Ergonocracy - New Ideology for a Human Adapted 21st century Regime by Jorge Alves - HTML preview

FOOT NOTES

1 The term "Ergonocracy" intends to combine the suffix "cracy" meaning political power with the term "Ergonomics", derived from the Greek "ergon" (work) and "nomos" (laws) to designate the science of adapting work to one's environment. In fact, ergonomics is a discipline-oriented system, related to all types of human activity.

2 The International Ergonomics Association defines ergonomics as follows: "Ergonomics is the scientific discipline dedicated to the understanding of interactions among humans and other elements of a system, and corresponds to the profession in which are applied theory, principles, data and methods for projecting the optimisation of human well-being and overall system performance.” Other definitions state the following: “The applied science of equipment design, as for the workplace, intended to maximize productivity by reducing operator fatigue and discomfort.”

3  Ergonocracy can be observed as an extended approach of the concepts associated with macroergonomics. Macroergonomics is an approach to ergonomics that emphasises a broad system view of design, examining organisational environments, culture, history, and work goals. It deals with the physical design of tools and the environment. The goal of macroergonomics is a completely efficient work system at both the macro-and micro-ergonomic level, which results in improved productivity, and employee satisfaction, health, safety, and commitment. It analyses the whole system, finds how each element should be placed in the system, and considers all aspects for a fully efficient system.

4 Sustained in IT – Information Technology which many authors believe will lead to  a Society of Knowledge.

5 A request for tender, commonly abbreviated as RFT, is a structured invitation to suppliers for the supply of products and/or services. As a consequence of the scale and of the tender process the majority of RFT’s are published by government sector agencies at the local, state and federal levels. Companies in the infrastructure and utilities sectors may also periodically publish RFT’s. The closest equivalent to an RFT in the mainstream private sector is a request for proposal (RFP), which typically has a less rigid structure. An RFT is usually an open invitation for suppliers to respond to a defined need as opposed to a request being sent to selected potential suppliers. The RFT often requests information gathered previously from a  RFI. This will usually not only cover product and service requirements, but will also ask for information about the suitability of the business. The more rigid structure of an RFT assists the submission normalisation process.

6 Although in some cases there are reasons to believe that only the dominant male could procreate as some jungle primate environments show us. With the discovery of agriculture, man eventually became sedentary, although this only happened during the last ten thousand years, a grain of sand in our evolutionary trajectory. During this time some gradual evolution occurred, notably the development of agricultural techniques and the creation of hand tools.

7 According to science historian Yves Gingras, the world in which we live is a product of human reason. It is the combination of technique and reason which gives birth to technology. Homo sapiens being homo faber; everything that surrounds him can only be artificial, that is to say craftwork. In this precise sense, the human animal is necessarily counter-nature, anti-nature, and the most paradoxical product of Nature. He has become, in sum, a homo technologicus.

8 A coup d'état, or coup, putsch or overthrow, is the sudden unconstitutional deposition of a government, usually by a small group of the existing state establishment - typically the military - to replace the deposed government with another body; either civil or military.

9 Since power attracts power and money attracts money.

10  Author's Note: if we place multiple crabs in a bucket, we can observe that if one tries to move his legs upward with the intention of climbing out of the bucket the others pull him down, preventing his escape. It is not known whether they are trying to take advantage of their partner’s momentum and join him in the escape or if they want to prevent their partner from climbing out.

11 Although there might be a fringe of individuals who have this latent requirement. 

12 Monogamous nature is the natural tendency to practice or condition of having a life of a pair; single sexual partner during a period of time or even for the breeding.

13 Polygamy is the form of marriage where there is more than one wife (polygyny) or more than one husband (polyandry).

14 Parental testing is the use of genetic fingerprinting to determine whether two individuals have a biological parent-child relationship. A paternity test establishes genetic proof whether a man is the biological father of an individual, and a maternity test establishes whether a woman is the biological mother of an individual.

15 A primate is a member of the biological order Primates, the group that contains humans, prosimians (including lemurs, lorises, galagos and tarsiers) and simians (monkeys and apes). Richard Wrangham stated that social systems of non-human primates are best classified by the amount of movement by females occurring between groups and he proposed four categories: Female transfer systems, Male transfer systems, Monogamous species and Solitary species.

