I first heard of what Colin Sydes was doing here on the Steemit blogging platform a few days ago. In a nutshell, anyone who upvotes, comments or resteems the posts he makes on @sydesjokes receives a dividend in SBD at the end of the week. Sweeeeet!
Some people may think that this resembles a universal basic income (UBI) or a citizens dividend (CD) program, but I think it actually looks more like a job guarantee (JG) program.
What are the differences?
UBI is where everyone receives a payment from the government, regardless of what they do. Even if they do nothing! It gets funded through deficit spending. Small UBI's can be funded without any additional taxation, but larger ones would require higher taxes.
CD also provides a payment, regardless of whether any work has been done. However, money is only dished out to citizens when the government has a surplus and gives everyone a share. No additional taxes are needed, so long as the wages paid don't exceed a certain threshold.
JG is where the government creates jobs for anyone who wants one. No additional taxes are needed to fund the program.
Why Is @sydesjokes Like A JG?
What Colin Sydes has done is provide the opportunity for people to earn cryptocurrency by doing work - upvoting, commenting and resteeming isn't the same as doing nothing, after all!
If you're looking for extra work so that you can earn money, @sydesjokes can provide you with that opportunity. You won't be able to make a living out of it, which is why I'm calling it a micro-JG pilot program.
Learn More
The Job Guarantee program is a cornerstone policy of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). If the political will existed, involuntary unemployment could be eliminated within a matter of days, simply by understanding and implementing the insights of MMT economists. A JG could be piloted anywhere in the real world and would most easily be accomplished by a government that has control over its own floating currency.
I'm going to blog about this a lot more, so please keep an eye on the #mmt tag.