Chapter 34: Production and Distribution of Goods and Services - Choreography and Logistics

Modern information technology makes possible the choreography and logistics necessary to engineer and orchestrate an optimized system that ensures that all Community members have access to all needed and desired goods and services, while ensuring that enough reserve exists to accommodate anticipated future need due to breakage, loss, wear and tear, immigration and population growth (though it is desirable to reduce population growth to near zero through voluntary reduction of the birth rate). With the elimination of artificially forced self-devouring cycle, production and distribution will adjust to actual need and then stabilize.

This chapter was written when the Transition was imagined as a single, rapid, coordinated event. Passages from that original plan are kept for transparency in marked boxes; the current approach is gradual, voluntary and democratic (how the approach has evolved).

Production and distribution facilities will be unified, consolidated, and reorganized to include, integrate, and unify development and production teams in order to combine best features, processes and materials of formerly competing producers and companies. For the most part, products can carry simple passive tags (never associated with individuals; see the privacy section later in this chapter) in order to balance production and actual need. Services such as electricity, gas, and other measurable goods and services can be tracked by appropriate physical metrics (meters, etc.), but nobody will be charged.

A central online customer communication portal will be created to facilitate quick and accurate coordination of need, production and distribution. This site will collect requests and suggestions from all members of the Community. People will be able to put in requests for goods, services, and innovations. For a few kinds of goods, fair-share guidelines (described later in this chapter) will keep domestic and foreign individuals and other entities from collecting large numbers of items for sale outside the Transitioned country. In other words, while all individuals, families and other social units will have open access to all goods and services, for those few goods there will be a generous, openly agreed amount that one person can hold. In order to take one beyond that, a person will return one, or simply ask if they have a real need for more.

Many members of the Community will already have most of their needed and desired goods and products acquired before the Transition.

Many will prefer to keep their clothes, electronics, tools, furniture, etc. that already serve their needs and are familiar.

When people need replacements, they will be able to log into the consumer portal or call a number where an operator will assist them, so that all industries will have a real-time finger on the pulse of what the need is for all items. When a person needs or wishes a replacement for items they already have, they will bring the old one in to any distribution center and exchange it for a replacement of their choice. Persons who do not have items that they need or desire, will not be required to bring in an old item. For the few goods under fair-share guidelines, the system will record only how many items an anonymous account holds, never who you are (see the privacy section later in this chapter).

Regarding production connected with trade agreements, renegotiation of any such agreements after the Transaction will involve the community of workers participating in production as well as the appropriate government bodies and individuals. No facility, workforce or individuals shall be pressured or compelled to engage in accelerated production for the sake of export to Capitalist entities. If the workers at a production facility choose to accelerate production of their own free will, they will of course be free to do so.

As discussed elsewhere in this writing, domestic production will naturally scale back to what is required to supply all individuals with needed and desired goods, which will be designed and produced at highest quality and meant to last as long as possible, to be easily user-serviceable and upgradeable. Beyond that, some small degree of surplus production will be necessary to keep up with anticipated losses due to breakage, wear-and-tear, and population growth. The trend and intention in post-Transition Communities will be to create a balanced flow of goods and services that match actual need, not artificially inflated consumption.

The resulting reduction in demands and pressures upon workers will translate into new norms of fewer hours of labor for a higher quality of life across all industries, a massive reduction in chronic stress levels, and a generally healthier populace physically, mentally, emotionally and socially. Work ethic will actually strengthen as workers will be freed from the exploitative hierarchical stresses and abuses typical in Capitalist companies and facilities. Former employees will become the co-decision-makers, co-policy-makers and co-stakeholders in their trades, with the true sense of pride in workmanship that can best be seen in a truly free, empowering, democratic environment.