16 As we will further discover, these companies are limited to a maximum of 20  members.

17 The French Revolution inspired the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the  Citizen which was adopted on 26 August 1789, by the constituent Assembly of the Paris commune in the French Revolution's initial context based on the famous motto "liberty, equality and fraternity”.

18 We will later describe a possible enlarged Community Web Portal layout, which would be accessible via the Internet after proper authentication of the citizen, where these options are available.

19 Explained later in the chapter dealing with the social model – the Local Community

20 Taken to extremes, the concept of total individual freedom can be applied in many areas, including freedom of expression, freedom of consumption, the right of possession, the right to assisted suicide, the right to assume all kinds of personal risks, the full right to apply public physical expression, the right to choose any architectural style, etc.

21 This utopian nature is described later on in a chapter dedicated to Ergonotopia.

22 It is a widely used method in some Western countries, occurring in many sectors, such as Health, in which a kind of private management of a hospital is implemented.  It also occurs in highway construction and in the gaming industry, where a private company operates and manages a particular casino, in exchange for an obligation on the part of the concessionaire, which could be the payment of fees, compliance with community service, etc.

23 When there is a sudden need to create a new and intermittent Public Function, the Arbitral Council has the duty to define which Concessionary Company handles the case. Furthermore, the Arbitral Council has to authorise the increased costs and budgetary allocation.

24 The Council Coordinator will assume the responsibility of receiving foreign heads of State according to official protocol, assuming the role usually taken on by the Head-of-State.

25 See chapter called "Permanent Public Functions"; in the exceptional case of the Public Functions “Controlling Entities” the council member will have to divide his attention among the three companies.

26 Before entering the portal the citizen’s identity should be duly authenticated via user/password.

27 Personalisation involves using technology to accommodate the differences among individuals. Once confined mainly to the Web, it is increasingly becoming a factor in education, health care (i.e. personalised medicine), television, and in both "business to business" nd "business to consumer" settings.

28 Taking into account that money only exists in its digital form, the Public Function "Financial Management" will provide minimum financial services to any citizen who requests them. Among these services will be included: money transfers, electronic payments, periodic order payments, balance queries and some service customisation.

29 By date, by subject, by intervener, by stages, etc.

30 Each of the steps of this phase will be analysed in detail in the following chapter.

31 A citizen who intends to limit his participation only to voting on laws can opt to customise the portal in order to receive alerts when the processes reach phase vii.  Divulging of information to all citizens.

32 The citizen can customise the web portal; for example, it is possible to request to be automatically alerted if laws of a particular sector or theme is to be debated.

33 The interface citizen portal application interacts actively with the various information systems of the various Public Functions and can directly access all databases of all servers.

34 The exceptions concern some clearly defined sectors: external defence and police investigation (and only at the investigation stage).

35 Local Community affairs is accessed in the Community Web Portal. This is easier for citizens, as there is only one link to access everything that is public. In practice, the whole link is forwarded, and the Concessionary Company that manages each Local Community is solely responsibility.

36 The link "monitoring of judicial activity” will be redirected to the sole responsibility of the Concessionary Companies that have been managing matters connected with the judicial processes.

37 These requests to petition serve to analyse whether or not there is something wrong with the judge’s analytical capacity, which can be measured by the number of petitions and complaints that are endorsed and by the number of processes that go to the appeal stage; the number of sentences that are altered in this process are also analysed.

38 These Sub-concessionary Companies will also have to assist Local Communities with technical, regulatory and general questions

39 Interactive Voice Response (IVR) is an interactive technology that allows the computer to detect voice and keypad inputs. IVR allows customers to access the company's database via the telephone touchtone keypad or by speech recognition, after which they can service their own inquiries by following the instructions. IVR systems can respond with pre-recorded or dynamically generated audio to further direct users on how to proceed.

40 This type of authentication could be similar to that which is provided by contact centres in the banking industry, which provide safety authentication cards with rows and columns of data designed so that more security can be inserted into the system in addition to the user/password scheme and thus safeguard the best practice “something you know, something you have”.

