Household Finance

The Full Service House at the Household Level

By John Taylor; 2009 Sep 13, Izzat 06, 166 BE

We are considering the financial and economic aspects of life in a UCS housing development. The latest trend in economic research is to try to understand stock markets and other complex financial arrangements as essentially social networks not unlike what goes on on Facebook and Twitter. The huge bubble and burst that took place last year is now thought to have been caused by statistical models of risk that ignore the synergy and irrationality that goes on in social networks. ("Wall Street's Math Wizards Forgot a Few Variables, Steve Lohr, New York Times, September 13, 2009http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/13/business/13unboxed.html) As this aspect of finance becomes better understood, the advantages of outsourcing financial functions into households and neighbourhoods will become more apparent. We have been looking at one arrangement that might take place after a world body declares perpetual peace, a condition we are calling the UCS.

In a UCS housing development individual bedrooms can be moved from separate apartments to a family household, and from one household compound to another as individuals decide. Similarly, family households as a unit can move from place to place within a neighbourhood, or indeed anywhere else, as required by circumstances. A standard, modular building infrastructure we are calling hillside developments makes such flexible mobility relatively cheap and easy.

In these housing developments residents will always live in what is called in Europe a "full service house," which means that members are served hand and foot, like royalty of old. With this organization, members are not routinely involved in mundane tasks such as shopping, laundering, food preparation or dishwashing. Instead, a full service infrastructure sees to it that each household member is served finished meals, their clothing cleaned, pressed and laid out ready to wear, that errands are run by couriers, and so forth. This saves space in the household -- there is no need for a kitchen, garage or laundry room, for instance. But mostly, it saves residents considerable time, which they can then invest in higher-level household management tasks, such as planning, deliberation, research and teaching.

We are used to individuals acting on their own as commercial entities called "consumers," but here it is the family that acts as consumer, estate holder and purchaser. Large budgetary decisions are always made collectively, on the household level. Instead of spending their lives buying and selling, individuals within the family function largely as citizens, peacemakers, researchers, teachers, artists and worshippers. Those services that take place between and among households, on the other hand, are accountable, paid transactions based on standard contracts and pricing.

Households within themselves are not commercial entities, they are cooperatives. Family members are not paid in money but serve on a voluntary basis out of a sense of duty. Where incentives are needed, a family can issue its own reward points or currency, to be spent within that home for certain privileges. Like a bank or other financial institution, a household can issue insurance and credit to its members and employees, but unlike banks its main internal currency is virtue. The merit of its individuals is systematically evaluated and collects together to embellish an escutcheon to be proudly displayed on its doorway, web sites and other public interfaces.

Thus, in order for a full service arrangement to work economically, somebody will have to perform the services of the full-service house. Someone, for instance, has to grow food in a local garden, take in the harvest, prepare meals and have them sent to dining room tables on time.

In order to do this for all, households will be expected to perform at least one of these local services for the entire neighbourhood. This will often mean setting up a household enterprise for the purpose. A small household might be able to run only one family business while larger household have enough members easily to run two or three going concerns at once.

If a family can provide a certain service for the full-service houses efficiently, it might decide to specialize and do it professionally as its family business. Alternatively, a wealthy household might decide to concentrate on other things and only support the full service house financially by paying the equivalent of rent. Others might take the amateur route and support the full service model by running a small cooperative with part-time workers.

As already discussed, households and families in a UCS development are organized and coordinated by a neighbourhood government with its own planning centre and broadcasting media. Each community of about a hundred families elects a ruling counsel, with day-to-day executive and ceremonial tasks handled by a "first family," who are are either rotated or elected, or both.

Next time we will look at Neighbourhood Finance.

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