Trade with countries still operating under Capitalist paradigms will introduce challenges. There will be an inherent cross-purpose between post-Transition production facilities and their Capitalist counterparts. Post-Transition facilities will be oriented towards production matching actual need, peer-driven with no hierarchical profit-oriented structure to force workers to put in long hours under dehumanizing conditions in order to keep up with artificially-inflated demand. Capitalist facilities will still be driven by those very same destructive forces. If the workers in a facility willingly agree to undertake an extra push to meet the demands of a trade agreement, then such an agreement will be possible; if not, then not.

One of our strongest bargaining points in renegotiating trade agreements will be that our products will be of the highest quality achievable under current technology and that the receiving entity will be able to charge dramatically less for these products than they could for comparable goods produced in Capitalist production facilities, since Post-Transition operations will function without the inefficiency and entropy of constant inflation characteristic of profit-driven enterprises. This scenario will have the added benefit of acting as practical proof, a kind of ambassador demonstrating the inherent superiority of the new Paradigms as compared to the old. Ironically, it will also be a kind of economic jiu-jitsu in which the inherent superiority of the new Paradigm will economically select in favor of enterprises working with production facilities of the new Paradigm.

Our aim is for people all around the world to see products from post-Transition communities matching or surpassing the quality of the highest-end products available from Capitalist economies while priced below the lowest-end products from those same Capitalist entities. Over time, we can expect that this will weaken Capitalist economies as they become increasingly unable to compete with post-Transition facilities, leading to growing pressure toward Transition in more and more places.

We can expect that some Capitalist countries may try to compensate for this by imposing taxes and tariffs on Post-Transition goods and services, deliberately jacking up prices to make them less competitive. To prevent such practices, all trade agreements will have to contain language stating that any such practices will result in immediate termination of the trade agreement. As more countries undergo their own Transitions, trade will increasingly occur between Post-Transition countries and communities, in which case trade agreements will be much more straightforward.

Public information channels will be established in all media: printed, online, and broadcast, along with mixed manned and automated call centers. These will replace Capitalist-era advertising and marketing with an easily-searchable database and guide to enable people to find what they need or want. From clothing to musical instruments to transportation to study materials and classes to doctors to electronics to food to entertainment, people will easily be able to look up what they are seeking, find out what models or options are available in that area and where to go to get them. Specifications and user manuals in plain language, along with purely factual user ratings will be available.

In post-Transition communities and countries, currency will no longer have a function. Distribution Centers will be easily established in former retail and wholesale establishments which will be adapted to the new paradigm by eliminating all currency transactions. Inventory functions will continue mostly intact but greatly simplified. Pre-Transition shopping centers and malls will mostly become the new distribution centers. Former clothing stores will become clothing distribution centers. Former car dealerships will become vehicular distribution centers. Former electronics stores will become electronics distribution centers. Barber shops will continue to function as barber shops, auto repair shops as auto repair shops, etc. In function these facilities and mechanisms will continue as before but without the need or use of currency.

With the removal of all billing, financial and other currency/credit and transactional functionality from all sectors in production, distribution, development and design infrastructures in post-Transition communities and countries, the dramatic reduction of complexity will produce the added benefits of large increases in efficiency accompanied by similarly reduced prevalence of glitches and delays at all levels and in every aspect of the society.

Banks, credit unions, credit bureaus, investment brokerages, real-estate offices, collections agencies, lending agencies, insurance companies, stock exchanges, financial planning agencies and the like will cease to function. They will have no purpose in the new Paradigms. Some highly modified functionality of some of these may be necessary solely as interfaces between New Paradigm countries and facilities and their counterparts in Capitalist communities and countries. Obviously their function and principles of operation will be radically changed from what they are now.

