Is a moneyless economy possible?
international |
economy |
news report
Friday November 25, 2005 22:58
by Terry - none
A report back from a WSM open meeting in Dublin.
Anarchists want a non-market socialist economy, with free access to goods and services. Is this just a nice but impossible idea? Is an efficient economy possible without money, trade or barter? Terry reports from the discussion at an anarchist meeting in Dublin on this topic.
Report back on meeting on moneyless society
This was an
interesting
discussion largely because it got those present thinking about
how we would go about trying to reach this goal and presaude others
the desireability of it.
In the discussion afterwards it was agreed that money has grown
beyond it's initial function and has become almost a means to itself
and it is integral to capitalism and has co-opted the language and
even the very thought processes of how we view things and our whole
culture. Money was also seen by many of those present as a means of
introducing scarity and be part of the mechanism that enables
hoarding of resources or at least allocation to resources to a few
individuals and therefore was inherently un-democratic in it's
effects.
It was agreed that a reversion back to barter systems was
certainly NOT the way to go and this would be a step backwards. In
the talk it was pointed out that for any item, it is impossible to
determine it's monetary value, because it is so difficult to factor
in the contributions of all the different people involved in the
production of any good or product, as you have to take account of not
just the labour, but the education, the science, the housing for the
workers, costs to the enviroment, the equipment, the makers of it,
and indeed the aggregrate effects of many other factors in society.
One attendent (me) pointed out that there are two basic elements
to be considered, physical objects and information. It is already
abundantly clear that all information can basically be made free,
since distribution costs are now almost nil and it can be reproduced
indefinitely. Not quite so though with physical goods and many of the
other attendents and the speaker agreed that it is likely that there
will always be scarity of some kind for some goods and the question
of how to deal with this was grappled. Some examples from previous
revolutions such as the Spainish revolution where these problems
arose and were usually decided upon collectively were pointed out.
Nevertheless agreeing to share and allocate resources is still better
than through the mechanism of who can afford it.
Other contributors pointed out that the increasing environmental
effects and costs need to be considered and would pose fundamental
limits to what can be done in the broad sense.
In terms of how a moneyless society might be reached, it seemed to
be agreed it would be best to encourage various types of free or
moneyless systems so as people would become familiar with the idea.
Thus the continuation of free-software and music were some examples
and also the recent setup of email lists know as FreeCycle
(www.freecycle.org ) where people offer goods for free to be given
away that they no longer wanted and that these had become very
popular.
Other examples of existing systems given were libraries and how
well they work and indeed much of our infrastructure, like pavements.
These are free and nobody charges for them. (Yet!) And this was
another issue that capitalists tend to use to oppose the idea of the
moneyless society, that people would just consume to the maximum.
Existing experience with libraries shows that people do not do this
and don't borrow the maximum of books everytime and they are more
than just singlular consuming individuals but are well, human.
Likewise on fixed fare bus routes, they don't decide to go the extra
bus stops to get their value for money. Even in, all-you-can-eat
places, people generally do not gorge themselves everytime.
So encouraging things like free city bus services, keeping our
services free, like water and generally things that are part of our
culture and used by everyone are good ways to proceed. Because money
makes us see think in terms of personal income or wealth, we tend to
ignore our culture wealth. And yet it is culture that is part of the
essence of being human. And that's what Anarchism is all about of
course, how we shape and run our society and culture.
The dead end of our current money society is the major obstacle to
advancing humanity to the next level in it's maturity and the
blossming of our human potential.
Some URLS of interest might be:
- http://www.gutenberg.org/
- http://www.fsf.org/
- http://www.gnu.org/
- http://www.freecycle.org/
This report on an open anarchist meeting in Dublin was first
submitted as a comment on the
event
notice for that meeting
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Comments (17 of 17)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17Thanks for the report, its good to know how the discussion went.
A very interesting article, sounds like a good discussion as well. One thing though, while pavements and libraries are 'free' they are paid for with tax monies. Although it is not visible we are once again brought back to money. Was just wondered if yous talked about this and if so what was said?
