Growth=Debt

On Friday 6 January, The Drum, the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Commission) Online highlighted our opinion piece, Growth=Debt, in their daily selection. If they've archived it by the time you see this, you will find it here. The main point was that as capitalism grows so does debt, by implication. It attracted 185 comments.

Twin Oaks


In our book, we have a chapter on Twin Oaks community, Virginia USA. In the Leaves of Twin Oaks community newsletter (Winter 2011/2012 #111) there is a great photo of member, Sabrina, holding up a sign as one would at a demo, which reads:

I live communally with 100 people in Virginia. We run a miniature society, with government and businesses we collectively own, and produce lots of our own food. We aren’t tuned into TV/iPhones. We each earn $5000 a year (on average) and all of the money goes to the community. By sharing what we have — seven big houses, fifteen cars, a variety of talents and skills — we get by on very little. We have no leader and there is always plenty of food, comfortable shelter and no trouble getting bills paid. We are all lucky to be secure and happy with our lives. I choose to live this way because corporatism is destroying American government and society, and because I am the 99%.  Thank you Occupy Wall St!!
 

At the 'your passport to complaining is your willingness to do something about it’ blog, is 're-post Island' (https://paxuswordpress.com/category/memetics) — go to 'Older posts' to find it (10 December 2011 post), a report of living at Twin Oaks by another member, Paxus Calta. It glimpses a non-market socialist world.


Your Money or Your Life: Humanity Nears a Deadline to Decide Which it Will Surrender

Kėllia Ramares-Watson, an independent journalist in Oakland, California, writes about money and the choices that are ahead on Information Clearing House. Check out her article here and decide yourself!

But we should know that terrorism has economic roots, and that the tactic of terrorism does not always involve bombs and bullets.  In fact the true terrorism is being perpetrated on us, all around the world, every day, by the bankers and their complacent, bought politicians.  There is a solution to the sovereign debt crisis in Europe, the United States, and globally.  And there is a solution to global terrorism.  It’s the same solution. It doesn’t involve political repression, martial law or global warfare. It’s a simple solution, really.  The difficulty is getting people to accept it. It means giving up an addiction even stronger than oil.

The solution is the abolition of money.

COM’ON: Commons pushen

Bei der COM’ON-Tagung am 10.12.2011 fand ein World Café mit fünf Tischen statt, die sich in zwei Runden mit jeweils einer Frage befassten. Nachfolgend das Protokoll vom Tisch mit der Frage »Was braucht es, um Commons zu pushen?« (Moderation: Brigitte Kratzwald, Protokoll: Stefan Meretz). Los geht’s:

In der ersten Runde wurden zwei Vorschläge besprochen:

  1. Legal Hacking: Durch kreative Anwendung des geltenden Rechts können die ursprünglichen Intentionen des Rechts (Durchsetzung der Knappheit, Marktintegration, Verwertung) umgedreht werden. Als Beispiel wurden das Copyleft (Copyright als Exklusionsrecht genutzt, um die Zugänglichkeit zu dem Gut für alle dauerhaft zu sichern) und das Mietshäusersyndikat (GmbH plus Vereinskonstruktion, um Wohnraum dauerhaft dem Markt zu entziehen) genannt.
  2. Freiräume schaffen: Commons sind vor allem eine lebendige Erfahrung, die nicht durch noch so klare Definitionen ersetzt werden kann. Daher brauchen wir Räume, in denen Commons-Erfahrungen gemacht und organisiert werden können. Diese Freiräume müssen gezielt geschaffen werden. Als Beispiele wurden die Bewegung „Uni brennt“ (in Österreich, in Dld. „Bildungsstreik“) und „Occupy“ genannt.