Wherever practical, one principle that will be applied in every area and industry will be a shift from large-scale centralized production to widely-distributed small-scale production. This is actually not an entirely new concept. For centuries some towns in Europe and elsewhere ran mills, granaries, ovens and commons that were owned and run in common by the community. Many mills, though, belonged to lords who forced peasants to grind their grain there and pay for the privilege (Wikipedia, Banalité), which is a lesson in itself. Where facilities were truly shared, they show that small-scale common ownership can work. There will of course be a relatively small number of exceptions for practical reasons. No principle, concept or ideology should be enforced or imposed where it degrades or compromises the quality of life, well-being, dignity, and freedom of the members of the community.

In each country undertaking Transition, the departments and agencies in the government which are tasked with managing natural resources and energy production, will make a detailed study of the natural energy resources of each region, with emphasis on identifying solar, geothermal, wind, tidal, small-scale hydroelectric and other renewable, non-polluting, non-destructive energy potentials. These bodies will work closely with engineers and other energy professionals to put together a plan to transition the energy grid as much as practical away from mammoth central fossil-fuel, nuclear, and hydroelectric facilities and towards a widely distributed network of diverse small-scale generation facilities at the city, neighborhood, block, and individual dwelling or building level.

In areas with abundant solar energy, solar arrays will be installed as much as practical on roofs, in parks and vacant spaces. In areas enjoying sufficient wind, windmills and wind turbines will be installed in yards, parks, open spaces, roofs, parking lots and wherever else is practical with minimum disruption of people’s lives and of the natural flora and fauna. Multiple small-scale hydroelectric generators will be installed in rivers, with emphasis on smaller facilities that do not obstruct the river but rather harness its flow in less disruptive ways (i.e. think of water wheels, not dams). In areas with abundant geothermal or tidal potential, small-scale generators will be installed. The goal will be a distributed, diverse grid of mostly small to mid-sized facilities, primarily maintained by people in their homes and neighborhoods but with a professional support team ensuring ongoing smooth functioning, maintenance and repair when it is beyond the skills of lay people.

We will undertake research on how to harness and store electrical energy derived from solar storms and lightning. Existing infrastructure should be preserved as much as practical but modified increasingly to accommodate the new emphasis on distributed small-scale diverse energy generation technologies.

Almost as important will be to undertake large-scale reclamation, recovery and restoration projects. There are massive resources to be reclaimed from landfills, dump sites, abandoned factories and foundaries and the like. There are extensive areas of former forest that have been stripped and deforested. There are ravaged, polluted and mangled landscapes left by various logging, mining, drilling, and manufacturing operations. We will focus considerable efforts on recovering useful materials from landfills and other dump sites, breaking down toxic materials into non-toxic ones, replanting forests and other destroyed ecosystems, re-introducing species to areas from which they have been driven by human activities, cleaning and clearing toxic waste from dump and storage sites, restoring devastated landscapes and abandoned buildings. We will partner with other willing countries to clean up the massive thousands of square miles of plastic and other waste that are dramatically degrading the integrity of our oceans.

Free and unrestricted access to telecommunications including broadcast media, cable, printed media, Internet, wired and wireless telephony, text and all other modes of communication and information sharing is a right shared by all members of the Community. All networks and equipment that pass from former Capitalist corporations into common stewardship, through democratically enacted law, will be integrated into unified networks combining the best features and functionality of the formerly competing entities. All members of the community will be guaranteed both coverage and the devices necessary to tap into all networks. The network will be maintained in such a way as to maintain compatibility with all of the various technologies of formerly competing entities, until over time those devices will all be traded in for newer, superior quality devices utilizing the combined best state of the art technology, designed with longevity, serviceability and upgradeability in mind.

A universally-accessible distributed database will be developed, initially interfacing with existing Corporate and Government databases to monitor actual need, demand and production of goods and services, to be used as a guideline to set target production levels. As time goes on, a unified set of interfaces and application programming interfaces will be developed.

Individuals and communities will access the database to update levels of need and production that can be monitored by all. Production levels will adjust to actual need in real time. Predictive algorithms will evolve over time to anticipate likely variations.

Safeguards will also be needed to prevent false needs data from being entered to generate a surplus for black marketeers to sell in countries still run on money.

