Idea: Preview

Relevance:     Universal
SELF-GOVERNING, AUTONOMOUS COMMUNITY ECONOMIES  to enable an equal chance of success for all.

Visit the website (may be under construction):  OneWorld411.com, UNIVERSAL COMMUNITY PROJECT & HEALED EARTH MARKETPLACE

THE INSPIRATION:
(Inspired by the Universal Community Project Team, Illia Dorosh's Idea "Gratitude As Income," egora-ilp.org/ideas/802,    Sherwin Shao's Idea, "Universal Community Project," egora-ilp.org/ideas/875, and Joe Benham’s idea “The Philosophy of the Commons,” egora-ilp.org/ideas/453)  

WHAT IF THE GOAL IS A HAPPY, HEALTHY FAMILY?

Adapted from Sherwin Shao’s Egora idea 875:
What if economic growth and winning were no longer the goals?  Communities are fractured and unhealthy, people do not even know how to connect anymore.  This proposal offers real actions the average person can take to re-create a holistically healthy community model.

PREMISE:  
1) Late-stage Capitalism has become unstable.
The Government needs economic growth to fund their continuing inefficiencies and keep the currency viable.
The resulting policies have become increasingly non-capitalistic and harmful to the population as a whole.  Companies (sellers of products and services) spread fear in order to sell products:  Fix those wrinkles or you won’t get a job or be loved.  Buy her a diamond ring or she will think less of you or worse, she won’t love you.  You might blink too much, take this drug or risk social consequences.

2) Self-reliant communities are needed to minimize money-reliance.
We all yearn to be connected more by community than by money.    
We all seek aspirational and contributional opportunities more than economic and job opportunities.  
Now Capitalism has brainwashed us, when someone needs help, the question asked is "how much for that?"

Neighbors want to help each other, and open their hearts to solve food and housing insecurity.  Cook, clean, fix, build, help.
We can take money out of situations where precision is not required, no middle men corporations.
This idea emphasizes cooperation more than competition.
The corporation will still dominate commerce, but let us take care of each other without middle men.
Society can run a free market economy in parallel with a community economy.
Even with a declining economy, people would be actively engaged to ensure human needs are being met.

How can this help?  Aside from money, we should be given the opportunity to help our neighbors.  Starting at grassroots.  

The solution...

UNIVERSAL COMMUNITY PROJECT & HEALED EARTH MARKETPLACE

What is it?
Community support tools and a global marketplace to assist individuals and groups create their own self-governing, community economy.  It goes all the way from a downloadable.pdf compendium of what we believe is the minimum necessary information to re-create coherent communities in the event of a failure of centralized government and/or infrastructure, on up to the website-based UCP and Healed Earth Marketplace found at OneWorld411.com.  This package allows individuals and communities to organize and meet their members’ needs within and alongside the boundaries of current, dysfunctional government, with Universal Basic Income and funding for community projects built in.  All of it is founded on Indigenous and holistic principles, and the Universal Marketplace is focused on (not limited to) small, localized, Indigenous communities.

The downloadable package (in the event of loss of infrastructure and/or internet) includes text and slides of all relevant subsystem content:

THE SUBSYSTEMS:

*Universal Basic Income Communities to connect small, localized, Indigenous communities with the global marketplace, then use a percentage of marketplace fees to fund Universal Basic Income and community projects for its members
*The fun, engaging Community Preparedness Game, (part of a new Universal Game Application and/or board game)...the fun way to learn how to create a self-sustaining UBI Community and the wisdom it takes to do it. (Description below).
*The Universal Community Project Certification Courses (syllabus attached)
*Commons implementation plan
*Voting app
*Emergency communications/Ham radio operators, local mesh network, community sign-up sheets for shelter, first aid, human and emergency services
*Citizen Assembly deliberative democracy meeting format for community decision making (decentralized self-governance)

HEALED EARTH MARKETPLACE WITH UNIVERSAL BASIC INCOME FUND

This subsystem is a packet with everything an individual or group needs to form and run a self-sustaining Universal Basic Income Community from a handwritten spreadsheet (in the event of a complete breakdown of infrastructure like power and internet) or using the online OneWorld411.com Healed Earth Marketplace.  Both include optional earned Community Credits/Coupons.  Communities are maintained at membership and activity levels that are manageable, and can split and grow organically with this format which can be easily duplicated, merged, and/or scaled.  Communities perform decision making following the OneWorld411.com 36 Holistic Principles and the Citizen Assembly deliberative democracy meeting format.  

HOW TO USE THE HEALED EARTH MARKETPLACE (similar to Amazon or Etsy) AND EARN STORE CREDITS/COUPONS:
Individuals can:

1) Donate to the Healed Earth Marketplace Universal Basic Income Fund, then participate in and see how your money is distributed to individuals and small communities in need, in a democratic and transparent forum.

