score’ for an abundant world
A postcard from Gracey about quality of life
July 13, 2035
Those who are caught up in The Scarcity Game believe that to be successful one must accumulate possessions as quickly as possible — fashion, jewellery, cars, homes. Buying a home is seen as the fulfillment of the ultimate dream. The argument goes that homes typically increase in value, which helps build equity and provides a nest egg for the future. In your world, most people are judged by what they’re able to buy. A well-dressed young man with a degree, a fancy car and a large house is ‘more successful’ than someone who only has one set of clothes and has to beg for their next meal.
Surprisingly, the designers of The Scarcity Game have a different measure to identify those most successful at playing the game: the Credit Score. What you purchase is important to the game designers, but even more important is how you purchase items. Paying cash for everything will end the game prematurely, and no-one wants that (yet). The game requires high level of debt to keep going, and the credit score achieves this, by making more and more debt available.
A credit score is often misunderstood to be a measure of financial responsibility, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. It is more accurately defined as a measure of how much you borrow and pay back — how well you play the game and where on The Scarcity Game ranking board you stand. If it was a measurement of financial responsibility then your income, your debt to income ratio, employment history, and recurring bill payments would also be a part of that score. But they’re not.
Your credit score is solely based on the following criteria:
- 35% is based on debt history;
- 30% is based on debt level;
- 15% is based on length of time you’ve been in debt;
- 10% is based on new debt;
- 10% is based on type of debt.
If you’ve only ever taken out small loans and paid them back quickly, your credit score will likely be low. That’s because the credit score doesn’t measure financial responsibility, it measures how well you play the game.
Credit scores generally fall into 4 categories:
- 300 to 629 is bad;
- 630 to 689 is fair;
- 690 to 719 is good;
- 720+ is excellent.
Lenders typically use your credit score to help them decide if they’ll approve you for a loan or credit card.
In our world, the Abundance Score works in a similar way, because your score determines how much more abundance you may have access to. We’ll cover this in much more detail in a later postcard, but for now, let’s look at how the Abundance Score is calculated:
- 30% is based on the ratio between what you produce and what you consume (higher levels of production and lower levels of consumption are rewarded);
- 20% is based on the amount of fossil fuels consumed (lower levels are rewarded);
- 20% is based on the ratio between personal use and gifting (higher levels of voluntary giving to others is rewarded);
- 10% is based on the length of time you’ve spent being productive (any activity that benefits society, whether it’s performed for an employer or simply for the community, for example cleaning the streets or caring for the elderly — higher levels of time spent are rewarded);
- 10% is based on the length of time you’ve spent being creative (any activity that makes your community more beautiful: singing, painting, dancing, drawing, poetry, making people laugh or sharing of ideas — higher levels are rewarded);
- 5% is based on the length of idle time (time spent sleeping, shopping, personal grooming, ablutions and relaxing — lower levels are rewarded);
- 5% is based on peer feedback (how others say your time is generally spent).
The Abundance Score only takes into account length of time spent doing things, not level of expertise. In this way, even those with few skills but abundant hearts can earn high Abundance Scores. Each person’s Abundance Score forms part of their Whole Person Index and determines how much income they receive.
There are 3 major differences between your credit score and our Abundant Score:
- Your score is calculated on monetary values; our score is calculated on how each person’s time is spent;
- Only about 1 billion people in your world have a credit score, because you need to be employed to get a credit score; everyone in our world has an Abundance Score;
- Your score reinforces a belief in scarcity; our score reminds everyone that we live in an abundant world.
Summary
By 2035, we’ve replaced credit scores with Abundance Scores and every individual has an Abundant Score. This score determines how well one plays The Abundance Game and determines each person’s Universal Abundance Income.
Big Questions to Explore
- How does debt work? Ask Google
- What are the benefits of being debt free? Ask Google
- Can banks create money out of thin air? Ask Google
- Do we live in an abundant universe? Ask Google
- Is the future better than we think? Ask Google
- What are ethical quality of life indicators? Ask Google
Postcards from 2035 is a series of profoundly simple interlinking ideas describing life in a highly desirable society, where everything and everyone is advanced, happy, intelligent and problem-free. It’s a blueprint of the world we need to create. The best thing you can do to help us get there is to share with your friends and get the conversation started with the questions this postcard has raised.