Eine wichtige Diskussion in beiden Tischrunden war die Frage, welche Rolle das Geld spielen kann oder darf. In der zweiten Runde wurde die These formuliert, dass die von Stefan Meretz vorgeschlagene Abgrenzung zur „Ware“ zu eng ist und viele Commons-Ansätze ausschließe. Die Stärke der Commons sei doch bisher ihre Ungenauigkeit in der Definition gewesen, auf der ihre Offenheit beruhe. Dem wurde (mit einem Lachen) entgegnet, dass normalerweise umgekehrt die Ungenauigkeit in der Definition als Schwäche genannt werde.

Inhaltlich wurde klargestellt, dass nicht die Absenz von Geld ein Commons-Kriterium sei, was in der kapitalistischen Gesellschaft schlicht nicht gehen würde. Sondern es ginge darum, welche Funktion und welchen Einfluss das Geld auf die interne Commonsdynamik der Beteiligten habe, so dass die Commons stabil „jenseits von Markt und Staat“ agieren könnten. Das angeführte Kriterium des Nicht-Ware-Seins zielt dagegen auf zwei zentrale Punkte ab:

  1. Werden die Commons-Ressourcen oder -Produkte als Ware hergestellt und verkauft oder werden die Commons weiterhin als Commons nach selbst gesetzten Regeln verteilt (innerhalb der Community oder darüber hinaus)?
  2. Ist der Zugang zur Nutzung von Commons-Ressourcen oder -Produkten abhängig von einem Tausch, also einer „Gegengabe“, oder sind Geben und Nehmen prinzipiell entkoppelt und durch das Prinzip „Beitragen statt Tauschen“ ersetzt? Es ist ein Unterschied ob durchschnittlich genug Beiträge zusammenkommen müssen, oder ob der je Einzelne zu einem äquivalenten Tausch genötigt wird.

Ein weiteres Diskussionsthema war die Durchbrechung des Dualismus von Markt und Staat mittels der Commons. Es sei wichtig, die wechselseitige Abhängigkeit und Durchdringung von Markt und Staat zu verstehen: Der Staat kann nur agieren, wenn er Steuereinnahmen erzielt, was eine gelingende Verwertung und Märkte voraussetzt, weshalb er stets zu einer solchen Politik genötigt ist, die jene Verwertung und Märkte ermöglichen. Dies gelte verschärft unter den Bedingungen der strukturellen Verschuldung.

Die Partei DIE LINKE sei in dem Dualismus von Markt und Staat befangen, so dass ihr zum Beispiel Re-Kommunalisierung immer nur als Wiederverstaatlichung (in welcher Form auch immer, auch über kommunale Betriebe etc.) einfalle. Der Commons-Ansatz hingegen zielt prinzipiell darauf ab, eine Ressource und ihre Produktion so weit es geht, der Marktlogik zu entziehen. Dies schließe aber notwendig (wegen der o.g. wechselseitigen Abhängigkeit) auch eine Staatsferne ein. In der Vergangenheit sei es der Staat gewesen, der allgemeine oder öffentliche Ressourcen und Güter in die Verwertungslogik überführt habe (Privatisierung). Welche Form eine solche Markt- und Staatsferne haben könne, wurde nicht diskutiert.

Schließlich war noch einmal das von Stefan Meretz vorgestellte Verhältnis von einen Drittel Produktion in der Warenform zu zwei Drittel Produktion außerhalb der Warenform (bezogen auf die gesellschaftlich notwendigen Tätigkeiten) Thema [Anm.: Online nachzulesen hier: https://keimform.de/2010/produktive-schweine-und-unproduktive-kinder/ ].

