Circulatory Meritocracy

From Everyday Choices to a Circulatory Meritocracy: How We Could Measure True Social Impact

By John Gavel

We often hear about meritocracy, wealth, and social progress as if they're straightforward: the talented rise, the wealthy succeed, and the economy grows. But in reality, it’s much more complicated. I’ve been thinking about this a lot, and I want to share a new way of looking at merit, impact, and decision-making — one that includes everyone, from everyday citizens to large organizations, and even our environment.

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1. The Simple Idea: Movement of Wealth Matters

At first, it’s easy to think of wealth as a static measure of success. But consider this:

• A person with limited means who spends thoughtfully supports the economy and community far more actively than a billionaire who hoards their wealth.
• The flow of money — how it circulates and benefits others — is more meaningful than mere accumulation.

From here, we can start to measure merit not just by talent or resources, but by how someone's actions move value through society in ways that help others.

Challenge note: Tracking circulation precisely is difficult — the effects of spending ripple unpredictably through society. This system embraces that uncertainty by focusing on probabilistic outcomes rather than exact measurements.

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2. Positive and Negative Interest

Every action — paying rent, buying groceries, funding a school, or building infrastructure — can generate interest:

• Positive interest arises when money, effort, or influence benefits society or the environment.
• Negative interest arises when resources are hoarded, misused, or sent to actors that don’t contribute to societal wellbeing.

Even small, everyday choices matter. Paying for your groceries, supporting a local business, or reducing waste all generate measurable positive impact.

Challenge note: Not all outcomes are visible immediately, and some consequences may be indirect or delayed. The system accounts for this uncertainty through pending interest that matures over time.

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3. Temporal Dynamics: Rewarding Long-Term Contributions

Not all contributions have immediate effects. Funding a school today benefits society years later, while supporting local shops provides immediate impact. The system tracks both immediate interest and pending interest, ensuring:

• Short-term contributions are recognized
• Long-term investments are credited appropriately
• People and projects are incentivized to think ahead, not just chase immediate gain

Challenge note: Predicting long-term societal effects involves uncertainty. Pending interest is probabilistic and updated as real outcomes emerge, allowing the system to learn and adapt over time.

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4. Environmental Systems as Participants

The environment isn’t a passive backdrop — it’s an active participant:

• Overused or mismanaged forests, rivers, or soils generate negative interest
• Sustainable, regenerative use generates positive interest
• Even idle resources can generate negative interest if they represent missed opportunity

Every human action interacts with the environment, so ecological health becomes part of the meritocracy.

Challenge note: Measuring environmental impact can be complex, as consequences may take decades to fully manifest. Probabilistic scoring helps address this uncertainty.

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5. Multi-Axis Merit: Social, Environmental, and Systemic Integration

Each action is evaluated along three axes:

1. Social Interest – How well it benefits people directly and indirectly
2. Environmental Interest – How well it preserves or enhances natural systems
3. Elegance / System Integration – How well it fits into the broader system, combining efficiency, resilience, and usability

Actions that score highly across all axes create synergistic positive impact, while actions that score poorly on even one axis can accumulate negative interest. This encourages systemic thinking and integrated solutions over short-term, zero-sum strategies.

Challenge note: Balancing these axes requires judgment and adaptability. Weightings can be adjusted to reflect societal priorities and evolving knowledge about outcomes.

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6. Everyday People as Active Participants

The beauty of this system is that it includes everyone:

• You don’t need to fund a hospital or own a company to contribute
• Paying rent, buying groceries, choosing sustainable transport, or volunteering all generate measurable interest
• Multiply these micro-actions across millions of people, and they rival the impact of major infrastructure projects

This is distributed meritocracy, where everyone’s choices matter.

Challenge note: Even small-scale actions require careful aggregation to reflect true societal impact. Probabilistic modeling allows the system to scale from individual contributions to population-level effects.

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7. Real-Time Feedback and Incentives

Imagine a smartphone app:

• Tracks purchases, investments, and volunteering
• Shows immediate and pending impact along all three axes
• Suggests actions that increase your positive influence
• Provides social comparison, badges, and incentives

Businesses and governments can also use these scores:

• Companies with products generating high societal or environmental interest get favorable visibility
• Policies adjust dynamically to encourage behaviors that maximize systemic health

In short, good citizenship becomes quantifiable and rewarding without being coercive.

Challenge note: Data privacy, transparency, and equitable access are essential. The system must balance detailed measurement with respect for personal autonomy.

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8. How It Works Numerically

Finally, here’s the math behind the system — kept simple:

Each action is scored along three axes: social (), environmental (), and systemic/elegance (), each from -1 to +1

Weighted total interest:

I_\text{weighted} = w_s \cdot I_s + w_e \cdot I_e + w_f \cdot I_f

• Pending interest accounts for long-term effects (like education or infrastructure)
• Negative interest loops subtract points for harmful actions or misused resources

Example: A sustainable housing project might score:

Axis	Score	Weight	Contribution
Social	0.7	0.4	0.28
Environmental	0.5	0.4	0.20
Systemic	0.6	0.2	0.12

I_\text{weighted} = 0.28 + 0.20 + 0.12 = 0.60

Pending interest from long-term benefits might add 0.2, and minor negative environmental impact subtracts 0.05 → net interest = 0.75.

Even everyday spending contributes: paying rent, buying local groceries, or reducing waste can each add measurable positive interest, scaled across millions of people.

Challenge note: Numbers are guides, not absolutes. Probabilistic scoring, time-dependent updates, and feedback loops help the system adapt as real-world outcomes emerge, ensuring resilience in the face of uncertainty.

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Conclusion: Measuring Impact in an Imperfect World

From simple wealth circulation to a multi-axis, temporally aware, environmental-inclusive meritocracy, this system makes every choice count. Small, everyday actions matter just as much as large projects. And when we combine thoughtful individual choices with systemic incentives, we start building a society that rewards elegance, sustainability, and genuine impact — a circulatory meritocracy for the 21st century.

Acknowledging Measurement Challenges:
No system can perfectly capture every effect of human action. Uncertainty, long-term consequences, and complex interactions with the environment make precise measurement impossible. But by using probabilistic scoring, pending interest, and adaptive feedback loops, we can approximate true impact, learn from outcomes, and continuously refine incentives. The goal is not perfection — it is a practical, scalable, and transparent system that makes impact visible, actionable, and rewarding for everyone.