Once everyone can get what they need at a distribution centre, most things will need no limits at all. Someone who wants fifteen pairs of well-made shoes will not keep anyone else from having shoes, and will add little to anyone’s workload. For the great majority of goods, people will simply take what they need and bring back what they no longer use.

A few kinds of goods are different. Some take a great deal of work and materials to make, such as cars and electronics. Others would be worth a lot to resell in countries that still run on money. If a few people took far more of these than they could use, others would go without, the people making them would be pushed back into long hours, and smuggling operations would have a supply to feed on. For these goods, communities will agree on fair-share guidelines: a generous ordinary amount, beyond which you bring an old one back to take a new one.

These guidelines are not fixed numbers handed down from above. They are set, published and reviewed openly by the people who use the goods and the people who make them, in the way communities that manage shared resources well have long done (Ostrom, 2009). They follow one test: does having more get in the way of others having enough, or of the wellbeing of the people who make it? And they leave room for real needs. A musician may need several instruments. Someone whose work takes them between two places may need a home in each. A large family needs more of nearly everything. Needs like these are met by asking, not by proving yourself to an official, and there is always a way to be heard if an answer seems unfair.

Some things are not personal needs at all. No one needs a private jet, a yacht, or a home in three countries. Aircraft and boats can be held in common, available to anyone with a real use for them, and ready for rescue and disaster relief. Homes are for living in. A second home that stands empty most of the year is housing someone else could be living in, and if millions of people each claimed a summer home and a winter home just because, there would not be enough for everyone.

Anyone who has used a public library already knows how this works. You can borrow as much as you reasonably need. Beyond a generous limit, you bring something back first, or you ask. And good libraries protect your privacy, keeping records of what you borrowed only as long as they are actually needed (American Library Association).

Privacy is built in from the start. Products carry simple passive tags, like the inventory tags already used in shops and warehouses. They are read only at distribution centres and border crossings, and are never used to follow anyone around. The system records only that an anonymous account holds a certain number of items of a given kind: not who you are, where you live, or where the item goes. Established cryptographic methods let a system confirm that each account belongs to one real person without revealing which person (Chaum, 1985). The software is open for anyone to inspect and independently audited, and linking it to anyone’s identity is forbidden, with serious consequences for anyone who tries. If a system like this were ever used to watch people, it would betray the very reason it exists.

Scientific research will be encouraged in both pure and applied, theoretical and practical modalities. Technological innovations leading to new or improved products and services will of course be encouraged and welcomed. Unlike under Capitalist paradigms, the pure scientific quest for knowledge will be equally supported and encouraged, whether it leads directly to new goods and services or not.

The results of all research will be made easily available to any who are interested, in both scientific language and simplified language intended for non-scientists. This will likely often send ripples of inspiration and innovation through the populace, as the dawn of aviation and later of space exploration did when they occurred. In post-Transition Communities, advances in one aspect of human endeavor will enhance the thriving of all aspects of the Community and its members, just as any improvement to the health of one aspect of a person's body enhances the health of the body as a whole.

We may wish to introduce into the media some new kinds of reporting. For example, individuals and teams who achieve scientific, technological or artistic breakthroughs or groundbreaking innovations and/or discoveries can be touted and praised in the media for their achievements and contributions. This kind of public acknowledgement, honoring such innovators with a period of celebrity of sorts, may be a good practice to initiate. Such a practice, if done in a balanced way, will help create reinforcers for innovation and creativity that may, for some who miss the prospect of financial rewards, provide a positively functional alternative to monetary reinforcers. And of course, since there will be no corporations to usurp rights and credit from the persons actually deserving them.

All persons will have direct access to higher education, solely based upon their ability to master the material, their academic abilities and discipline. Primary through secondary education will be augmented to the highest reasonably achievable level in all neighborhoods, since budget and financial considerations will no longer play a part in the allocation of resources. In the absence of pressure to prepare economic survival strategies, students will be able, and encouraged, to pursue their interests and passions.