Es wurde angemerkt, dass zu dem einen Drittel der Warenproduktion auch solche verzichtbaren Tätigkeiten gehören wie die Bewegung von Geld in allen Formen (Banken, Handel, Versicherungen etc.) oder die repressive Durchsetzung von Gängeleien und Arbeitsverpflichtungen etwa durch Arbeitsagenturen. Würde man alle verzichtbaren Tätigkeiten streichen, sei der produktive Kern des Kapitalismus recht klein, dessen „Streichung“ dann als nicht so eine große Aufgabe erscheine. Dem wurde entgegengehalten, dass die geldlichen und repressiven Tätigkeiten untrennbar zum Kapitalismus hinzugehören und insofern „notwendige Tätigkeiten“ darstellen. Ferner sei auch der Bereich der Nicht-Warenform vom Warenbereich abhängig und könne erst auf diesen verzichten, wenn sich insgesamt eine Produktionsweise durchgesetzt habe, die nicht mehr auf Ware, Tausch, Geld und Markt basiert. Eine gesellschaftliche Transformation betreffe also stets die ganze Gesellschaft und lässt sich nicht in Teilbereichen vollziehen.

From: keimform.deBy: Stefan MeretzComments

Occupy! and Radical Politics — Beyond Money

Take a look at our post at the Pluto Press Blog, which starts:

In the second of our series of guest posts on the impact of the Occupy! movement on radical politics, Anitra Nelson, co-editor of Life Without Money: Building Fair and Sustainable Economies, argues that the movement has created the potential for new money-free egalitarian and environmental values and relationships:

Time magazine has just announced ‘The Protester’ as 2011 Person of the Year. Is it really the start of radical international change? One hundred years ago 1911 was such a momentous year: cities fell like dominoes across China so that on New Year’s Day in 1912 Sun Yat-sen became the provisional president of a liberal republic; Mexico was entering years of internal war after Porfirio Diaz’s dictatorial reign from 1877 broke down in 1910; and, in Russia, a brief restoration of conservative order was crumbling with Bolshevik and anarchistic activities and Lenin proclaiming the end of ‘world bourgeois parliamentarianism’...

If you're reading this after 22 December 2011, then you can access the post by finding this title with a December 21 2011 date:


Occupy! and radical politics part 2 – Beyond money



Free Art Day?

Mary Dinnen (see Post 14 December, immediately below) has followed up with an idea reminiscent of the Free Money Day held mid-September this year and initiated by the Post Growth Institute:

I have a project that has been gestating for a while. As you probably know, Santa Fe is the 2nd or 3rd largest art "market" in this country. So it is exceptional in that way. I envision this project happening here, but could also take place anywhere.

Free Art Day - for one day artists will take to the streets, offering a small piece of art to whoever they want to. In preparation for this 'demonstration of giving', media will be used to open discussion as to how artists ARE in community, how art IS in community, and challenge the old paradigms of galleries, state and federal arts funding, just begin breaking down the walls of ART BUSINESS that separate art from community. The idea of Free Art is more a verb than noun. To free art from it's monetary tether, from the glamour that surrounds the art(business)world, and from the notion that generally, artists are outsiders from community. In essence, bring the real love back into the relationships of artist and community.

Frankly, artists give work away all the time, to good causes, non-profit orgs for benefits, etc...
The short of it is to take out the middle man — let artists do their one-on-one in community en masse.

Although I have not kept up with it, Santa Fe Time Bank is our local barter project of trading. A bit different, it values only services, not products... all hours of equal value. While none of these different projects are comprehensive by themselves, it is the intent and energy behind the projects/ideas that has great power. In essence, by looking at and participating in these alternative ways of living, we are helping to break down the old paradigms, which really is the task at hand. Once this takes place, us humans will truly have a different perspective from which we will have much more room to see where and how to move forward. I see all the variety of human activist movements at this time as something to keep our hands busy while the really big changes take place, while our human consciousness is rapidly evolving. It is feeding the fire, starving the fears.

Art —> <— Needs

Mary Dineen from Sante Fe writes:

While I haven't yet lived completely off the monetary grid, I have traded much art for needs — medical, alt medical, dental, firewood, and other trades. I think opening the dialogue about how the Big business of Art is intricately linked to Big Business and business as usual is important. I have and do sell art, but am not in the strata of "financially successful" artist. Those artists who are 'successful', to what ever degree, have something to lose, should, when the monetary structure collapses. And yet those of us artists who have nothing to lose by a collapse know we all have so much to gain by this shift. Freedom!

