Abstract: A computer-implemented system that can be implemented in human and machine societies to control resources, services, and policy includes issuing tokens to originators in exchange for commissions to be performed by the originators. A commission can be a particular function in the society or it can represent a resource that an originator will make available to the society in exchange for the tokens. The originators may exchange their tokens for services performed by other participants in the society, in which case the performing participant obtains possession of the exchanged tokens. Auctions can be periodically declared to settle a point of policy, such as allocating one of the society's resources. The participants of the society may bid tokens (both as originators and possessors of tokens) in favor of one of several possible auction preferences.