41 Not to be confused with the vernacular thematic Associations that have always existed and still exist.

42 This concept is connected to another model which will be explained later in the Chapter "Technological and Commercial Models", more precisely in the sub-chapter "Domestic Services”.

43 According to each country’s policy, a formula may exist with an indexing proportional factor to the income of each household, which will also take into account the number of family individuals and the value and size of the property concerned.

44 It should be noted that there is no impediment to the implementation of the Housing model in a neutral Local Community.

45 The currency in question is not relevant since this is just one example to help illustrating the concept.

46 A mortgage loan is a loan secured by real property through the use of a mortgage (a legal instrument). However, the word mortgage alone, in everyday usage, is most often used to mean mortgage loan. A home buyer or builder can obtain financing (a loan) either to purchase or secure against the property from a financial institution, such as a bank, either directly or indirectly through intermediaries. Features of mortgage loans such as the size of the loan, maturity of the loan, interest rate, method of paying off the loan, and other characteristics can vary considerably.

47 These are the expenses that real estate property agencies usually take, about 5% of the total value.

48 The Regulatory company may take some time until it manages to sell the property and so this risk premium fee serves to protect the Regulatory Company in relation to this risk.

49 Especially in the granting of bank loans and other related financial products.

50 Rent will continue to exist, but will only be charged by companies.

51 This analysis is empirical and results from the comparison between the end value of goods and services weighted by each worker’s effort share, needs to be compared to the value that the worker receives (his salary) within a certain period.

52 In economics, factors of production (or productive inputs) are the resources employed to produce goods and services. They facilitate production, but do not become part of the product (as with raw materials) or become significantly transformed by the production process (as with fuel used to power machinery).

53 User-payer is a pricing approach based on the idea that the most efficient allocation of resources occurs when consumers pay the full cost of the goods that they consume. In public finance it stands with another principle of "ability to pay,"  which states that those who have the means should share more of the burden of public services. The ability to pay principle is one of the reasons for the general acceptance of the progressive income tax system.

54 This principle has something in common with another economic principle, which says that bad currency replaces good currency. Indeed, if we have two currencies circulating, for example, gold, and another less valuable currency, what happens is that people will tend to save the gold and pay their debts using the less valuable currency, which implies that this latter currency will prevail.

55 A company limited by shares is usually called a private limited company (Ltd).  This is the most common form of company used for business ventures. Specifically, a limited company is a "company in which the liability of each shareholder is limited to the amount individually invested" with corporations being "the most common example of a limited company." Its shares may not be offered to the general public, unlike those of a public limited company (plc). The liability of the shareholders to creditors of the company is limited to the capital originally invested, i.e. the nominal value of the shares and any premium paid in return for the issue of the shares by the company. A shareholder's personal assets are thereby protected in the event of the company's insolvency, but money invested in the company will be lost.

56 It is not by chance that in the body of the United States Marines, the fighting squads of snipers usually consist of three sniper stations, 13 military units, plus the platoon commander, the platoon Sergeant, three rescuers and a platoon guide, each police station is divided into three shooting teams. It is also no coincidence that most sports teams consist of a total that varies between 5 and 11 members, with the exception of rugby teams (15 individuals).

57 According to rule number six, in a company with only two members, neither of them could hold less than 33.3%. This is an exception that takes into account the high-value role of certain special, highly-skilled professionals.

58 Rent will continue to exist, but should only be charged by companies; All real estate will have to be owned by a company which activity should be to rent apartments and perform these types of services.

59 This formula should not merely divide the annual amount by twelve, as it should take into account possible seasonal effects.

60 Or in their own companies, if the holder has more than one share.

61 In this case, the following rule applies: understanding X as the negotiated share percentage to be assigned to the new member, each existing member’s share will be uniformly reduced by a percentage share value as a result of the following formula: x/(total number of existing partners).

