The warning of the Bin Chicken

By Incent | Incent Loyalty | 29 Jun 2019

Somehow, we forgot what our economy is actually for. Incent has a plan to fix it. The Ibis, sadly, is probably on its own.

Evolution is a remarkable force. Take the White Ibis: a wading bird native to Australia and found over much of the continent. The ibis has a white-feathered body, a black, bare head and – most notably – a superb, long, downward-curving beak. In its wetland habitats it uses this perfectly-suited tool to catch crayfish and pull mussels from their anchors to rocks under the water.

In downtown Sydney, in the parks neighbouring Incent’s offices in Darlinghurst, they use them to pluck rubbish from the bins.

It’s as if the Bin Chicken, as they are locally known, gave up the habitat where it truly belongs and wandered inland to seek its fortune in the big smoke. A few generations later, it has lost its way and its identity. ‘Nature has given me this incredible beak,’ it says to itself. ‘The product of hundreds of thousands of years of evolution, beautifully crafted for its task. But I can’t remember what that is, so I’m going to stick it in this bin and have a bit of a rummage around in there, instead.’

The free market

It’s a bit like capitalism. The free market is an incredible idea – the equivalent of economic evolution. It enables the organic development of services, with supply and demand meeting and maintaining equilibrium. It has its ups and downs, but it’s alive, it’s adaptable, and most importantly it works. It’s not perfect, but it’s far better than any alternative. Even in its darker moments, it’s still what Winston Churchill said of democracy: the worst system, except for all the others.

There is a story, very likely apocryphal but worth repeating, that a delegation of officials travelled from Soviet Russia to meet the Greater London Council in the 1980s. Following a day of touring the city’s highlights and seeing the services and facilities the capital had to offer, one of the delegates asked to see the man responsible for organising London’s excellent food supplies. There was, of course, no one in charge of maintaining delivery networks and infrastructure: London was well-provided with food because the free market was left unhindered, to operate as intended.

The tail wagging the dog

Somewhere along the way, though, we forgot what capitalism was for – what the economy is even for. The purpose of the economy is to serve us: to enable people to get on with their lives and for society to work as a whole. We have this incredible tool, but have forgotten why we have it. Somehow, economic growth became a fundamental good in its own right. It didn’t matter what was going on behind the scenes so long as those headline GDP figures kept going up. Today, economic growth is fuelled by unsustainable debt and consumption that will have serious unintended but deferred consequences.

The mission of Incent

Incent was founded with the vision of changing that. With prudent risk management, crypto is a fantastic tool for growing wealth. By funnelling consumer dollars into Incent through everyday spending, we plan to help regular consumers save – accessing a wealth-building opportunity that simply isn’t available to millennials and younger generations in any other asset class.

Quite simply, it’s a completely different proposition to the lack of hope and opportunity the current economic model offers, and it’s only possible thanks to blockchain.

Once we’ve fixed the broken economy, we’ll see what we can do about the Bin Chickens.

Incent’s waiting list is currently live, with full launch planned for July. Consumers will be rewarded in Incent tokens on every spend they make. To find out more, visit www.incent.com.