# Beyond Capitalism / Socialism
Date: 2022-09-06

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### Beyond Capitalism / Socialism

If we accept, as I’ve argued previously, that reputation based currencies are still currencies and they don’t get us past poverty, then we must also accept that capitalism and socialism are really just two ways of doing the same measurement.

![Image](https://disrael.github.io/blogs/assets/beyond-capitalism-socialism-30b40c81d3.jpeg)

Socialism almost always boils down to hierarchical based decision making with reputation based currencies. You see the hand in hand nature of capitalism and socialism inside any corporation.

Outside the corporation one spends the capitalist money earned from the socialist reputation based interactions inside the company. Outside the corporation are “free markets” and inside a controlled economy.

Therefore the entire supposed fight between capitalism and socialism is the right hand fighting with the left. Yes we’ve seen systems that are closer to pure free market interactions and we’ve seen systems that are closer to pure controlled economies but most of the time both mechanisms are used in concert.

So we can’t change our system in any real sense by just more or less favoring market currencies versus reputation currencies. Take for instance the reputation currency based system that academia uses. There publishing papers is coin of the realm but the almost pure socialist nature of that system doesn’t make it very different for its participants from capitalism.

The [tang ping / bai lan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tang_ping) movement does move past capitalism / socialism in that its members refuse to be measured by either currency. But without laws such a movement just sets up an ever more vicious prisoner’s dilemma.

What do anti capitalist / socialist laws look like? For starters testing students must be illegal in all forms. You can see China grappling with the problem in a very weak way with its [attempt to reduce tutoring](https://www.vice.com/en/article/g5gm3j/education-billionaire-tutoring-crackdown).

Schools have become the ultimate reputation based economies gone wrong. Simply trying to divorce their reputation currencies from market currencies is not nearly enough to save children.

Outlawing testing children would shut down their reputation based economy instead of just trying to reduce hours.

For adults the equivalent might be state supported retirement laws. Retirees are given generous life styles beyond a certain age as long as they give up other forms of income.

**So squeeze the period during which a citizen is measured from both ends — start it later and finish it sooner.**

We can also try to squeeze lower the number of hours people work but the laws here will require really active enforcement. Corporations would have to be forced to track “black out” hours for all employees — hours where it is illegal for their to be any contact between the employer and employee. The employee would not be allowed to use company provided laptops, logins, email, etc.

Once tracking black out hours was mandatory then we could have laws requiring an ever increasing part of our lives be beyond the reach of formal measurement. Such a system could be applied to any business entity even self employment but unfortunately strict versions could only apply to larger businesses.

The current alternative to such measures is to opt out of procreation. Advanced societies all over are avoiding the market / reputation currency measurement by dodging the greatest responsibility where such currency matters.

Unfortunately that approach makes the world beyond capitalism / socialism a game of chicken in which the winners of our current currency wars must blink — and soon.