2) Start and run your own personal online storefront just like Amazon or Etsy, or make it a Community by allowing your chosen community members to post their listings in your store as well.  You can list not only items for cash, you can barter, or even list service requests and offer store credits/coupons in return for such services performed.  Such noncash listings have a standard $10 minimum listing price to ensure economic participation.  All listings, including noncash service requests and barter, are charged a 10 percent commission fee.  8% of these commission fees go back into the UBI Community fund, and also  fulfills Number 3 of The Cooperative Model which has been adopted by the Healed Earth Marketplace:  Members’ economic participation.  These are the seven cooperative principles from the NCBA CLUSA:  

Voluntary and open membership
Democratic member control
Members’ economic participation
Autonomy and independence
Education, training, and information
Cooperation among cooperatives
Concern for community

2% of commission fees go to the Healed Earth Marketplace for operating costs.  If you choose, your storefront/community can administer its own 8% of commissions generated, so long as it complies with the Healed Earth Marketplace’s guidelines, such as a minimum number of subvendors to ensure disbursement of commissions earned, the OneWorld411.com 36 holistic principles, and Healed Earth Marketplace’s Universal Basic Income Community fund guidelines.  If you choose to self-administer your sales commissions, you will not be eligible to receive Healed Earth Marketplace UBI or project funds.

3) Vendors can list Requests (as mentioned in 1) for performance of services or ask for needed items,

4) Anyone wanting to be a Provider of services can search for requests to fulfill.  Some Requesters may offer coupons or other barter in exchange for services rendered; only service Requests fulfilled in whole or in part for FREE are eligible for UBI fund distribution requests or Crowdfund requests,

5) donors can search for service Providers they would like to reward by donating to their linked GoFundMe crowdfund (those eligible for Crowdfund reimbursement requests because the service Requests they fulfilled were done in whole or in part for FREE).

Once a Request is fulfilled, the Requester issues a Store Coupon, Credit, or other barter to the Provider.  It is intended/recommended that storefronts determine value based on One Credit is equal to one man hour of work and limited to ten times base value.  The value of such Hour Credit is determined by the community using globally relevant market data about compensation averages for similar duties in similar regions.  

There are four “Markets of Exchange” for such Credits:  
1) the Credits or coupons can be exchanged individual-to-individual as store credits or coupons issued within the marketplace, or by private treaty, or listed exchanges for items or services,
2) the selling of earned store credits/coupons for cash,
3) the Credits can, under limited circumstances, be exchanged for cash from a crowdfunded Universal Basic Income Fund, (see below) as a community's voluntary recognition of the time and resources invested by the recipient.  This exchange is for longstanding and/or essential services provided to differently abled or other easily verifiable group subsidized services (home, health, food, child wellness, utilities, shelter, etc.).  Nonessential service provision is “reimbursed” with cash donations on an individual basis determined by the community, ostensibly to reward well-verified, outstanding service/item providers (handyman, cleanup, mentoring, tutoring, recreation, helping hand, etc.).  Due to the high risk for graft, UBI Community Fund “cash-out” options for Credits or coupons are recommended under only the most transparent circumstances; individual crowdfunds, as listed next, are recommended for this type of Credit cashing.  And
4) individuals who acted as Providers of service Requests in whole or in part for FREE and not compensated by the Requester can create and list their personal crowdfund in their store so that community crowdfund members and individual members, or others, can gift the Provider directly; Providers are asked to make transparent on their crowdfund page all crowdfund income received going back a minimum of three years to ensure equity so that one Provider doesn’t receive, for instance, $3,000 in donations for a few hours of service because cash donors could not see that others had already donated enough to reward the Provider’s service at fair market rates and not more than 10 times fair market rates.

The community creates a UBI crowdfund with community-chosen guidelines attached to their withdrawal, depending on the size of the fund and community goals.  Community service should be mandatory for recipients of the Universal Basic Income crowdfund proposed, or qualify for UBI Credits due to verified difference in abilities.  Withdrawals can be by:
1) standard allotment
2) incremental allotments for service performed
3) community projects

DONOR BENEFITS:
People want to contribute to their community's needs with cash, but getting that money into the hands that need them is still an issue today as charities can drain or misuse funds.  In this fashion, UBI Fund contributors feel good about the “investment” of their money in verified products and services being provided directly within communities, with no resource drains from middlemen or bureaucracy, and with less chance of large-scale corruption.  This proposed system has two other benefits: 1) it allows incremental application of trackable UBI funds exactly where needed, and 2) those who don’t need a UBI won’t receive funds unnecessarily.  Again, UBI crowdfunds are distributed according to the community's fund size, goals, and chosen guidelines.  And it may seem almost too good to be true, but the exchange of crowdfunds, such as through GoFundMe, is often considered gifting and not taxable!   (Up to $14,999 per individual donation in the United States).

THE COMMUNITY PREPAREDNESS GAME & UNIVERSAL GAME APP

The Universal Game Application or UGA is a downloadable .pdf with printable universal board and card game design structure which allows anyone to disseminate their own information in a fun, engaging game format.  Includes the Community Preparedness Game.

Goal: Provide an uplifting and reassuring feeling to players as they learn preparedness and how to rebuild community, a decentralized, self-governing system, and economy parallel to the existing ones in the event of its necessity.

Apocalypse Survival Game App rules can be viewed here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WFQxXPF5utYArm5Ib5TeRyCcq8yLCBNTPROViAUZ7yM/edit?usp=sharing

An example of a Universal Exchange Spreadsheet, for use in the event of loss of infrastructure and/or internet, can be viewed with this link: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1DJfjik7IBmi_PVi_6NoSQqgiwmSpQMbOOqbuWfV_z2o/edit?usp=sharing
Supporters
Egora, “The Worldwide Stock-Market of Ideas”, enables everyone to
– develop their own political philosophy out of various ideas,
– determine which ideas are most strongly supported by the people, and
– find the true representatives of the public will, to elect them into public office.