Competitive ScoringThe traditional
money system effectively enforces scarcity, by using only one number (price) to
summarise the value of two-party transactions. What one party gains, the other
must lose, so that there is only so much to go round.
Not only does standard money fail to capture enough information about the transaction,
but it enforces a zero-sum game in which the parties' interests are directly in opposition.
This is by no means inevitable, and that fact that some have seen it as such reflect
how deeply competitive scoring has ingrained itself into the modern psyche.

Money is used to measure value imbalance, Y-X.
This is increased by moving up the diagram above
(increasing value for Y) or by moving left (decreasing value for X).
Conversely, Y-X is decreased by opposite movements.
Unforunately for
society, measuring Y-X does not distinguish between outcomes on the
blue lines (contours of value imbalance).
Cooperative scoring, an
alternative single dimension scoring system, has the blue contours rotated by 90 degrees;
it measures X+Y, the total value generated by a transaction for both parties.
|