NEMs and government

There may, ultimately, be less regulation required in a world with NEMs. Keeping markets fair and competitive, for instance, is less of a concern for markets where the costs of entry are negligible and all the data about activity is open to anyone. True, an exponential growth in sellers could mean a lot of work keeping an eye out for cowboys. But NEMs changes the dynamics of that as well.

To take an example of this, the law may stipulate that no-one can offer take-away food without a certificate approving their premises. To get into NEMs selling take-away food you’ll have to get certification and enter an individual code into NEMs. (This is at your expense, although NEMs might get you investment to cover the costs, see our market facilities section.) The system will know when the authorisation period ends. You’ll be out of the market if you don’t renew. If there’s a pattern of complaints about your tucker from credible buyers, the system can be made to quickly report that to the appropriate public health department.

Public spending  will also be easier to scrutinise with NEMs. As substantial chunks of it go through NEMs’ markets, the system’s obligation to protect data about individual users may be waived so that any taxpayer can see rates being paid, hours being booked and regional variations.

NEMs could make government less critical in a disaster. Assume there had been a critical mass of NEMs users in the US when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in 2007. Government could have: (a) released immediate funding for engineers and construction workers needed to clean up (b) hired trucks to transport supplies to the region (c) ensured computers that allowed victims to access NEMs, and the people to set them up, were hired and transported to New Orleans (d) given every person registered at a zipcode in the worst hit areas a discretionary $250 or so in their account (e) hired group accommodation in surrounding areas, and the coaches and drivers to transport victims out of town.

Assuming funds could be released, all this could be put in place while the storm still raged. NEMs would have fed the individual opportunities through to appropriate markets. The legislation that establishes NEMs might mandate an “over-ride” facility: if a national emergency is declared, government is allowed to cancel existing bookings on NEMs so vehicles, skills and resources can be re-purchased for a disaster area.

The atomised way that NEMs users can respond to emergencies could be crucial. A detailed study of responses to Hurricane Andrew hitting Florida in 1992 discovered that a big barrier to rescue efforts was unavailability of childcare for suddenly required relief workers.

Go on welfare at present and, typically, the focus is getting you into a job in one leap. NEMs would allow a more tapered approach. It could permit you to do “Bits of Work”, progressively  establishing yourself in multiple sectors as your hours increased each week. In that time it could taper your welfare receipts, it knows what you’ve earned and calculates what’s due from the state each week before transferring it to your account. Rules about permitted earnings, maximum time on welfare or ratios within which hours of work must steadily increase can all be automatically applied.

Once again, NEMs is blurring the current boundaries. If public space improvement work, for instance, was prioritised to ensure there’s at least a few hours of work a week for claimants, it’s possible very few people would have no income beyond welfare payments.

Again, up-to-the-minute anonymised data on benefits recipients, payouts, levels of activity and rates of coming off welfare would be available to any NEMs user.

NEMs can calculate the tax due on each transaction and deduct it at source, or it can earmark it in the personal accounts for the seller. Government should insist on this from the operators, it can save the state so much money. It’s also a potential selling point: no April 15^th (tax form day in the US) style nightmares for NEMs users. Just click and it files your return and transfers what you owe.

This precision allows government to create pinpoint tax rules across all sorts of sectors. For example, there may be a drive to encourage car pooling. That’s a simple rule: give the driver who lists in NEMs market for car pool seats then fills her seats, a pro-rata rebate on the road tax they can buy next year through the system.

NEMs makes interacting with government painless, and seamless for a lot of trades. If a farmer hires out a stud bull to impregnate a neighbour’s cows for example, the details can automatically be transferred to an official register of cattle movements. The system also allows control of public services to be devolved completely to any legitimate local body.

Suppose for example, a village council is given a fixed budget to purchase street cleaning, wardens and the time of other service providers. The bigger area council decides who is authorised to sell these services but it is villagers’ representatives who decide when the streets are cleaned, the times this week when a street warden is required. It’s all done through revocable passwords, and spending controls, in NEMs. Decisions made are then reported publicly.

•  Quality of life