The astute amongst you may have spotted something. If the Grace generated from a sale is distributed across everyone in the supply line of that product/service. Then why would anyone try to own a business instead of just working in one?

Well the Grace won’t be distributed evenly. It will be distributed in accordance with your input. As a business owner, they will have had a larger input than anyone else as they originated the business, possibly even the product or service itself, therefor they will get an extra share of the Grace in recognition.

This means that Grace can be used as a tool to gain power, as suddenly Grace = money, right?

Nope. Not unless they earned it. Grace doesn’t come directly from the Sale of goods, it comes from the positive impact on the world. So if a business owner creates a business which generates a lot of Grace then it means it’s a business which has a huge benefit to society.

Grace doesn’t have a monetary value and would not be awarded for each individual transaction but for the sake of the following example let’s pretend that it does. In reality there would be something like an impact assessment once per month and Grace would be awarded and distributed as part of that process.

Meet Mike

Mike decided that he wanted to open a company which builds and sells computers. Good on you Mike, we like technology and we want it to continue so his business application is approved without question his business is allocated slots for 5 members of staff (including himself).

• Jill – She is the customer service manager. She deals with all calls and any complaints which come through.
• Tim – He’s the store manager, he takes care of any orders both on and offline and keeps an eye on the other staff.
• Kate – She is responsible for getting the orders ready for distribution. She actually assembles and packs the components and label them ready for collection or shipping.
• Stephanie – She’s the accountant, money may no longer exist but it’s still important to keep a handle on the figures. She is technically employed by the government and is also there to regulate the processing of credits and Grace. All businesses will have at least one Stephanie.
• Mike – As the originator of the business, it’s his job to oversee the lot, he also gets recognition for creating the business in the first place and overseeing the original branding, formation etc…

Someone comes into the store and places an order for a computer. They use their luxury credits to buy one of the more powerful ones as they love gaming. Tim deals with the customer, processes the order and then passes the details over to Stephanie.

Stephanie allocates the required inventory for the build. She places the inventory update into the order system which will automatically order more when the stock gets too low.

After being processed by Stephanie, the order details go to Kate who locates the allocated inventory and builds the machine. She packs it up and gets it ready. Mike checks the order over to ensure that it is a quality product and gives Kate his approval. It’s an order for delivery so she then informs Jill who contacts the customer and arranges a delivery date.

Once the order has successfully been completed, the customer rates the service of the business, they did exceptionally well and as a result, the business earned 1000 Grace. Stephanie received the notification of Grace and it is up to her to distribute it to the other staff members. She has a formula for this and doesn’t have the option to give anyone a bonus or reduction.

• She herself gets nothing, her Grace is earned separately from the business by working for the government. • Mike originated the business and also took part in quality control. He receives 300 Grace for his efforts. • Kate built the computer and had the largest workload, she earns 500 Grace for her efforts. 200 Grace was allocated to the distribution company who shipped the package out for them. • Tim took the order and dealt with the customer and he is allocated 100 Grace

In the current world order, Mike would take the lions share of the profit as it was his company. Stephanie as the worker would probably take the least.

In the new system, Mike still gets a large share despite not really doing much work. This is his recognition for starting the business (50 Grace) and doing the actual Quality Control (250 Grace). Everyone else was paid in accordance to their personal effort and time in completing the order.

Under Aretecracy a person gets rewarded for their impact on the world. If had chosen not to work for it anymore, then he would still have received 50 Grace for that order as his impact was the formation of the business, which is still running successfully, however he would never earn as much as his employees who actually do the work.

Under this system, it would be practically impossible for anyone to gain Grace through exploiting others. If Mike then started 100 more companies who all generated Grace then he would still have earned all the Grace which is awarded to him.

Now meet Jeff.

In the current world order, Jeff sells e-cigarettes and has decided to continue the business under Aretecracy. Had his business been a new application then demand for this product would be assessed and if the demand was still high enough to justify it then his business would have been approved, but as it offers nothing positive to the world it is only granted a Zero Grace (ZG) status. His business was pre-existing however so he did not need to apply. However he cannot avoid the ZG Status.

He only has one member of staff, Carl, who runs his store. His store doesn’t generate Grace for either himself or his staff but he still needs to process credits, so the government has assigned Peter to be his company accountant.

Common questions

What’s the point of Jeff’s business if it doesn’t generate Grace?

The world needs to keep producers and workers and some people won’t care enough about Grace to really bother. In order to encourage more people to work, there will be a ‘working allowance’, which will increase all three allowance categories by 10%. So Jeff and Carl would receive this, however neither of them will earn any Grace. Peter will still earn Grace but it will be earned separately through the government.

This model means that there will be little benefit in forming businesses which don’t have any benefit to society. All Jeff gets that a regular employee would not get would be control over his work as owns the business. However over time, running that business would prove to be more difficult as not only would he find it difficult to retain/hire staff but he would probably find that his supply line would dry up too.

Eventually, businesses of this kind would probably cease to exist.

What if I work in a negative Grace company?

If you work in a company which actually loses Grace then you won’t gain or lose any Grace, however if you are the owner of a negative Grace company then you will lose any Grace which the company loses. Any company which negatively impacts the world will be incentivised to change its ways or close down quickly.

What if a company is doing some good but also has other products which don’t benefit mankind?

This is a good question, I think I can answer it best with a real-world example:

Consider McDonalds: They produce fast-food, a lot of it is considered junk food and many people think they are a major contributor to the obesity epidemic. So they sound like a prime candidate for a Zero Grace business, right? The trouble is, they have spent a great deal of time and effort trying to increase the healthiness of their business, we also can’t ignore the joy they bring to the world (I know I love a good cheeseburger from time to time). In this instance the business wouldn’t make as much Grace as usual as many of it’s products would not generate any Grace, however some of them would, so it wouldn’t be a Zero Grace business in it’s own right. In fact even a cheeseburger wouldn’t be a zero grace item as, provided it uses good quality ingredients, it is not unhealthy in it’s own right.

So what if a business classified as Zero Grace develops a product which could earn Grace?

This is one of the benefits of assigning a government employee to be the company record keeper. If they produce a Grace generating product then it will be up to the company record keeper to put in an application for the removal of their Zero Grace status. It would even be possible to split the Grace status between product lines.

What if the company produces Grace earning products but does so in a way which negatively impacts the environment?

If your company existed before the amnesty then it will be part of a process of ‘Greenification’ and eventually it will be upgraded to use greener means of energy and waste management. If the business cannot be completely environmentally neutral then the amount of Grace earned by your products will be offset by the impact to the environment, it could be that if your product is fantastic for the world but your company is a major polluter then you will still find yourself in a Zero Grace (or even possibly a negative Grace) company.