Cheers
In the libertarian communist society, most consumption will be social - like culture, health, education, recreation and probably most of foods too. lot of others needs will be free or supplied to people according to their individual needs.
Only part of consumption will be of a luxeries which will have to be rationed because of ecological and extra work needed conciderations. For the accounting of these, the denial of freedom - time needed to sacrifice to produce them will be the most appropriate measure.
Capitalism systematically under-produces
public goods because any such provision
reduces the dependency of the working class
on getting a wage income from employers.
Although a libertarian socialized economy should
be designed to encourage the production of
public goods, it is fallacious to infer that there
is no longer a distinction between public goods
and private consumption goods. From the fact
that free provision of public goods should be
expanded and can be done rationally -- health
care, education, parks, environmental protection,
libraries, city bus service, and so on -- it does
not follow that all goods and services could be
effectively provided free. People want different
things in the area of private consumption goods.
How do you know how to allocate resources
-- labor time and material resources -- to different
products unless you know what people would
most prefer? If people have a finite quantity of
entitlement to consume which they can allocate
to different things they want, this can tell us
what they most prefer to have produced. But
if everything is provided free without any links
to their finite consumption entitlement, there
is no way to acquire this information and
therefore no way to ensure effectiveness of
allocation in production. Moreover, if everything
is provided free does this mean that the
people who are least socially responsible,
least caring that others have enough, most
egotistically self-assertive would win out in
the distribution of goods? If so, this means
that a moneyless economy would encourage
the development of greedy, egotistical
and unsolidaristic behavior and consciousness.
Since we can only provide a finite share of
consumption to each person, why shouldn't
this be expressed a finite numerical quantity
so that they then must choose between
possible products, allowing us to capture
their actual preferences? But that presupposes
money as a form of social accounting.
Tom Wetzel
Tom raises the question of how resource planning is to be effected in a moneyless or post-exchange society. These are similar questions to those engaged with today at the level of capitalist entreprises through "Enterprise Resource Planning" or ERP systems. A post-exchange society will similarly pose questions of, to coin a phrase, "FreeRP", i.e. how voluntary labour resources are to be directed towards the where they will have greatest impact in satisfying aggregate demand. This reply demands a proper article-length treatment rather than a quick reply but here goes:
"How do you know how to allocate resources -- labor time and material
resources -- to different products unless you know what people would
most prefer?"
Simple - you ask people to schedule their demands in order of priority to them. The costing model of how different requests are to be weighted naturally have to be established socially.
Costing models will no doubt involve metrics such as carbon cost and other ecological-influencing metrics as well as labour cost.
NB labour cost is not money unless production is waged - i.e. in the context of exchange. In waged production halving the labour cost of a given quanta of product means the producers have halved their renumeration in their wage share of the social product - the "productivity paradox" which puts producer and consumer in a relation of conflict and establishes competition rather than co-operation as the fundamental economic inter-relation.
On a slight tangent:
"Moreover, if everything is provided free does this mean that the
people who are least socially responsible, least caring that others
have enough, most egotistically self-assertive would win out in the
distribution of goods?"
No. Why would it? The whole point of egalitarian distribution is that nobody "wins out" in the distribution of goods. I suspect this is possibly a reference to the neo-classical "free rider" issue which has been repeatedly dealt with theoretically and by the practical examples such as free software that neo-classical theory posits as impossible - e pur si move.
Anyway, not enough space to answer as a comment. For a future article perhaps
the idea that information distribution is free fails to include the mechanisms for information distribution. while i can download a movie or song off of the computer for free, the fact that i need a computer to do this is a major hurdle. this is not only a discussion of a digital divide (that most of the world is not as efficient as the developed world at distributing information via not having computers) but also the problem of acquiring resources to make compuers and books and the like.
computers take resources that most first world nations are not readily abundant in. the first and most obvious is the oil to produce the plastic. or coltan for wireless technology, i.e. cell phones. the problem with procurement of coltan is all over the war in congo. or trees out of the amazon to make books. etc. etc.
the point is the notion of free distribution rests soley on the shoulders of global south. how do anarchists in ireland plan on acquiring these goods freely? it resembles some pretty old european notions of entitlement.
