11-02-28
11-02-24
Money and value. Thoughts on a relation
Franz Nahrada
I think that at the core of the issue of demonetization is the problem of value, and no critique of money can work without resolving the question what is the relation between money and value. Here are my provisional points or thoughts. read more…
11-02-24
Zeitgeist: Moving Forward – It’s the system, stupid
The Third Zeitgeist Movie: still a few flaws, but really moves forward in understanding the mess we are in.
Tomasz Konicz read more…
11-02-18
Introducing moneyless-world.info
=) Greetings!
I, elf Pavlik, in this guest post, would like to shortly introduce you to moneyless-world.info project and website. I have released it just few days ago, and I use Moneyless World name after living myself strictly moneyless already for over 1.5 year, and having strong self commitment to never again participate in cultivating this (un)tradition of using money. As for today, few more people that I know of, already choose to life strictly moneyless for quite some years!
Enough about me and let’s focus now on this new project and its website. I would encourage you to take a quick look at it right now, before reading any further. I believe this way we can establish better understanding. Just looking at it for about 10 second and than clicking around may already give you quite good idea about what it presents. If you want to access very minimal written content, at this moment only in english language, please click on the ‘?‘ button in the bottom of the map. You can find this website here: moneyless-world.info
To repeat shortly what you might have already seen in Intention tab (in ‘?‘). Through this project I want to:
Support development of worldwide community, based on culture of sharing and helping each other
I plan to do that by presenting visually reach information about already existing and newly emerging networks and supporting better cooperation between those networks.
As soon as possible I would like to add following features to this site:
- hybrid system combining mailing-lists and web forum for further discussions (for now we can use this mailing list)
- zooming and more interactive functionality for the map (like here, I still need someone to contribute hosting for this free satellite map imagery from NASA)
- regular and automated updates of all presented information (daily, hourly, maybe even live! it all depends on cooperation with IT developers working on those networks)
- animated map overlays visualizing how presented networks have grown over time (I believe it will bring more of the feeling that we work with something alive…)
I keep all the website development open source and welcome everyone to get involved and contribute!
Since I prefer doing than talking, and to keep this post short. I would like to encourage you to visit websites of all listed networks (9 at this moment), and get more familiar with them. If you decide to start participating in those networks yourself, I believe it will take us yet another step closer to the truly Moneyless World =)
11-02-12
Zeitgeist: Moving Forward – It’s the system, stupid
Post from: Streifzüge. Liebe Leute: Allein hier zu schreiben, dass wir ein Leben ohne Geld wollen, kostet welches. Wer unsere Texte mag, soll dazu beitragen, dass sie hier (ent)stehen können. Wenn wer sich’s leisten kann. Eh klar. Dann aber seid so lieb: Her mit der Marie! Löst uns aus!
Zeitgeist: Moving Forward – It’s the system, stupid
Der dritte Zeitgeist-Film schreitet trotz etlicher Unzulänglichkeiten in die richtige Richtung voran
von Tomasz Konicz
Dieser Film stößt an die Grenzen des Mediums. In 161 Minuten ist Regisseur Peter Joseph im dritten Teil seiner Zeitgeist-Filmserie bemüht, den Zuschauer von der Notwendigkeit einer baldigen Überwindung der kapitalistischen Produktionsweise zu überzeugen, sowie eine gangbare Systemalternative zu der bestehenden Gesellschaftsunordnung aufzuzeigen. In knappen drei Stunden wird in Zeitgeist: Moving Forward ein gigantischer thematischer Bogen gespannt, bei dessen wissenschaftlicher Erschließung und Bearbeitung in den vergangen Jahrhunderten Kapitalismuskritiker jeglicher Couleur ganze Bibliotheken an Textmaterial produzierten. Seine Premiere, bei der 340 Aufführungen in über 60 Ländern stattfanden, hatte Zeitgeist: Moving Forward am 15. Januar 2011, was wohl den mit Abstand größten Filmstart eines unabhängigen Projekts in der Kinogeschichte markiert. Der Film ist ab dem 25. Januar frei im Internet, unter anderem auf Youtube, abrufbar.
Die vom US-amerikanischen Regisseur und Aktivisten Peter Joseph seit 2007 produzierten – und auf beständig wachsende Resonanz treffenden – Zeitgeist-Filme gelten innerhalb weiter Teile der Linken immer noch als Paradebeispiele verkürzter Kapitalismuskritik. Dieser Ruf haftet den Filmen von Peter Joseph aufgrund der Verschwörungstheorien an, die in seinem Erstlingswerk Zeitgeist: The Movie Verbreitung fanden.
