DailyJim: Crowdemployment and public goods: Filling the gap left by government and nonprofits

Hello everyone, welcome to another Daily Gym. Today is Tuesday, October 1st, 2024. And what I want to talk about today is crowd employment and public goods filling the gap left by government and non-profits.

Or as people overseas often call them, non-governmental organizations, NGOs. So, I was just reading an article, I think it's by, it was talking about Weisbrod, I don't know how to pronounce it, had a theory basically that the role for non-profits was to provide the public goods that the government didn't provide. And from what I just read the abstract to it, so I don't know too much, but I thought it was really interesting. It also said that when it comes to government, government often caters to the median population, caters to the middle, and therefore may miss some of the public goods that are happening more on the extremes, or at least not in the middle. I would argue that nonprofit organizations do the edges of the middle. Like you have right down in the middle 50%, maybe nonprofits are good from the 25% to the 75% range. Maybe a little more, maybe a little less. But what about the ranges outside of that? What about once we breach past that range? What about the public goods that really aren't being serviced?

Maybe we could have startup organizations who do that. But what about individuals? What if we could collectively come together and recognize there are certain services, there are certain public goods that we don't think exist in society, and we think this person could deliver them. Why can't we collectively fund this person to go deliver those public goods? And I've said public goods a lot, and so when I'm talking about public goods, I don't fully know the definition, but I believe it's something that benefits the whole. It's not just something that benefits one individual.

So, for example, having roads that work. The roads, almost everyone uses the roads. Or having water that works, having a working water system, water treatment plants, benefits everyone in the area.

And these services are often offered for free. There's lots of economics about public goods and free rider problems and all these things but one of the main purposes of government i believe is to provide services to the public to the population and to offer most of them for free so if somebody were to go into like i went into city hall the other day to pick up an absentee ballot and when i walked in the lady was very kind and helpful towards me and then i went and she told me which way to go i go upstairs stairs and then the person behind the desk helped me. And I was very grateful for the service. They didn't charge me to receive the ballot. They didn't charge me for the directions. So I get in there and then I go out and everything was great. And these people are employed by the government to deliver these services. And the money that goes to the government is often through the form of taxes or some other types of fees. But regardless, so that money is coming from the general public and is going in and then there's the decision that this person is being hired to give the services back to the general public.

And I think nonprofits can operate in this way, where the general public will donate money to nonprofits, and then the nonprofits will deliver services. Like, for example, my friend's organization in Uganda called Find Mind, which is doing peer-to-peer mental health in the rural villages, starting in Agago District in the north, a very remote district. And part of the idea is that there's just not that many mental health services in Uganda. I can't remember how many, but there's very, very few psychotherapists in Uganda and psychiatrists. And I think most of them, if not all of them, are in the capital city, Kampala. And so if someone is hours and hours and hours away in the village, how are they accessing these services? So the government is not providing it. And so a nonprofit comes in and says, you know what, I think it's good for the city, the district, and not just that, but for maybe the country of Uganda and for the whole population of Uganda for these services to be offered for free to anyone who's really struggling. And so that organization is trying to pick up, I think, fill the gap for where there's a public good that is not being delivered. There's a public need and a public service that's not being delivered.

But I don't think it always happens with organizations. Organizations tend to have a certain amount of bureaucracy to start. Sometimes it can be really hard to start organizations. Nonprofits is a whole formalization process. So what about some of these public goods or these public needs that aren't as...

Aren't so clear or are more, they seem more niche. They seem less important in the beginning. Because even what he's trying to do, he's doing it in one district. And it may be hard to change the culture over time so they start to realize that there's a public need. Because with a lot of public goods and the public needs, it doesn't mean people are aware that the needs are there.

And so if government is providing some of these public goods and non-profits come in and provide other public services public goods who fills the gap when neither of these do yeah companies can provide you know we call them the private sector but companies can deliver things that do have positive externalities and help other people but i think it's often more the one-on-one exchange change and not with the goal of delivering public goods and public services. So when there is a gap in these public services, when there are public needs that are being unmet, who delivers them? This is why I really like this idea of crowd employment. I think it allows us to come together and find what are some of the unmet public needs and figure out ways to collectively fund people to do them without requiring that they go into a nonprofit organization, without requiring the same level of formalization or structure that a nonprofit would or a government would. A government requires even more structure and formalization most of the time compared to a nonprofit. profit. What about these emerging unmet publicly needs that we're just starting to realize are causing problems or opportunities for people?

And so that's why I think I'm getting really excited about this concept of crowd employment, because it's, yeah, I mean, we can crowd employ somebody to deliver private goods to people, but then people are like, well, why don't you just pay for it? But when we see them as public goods, for example, when I'm running a workshop tomorrow, a training session online for emotional combat, Imoko, and I got eight people signed up, and it's free. I'm giving it away for free. And some people People tell me, but you should charge for it. And I'm thinking, but this service, I view it as a public service. I view it as a public need. If these eight people get better at this skill, how is that going to transform their lives, but also the lives of the people around them? What if people get better at dealing with rejection? Maybe that starts changing the relationships with their family. Maybe it starts changing the relationships with their employers or their colleagues. Maybe it starts changing the relationship with their romantic partners or so many other aspects. Maybe it starts to change the community. And so when I see it more as a public good or a public service that I'm doing, it feels very awkward and uncomfortable and offensive in a way to try to charge that person for it because I don't think the benefit just ends with them. I don't think it's just them that's receiving the benefit.

So, yeah, I'm just really curious to explore this concept of crowd employment for the delivery of public goods, for public service. And when there are gaps in public service that we are not filling, maybe public service is actually the frame. When there are gaps in public service, nonprofits, organizations tend to pick them up first. Or not first, but they pick up a lot of them. And if nonprofit organizations aren't picking up these gaps in public service, who is? And how do we pay for it? Or not pay for it, but how do we support it? It's not even just the money. How do we support it with resources so that people can fulfill these public services? Because maybe for example, you live in a neighborhood and there's a house on the corner and the person's not taking care of the property outside. Now, yes, we can say, oh, it's their private property and that's all that matters. But housing values are often determined based on the value of the homes around it. And so there is a collective incentive to take care of that house just so the housing values go up. So maybe people pull together and they say, hey, we'll go mow the grass or we'll pay a service to come out and mow the grass. So we'll chip in this, you'll chip in this because yeah, the person's not doing it, but it's better for the whole neighborhood. And maybe the person's not doing it because they don't want to. Maybe the person's not doing it because they physically can't or because they financially can't. So how, so I think it's in situations like this where we're not telling a nonprofit they should come out and we're not sometimes maybe saying the government should come out, but often we just come together collectively, organically, self-organized way, to provide such a public service.

And that's kind of what I'm trying to do. I see it as a public service. I see helping people with emotions, helping people with conflict resolution, helping people change the way that we deal with ourselves and with each other is a public service. It's not just for the one individual. The waves spread much beyond them.

So that's my pitch for today as i go in i start listening to the vice presidential debate and trying to listen and hear where are the gaps in public service that government, isn't even recognizing or is recognizing and can't fill, and are those gaps being filled by non-profit organizations if not how do we come together together, possibly through crowd employment, to enable people to deliver these public services.

Thank you, and I'll talk to you all soon. Bye.