The reply refers to "cost" but never tells how
this is to be measured. In reality to get at the
cost of something, you have to know what
people most prefer, most strongly desire, in
terms of outcomes. Do they more strongly
desire construction in the area of schools
or clinics or bigger, better houses? Would
Jack rather have more personal living space
or a boat for fishing trips? And on and on
endlessly. It is only by people interactively
making choices like this that they exhibit
in their behavior the strength of their desires
for things. But people can't express the
strength of their desires for different possible
outcomes to production, unless they only
have a finite share of total social product and
the freedom to decide how they want their
share allocated among possible productive
outcomes. Through this process we can
assess the relative value to person A of
outcome X versus outcome Y. When this is
done systematically, it gives a quantitative
measure of the value to people of various
possible uses of productive resources.
This quantiative measure is a price as
a form of social accounting. Without this
it isn't possible to have an effective allocation
of resources to production.
Maybe i can be a bit clearer about this idea of cost.
We're trying to figure out the cost to society of
making X. How do we do this? We need to take
into consideration that all the things that went into
producing X -- materials, our work time, use of a
building and so on -- are things that could have
been used to produce something else. How do
we know that people would prefer to have these
resources used to produce X instead of something else? If people have a way making their preferences
manifest, through choices they make, they can
then tell us what the relative value to them of the
different outcomes is. Through this process we
find out what the relative cost is of producing X
with those resources by seeing what people
are willing to give up in order to get X.
Suppose the society has only a certain finite
capacity to produce concrete. But suppose that
suddenly the community wants to build a lot of
things that use concrete. Well, do we then
invest our time and materials and land in
expanding the capacity to produce concrete?
Or do we use the work time and materials
needed to do that to produce something else?
This is a question of the relative value to people
of the things requiring the concrete versus
other things. What we'd have to give up to
get that expanded concrete making capacity
then tells us something about the cost of
use of concrete at that point in time. Cost is
a measure of relative value to people of the
resources used to make something.
These relative valuations, expressions of the
strength of desire for different outcomes,
can be expressed quantitatively, as a price.
Without prices, as a form of social accounting,
we can't know what the cost of things is, and
can't therefore know whether our decisions
about allocation of resources to produce
things is effective for people or not.
Markets are not an accurate measure of
such cost because prices in a market don't
just express relative importance to people,
but reflect the economic power of various
market actors. Markets are systems for
allocation of resources by sheer bargaining
power. It is necessary to have a non-market
system to be able to capture more effectively
the importance to people of different outcomes.
When the issue of 'free pavements' and libraries was raised in the discussion, it was more in the context of showing that people don't use these to the maximum possible -i.e, they generally don't abuse it.
I would think people were quite aware that they are indeed paid for by taxes, but as I say in the context that element to the argument was a different issue and is more or less the one Tom alludes to in a later comment.
Going back to the idea of free social and cultural services, a few years ago, I had a yearly bus pass for the city which I paid for up front. The amazing thing though is once I had paid for it, it felt as if the entire bus service in the city was free for me for 365 days of the year and it effectively was. What it did, is that it completely changed how I viewed the city and opened it up. I could now go anywhere at a whim. And if it was say raining, I could hop on a bus going in my general direction, whereas, paying per journey, you never do that.
Also it should be worth noting that in Ireland, Old Age Pensioners (who are over 67) are entitled to free travel throughout the country. This is a fanastic service because it allows OAPs to maintain their social contacts and to travel around and visit family, friends and relatives. Many OAPs through lack of money would otherwise be effectively stranded in their homes. I reckon the free-travel makes a significant quality of life difference for them.
And the reason this is brought up is to emphasise the value and very big difference that these social services can make. The discussion and thinking around money and the money society too often focuses on the individual and individual products.
It is worth clarifying the statement that information is essentially free. First of all, it is agreed that information gathering can involve some effort, and is not quite free. Distribution though is effectively free for digital information at least, once you have the PC, or infrastructure in place.