So führte er darin auch einen Teil der Kriege des 20. Jahrhunderts auf das Wirken einer Verschwörung von Bankern und der amerikanischen Notenbank zurück, die die USA in diese Konflikte genötigt hätten, um hieraus Profit zu schlagen. Letztendlich wurden alle auch im ersten Zeitgeist-Film erschütternd visualisierten Verwerfungen, Widersprüche und Konflikte auf das Treiben einer Gruppe machthungriger Menschen zurückgeführt, während die Struktur und innere Antriebsdynamik des kapitalistischen Systems ausgeblendet blieben.
Mit dieser personifizierten, verkürzten Kritik des Kapitalismus bricht der jüngste Zeitgeist-Film radikal.
In einer Schlüsselszene wird deutlich, dass für die derzeitige allumfassende globale Krise keine „korrupten Regierungen, keine finsteren Konzerne oder Kartelle, keine fehlerhafte menschliche Natur, und keine geheime, versteckte Intrige“ ursächlich verantwortlich sind, sondern die „Grundlagen unseres sozioökonomischen Systems selbst“. Und eben dies macht die faszinierende Radikalität dieses Films aus – er bemüht sich, diese sozioökonomischen Grundlangen zu benennen und die Notwendigkeit ihrer Überwindung darzulegen.
Zeitgeist: Moving Forward ist in seiner fast schon entwaffnend naiven, da eigentlich schlicht logischen Herangehensweise radikaler als alle Kapitalismuskritik, die von Filmemachern wie etwa Michael Moore jemals geäußert wurde. Peter Joseph will seine Kritik tatsächlich an der Wurzel des Systems ansetzen und greift dabei die Grundlagen des Kapitalismus frontal an: Geld, Markt, Warenproduktion und Finanzkapital.
Der Film zieht in den ersten drei Kapiteln thematisch immer größere Kreise, vom Individuum über die Gesellschaft bis hin zum Planeten. Der erste Teil des Films, der sich mit dem ideologischen Konstrukt einer „menschlichen Natur“ auseinandersetzt, kann als der gelungenste betrachtet werden. Hier zerlegen mehrere Wissenschaftler die weitverbreiteten Mythen eines genetischen Determinismus als Ursache von Charaktereigenschaften oder kriminellem Verhalten, wie auch die Idee einer in unserer genetischen Disposition gründenden menschlichen Natur. Der ideologische Charakter dieses genetischen Determinismus als ein „Weg zu sagen, wie die Dinge sind, ohne die Art und Weise zu gefährden, wie die Dinge sind“, wird deutlich benannt. Am Fallbeispiel der Disposition zu Suchterkrankungen – die als eine Reaktion auf traumatische Kindheitserlebnisse interpretiert werden – wird dargelegt, wie das Individuum seit der frühen Kindheit im Wechselspiel mit seiner Umgebung geformt wird und wie gesamtgesellschaftliche soziale und ökonomische Faktoren bis in die intimsten zwischenmenschlichen Beziehungen hineinwirken. „Die elterliche Erfahrung, wie einfach oder wie hart das Leben ist, wird an die Kinder weitergegeben. … Das frühe Leben ist ein Vorgeschmack auf die Welt, in der du leben wirst.“ Eine „menschliche Natur“ als solche gebe es nicht, es mache nur Sinn, von der „menschlichen Natur“ in Zusammenhang mit menschlichen Bedürfnissen zu sprechen. „Unsere Natur besteht darin, nicht von der Natur eingeschränkt zu sein“, die Menschen werden durch ihre Gesellschaft geformt, wie es der Neuro- und Verhaltensbiologe Robert Sapolsky formulierte.
Diese individuelle Perspektive, die Rückkopplung auf die menschlichen Bedürfnisse, wird auch bei der Auseinandersetzung mit der „sozialen Pathologie“ beibehalten, unter der unsere Gesellschaft subsumiert wird. Beeindruckend sind auch alle Filmsequenzen, bei denen der beständig zunehmende Konkurrenzkampf – das ewige Rattenrennen, bei dem jeder gegen jeden antritt – mit den gesundheitlichen Folgen für breite Bevölkerungskreise konfrontiert wird. Die Genese des kapitalistischen Menschenbildes, das den Menschen als des Menschen Wolf ansieht, wird vom Kopf auf die Füße gestellt, indem diese Ideologie auf die Herrschafts- und Ausbeutungsstrukturen im Kapitalismus zurückgeführt wird.
