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Chapter 2

Jim went back to the village with his recharged food app at the ready, only to discover that the shop had run out of bread. He returned to tell Annabel the news, and they both sat in silence wondering what they would do.

Lucas Davis had done some planting in the garden and there were still Brussels sprouts, kale, leeks, parsnips, broccoli, rhubarb, spring cabbage, spring cauliflower and winter salad. Jim was getting fed up with vegetable soup, roast vegetables, and stewed rhubarb.

While Annabel cooked, Jim chopped wood for the fire. After lunch, Jim caught a bus into Manchester to deliver his lecture about post-Unity Britain at the bookshop. Annabel stayed at home to rehearse for her upcoming concert.

Before he got up to speak, Jim asked the organisers to play No One is Free by Solomon Burke.

“What I am about to tell you is not new. It is not even my idea. The secretary-general of the European Realistic Disobedience Front proposed it decades ago.” Jim began. “Political and economic power were inseparable. The princes were rich and only the rich were princes. Political power delivered the ability to extract wealth from others through coercion or conquest. The power to coerce translated into titles and castles. Capitalism changed all this with merchants emerging as a new class with economic clout if little political or social power. Economic power was distinct from political authority. Merchants evolved into shareholders and financiers. The richer you were, the more shares you could buy and the more votes you had. The few with the most shares could vote for their own interests and accumulate more shares. They essentially got to tell everyone else what to do.”

Jim paused to see whether his words were sinking in. The blank faces of his audience gave him no idea.

“Imagine a system in which no-one tells anyone what to do and you could freely choose the people or teams you want to work with and how much time you want to devote to different projects,” he continued. “When hierarchies allocate resources, the results are clumsy, inefficient and oppressive. The desire to please superiors makes full transparency impossible. They keep people in the dark about the benefits or drawbacks of working with particular managers or colleagues, how happy or dysfunctional teams are, how rewarding or boring different projects are. Under a flat management model, there are frequent gaps, but the fact these gaps exist is positive. When people discover that someone has moved from one project to another, it says a lot about both the old and the new projects and teams. When people may vote with their feet, they make a collective assessment of each project’s relative value. Unpredictability is a small price to pay for quality and efficiency.”

A hand went up in the audience and Jim acknowledged he would take the question.

“Surely there are menial tasks that no one wants to do?”

“New staff would be taken on informally,” Jim answered. “There would be no need for a personnel department. Any team can start a search to fill a vacancy either internally or externally, even if it is just to clean the bathrooms on their floor. People recruited for these roles may branch out into other roles in a way that no hierarchy would allow.”

Another hand went up and Jim deferred.

“Who decides how many people get paid?”

“A company’s income would be divided into five pots, corporation tax, fixed costs, research and development, staff salaries and bonuses. Collectively, the company would decide the relative proportions of the latter four pots on a one person one vote basis. Anyone who wanted to change the proportion going to each pot would need to propose a new formula. Having decided the amount in each pot, they then divided equally the staff salaries pot among all staff.”

Several hands shot up. Jim selected one of them.

“What about the bonus pot?”

“Every year, each member of staff is given one hundred merit points which they may distribute to other members of staff in whatever proportion they wish, they can give all one hundred to one member of staff or one each to a hundred people, but they can’t allocate any to themselves. Whatever proportion of the total merit points you receive correlates with the proportion of the budget pot you receive.”

“But the system is open to a***e,” the questioner shouted out.

“The voting system is transparent,” said Jim. “So if two people agree to allocate all one hundred merit points to each other, it will be obvious for all to see. This system eliminates one of the biggest injustices of capitalism, that the owners of a company control its profits while those who work within it receive only a wage.”

“That was Roberts’ idea,” someone shouted.

“You are proposing totalitarianism?” someone else shouted.

“In theory, Roberts’ idea was that employees should share the net revenues. However, the Unity hierarchies were just as ruthless in their imposition of power management. The formal ownership of a company is less important than how power is constructed within it.”

“Who owns the company capital?” was the next interjection

“If every citizen has a bank account at the central bank. I propose dividing this account into three funds, the first to accumulate money from salary and bonuses, the second would be a trust fund that is deposited in every citizens’ account at birth. When they come of age, they have some capital to deploy to join or start a business. Rules would protect the trust fund to stop it being used injudiciously. The third is a dividend fund into which the central bank deposits a certain amount depending on the citizen’s age and which is funded through a tax on company revenues. This fund would liberate everyone from both destitution and the cruel means testing of the welfare state. It would also allow some individuals to provide priceless contributions to society without having to run a business, for example caring, environmental conservation or non-commercial art.”

“And to be lazy,” someone shouted.

“It liberates the individual from the current safety net, which simply entangles them in poverty. Dividend gives the poor and unfortunate a platform. It allows young people to experiment with different careers and to study. There would be no income or sales taxes, only tax on company revenues and property. Anyone could lend to companies, they can loan to a company from their own trust fund or accumulation.”

“What happens when people fall out or want to leave?” Jim was asked.

“Then they just leave. They can dismiss underperforming or misbehaving employees with a board of inquiry. There is no golden handshake, although members can vote for a gift if they wish. With small partnerships of two members who wish to part company, each submits a sealed bid for what they feel the company is worth.”

“What about social responsibility?” came the next question.

“Their flat management structure will keep them relatively small, probably only a few hundred staff. A social responsibility act would ensure that we grade each company according to a social worthiness index by regional panels of randomly selected local citizens from a digital stakeholder community formed whenever a company is registered. These panels who grade the companies using a standard social ratings system monitor conduct, activities and effects on communities. We would publish these ratings online, available to anyone. If a rating falls below a certain threshold, we would order a public inquiry, which could cause the company’s deregistration, in which case we would shut it down or put it out to tender. This would curb exploitative practices.”

“How did it go?” Annabel asked when he returned.

“I think it went okay. Some of the audience came up to me at the end and criticised me for not talking about China, but I think they received it well.”

“Many people there?”

“Yes, it was packed, and look what they gave me,” he brandished a bag full of print books.

“What do you want those for?” asked Olivia, who had come downstairs when she heard her father arrive. “You can get all the books in the world on your stretch. They are all on the cloud.”

“And what will you do when you can no longer access the cloud?”

“Don’t be silly, we’ll always be able to access the cloud.”

“What did you get?” asked Annabel.

Jim pulled a book from the bag.

“The complete book of butchering, smoking, curing and sausage making.”

“What did you get that for?” Olivia squealed in horror. “You are vegetarian.”

“Practically vegan,” Annabel added.