From other experiments in living, Anthropology, and current hiring practices, Hunter Gathers, self supporting farmers, and current jobs show people do best working twenty eight hours a week. Four hours a day covers all.
Full time American workers often put in twelve hours a day, with getting to work and home again. Tired people are accident prone, and not their most creative, or good company. American workers are perma-tired, and do not recover on weekends.
People who work two hours twice a day are high energy, with active brains.
Hard work is not for everyone, and even then, starting with short times of labor, followed by rest, builds endurance. Indoor city people placed outdoors, suffer more from exposure than work. They can adapt, but slowly.
I think of a village, and I have met no one here that can drill a well, set up a solar off grid power house, or run the trench and pipelines to bring water, sewer, gas, electric to all of the house sites.
Building is also not for everyone. When it comes to Civil Engineering, stick to the blueprints. My version is a compact village, because running pipe gets expensive.
For design I like the European Village, shops around a center square, where everything else would be a short walk away. The first thing built is an Inn, for food service, shelter, is needed for workers.
Food service produces indoor work, lighter than construction, It also houses emergency medical services. It may start as a tent city.
At the same time food production starts with soil improvment, manure spread, growing some cover crops to turn in, and producing some food while developing a workable soil. Machines do the labor, but people are needed to run them, plan, and do the greenhouse work. Harvest is high labor, storing and processing, which calls for the larger group to join in.
Farming is a cycle, prepare soil, plant Rye, wait sixty days to plow it under. They can become available labor on construction, food prep, and most people would do better if they did not do the same job all the time.
Getting land, building, is an expense, but the human labor involved is worth more. A suburban house is 1/8 of an acre, and good land can be had for $2,000, so $250 for the land, water and sewer pipe cost more, a building, walls, raised beds paved, is mostly labor.
Using local materials and labor, such as rammed earth blocks, low cost, or the local stone, a layered limestone, that can be set as flagstone, or shaped to blocks, is labor. Built by the community, it is tax free labor.
When Factor E Farm wanted to build a 5,000 Sq Ft shop, they made the rammed earth blocks, a loader dumping into a hopper, and blocks stacked on pallets, and had a bunch of people over for the weekend, unskilled, but it was big Lego, and they got it built. The main human labor, stacking the blocks on pallets. They are in cold country, so they built double wall, with straw bales between.
The same would do for an Inn and food service.
After the cost of land, utilities, machines, being able to support a labor supply, the cost of the next living unit is a little diesel.
Rammed earth can be used right from the machine, or stored for later, and placed on location ready to build. It can be owner built, invite your friends over, or hired. The people there can use some paying work.
I see it as Corporate, raising the funds for land, machines, supplies. Then there is a labor tax, which those that work over pay, and non working stock holders get value from, so debt. The local money is labor hours.
Someone who makes the best pie you ever had, can get their house built by others. The local economy is hours worked and hours owed. After some factoring for a community tax, hours owed to all, extra hours add up.
It can be paid in Stock, which dilutes the original investment, as the asset is now worth more than the cost of producing it.
Here I combine Capital and Labor in one system. Capital can maintain it's share by providing or paying for labor. Labor can turn hours worked into the whole or some part working on their project, home, shop.
So people with more Capital can have their house built, providing income, and as everyone starts with a plot of dirt, with utilities run to the door, but the door costs extra.
How all that works, will be a subject for debate, where people will decide to tax themselves, because they want stuff. My view provides for food, water, shelter, utilities, and everything else, clothing, is extra.
My original plan was for retired people. Faced with little money, and a long future, a secure life at a decent standard of living looks good.
Aspies are a wildcard. It does have potential to produce an economy that retired does not. It also has other less desirable possible outcomes.
One would be children, and if the community is obligated to feed them. Should the parents be charged extra? Should the child grow up in debt servitude? Capitalism does not confer Citizenship by birth.
Capitalism also favors Capitalism, and not being taxed. If anything, the community should be involved supporting new ventures. Throw up a building and if it works, get a share, if it does not, move in something else.
Other peoples children is a losing deal, other people business, I am in for a share.
Beyond an obligation to the cost of startup, the labor to improve and make useful, there is much to discuss.
02 Dec 2012, 2:34 am