It is of course very true, to produce them is not free and does take resources and damage the environment. However, there are already hundreds of millions of PCs in existence, so just going with what we have and getting rid of copyright and patents can make a huge difference immediately.
All that's required is a 'legal' change. It ought to be remembered that the global South suffers because it does not have the financial resources to access a lot of information and technology that is locked up in patents and copyright. Getting rid of these rules today, would allow changes tomorrow morning. There are many things the global South want to produce and can't produce, particularly medincies and vaccines that patent law prevents them from doing so.
I might add that it doesn't have to be all PC or digital driven. In principle, it should be possible to open a small printing shop or centre anywhere and have any book, journal or magazine printed there and then, and have these distributed, so helping to cross the divide where people don't have access to PCs or are not PC literate.
The issue of the global south is raised, in that the discussion seems to have taken a northern European bias. To an extent that is true, but it is also true that today there are absolutely millions and millions of spare PCs being left unused in Europe and the USA. Regularly many companies, sell these off for very cheap or just give them away. If a real effort was made, I reckon a couple of million PCs could easily be made available to the global south. There is plenty of free software that will work on older PCs that will allow you to surf the Internet, email, write documents and run spreadsheets, all for free. So these units alone, if placed in a couple of 100,000 community centres or libraries or whatever can make a difference today. I do accept, within the capitalist economy as it now stands, the issue of cost is there to some degree, in terms of looking after this stuff and paying for the electricity or even accessing it.
Now, I know the problems of the sort, are much more immediate than wanting to join the information age, such as provision of drinking water, decent sanitation, housing and health.
You raise one question which perhaps is a misprint and I am not clear on:
>the point is the notion of free distribution rests soley on the shoulders of global south.
So to recap and in the mood of the moneyless society discussion, what's important now is the practical steps that we can take today. The theortical aspect is important too, but it is the difference we can make now with what we have is what inspires people to take note, get interested and begin making the first steps.
I think there is nothing better than concrete examples to motivate people. Distant theortical possibilites just don't have the same effect. It's like the free software movement, if it didn't exist today, there would be a lot of discussion about what's possible and what's not and what people would and wouldn't do. Luckily it does exist and is inspiring many people to many things.
It is all a big pissing contest, who has the bigger house, car, who makes the most money. those who do not compete with the tigers of money, are either eaten alive, ignored, or ridiculed by the tiger mentality. It divides communities into subdivisions based on average income levels, so that an individual isnt going to see or experience a different lifestyle, people sort of 'keep to their own kind' and that is based on income as well. Families and siblings are in a state of disconnect due to the barriers that money present. the Sister or brother who makes good money is not always going to spend time with their sibling who is making less...in fact, it causes even more rivalry, and hard feelings. People do not share. Instead someone makiing a minimum wage is ridiculed and blamed for their plight, even though that person is working the same hours and possibly at a harder job than that person who has the nicer house, car, etc. Money makes people into stuck up snobs most of the time, it is simply keeping people apart who might benefit from more interaction. We are all taught from childhood that the richer person is the more popular and the poor person is the loser or the geek, it happens in the schoolyards, whoever isnt dressed in the expensive high fashion gear is usually the one being picked on, etc. If we as a human race ever want to evolve out of this immaturity and superficial attitude, money should be weighted as at least less important. we might never be able to abolish it, but at least we shouldnt put all our emphasis on it as our measuring stick of whos a good person or a loser!! that is just plain stupid, everyone deserves a chance to be treated with dignity and respect, without being measured on the monetary factor, not one human being is worth a dollar value, and this is what has been done in society. So sad.
look, a system that uses money is inherently bad. every problem you see on tv or hear on the radio is most likely due to money, or a lack thereof. money causes classism, oppression, and general discontent.
we need to abolish money.
what am i talking about???
if we realized that all of our labor is necessary- doctors, lawyers, teachers, merchants, burger flippers, etc- than we can understand that everyone is dependent on everyone else. doctors send their kids to schools, teachers buy fast food...etc.
the problem is that some jobs are "more valuable" than others, meaning "high skilled jobs"
this can be alleviated in a "FREE SOCIETY" where nobody pays for anything.
