Demonetize it!

SolidarityNYC

OWS Mutual Aid and SolidarityNYC are collaborating to ensure there is space for sharing art, skills, healing and wellness, food, games and ideas at May Day in Union Square. The May Day Mutual Aid group is calling for a day of mutualism on May Day, i.e. meeting the needs of New Yorkers for free noon to 5.30 pm. They say:

No exchange of money is necessary for the world we seek to create! Come with an open mind, ready for creative and fun action. What to expect? A really, really free market: art, skillshares, workshops, learn-Ins and teach-ins, lectures, free food and drink and more...

They continue:

You can help by bringing to share: cooked or uncooked food and water, and clothes, books, toys, electronics and other reusable things to the Really, Really Free Market. Please no big furniture! Bring art supplies and musical instruments! Volunteer your time to help serve food; or to remind folks that, yes! the items at the RRFM are indeed free. Share knowledge, labor or a skill.

Email us to get involved!

Furthermore to the questions 'What is mutualism?' and 'What are we doing here?', they answer:

We want to demonstrate that mutual aid is a viable alternative to capitalism. Actions of mutual aid prove that scarcity is manufactured by capitalist structures that commodify everything from the environment to human life in order to build individual wealth, whereby mutual aid seeks to build community and meet our needs together.

We want to support those taking part in strikes and other actions on May Day through the form of mutual aid. For example, those who are taking off of work and joining us in the streets may need legal or medical assistance, or food and clothing! We want to ensure that mutual aid “fills the void” created by the withdrawal of people’s consent from the capitalist system on May Day. In providing mutual aid, we want to make sure the actions and strikes negatively impact the 1%, not the communities!

We want to create a platform for skill shares and learn-ins. Our concerns for community empowerment and self governance rely on education of a free nature that is accessible to all. We have never seen such income disparity between the rich and poor and this serious fact has profound implications. The pivot from inequality and disenfranchisement on many fronts in our culture begins with education, community building/sharing and outreach to build skill sets: hitting against commodified knowledge.

 Great! Actions without money and with the viable alternative, mutual aid.

Postcard from Occupy Wall Street

Check out our Postcard from Occupy Wall Street, New York city, which is published in the latest Green Left Weekly 917.

Also, we still get these kinds of emails:

I am astonished that you charge for the document. Surely this is counter-intuitive. Why would you charge for a lesson on how to live without money? Haven't you worked out how to live without the need for money?

I'm a social work student living in suburban Sydney and besides my rent I haven't spent any money for the past two days. Please send a pdf to my email, I don't want this to be what breaks my streak of non-spending.

In good humour, thanks...

To which we replied:

It's easy Leo: you order it through your local library and that way lots of other people have access to it as well. The book is as much about why, in our capitalist society, it is extremely difficult to live without money, as it is about why and what that means in terms of social fairness and sustainability, and how we need to change our economic and political structures so none of us produce and exchange on the basis of monetary values, rather on social and environmental ones. Hope you enjoy the book. It's written for lively minds like yours.

Is Imperialism a Useful Concept in the Age of Financial Globalisation?

On 6 March 2012 I attended a panel debate at the New School focusing on the question: 'Is Imperialism a Useful Concept in the Age of Financial Globalisation?' Prabath Patnaik started off by saying:

To me, imperialism is immanent in the money-form and I want to argue that in the era of finance capital far from its becoming less relevant, it becomes more relevant.

This was a significant rebuff of the position put by David Harvey in 2011 that the concept 'hegemony' was more appropriate than 'imperialism' for analysing contemporary global financial circumstances. To explain his defence of the concept of imperialism, Patnaik continued:

As we know, in a capitalist economy the bulk of the wealth-holders will hold their wealth not directly in the form of claims on physical capital, not directly in the form of physical capital, but indirectly in the form of financial assets, which constitute claims on physical capital, in the form of money, which again is an indirect claim on physical capital.

And, sometimes, there is a layering of claims: you hold claims upon claims upon claims upon claims upon the physical capital. Now, all these claims have certain money values. And its absolutely essential for the system that the money value of these claims in terms of command of commodities must not deteriorate, must not fall.

Now, of course, you can have situations in which the values of financial assets, in terms of money, falls, like we have had with the collapse of the bubble. But that may affect very specific financial assets. But, far more important, is that the value of money in terms of commodities must not fall.

There is a very long remark by Keynes in The Economic Consequences of the Peace where he says that Lenin is aid to have declared that the best way to destroy capitalism is to debauch the currency. Lenin is certainly right. So the idea that the value of money in terms of commodities must not be allowed to fall is essential for the stability of the capitalist system...

