The Utopian World Championship

Mark Roeder: The time has come for a new currency that measures value beyond its economic worth.

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Summary

The time has come for a new currency that measures value beyond its economic worth.

This new currency is needed today because 'Money'is increasingly being used to calculate the value of things it was never designed to do.

Money is a one-dimensional tool for measuring economic value. Yet, increasingly, we see the intangible, spiritual, emotional, communal and psychic dimensions of our lives being assigned a monetary value.

This elevation of money into a 'universal measure of value' is seriously distorting our individual perspectives and undermining our evolution as a society, as reflected in the backlash against global economic rationalism. From an historical perspective, money is now operating way out of its depth as a measure of value.

THE SOLUTION

What is proposed is the creation of a new currency that operates in parallel to money and provides a more holistic means of measuring value in our lives.

This currency is called the 'Holis' - derived from the word 'Holistic'.

The Holis is not a medium of exchange, but measures value by focusing on the 'experience' we gain from things. It is based on a spectrum where the highest value equals the most positive experience we can have, such as a first born child, and the lowest value equals the worst experience.

The symbol for the Holis is an underlined capital 'H'(ie one thousand Holis is H1000).

To calculate the Holis value there are six dimensions to consider: emotional, spiritual, physical, intellectual, material, and ideological.

For example, suppose you are offered a job in a different city, for $80,000 per year. Although the salary value may be tempting, the Holis value may only be worth H40,000 when you consider the hassle of moving, loss of friendships (emotional) and work colleagues (spiritual), colder climate (physical), pollution and so on.

The Holis offers individuals, an alternate way of measuring value in this 'money-centric' age.

The Holis also works collectively by providing the community with a holistic way to measure, say, the value of a rainforest or ecosystem, beyond simply the commercial value of its timber.

Initially, Holis values will tend to be subjective, but over time they will evolve like other currency systems (ie barter, shells) to become more consistent as agreed standards are developed. The Holis also has profound implications for many aspects of society, as detailed in the longer version of this submission.

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Money is a one-dimensional tool for measuring economic value.
Yet, increasingly, we see the intangible, spiritual, emotional, physical and psychic dimensions of our lives being assigned a monetary value. Our community values are subordinated to commercial interests; education becomes an input to industrial output; political ideologies are subsumed within the ministry of finance; religion is privatised and the environment has become an extension of our commercial infrastructure. So, for example, a pristine rainforest is valued only in terms of its timber value, oceans become aquatic enterprises, and animal and plant life is viewed as ingredients for pharmaceutical companies.

Even a human life has now been assigned a monetary value by transport and healthcare economists in a number of OECD countries. The US Department of Transport puts the value of a human life as $US3 million based on a purchase-based valuing system. Therefore a $30 million investment in roads must save 10 lives to achieve an adequate return on investment.
Indeed, the welfare of entire nations is now measured by a monetary value, calculated as gross domestic product, despite the fact that this index seriously distorts the actual state of affairs. The U.S. non-profit think-tank, Redefining Progress, has shown that the GDP increases for developed countries in the 1990s were offset by an explosion in personal debt, increased working hours and rapid consumption of natural resources. The net borrowing of all US households in 1998-99 rose from $US328 billion to $520 billion a year, an increase of 60%. US households now have 99c debt for every dollar they spend. Compared to 30 years ago people work more hours just to maintain their standard of living, each hour of work is worth 8% less in constant dollar terms, and they enjoy 20% less leisure hours. Meanwhile our environment has suffered a dramatic loss of farmlands and wetlands, and increased pollution.
Yet, according to the GDP index, things have never been better. Something is seriously amiss about the way we measure value at both the individual or collective level. It is clear that Money is now operating way out of its depth as a measuring tool.

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