if education is free, then equal opportunity makes it so all high skilled labor is able to be taught to everybody.
if everyone has the same opportunity to become educated in different professions, then labor is reduced to a 1 to 1 ratio. money says one job is inherently more valuable than another, and so pays more. in FREE SOCIETY, demand (need for teachers, doctors, burger flippers) is supplied by labor.
an individual supplies the demand of "society" through his labor, and society in turn supplies the demands of the individual.
labor is kept track of through contracts which determines the rate of production. if you do your work, you are allowed to use society. everyone does whatever job they want to do, and this ensures that the best people will be in the best jobs:
if demand dictates that 10 million doctors are needed, and 15 million doctors are around, the 10 million that supply the demand will be the best possible candidates. those last 5 million are recycled into the workforce and do other things, pursuing a career better suited to their abilities. this provides a competitive edge making sure the people demanding supply are getting the best value for their labor
money is bad because it says, i deserve this more than you because i have more money. two people might want the same house but only one will get it. money provides an unfair advantage because someone may be paid more because they are better educated. FREE SOCIETY provides a more fair way of deciding who gets what
its important to realize at the same time, that everyone will get a house. if one person demands a house, the supply comes from the architect, materials who are employed simply because the demand exists. their job is to supply that demand.
this is the answer that will alleviate our problems as a human species, eliminating ingroups and out groups, as we work as one group to sustain ourselves.
this is how we save our planet too. nobody wants to acknowledge kyoto protocols, because it would lose money. if money didnt exist, we would switch to those alternative fuels because we have no reason not too
if we do not adopt this idea of free society, we are fucked. we are out of drinking water in 50 years, and if you thought money was a necessary resource, have a good time trying to sustain life with no water
deathofcivility.blogspot.com
The cities of the future could be free to live in once you have bought into them. They will only get built, and at great cost, if those who can afford to do so buy into them. My design, the circle city concept, would cost at least £100,000 per person, but once there you would not need ever to use money or barter again, everything would be free.
This could only work of course if everyone shared the necessary work. Necessary work includes food growing, systems maintaining and business with the outside world.
Business with the outside world would be business with other free cities, and money business with the old capitalist cities. It might take a thousand years before capitalism disappeared altogether.
I ran a successful free-shop in Maesteg 12 or 13 years ago. Now I want to get moving again on such projects, including free food vegan cafes. Anyone interested?
PS. I was poor when I ran the free shop, now I am far better off and aim to become far richer in order to make my dreams come true. Join this new revolution if you have nothing better to do, and what could be better? Saving the world will be the noblest task.
Bob
Would we agree that we need food, water, and shelter to live?
Do you also notice that we can build machines that can get us the things we need?
What's so hard about sharing information and tools to get the things we need?
Why do we put numbers like money on things we value differently?
Why are we living such silly lives working for a house, or a place to stay?
Why do we let such ideas stay stuck in ourselves?
Economy without money:
If you like my comments please respond at subhendu.das@excite.com
There are many ways to create moneyless economy. First method is we all become slaves. We go to our jobsite, work there for eight hours, come back home. We do not ask for money we work free just like slaves. We go to grocery store pickup whatever we want, do not pay anyone anything. Come back home, cook and eat. We make reservation for an airline flight, go anywhere we want, do not pay anything to anybody, and fly free. Same can be done for anything and everything. After all, we are using dollar bills, made of paper, that do not have any value. So why trust that worthless paper, why not trust ourselves.
The second method is the following. Suppose US government prints money (not the central bank), gives to Ford motor company to make cars. Ford reaches its highest capacity. Then the government prints more money to give Ford. They increase capacity and make more cars, the prices go down. Government continues doing that; eventually prices go down to zero. We all get cars free. Since cars are free, we do not need money to work at Ford. So we work for Ford free, and government will not have to print money anymore.
The third method is - make profiting illegal. So nobody can accumulate money. There will be no need for money anymore, because you cannot profit. Everybody will work free.