I heartily recommend that you watch Patnaik's talk now on UTube here.

It is Part 1 of 7, of which I also liked Anwar Shaik's contribution (Part 4 of 7).

The Man Who Quit Money: Daniel Suelo

Paula emailed me to say that she'd just heard two speakers at the Telluride library: Daniel Suelo, author of The Man Who Quit Money, and his publisher, Mark Sundeen. She writes:

Daniel gave away his last $30 11 years ago and has not used money since. He lives in a cave in the Utah desert but is quite social. I had a chance to visit with him for a few minutes before the talk... I'm working my way through his website. (He uses the computer at the public library in Moab).

Land and Resource Scarcity. Capitalism, Struggle and Well-being in a World without Fossil Fuels

To Be Published 31st December 2012 by Routledge – 224 pages Series: Routledge Studies in Environmental Policy Edited by Andreas Exner, Peter Fleissner, Lukas Kranzl, Werner Zittel This book brings together geological, biological, radical economic, technological, historical and social perspectives … Continue reading →

Decision-making based on use-values

An interesting article in the recent issue of The Guardian, 'Bhutan rails against world's "suicidal path"' is worth a read, not because Bhutan has decided that money won't be used in its economy but because it makes concerted efforts to reduce and control the way money operates. What marks out Bhutan from the pack of other nations is that as a small country that is poor in monetary (exchange value) terms, it is achieving social and environmental gains by stressing social and environmental goals and policies rather than economic ones.

Bhutan's prime minister has just told the UN:

[Our] measures of progress and GNH index clearly show that producing and consuming more stuff does not make people happier. On the contrary when they overwork and go into debt to buy ever more goods and pay the bills, they get more stressed. Working, producing and consuming less is not only good for nature but gives us more time to enjoy each others...  Instead of progress [the world] has perilously accelerated ecosystem decline. Humanity is now using up natural resources at a 35% faster rate than nature can regenerate. This ecological destruction is not separate from global economic realities that are dividing rich from poor...

Everything Goes Book Cafe Neighbourhood Stage

Another opportunity to engage on the ideas in Life Without Money...

Join the discussion Saturday 7 April at 4.30 pm at the Everything Goes Book Cafe Neighbourhood Stage, three blocks (on the left as you come out) from the ferry to Manhatten at 208 Bay Street, near Victory Boulevard.

More on the cafe, here.

Trade School

Caroline Woolard, co-founder of NYC's Trade School and panelist at Left Forum (see below), suggested we present a workshop on the ideas in Life Without Money, engaging with participants and collecting information through a survey on sharing practices. 'A Life Without Money?' is set to take place on both Saturday 14 April at 3 pm to 4.30 pm at the GeneralAssembly at 902 Broadway (4th Floor) and on Sunday 15 April at 4 pm to 5.30 pm at the GrandOpening at 139 Norfolk Street, New York City.

Here is the description, that you'll find, with more details and a way to sign up on the Trade School calendar:

Experiences as a writer and filmmaker, experiments with alternative living and work arrangements and exchange systems, and teaching sustainability and social sciences, led me to initiate and edit a recently published book with ten contributors — Life Without Money: Building Fair and Sustainable Economies. In this workshop I'll outline some key themes in the book, which argues that social and environmental values are much easier to respect in systems of mutual aid where money plays no part. The book also presents some practical and strategic examples for constructing a world without money. This workshop will explore these ideas in a collaborative way. When you sign up let us know if there are questions or topics of particular interest to you so we can make sure they are covered. There will be plenty of space for interaction in the workshop, which will mainly involve discussion. You will be asked to fill out a survey focusing on your sharing practices, which will be your 'payment' for attending.

Left Forum, 16–18 March 2012

Last weekend we participated in two panels at Left Forum in NYC (16–18 March) talking about Life Without Money. Left Forum attracted around 4000 participants, many attending for just one day. There were around 400 panels so a lot of competition for attracting punters. Over 50 people came to our panels, which included lively discussion on the problems with monetary economies, non-monetary options and strategies for demonitisation. During the week some participants followed up by emailing us through the book website.


The theme for this year's Left Forum was Occupy! and we spent some time over the last week following developments with the eviction of Occupy Wall Street from Zuccotti Park last weekend and their activities at Union Square (see photos taken by Frans Timmerman: above, 21 March Union Square and, below, 24 March at Zuccotti Park).

We're working on a short piece on non-market socialism that might appear in the next Overland.

