the problem with barter systems is they are inefficient, and the one thing Knowledge Age workers detest, it is inefficiency. The entire reason the Knowledge Age trumps the Industrial Age is because efficiency wins in nature. When ideas can be produced closer to their source of inspiration (e.g. 3D printing), then granularly matched production to the granular (not one-size-fits-all mass production) market demand accelerates faster. You want a custom designed pre-fab house[1] or car[2] completed tomorrow? Okay 3D printing and we don't need to build a factory first.
...
Also reputation in trading value can become very problematic. This the "coin taint" issue in non-anonymous Bitcoin (which is why gmaxell invent CoinJoin the precursor of Darkcoin, which btw I as AnonyMint was the first to point out could not scale
low income communities have little or no money and their majority don't even have bank accounts, in this sense, there is no way to tax their tradings. In the most perverted scenario the violence monopolist would have to confiscate huge amounts of goods without having any use for them and face political suicide. If it is not clear enough to you give it time to sink: The blood of the violence monopolist is alienated awareness, in a system without alienation of qualitative differentiation of human awareness there is no space to such a group. THE MAIN DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ECONOMICAL AND POLITICAL CHOICE IS COMMODITIZATION OF HUMAN AWARENESS.
...
Look this system by the prism of reputation as a non-rival currency in a way that every peer and group value is linked and measured by the qualitative differentiation get from it reviewing and being reviewed weighed by its trades.
iamback you make a case for why the system presented by l3552 will have difficulties scaling. However, we need to ask ourselves does it need to scale to accomplish its intended goals. My thinking is that it may not. The intended target of such a labor credit system is not the Knowledge age workers such as yourself but those who have been left behind. Knowledge workers as you rightly point out will minimize their use of such a local system as it is more efficient for them to participate in larger and lucrative worldwide networks.
However a labor credit system (essentially a technologically enhanced barter) is potentially beneficial for the poor, the lower middle class, and those who have been induced to malinvest in their training due to our current labor market distortions. Many of these individuals simply do not have the skills needed to participate in a budding knowledge age as they have become entraped by false market signals produced by debt.
Often low income individuals currently receive fixed government subsidies. To supplement these they often they work under the table for cash because formal employment means losing benefits. As we transition to centralized electronic fiat and cash is phased out these individuals will increasingly be forced out of the labor market entirely becoming ever more enmeshed in a web of government dependence. The poor will increasingly be unable to work formally or informally.
The resulting free time creates an economic nitch for the discussed barter system. Furthermore, such a system is educational and would help people become aware of their situation and the root cause of their suffering. Individuals who have malinvested their lives due to debt bubbles are likely to never recover economically, however, they may be able to insure their children do not suffer the same fate.
A rapid and smooth transition to a knowledge age requires us to try and find solutions for these people. If you simply say that they are "obsolete" and must go the way of the bacteria in the Petri dish you are essentially throwing the game because such a scenario guarantees a dark age, massive violence, and social unrest that will set us all back a very long time. The decades long hatred of the English and violence in Ireland following the potato famine is a good example of where this line of hard logic takes us.
Social capital is hard to quantify but there is little doubt that it important and that it is declining. In pretty much every modern country all the forms of in-person social intercourse are in decline. These are real declines in interactions that educate, and enrich our lives and are not adequately substituted by online exchange or knowledge age activities. I suspect even knowledge age workers, would be willing to participate a little in a vibrant labor credit/barter economy despite its relative inefficiency if it helped to enmesh them in a vibrant and fulfilling local web of personal interactions.
Overall as I said upthread I view the proposal of l3552 as synergistic rather then competitive with your efforts.
PS. It is clear from your most recent messages that time is a commodity you do not have in abundance right now. I will take no offence if you lack the time to reply to my points above.