The fourth method is make secret ballot in Washington DC or all the capitals of the nations. All our elected representatives will be able to cast secret ballot when they vote for a decision. The secret ballot for people and public ballot for elected officials is not democracy. If you introduce true democracy, that is secret ballot for everyone, then money will eventually vanish. We can use secret ballot to the no money proposal and it will be passed automatically.
Would you like to live in a world where money does not exist? A world where everything is free? A world without rich or poor? A civilization where all human needs are met by society working together as a whole? A world without boundaries, where people live together in peace and harmony?
http://money-free.ning.com/
Because all human beings are basically socialist anarchists at heart, most people will say 'yes'. But, they will ask, would it be possible?
The only way for this plan to work is for the message to be spread.
Tell people about the 2012 Strike for a Moneyless World . If they like the idea, tell them to tell their friends. Those friends will tell others, and by the year 2012 everyone on the planet will know about the strike and decide whether they are for or against it.
On that day a new moneyless system will begin which will change the world completely.
You might consider distributing copies of this flyer -
WORLD STRIKE 2012
If you agree that the abolition of money would be a fine solution to most of our problems, and that we could create a much better system where EVERYTHING - food and drink, clothing and housing, water, heating, education, health-care and entertainment - shall be FREE for EVERYONE - why not join the World-Wide Strike on the opening day of the Olympic Games in 2012?
The Strike will begin the moment the symbolic Olympic flame is lit - the signal for all who support the abolition of money to stop work and demand a new fair world of true freedom and justice.
WE WANT A MONEYLESS WORLD
http://money-free.ning.com/
Pass it on.
"We have it in our power to begin the world over again." Thomas Paine.
It is well known that the money is free for the central bank. It is a private bank and only it can print money without any restrictions, at anytime and by any amount. Since the money is free for the central bank, it should be free for everybody. We should not have to pay it back; there should not therefore be any debt or deficit. Thus the central bank has artificially created the debt, taxation, periodic payment, interest rate etc. At the core of capitalism then we really have a free or money less economy (MLE) now.
Let us examine the status of money today. We are all dealing with electronic money these days. Our employment checks are deposited electronically by our employers in our banks. We buy things using our credit cards. We pay the bills using our computers. Thus the money is just a number in some database on some computers. That number goes up and down and controls our life styles. Now we ask do we need that number to control us.
Instead of trusting that number on a computer why not we all trust ourselves and work for free? We go to our work places and work just like we are doing it now. The only difference is that we do not get paid. The computer number changes to 40 hours. Government tracks this number. We all become dedicated servant for the society, for the people, for the government, and finally for the god for 40 hours per week every week. Note that this means only meaningful work for the society will be required. In return we get everything we want for free.
We go to a store and buy everything we want, but there is no need to pay, because there is no money. If we want to live in a big house, we hire a contractor; he builds it free for us. If we want to travel; we book the flight, and travel free, stay in a hotel free. Everything will be free because everybody is working free. You can enjoy any kind of life style you want. MLE is thus not socialism. People will still have to work otherwise there will be no food or shelter.
This MLE will eliminate environmental pollution and the wars. It will eventually kill the pollution of our souls by removing greed, corruption, violence, cheating, and lying. MLE will eliminate poverty from the world permanently. The MLE will allow us to create products that we really need and nothing, like cigarettes, can be imposed on us by the investors. There will be no investment banking system. In fact the whole financial system including the central banks will not be required any more. We will have more people working for real benefits of the society.
It may appear that the MLE model ignores the value of education. Many people who introduced technology, like Thomas Edison, Benjamin Franklin, Wright Brothers, Bill Gates, and Steve Jobs etc. were not formally educated. Thus education is not necessary to create a new technology.
In a MLE only those people who love education and knowledge will pursue such activities. The concept of hard and easy work will be replaced by love for work. There will be always people who will aspire for knowledge and will go for anything it takes to achieve that wisdom, the history of mankind demonstrates that.
In MLE, since you get free whatever you want, there is no need for a merit evaluation system. You cannot and should not compare two different persons or two different jobs. It will be like comparing apples and oranges.
Please comment: subhendu.das@excite.com