62 Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) are information systems or software platforms that integrate all data and processes of an organisation in a single system, enabling the automation and storage of all business information. Integration can be seen under the functional perspective (systems of: finance, accounting, human resources, manufacturing, marketing, sales, purchases, etc) and systemic perspective (transaction processing system, management information systems, decision support systems, etc).

63 To be provided by the concessionaire Tribunal 6) support for the economy and structures.

64 An Application Service Provider (ASP) is a business that provides computer-based services to customers over a network. Software offered using an ASP model is also sometimes called On-Demand Software or software as a service (SaaS). The most limited sense of this business is that of providing access to a particular application programme (such as customer relationship management) using a standard protocol such as HTTP.

65 In traditional labour systems, in which people work eight hours per day, five days a week, and taking into account an average of five weeks of vacation, the total number of working hours per year is 1,880 hours.

66 Teleworking means working at home, or at a tele-centre near home, for some or all of the time. It involves work that has to be done with a computer. Teleworking is one of the Smarter Choice measures that aim to change the commuting culture and manage demand for transportation services.

67 The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is an international economic organisation of 34 countries founded in 1961 to stimulate economic progress and world trade. It defines itself as a forum of countries committed to democracy and the market economy, providing a platform to compare policy experiences, seeking answers to common problems, identifying good practices, and coordinating domestic and international policies of its members.

68 This issue has been referred in a previous Chapter: Ergonocracy Social Model -  Local Community, more precisely, in the Financial Management sub-chapter.

69 VAT differs from a sales tax, which is levied only at the point of purchase. Each business has a strong incentive for its suppliers to pay their taxes, allowing VAT  rates to be higher with less tax evasion than a retail sales tax.

70 And this First Scenario is what we recommend to all start-up Ergonocracy regimes. At first, it is important to make all rules simple. In time, people are more ready to accept more complicated systems.

71 The cost values and also the revenue values can be obtained in each Public Function Concessionary Company defined Budget.

72 It should be noted that among these costs are contained all social costs, including all social protection in terms of unemployment, old age, illness, etc.

73 The gross domestic product (GDP) or gross domestic income (GDI) is a measure of a country's overall economic output, coming under the heading of national accounts. It is the market value of all final goods and services made within the borders of a country in a year. It is often positively correlated with the standard of living.

74 Public–private partnership (PPP) describes a government service or private business venture, which is funded and operated through a partnership of government and one or more private sector companies. These schemes are sometimes referred to as PPP, P3 or  P4 . PPP involves a contract between a public-sector authority and a private party, in which the private party provides a public service or project and assumes substantial financial, technical and operational risk in the project.

75 As done today, this type of instructions could be given, among other means, via Internet on line banking, through a computer or mobile phone.

76 Electronic purse or wallet type of cards, may carry a preloaded monetary value and can be used as a means of payment for multiple small-value purchases.

77 The reference here is about the reports and accounts.

78 All stockholders who own less than five percent, which could be the majority, will have to sell their stock. Some of them could opt to buy shares in order to obtain a five percent minimum.

79 Please see a previous Chapter named  Partner’s entry process , in which it is mentioned that employers will have to choose an objective method, by means of predetermined formulas to determine an estimate value of their company, using the usual valuation process based on earnings, revenue, cash flow, prospects of growth, weaknesses and strengths, equity, and subscribers. They should also value its patent rights, specific know-how, etc.

80 This applies particularly in cases in which the company believes that it has already reached its ideal dimension in terms of human resources.

81 At this point, a mechanism to reduce this value may be put in place, because if it is considered that there are no salary costs, this means that as a mathematical result there will always be higher profits, which may not be fair to the working members.

82 This is a common financial scheme used by most banks in order to increase their capital profitability, whereby only a small percentage of all lent money comes from the gathered clients deposits; constituting a risky process specially when mistrust rumours lead to bank “races”, because banks are unable to deliver all claimed money.

83 The rate or degree of effort is given by the ratio of debt service (interest and depreciation of loans) and disposable income in a given period.

84 There are already a few technological mechanisms that can be implemented, for example, digital certificates and advanced encryption systems.

