A token to reflect an abundant commodity.

Proposed ticker: LBHT

The concept.

One of the most abundant commodities is labor, workers of all kinds offer it in exchange of monetary units or other acceptable forms of payment. Throughout History labor is exchanged with goods, services or money.

If the commodity is treated strictly as adhering to Supply and Demand by using a monetary unit to facilitate transactions, it becomes vulnerable to all sorts of shortcomings due to the monetary unit’s properties itself, resulting mainly to depreciation.

This affect the ability of many people to sustain themselves and their way of life. There may or may not have been a previous attempt to use labor itself as the medium of exchange, but this is what I would actually like to explore.

The possibility to form a dynamic “monetary base”, to reflect the Offer of labor on annual basis. Then facilitate its exchange by tokenizing the labor hours available, according to the achievements of the previous generations.

The technology of cryptographic tokens provides the necessary tools to make this project feasible as soon as the necessary initiation parameters are identified. Some thoughts on what those could be follow below.

The labor hour tokens are meant as an exchange of medium to be used in communities of any size or scope. In places where economic systems are not much developed, or if they are, there is the usual “liquidity” problem mainly rising from debt default and wealth accumulation plus inflation concerns.

It is destined to serve people around the globe and perhaps one day even beyond that, to maintain an economy of various scopes, geographical or other.

Making sure that their services and products can flow through it by using the token exclusively or in combination with any other monetary unit or medium of exchange, when and where it is deemed useful and necessary.

Properties.

Dynamic.

It should be dynamic since it is supposed to reflect the commodity on offer, which varies according to the number of people providing labor at any one given time. People may go into or out of the proposed exchange of value system, affecting the monetary supply at any given moment.

Expiring.

Every person is able to offer a certain amount of labor in a year. Therefore, one of the possible aspects of the token reflecting the commodity is its expiration on a fixed time after its generation, here proposed to be one year.

Finite.

Each person wishing to monetize his available labor hours issuing the respective amount will not be able to pass a certain threshold. I propose this to be 365 times 8 equals 2,920.00 units, using a precision of two decimals to provide compatibility with existing monetary units.
This proposed precision is also more familiar to those used to transact in the fiat monetary system.

Uniform.

Although there is no differentiation among the tokens issued, consumers and suppliers are free to negotiate the terms under which they become exchangeable.

Universal.

The tokens are accepted around the globe allowing for mobility of any kind, geographic, social, or any other.

The safeguards.

In this setting, we make the system open, alike the Community Exchange attempt. Though, by making it expiring, we make sure that the consumer of labor hours has an incentive not to acquire more than he needs.

Since there is always a chance he will not be able to take advantage of the utility they represent in the given time context. Furthermore, there should be perhaps a hard coded rule that does not allow for the whole amount to be issued in less than a predefined time period. For example nobody should be able to issue more than 240 LBHTs in a period of thirty days.

If there should be a function allowing to manipulate those values to a desired outcome, this would mean it is necessary for a participatory process to exist and provide the necessary legitimacy to such a decision and its implementation.

Although there are already developed other ways to facilitate capital intensive activities such as monthly installments to pay for a long term project.
Recording and expiring tokens allows for people to help each other in cases of labor deficits without having to deal with the barter system's disadvantages. Since the LBHT received in exchange may be used to acquire services of products by another source, not the one who issued the tokens in the first place.

Potential use cases.

1. Imagine an austere economy. Cash is rare, unemployment rate is high, but people still have needs to fulfill. Skills are also abundant, but remain idle and stagnant because one cannot afford to pay the other.
By issuing the labor hour tokens that reflect the consumption of a service, for example private courses on a selected subject, the consumer is able to attend by paying with LBHTs. In that case, the supplier of the service has an amount of tokens he may spend on satisfying his own needs in return, since they represent a promise in principle that they will be accepted in good faith by the community in question.
Similarly a product may be exchanged in full for LBHTs or a combination of and a monetary unit, making the product times cheaper and as a result affordable.

2. Emigrants in detention or open facilities are economically able. The lack of trusted means to transact in the absence of regulating authority, make those “communities” subject to all the maligns coming along, such as crime of all sorts, injustice, etc.
Since whole or part of the basic necessities are catered by the sovereign authorities in charge, they stil need to be able to exchange mainly services.
Those sovereign authorities though, do not really care to enforce any rules to the every day life of the emigrants residing in the facilities, especially since they come from completely different civil and cultural backgrounds.
The fact those tokens are accepted universally provides incentives for the emigrants to setup a local economy whose financial outcomes may assist their transit stages until their involuntary adventure ends.
If Bitnation Passports gain legitimacy and widespread usage, the combination of the two may create the necessary conditions so that those people are treated in a humane way. Perhaps they themselves also manage at some point to overthrow the indoctrinated traits imposed upon them, responsible for their bad fortune.

3. Populations in failed States like Venezuela or Zimbabwe may opt in to satisfy basic needs but also get out of the stress and the depression idleness may cause to a person.
Inflationary and pegged currency are bureaucratic approaches based on Westphalian mindset and confines, that prevent individuals from being active in their society.

I could have gone to such extent and forecast all potential use cases. Then address them using tools that exist in the context of the debt economy, starting from the Central Banks and going down the chain.
I prefer not to and see if we may come up with other solutions, either by elaborating on the matter or as soon as there is an actual economy in place to innovate for those tools.
It is clear that currently LBHT has a short term transactional scope favoring respective consumption of services and goods. As soon as this is established, then it will be possible to further propose modifications or augmentations that will enhance the token’s abilities along those of the community and economy in question. Smart contracts or other advancements may be used for that purpose.