Kapitalismuskritik in München

Eigentlich war das Seminar schon für letztes Jahr geplant, doch da musste es wegen schwerer Erkrankung meines Ko-Referenten kurzfristig abgesagt werden. In vier Wochen ist der Nachholtermin:

21. April 2012, 10 bis 18 Uhr
Tagesseminar „Kapitalismuskritik gut und schön – Aber was sind eure Alternativen?“
Tagesseminar des DGB Bildungswerk Bayern, mit Hermann Lueer und Christian Siefkes
im DGB-Haus München, Schwanthalerstraße 64

Hier der komplette Ankündigungstext:

Altersarmut, Kinderarmut, Einschnitte im Bildungswesen wie bei der medizinischen Versorgung nicht nur in den sogenannten Entwicklungsländern, sondern auch in den erfolgreichen Industrienationen sowie die Tatsache, dass weltweit täglich 100.000 Menschen verhungern und eine Milliarde Menschen ohne Zugang zu sauberem Wasser in bitterer Armut und unter elenden Arbeitsbedingungen dahin vegetieren, findet niemand gut. An wohlgemeinten Vorschlägen, wie eine Alternative zur Normalität der globalen Weltlage aussehen könnte, fehlt es ebenso wenig. Dabei wird gerne mit einem Bild besserer Zustände „argumentiert“: Die Vertreter der Kapitalseite geißeln den Wohlfahrtsstaat und die „übertriebenen“ bürokratischen Vorschriften wie Umweltschutz, Bauordnungen, Arbeitsschutz, Lebensmittelgesetze, Tarifverträge, Kündigungsschutz. Das schade der Wettbewerbsfähigkeit. Von gewerkschaftlicher Seite und aus Kreisen der Linken werden stärkere staatliche Reglementierungen, soziale Gerechtigkeit und soziale Verantwortung statt Profitgier und Gewinnmaximierung als bessere Alternative vorgetragen. So gibt es endlose Debatten über vermeintliche Gerechtigkeiten und Ungerechtigkeiten, die, ohne sich über die Gründe zu einigen, warum es so ist, wie es ist, alle in einem bestärken: Marktwirtschaft müsste eigentlich gar nicht so sein, wie sie ist, wenn es in meinem Sinne gerechter zuginge.

Jede Alternative ist aber nur so gut wie die ihr zugrunde liegende Kritik (Erklärung) der bestehenden Verhältnisse, zu der sie eine Alternative sein soll. Nur wenn man den Grund richtig bestimmt hat, kann man daran arbeiten, die Ursache abzuschaffen. In der Naturwissenschaft wie im praktischen Leben ist dies eine Selbstverständlichkeit. Wenn ein Flugzeug abstürzt, wird nach den Ursachen geforscht, um den nächsten Unfall zu verhindern. Wenn mein Auto liegen bleibt, muss ich den Grund wissen, um es reparieren zu können. Ist der Tank leer oder liegt ein Motorschaden vor? Welches Teil muss ausgewechselt werden, damit das Auto wieder funktioniert? Ohne sich um die Gründe zu kümmern, sich unterschiedliche Reparaturmöglichkeiten zu präsentieren, würde als ausgesprochene Blödheit wahrgenommen.

Wer daher nach vernommener Kritik fragt, was die Alternative sei, der tut so, als ob die praktischen Konsequenzen der Kritik noch ganz im Dunkeln lägen. Das ist aber nicht der Fall. Jeder bestimmten Kritik ist schon anzusehen, auf welche Alternative sie hinaus will. Die ernsthafte Beschäftigung mit der Alternative unterstellt daher die Einigkeit in der Kritik.

Im Seminar sollen entsprechend Kritik und Alternative zusammengebracht werden: Es gilt die Kritik an Eigentum, Ware, Geld und Kapital auf ihre Richtigkeit und die Skizzierung einer Welt jenseits von Eigentum, Ware, Geld und Kapital auf ihren korrekten Bezug zur Kritik hin zu überprüfen. Die Frage nach der Machbarkeit beantwortet sich dann von selbst.

* * *

Die Teilnahme ist nur nach Anmeldung möglich. Teilzeitteilnahme wird nicht akzeptiert. Fahrtkosten, Verpflegung und Getränke können nicht übernommen werden. Der Teilnahmebeitrag beträgt 5 Euro.

Information/Anmeldung: Wolfgang Veiglhuber, DGB Bildungswerk Bayern, Schwanthalerstraße 64, 80336 München; Mail: wolfgang.veiglhuber at bildungswerk-bayern.de

Anmeldeschluss: Montag 16. April 2012

In der Übersicht aller vom DGB Bildungswerk dieses Jahr veranstalteten Tagesseminare (PDF) findet sich es noch einiges Spannende, etwa zu Marx und zur Kritik antisemitischer und rechter Argumentationen.