85 Capital plus operation financial costs.

86 At the end of the process the partner will not be allowed to own less than five per cent share.

87 Outsourcing means the action that exists on the part of an organisation to obtain workforce outside the company, i.e. labour party. It is strongly linked to the idea of services, i.e. corresponds to transfer activities known as activities through, and never activities purposes (final product) to a company outsourced. The hiring of peripheral services aimed at reducing internal costs by leveraging the "know-how"  and specialisation of outside companies which, in certain specific areas, is shown as a more advantageous option, allowing greater return on investment (ROI).

88 It is also obvious that in an ideal world, if possible, all individuals should have the opportunity to be born with high IQs and without any kind of physical handicap.

89 Karl Heinrich Marx (Tréveris, May 5, 1818 - London, March 14, 1883) was a German intellectual and revolutionary, founder of the modern communist doctrine, who served as an economist, philosopher, historian, journalist and political theorist.

90 In a later chapter, a method will be proposed that may revolutionise the world of logistics and Internet commerce.

91 Product bundling is a marketing strategy that involves offering several products for sale as one combined product. This strategy is very common in the software business (for example: bundle a word processor, a spreadsheet, and a database into a single office suite), in the cable television industry (for example, basic cable in the  United States generally offers many channels at one price), and in the fast food industry in which multiple items are combined into a complete meal. A bundle of products is sometimes referred to as a package deal, a compilation or an anthology.

92 See Chapter Four - sub-chapter “Principles”.

93 Used as a reference to rough (raw) or with small degree of industrialisation, quality nearly uniform, produced in large quantities and by different producers.  These raw materials, crops (soft commodity) or minerals (hard commodity), can be stored for a specified period of time without significant loss of quality.

94 This Sub-Concessionary company will be the one holding the Sub-function Economic activity Support.

95 Corporations' activities have contributed to the extinction of natural resources in many areas.

96 Demand is grossly equivalent to Internal or External Consumption plus Public and Private Company Investment.

97 Invisible hand is a term introduced by Adam Smith in "The Wealth of Nations" to describe how a market economy, despite the lack of a coordinator of communal interest, the interaction of individuals seem to result in a particular order, as the "invisible hand" that advocate.

98 The only alternative to comply, according to certain egalitarian proposed models, should be to implement systems with rotating senior classes, which will only create instability and could give power over to ineligible or dangerous people.

99 A win-win game is a game which is designed in a way that all participants can profit from it in one way or another. In conflict resolution a win-win strategy is a conflict resolution process that aims to accommodate all disputants.

100 In economics, collective bargaining, psychology, and political science, "free riders" are those who consume more than their fair share of a public resource, or shoulder less than a fair share of the costs of its production. Free riding is usually considered to be an economic "problem" only when it leads to the non-production or under-production of a public good or when it leads to the excessive use of a common property resource. The name "free rider" comes from a common textbook example: someone using public transportation without paying the fare. If too many people do  this, the system will not have enough money to operate.

101 In the event that it is not possible to determine the alleged crime scene, the address of the parties involved, starting with the victims, should be used as reference.

102 When we talk about citizens, we also include the possibility of the Global Community.

103 107 Typically the Judge-President and the Judge-Investigator should have eight percent and the Judge-Attorney should have seven percent.

104 This has nothing to do with technical innovation; several military services already use these kinds of gadgets to gather information on their enemies, without putting a soldier’s life at risk.

105 Author's Note: we are talking about vertical take-off jets, which are the result of already existing technology; it should be noted that equipment of this type is currently used by military forces of certain countries, including Great Britain, for example.

106 It will depend on the architect’s and builder’s decision.

107 Similarly to that of an elevator.

108 This should be a similar concept to what happened with maritime vessel construction during many years, when construction was limited to the width of the Panama Canal and the vessel could not to be wider than a certain measurement; otherwise the ship could not be allowed to enter the canal. This measure dictated the size of vessels for many years.

109 Each CDB door should be equipped with an LCD screen where the user could perform several operations, including requesting a CDB box-wagon, if there was currently none at that location.

110 Alternatively, these public CDB’s may be equipped with a delivery storage system, which should retain every delivery using one locker of goods, something similar to an aisle with pigeonholes. Each order should be saved in a locker and a