We cannot deny that capitalism as an economic system is untenable and ultimately evil! Unfortunately, as it seems to be the only way to keep individuals from mass starvation we have had to put up with it for these last couple of centuries. But here I propose an alternative system which will bring into existence the true utopia of mutual human support and prosperity. And it is so simple a child could understand it. It is a system that replaces rewarding greed and selfishness with one rewarding selflessness and altruistic acts. Lets begin with an example.

Supposing, say, Alice commits personal resources and both physical and mental effort in doing a good deed for Bob. Possibly Alice makes Bob a new shirt, or she mows Bob’s lawn, or runs the metal press in Bob’s factory for a week. Alice having done something for someone other than herself deserves some level of gratitude. But how much? How do we quantify gratitude? Specifically: “How can we best measure the level of sacrifice Alice has made and the level of gratitude and Bob should express to Alice?” To answer this I propose the following.

Firstly, it is clear that the degree of virtue in the act should depend only on the extent to which Alice sacrifices and the extent to which Bob benefits. Alice would consider the expenditure of that which she values namely her time and resources. Bob would consider the benefit he has received in terms of his values and needs to quantify how much Alice’s actions as being of benefit to him.

But Bob and Alice lack the mind melding skills of Star Trek's Vulcan race so let us allow Bob and Alice to negotiate a numerical value, a certain number of “Units of Gratitude” which they both agree represents the amount of virtue in Alice’s beneficent action. Now to keep Bob from underrating Alice’s action, and in general to establish a system where the ungrateful do not prosper more than those appreciative folks, we allow that if Bob’s self-estimated level of gratitude is less than the degree of gratitude Alice feels she deserves then Alice would withhold the beneficial action.

They must therefore negotiate the level of gratitude prior to the act itself. Once Bob and Alice negotiate the level of gratitude, Bob gives Alice a certain number of tokens we shall call Negotiated Units of Gratitude Given In Trade orNUGGIT’s for short.

This sort of negotiation also has the advantage that Alice may simultaneously negotiate with several parties, say Carl as well as Bob so that her largess shall go to he who is most needful, grateful, (and also is most deserving as is explained later.) Benefits of individual altruism are in this way distributed firstly to those with the most need and appreciation, all other things being equal.

The key phrase in that last paragraph is of course, “all other things being equal” so let us consider then what specifically and most importantly may not be equal. We want to reward both according to need, but also according to deservedness. What is to keep Bob from offering false gratitude? And also how does the system we propose allow altruistic acts like Alice’s be rewarded in kind?

Well that is quite simple. The NUGGITs that Bob offers to Alice, he must first have earned by performing some altruistic act for which someone else has negotiated with him so that he too received units of gratitude. Bob thereby proves he deserves Alice’s beneficence by himself being altruistic to a sufficient degree as well as being grateful to the appropriate degree to appropriately deserver her efforts.

Now the only flaw in this system is that someone may urgently need the benefit of an other’s good turn but not yet had the opportunity to themselves earn another’s entokened gratitude. We can resolve this, and greater facilitate mutual benefits over all, by allowing one individual to loan another their NUGGITs! Clearly he or she who has accumulated many NUGGITs from their surplus of altruistic over selfish interactions are in the best position to judge who, but only for the lack of opportunity, may potentially earn for themselves thes these tokens of gratitude.

This of insightful evaluation and loan is, of course,also an altruistic act so we would expect that the recipient express his own gratitude by returning of more actual NUGGITs than originally loaned. As to how many, that amount would itself be negotiated and one may assume the result would be proportional to the number of NUGGITs lended as well as to the interval of time over which the loan is made and possibly to the risk of error on the part of the beneficent lender in evaluating the virtue of the borrower.

So, how do we get things started? Who shall create the actual, physical, NUGGITS? How shall we allow for the ballooning growth in goodness that our equitable and moral system will naturally encourage?

As the sheer volume of gratitude grows exponentially we will need a similarly exponentially growing supply of NUGGITs. Getting things started should be relatively simple provided we have the means of growth while maintaining proper balance.

To allow an entity to simply generate them and distribute them without having earned them would unbalance the system. So we establish a central authority that has a monopoly on the production of NUGGITs. But such an authority could be corrupted by their ability to arbitrarily distribute these NUGGITs given the fact that the individuals running this system are individuals each with their own interests and potentially flawed character.

I would suggest that they must firstly form these NUGGITs out of some scarce but relatively permanent element, say gold or something similar. In this way their production is not arbitrary and can't be exploited on a whim by those directing the details of the system's function. Obviously those individuals who mine and supply the gold should expect a great deal of gratitude for their own public minded sacrifice and given their role in the new altruistic economic system is so vital, they should receive a number of minted and certified NUGGITs near to (though of course not at or exceeding) the requisite NUGGIT value of the gold they have produced for this purpose.

Another criticism one might have for my system is that by earning NUGGITs for one’s effort the altruism is removed. One cannot distinguish the greedy from the selfless. I would argue that this is a good thing. This system makes the greedy behave as if they were altruistic, thereby doing for others with the same enthusiasm they grubbed for themselves in the old system. Likewise it rewards the selfless altruists as if they were the greedy capitalists we have now in our current system because, through the free negotiation of the exchange of NUGGITs they will be rewarded by and in proportion to the help they've provided to others.

So, should we return to... er hmm ah, sorry I meant to say... Should we adopt the totally new and never yet tried Gold NUGGIT standard? If only we would, the greedy money grubbing assholes would wither and die and only the public serving altruistic philanthropists would prosper!!!