Is There Currency in the Intrinsic Motivation Paradigm?
Hex Naw. Here are 3 reasons why not.
“We cannot build up the skills of empathy and of human connectivity if we constantly expect or even believe that we will be rewarded by some currency when we cooperate.”
— Phoenix McQueen
1. Intrinsic motivation works.
As the name suggests, the Intrinsic Motivation Paradigm (IMP) is a social system based on the principle of intrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation is a powerful force, and we see it everywhere if we look for it. It drives art, activism, love, solidarity, justice, science, and almost anything worth living for. It thrives despite our social systems based on its opposite. Sometimes it can be hard to see because it’s so mixed up within existing systems of extrinsic motivation (reward and punishment). In our society, reward and punishment take the form of money and the law. But even within those institutions, we see intrinsic motivation running through them: people show up in the streets to protest police brutality, poll workers spend long hours counting votes, volunteers offer their time at food banks, wealthy people donate their money to non-profits, families and friends come together for parties and cookouts. Intrinsic motivation is everywhere; it’s just not the operating principle yet.
Because our society is currently based on extrinsic motivation — in particular, money and law — we have come to believe that it is necessary to manipulate people into socially beneficial behavior. Instead, it is actually the Extrinsic Motivation Paradigm (EMP) itself that causes socially harmful behaviors. The extrinsic motivation paradigm is fundamentally untrusting of humanity, and for that very reason it justifies institutions that take our humanity away. Compulsory education, governments, businesses, paychecks, insurance, social security, and more, are all components of a psychological game that chisels away our emotional wholeness in the name of surviving it. That emotional wholeness is not only intrinsically valuable, but it’s instrumental in developing moral and relational skill.
But as a society, we de-prioritize moral skill in favor of incentives. According to the philosophies of the EMP, as expressed in any conventional economics textbook, a system of incentives (which currently takes the form of money and profit) is the only way that we can all eat, have shelter, and live life. Since incentives can never be perfect, the textbooks say, we must mitigate them with a system of enforceable laws. In short, we must have businesses and government to organize social life.
But if you notice all the problems in the world that arise from business and government, you will see that the main reason they aren’t even worse than they currently are, is because people have taken it upon themselves to resist the impacts of this social machinery. Intrinsic motivation is powerful.
It’s even more powerful in an intrinsic motivation paradigm. When intrinsic motivation is the operational principle, we cultivate character, self-love, emotional wholeness, sense of self, and care for others. With such strong emotional wellness in place, there will be no need for currency, since it is a substitute for actual care. Intrinsic motivation works.
2. Currency obstructs the real dynamics of value.
What makes life worth living (and how to live it together) is a complex question that can only be answered in the context of self-awareness and self-direction. Despite its complexity, I want to focus on one important aspect of quality life.
Value is multi-directional. When you go to the beach or any public space, you can see how value goes in all directions. Seagulls fly above you, the waves crash, and children play. Each living being adds to the scene, and the environment is enjoyable. Value is like this more often that not. Knowledge and music flow throughout the culture, language changes and evolves, and ideas get reflected on and transform. Everyone’s existence, everyone’s wholeness, is their contribution.
Transactions distort the recognition of this flow of value. Transactions make things tit-for-tat, one-to-one. Even worse, they can create the illusion that value goes from one person to the other. For example, universities charge students for the education they are getting, implying that the professor is conferring value to the student, which is then compensated monetarily. In reality, everyone in the room benefits, the professor included. When, for example, a chemistry professor explains a fundamental concept to chemistry students, the professor refines her concepts and gains a deeper understanding of chemistry. When a “student” brings up a good question, or identifies an unchallenged assumption, the “professor” learns something new. I quote “student” and “professor” because the learning is happening in both directions. Value is flowing. Without explaining my whole theory of intrinsic motivation and the conditions that make it successful, I can say that such cases as these — enjoyable, stimulating, social, and oriented towards mental and conceptual growth — are very easy to classify as successful in a voluntary paradigm.
It’s extremely important to notice how value flows multi-directionally—from one to many, from many to one, or from many to many—in order to liberate ourselves from the illusion of the necessity of transactions.
3. Currency is inherently part of the Extrinsic Motivation Paradigm.
Currency is a numerical social construct that is inherently tied to
(1) violence, and (2) the military-coinage-slavery complex. David Graeber explains the conditions when it is important to put a numerical value on an action or object: when there is the threat of violence to give it to someone else. In Debt: The First 5,000 Years, Graeber explains that the word “pay” comes from the Latin word meaning “to make peace”, which implies that if you don’t pay, there will be violence. The only way to ward off the violent institution or person is to pay a precisely quantifiable amount of, say, $120. Precise numbers make violent threats enforceable, hence the phrase “cold and calculating.”
To take that to a systems level, currency co-evolved with imperialism and slavery, creating the “military-coinage-slavery complex,” to quote David Graeber. The only way to manage a military is to pay soldiers in real time. You can’t give people instruments of death and then expect them to obey you in return for an IOU. In order to keep them under your command, you have to pay them in real time. Once you conquer a territory and expand your empire, you can’t expect to take all of the spoils with you, so you establish markets mediated by currency and require that your subjects pay taxes in that currency. With that currency, you can pay for more military, enslave more people, and mine for precious metals, which amplifies the cycle. The military-coinage-slavery complex is far from the philosophies espoused in the economics textbooks. The real history of currency is steeped in violence and imperialism. Textbook economic philosophies are at best a post-rationalization, and should be seen as such.
Currency is inherently tied to violence, whether it be personal or institutional, and that’s why I don’t separate reward from punishment. Extrinsic motivation is a unified paradigm of control upheld by a philosophy that denies our ability to be humane, and by doing so systematically eradicates it.
Currency does not and must not exist in the Intrinsic Motivation Paradigm.