

Ask HN: How about an economy based on Time? - sathishmanohar

I'm in no way a economist, not by uber long shot, but, I read about economic theories out of boredom.<p>I'll just pitch my insane idea for a new economic system. Lets have an open discussion.<p>The current economic system is run by (mostly) meaningless numbers, that can be easily manipulated by people who understand numbers well. 
Eg: you do work thats worth x dollars and get paid, and govt prints some bills, now your x dollars are worth x/(somefactor)<p>Anyway, I'll come to the point, what if we managed to create an economic system that is based on a bullet proof system ever, "TIME".<p>Time is the single unforgiving platform, that is common to all. Nobody has one second less or more in a day.<p>By this system People gets rewarded, how efficiently they use their time. If person A creates x tool within 10 hours that was useful to 1000 people and person B creates y tool within 8 hours that was useful to 1500 people, then person B is richer that Person A.<p>As weird as it may sound, based on my observations, all the rich/wealthy people care more about time, may be that is what made them rich in the first place.<p>Why not bake it into the system, so, that everybody is encouraged to do more with less time and resources. (isn't that the definition of entrepreneur)<p>By rewards, I mean some system to keep track of the progress each person made, not necessarily money.<p>What do you think?
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SurfScore
Money is already based on time. When you go to the store and buy some fruit,
you pay for it, but you could also take the TIME to plant some of your own and
grow it. When you buy furniture you are paying for something you could take
the time to build, and each part you would need is also based on time (you
could chop your own wood, etc.)

This applies to services too, obviously. You could learn to be an accountant,
but you can also pay someone to do it for you, you're paying for their time.
When you boil it down, just about everything you buy is based on time.

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sathishmanohar
Great comment. So essentially if we bring the system I posted, the unit of
measurement of the system will become the new money.

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Hitchhiker
You may want to read this book first and then contemplate a bit further:

[http://www.amazon.com/Geography-Time-Tempo-Culture-
Pace/dp/0...](http://www.amazon.com/Geography-Time-Tempo-Culture-
Pace/dp/0465026427)

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ahsanhilal
I think your idea is already a movie:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efNzhEKm3w4>

I don't know which came first, your idea or the movie ;)

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sathishmanohar
This movie looks like, its about rich people buying time, The plot seems to be
in an imaginary world where people can live longer/younger somehow.

But, My theory is different it depends on everybody having the same time.

I agree my idea and the movie has some intersection, Certainly they must gave
gotten the idea before me, since, it takes a lot of time for pre-production
and stuff. I just got this idea earlier this year.