The emperor's clothes syndrome is still in place in the big art world — it is deeply connected to big money. Big artists don't want to open this Pandora's box because it would seem like economic suicide. How would successful artists live, if not by the almighty dollar? Mind you, I have painted seriously for 16 yrs, selling or not selling, living gracefully, at times very precariously, but painting still. I am an artist, it is what I do. "Life obliges me to do something, so I paint" (Rene Magritte).

Many artists live reclusive lives, simply because the world at large is so foreign, so not in line with how artists see life. I feel that artists will be reintegrated into life when money is no object. I look forward to it!

Mary's feelings and activities have parallels with those of Caroline Woolard. Caroline co-founded OurGoods.org and Trade School in New York, facilitating the direct exchange of artistic services and goods with services and goods that the exchangers agree on.

‘Money is as money does’

A friend of ours emailed us saying that a friend of his responded to the title and blurb about our book in this way: ‘All societies use money of some sort or other. Think cowrie shells, pigs, cattle, etc. In capitalist societies, when groups try to dispense with official currency, they substitute with barter based on credit which is still a form of money. Most such attempts wind up producing their own form of currency. So I don’t think the downfall of capitalism will be preceded by the disappearance of “money”.’ Our response follows.

Although many non-capitalist societies have used objects or promises in similar ways to the way we use money as a means of exchange, they are all ‘limited-purpose’ monies or currencies. A key distinction between cowrie shells and cattle and a one dollar coin circulating amongst people arises from what you can do with these ‘monies’ in the social context in which they function as a currency. In non-capitalist societies ownership of the means of production, such as land, is not negotiable but rather arranged through inheritance or other social arrangements. Therefore that kind of money buys a very limited number of things and, most importantly, is marginal to the everyday functioning of the mode of production (the way people gain their sustenance and structure power).

In contrast, in capitalist societies money is necessarily ‘general/all-purpose money’ and has much wider uses. In the advanced capitalism of the North many realms of material production and social organisation are run strictly along market-based principles, so a lot of important decision-making incorporates monetary valuations and relationships. In fact money — gold, the British pound or US dollar — is the key building block of power structures and the means and mode of production within capitalism.

From this perspective it is curious to suggest, ‘I don’t think the downfall of capitalism will be preceded by the disappearance of “money”.’ If we focus on money as a unit of account as it exists in capitalism today, this function is absolutely critical to the functioning of our social system. Capitalism and its general-purpose monies that we are most familiar with are conjoined like chicken and egg. The fall of capitalism would necessarily entail the end of money, as we know it. After all ‘money is as money does’ and it is really the social behaviour around money that makes it what it is in any specific context.

The strict definition of barter that we like to stick to in theoretical discussions refers to the direct exchange of one good and/or service for another good and/or service, or unilateral exchange. In fact alternative currencies — alternative to the official/formal tender — generally represent another set of systems again, which try to develop local multilateral trading systems. These kinds of systems have been operating for decades and generally grow to a level where they stabilize and are popular for a limited set of exchanges between limited numbers of people. The operation of these currencies often complements capitalism rather than challenges it. For instance, whether or not LETS are radicalising or stabilising organisations depends how they work. Look at our answers to the FAQ at www.lifewithoutmoney.info

In our book, we discuss a practical example of a community that uses a form of exchange, ‘labour credit’, that can be compared in some ways with money but, most importantly, goes in a completely different direction from the all-purpose money at the heart of capitalism and from most alternative currencies. In our example, labour credit involves devoting a certain amount of time per week to general communal duties in exchange for being provided with one’s basic needs. Because this arrangement takes place in a relatively closed circuit, whereby all the agents have collective decision-making power over the content and form of the exchanges they are engaging in, then what they are doing is quite different from making exchanges based on either limited-purpose or general-purpose monies. Of course, for certain purposes they are obliged to trade with the ‘real world’ at which point the non-market system breaks down by the very nature of the case — we live within capitalism.