Many legal definitions will need to be re-examined and redefined or modified. For example, the concept of Intellectual Property will need to be redefined so that only the person or persons who developed, created, invented or conceived a work can claim ownership or authorship. No person or entity will under any circumstances be allowed to pressure or coerce an inventor or author to sign over rights of their creations to another. Through democratically enacted law, with due process for every party, all such usurpations that were enacted under the former Capitalist paradigms will be declared null and void. Ownership will revert to the actual creator. If more than one party independently did so at the same time, then both will share credit.

There will be no financial implications, though international copyright and patent law will be respected except where it goes against the principles of the new Paradigm.

The nature of civil lawsuits will change, since money/currency will no longer exist. In such proceedings, new forms of compensation will need to be conceived, such as performing services or undoing damage instead of financial compensation.

Legal processes will be developed for acquiring rights or ownership of land and/or structures, with limits established to the size of claims to prevent individuals, families or other social units from claiming and monopolizing disproportionate tracts of land. These limits will be established with the intent of ensuring that each individual, family or other social unit has sufficient space to pursue their life unobstructed.

To protect all parties involved, protocols and laws will need to be developed to optimally guide and resolve potential conflicts over occupation of formerly unoccupied buildings and building on formerly unoccupied lands. Such laws will also need to protect national parks and other natural treasures that are best left unsettled and undeveloped. Building materials, courses in construction technique, and the services of professional construction crews will be available to all. A guiding principle will be the guarantee that each member of the community and each family or other social unit shall have the right to a safe and reasonable place to live. In some countries, a Constitutional amendment may be advisable.

While large-scale farming may have to continue to a degree, increasing emphasis will be placed on community gardening and the revival of the "victory garden" or "truck garden" at the community, neighborhood, and individual dwelling level. Classes, seminars and trainings will be offered in Community Centers, schools, and other easily accessible venues. Seed stock, gardening and farming supplies and equipment will be made easily available. Zoning laws currently in place restricting food-growing and animal husbandry in residential areas to maintain real estate property values, will need to be stricken from the books. Some zoning laws such as those designed to separate noisy or otherwise intrusive industrial processes from residential areas should most likely be kept in place.

These changes will need to start as soon as the new Paradigms are being established; however the re-tooling, re-purposing, and reorganization of production processes will best be done steadily but not precipitously. Workforces trained and accustomed to the old Paradigms will need time to learn, master and familiarize themselves with the new ways of doing things. Such sweeping, all-encompassing changes need to be well planned-out and executed, not hastily rushed under pressure from above. The goal will be for the continuing Transition to proceed, grow, expand and transform the lives of the Community and its members while keeping the lights on, food on the tables, hospitals and schools open, communications operational, defense forces in readiness, and so forth.

If there are disruptions due to sabotage on the part of former Corporate Feudal Lords in attempts to re-establish their rule, it will be our job to counteract those efforts firmly, by lawful and nonviolent means, to maintain/restore normal goods and services as quickly as possible, to document events as they occur, and to stream and broadcast the events as widely in the world as possible. There will be no going back to their rule.

When the Transition has fully transformed the way goods and services are developed, produced and distributed, we can expect that the overall quality of life of the Community and its members will have improved dramatically: fewer work hours; reduced work stress and alienation; vastly increased job satisfaction and workplace relations; higher quality goods and services for all; greater efficiency in every area; reduced vulnerability to natural disaster, terrorism or acts of war; better health; improved education; greater freedom, actualization and empowerment of individuals; more harmonious interaction and discourse among individuals and sectors of the population; reduced waste and improved resource management; reduced pollution; elimination of homelessness and poverty; a cultural, artistic and scientific Renaissance and a high level of harmony, synergy, prosperity and vitality in every sector and segment of the population.