The rule was you always gave back in gifts/services slightly more than you got in the first place. That way the debt and obligation was always there between people. To pay back in full was essentially saying “I dont want to see you or have you in my life anymore.” You probably practice this in your daily life with your friends or significant others even if you dont realize it. Its the default social relation and the one we “grew up” in so to speak as a species.

For a problem like this, I thought an ELO system would do wonderfully. People pursuing some kind of art degree could take random orders from customers and get rated for their performance based on their ability to use the skills they’ve been taught, how well they satisfy the customer, and their own creative flair. Artists who excel get to be in museums, attend functions, earn the degree, and get a bunch of cosmetic/prestige perks that they can flaunt. They don’t need to get paid because there’s an audience for ELO systems surely as there’s an audience for League of Legends. Maybe a perk of working full time as an engineer is priority on artistic orders.

Things like this that are predicated on somebody who does nothing being guaranteed a roof over their head, food in their belly, and a doctor to look at their illnesses are what I envision. Then you get a dignified entrance into the labor pool filled with quality of life upgrades for doing the bare fucking minimum and cosmetic/prestige perks for going above and beyond.

That’s greg’s problem.