The view taken by Wall Street of the citizen as a “mark” rather than as a fellow member of a community (in which the role of investment is SUPPOSED to add value for the community as a whole rather than to scam and transfer value that already exists from one place to another…

has come to infect and dominate political leaders and parties as much as it has the financial services sector.

Its true that to some extent that deception and hidden agendas have always been a part of political decision. Even a hunter-gatherer may suggest to his fellows that there’s better hunting “thataway” when his real agenda may to acquire the tasty berries he knows are now in season in the hunting area he suggests.

But the difference between then and now is the capability for feedback. In the hunter-gatherer society that level of deception is limited by the proximity of forceful feedback from his fellows and the very conscious awareness that his own survival is dependent not only on the health of the group as a whole… but on their acceptance of him in their group. (Get too clever with your politics Mr. Ooog and you’re gonna be out on your ear trying to survive by yourself… or worse!)

These feedback mechanisms are difficult to scale. In fact I consider this simple fact… along with the biological altruism problem as forming the needed roots for the Authoritarianism that arose with the birth of agriculture and larger social structures. (note re altruism: for survival reasons its unfortunately actually a fundamental human characteristic that we will be more emotionally impacted by the death of our family dog than news of the death of a million on the other side of the world… while it is genetically based the root is in cognitive limits and how those connect to what’s sometimes called natural human community size… Dunbar’s Number… rather than any necessary genetic connection between members of the ‘in-group’).

It’s imperative in this context to understand that the essence of biological altruism is the demarcation between in-group and out-group… its NOT about being nice. In fact biological altruism can stimulate great brutality… just try walking into a bear’s den and playing with her cub!

I’d suggest that concrete technologies are needed to address this.

Now this get to the nature and role of money.

While we typically think of money as a store of value… and that has some utility.

It may even be more important to recognize it as a store of ‘decision rights’… it serves to transfer a decision (an idea accompanied by an intended action) from one to another. Money is a ‘decision technology’!

Its interesting to note that it shares this characteristic with a couple of other technologies: torture devices and advertising.

This doesn’t suggest that we can abolish ‘money’… but it does suggest that the area needs some work.

I’m all in favor of the alternative currency movement and support the idea of competing currencies. But that’s not going to solve it all. And there will still be some need for more general or universal currencies.

Perhaps its a leap for this brief comment but I’m convinced a core element of remedial technology includes a needed understanding that the P2P monetary transaction… and for scaling reasons… ESPECIALLY THE MICROTRANSACTION… (moreover especially in speech related areas) must be unburdened and the habit culturally incorporated.

When the citizen… whether he/she be a hunter-gatherer or a party caterer comes to understand that they too have not only a ‘decision right’ but a decision capability…

Only then will it be possible to cultivate and empower the individual citizen in a way the produces crowd wisdom rather than the easily manipulated mob.

P.S. If anyone has any connection with Clay Shirky… whom I greatly admire… I’d like to suggest that the microtransaction (or very small payment as he prefers to call them)… ESCAPES the very valid objections he makes regarding their viability in other contexts. I believe its role will be found in the ways I suggest and that that leads to other valuable social benefits. I’d like a chance to hear his thoughts or respond to his critique and would naturally hope that he would have some interest in mine.