2. Winter School “Solidarische Ökonomie” – 17.-19.2.2012 – Kärnten

[via krisu] [Bilder der letzten Winter School, Februar 2011 via kärnöl] Liebe Leute! Nachdem wir glauben dass die Winter School im Frühjahr eine sehr angenehme und erfolgreiche Sache war, gibt es eine gute Nachricht: Es soll auch im Februar 2012 … Continue reading
From: social-innovation.orgBy: Andreas ExnerComments

Money without capital?

Ever since the rise of capitalism and its form of generalised exchange-value as a universal money (such as gold and later the British pound and United States dollar), people have argued that we could have money without capital. This argument was raised again at The Australian Sociological Association (TASA) conference at the University of Newcastle (Australia) 28 November to 1 December, specifically at the Permaculture session on Tuesday afternoon and again at the Life Without Money workshop on Thursday morning.

Ted Trainer's arguments, freshly iterated in his new title, The Transition to a Sustainable and Just World and summarised at the permaculture session, in many ways coincide with ours except on this point. Ted maintains that money at some level could still be useful in a residual sense and could be a relatively useful tool. Again some of the participants in our workshop expressed the opinion that money could exist in a reformed version of the current economy, which somehow respected social and ecological values however no clear or detailed model was offered: how money might be re-defined, its boundaries and functions altered so it played a useful role in a world where equitable social and sustainable environmental values are paramount.

Our book is written partly to advocate the opposing point, which is the same one at the basis of Marx's analysis in Capital, especially in the first two chapters of Capital I. Chapter 1 of Capital I can be read as a careful exercise in showing that capital and money are conjoined as chicken and egg. The reference is worth making not only to encourage readers but also because it shows that definitions of money are based purely on how people behave; use of money is a form of behaviour replete with social meaning. Money is a social fact.

There are numerous reasons for questioning how a neutral simple money might exist. In the workshop we talked about various iterations of LETS and how they fail the test of necessarily expressing or supporting social and environmental values. Kinds of time-money also raise issues of equity and skill. While I wouldn't deny that right now and in some contexts these more community-based 'monies' seem useful I do question their ongoing roles in establishing and maintaining fair and sustainable practices.

In our book we offer a positive example in the labour credit system operating at Twin Oaks community. The key point here is that this system is carefully operated by the whole community, which has established fair and sustainable property, social and environmental relationships and values which co-define this unit of account. I would sharply distinguish this kind of labour credit from 'money' although, in certain other iterations especially, labour credit and money can have suspect similarities.

Tracts in Marx's Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 and The Poverty of Philosphy get to essential points that Ariel Salleh embellished in the TASA workshop, i.e. a universal money is the first step towards creating an abstract idealised sphere of human practices that is absolutely distinct from the material cycles of nature. This false objectification in turn leads to social confusion about the place of humans themselves within nature — a confusion that lends itself to hierarchy. The human objectification of nature and of other humans serves as a rationale for exercising power and exploitation. According to Salleh, this is a critical element in understanding duality and imbalance within the human-nature relationship, a false dichotomy which can only end in our damaging material relationships with each other and with nature under capitalism.

Towards the end of 'The Power of Money' section of the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 Marx critiques the role of money in capitalism and prefigures a world without money:

"Money, then, appears as this distorting power both against the individual and against the bonds of society... It transform fidelity into infidelity, love into hate...

"Since money, as the existing and active concept of value, confounds and confuses all things, it is the general confounding and confusing of all things — the world upside-down — the confounding and confusing of all natural and human qualities.

"He who can buy bravery is brave, though he be a coward...

"Assume man to be man and his relationship to the world to be a human one: then you can exchange love only for love, trust for trust, etc. If you want to enjoy art, you must be an artistically cultivated person... Every one of your relations to man and to nature must be a specific expression, corresponding to the object of your will, of your real individual life..."