Die folgenden Kapitel, die sich mit den verheerenden gesellschaftlichen und ökologischen Auswirkungen des kapitalistischen Marktsystems auseinandersetzen, kranken hingegen an einem fehlenden Kapitalbegriff. Dies soll nicht heißen, dass es in der zweiten Filmhälfte keine interessanten, wirklich an den Wurzeln der kapitalistischen Misere ansetzenden Passagen gäbe, doch fehlt diesen – teilweise sich selbst widersprechenden – Ausführungen der gemeinsame Nenner, der die disparat geschilderten Phänomene in Zusammenhang bringen würde. Der Film schildert den Konsum- und Wachstumszwang, die daraus resultierende Verschwendung ökologischer Ressourcen, die zunehmende soziale Ausdifferenzierung, die seit Dekaden schwelende Krise der Arbeitsgesellschaft und auch die globale Verschuldungsdynamik – doch gerade die gemeinsame Grundlage dieser Phänomene in dem krisenhaften Prozess der Kapitalakkumulation, der an innere und äußere Schranken stößt, wird nicht explizit benannt. Peter Joseph schafft es durchaus, gewisse Momente des Prozesses der Kapitalverwertung, bei dem ja das Kapital beständig seine Form von Geld über Waren zu mehr Geld (G-W-G) wechselt, zu erfassen. Doch eben diesen Verwertungsprozess selbst – denn nur aus dieser sich selbst zum Zweck dienenden Bewegung der uferlosen Akkumulation heraus ist Kapital zu verstehen – haben die Macher von Zeitgeist: Moving Forward bei aller Radikalität nicht erfasst. Stattdessen wird im Film verkürzt über „Geldsequenzen“ fabuliert, denen die Marktsubjekte hinterherliefen.
Hieraus resultieren dann die ernsthaften Mängel, die dieses monumentale Werk aufweist. Etwa wenn Geld einfach mit Schulden gleichgesetzt wird und diesem im Endeffekt kein Wert als solcher beigemessen wird – was ja aus rein naturalistischer Perspektive stimmen mag , aber die gesellschaftliche Funktion des Geldes als allgemeines Wertäquivalent nicht berücksichtigt. Generell sind die Abschnitte des Films, die sich mit dem Finanzsystem auseinandersetzen, misslungen, sie führen den Zuschauer in die Irre. Das ist umso bedauerlicher, da der Film ansonsten in vielen Punkten eine bislang von diesem Medium nicht gekannte Radikalität durchhält, die sich auch beim Entwurf der gesellschaftlichen Alternative zum Kapitalismus manifestiert.
Unter dem Titel „Globale ressourcenbasierte Wirtschaft“ wird in einigen logischen Schritten ein Gegenmodell entworfen, bei dem die nachhaltige Förderung, Distribution und Verarbeitung der global vorhandenen Ressourcen in Übereinstimmung mit den grundlegenden menschlichen Bedürfnissen geschildert wird, die unter Zuhilfenahme fortgeschrittenster Informationstechnik und Automatisierung in höchster Effizienz und Ressourcenschonung bewerkstelligt werden soll. Markt, Geld, soziale Hierarchien und Privateigentum an Produktionsmitteln sollen hierbei überwunden werden. Der radikale Gedankenschritt, der hier gemacht wird, verliert aber sehr viel von seiner Wirkung, sobald die Argumentation – in objektiv unnötiger Weise – immer mehr in Details geht und die Stadtentwürfe des US-amerikanischen Architekten und Futuristen Jacque Fresco als verbindliche und absolut „logische“ Vorbilder künftiger Urbanität propagiert. Joseph wirbt hier mit dem Anspruch wissenschaftlicher Objektivität für die urbanen Visionen seines Mentors, die vielen Zuschauern ob ihrer Sterilität kalte Schauer über den Rücken jagen dürften. In diesen Passagen driftet der Film in Ideologie ab.
Ebenso problematisch ist die naive Wissenschaftsgläubigkeit der Filmemacher, wie auch der sich um Joseph und Fresco formierenden Zeitgeist-Bewegung, die die Umsetzung der anvisierten sozialen Transformation realisieren soll. Joseph und Fresco sollten sich vielleicht einmal fragen, wieso die von ihnen vergötterte Wissenschaft seit ihrer Etablierung im Gefolge der Durchsetzung der kapitalistischen Wirtschaftsweise zur Zementierung und Optimierung von Ausbeutung und Unterdrückung so überaus erfolgreich eingesetzt werden konnte.
Dennoch schreitet Peter Joseph mit Zeitgeist: Moving Forward in die richtige Richtung voran. Der Film trifft tatsächlich den Zeitgeist, der Kapitalismus verliert gerade den ideologischen Schleier einer naturwüchsigen, natürlichen Gesellschaftsordnung. Mit einer beispiellosen Geschwindigkeit gewinnt dieser dritte Zeitgeist-Film derzeit an Popularität: Allein auf Youtube konnte das Epos bereits nach knapp zwei Wochen gut 2,5 Millionen Zugriffe verzeichnen. Es ist, als ob das allgegenwärtige Hintergrundrauschen der Kulturindustrie – ähnlich der Anfangssequenz des Films – zur Kenntlichkeit geronnen wäre und seine omnipräsente Deutungshoheit über die Realität verlöre. Immer mehr Menschen wachen aus diesem massenmedial induzierten Schlaf auf, in dem sie durch die Kulturindustrie, durch die Gesellschaft des Spektakels gefangen gehalten wurden, um zu erkennen, in welcher kaputten, die elementarsten menschlichen Bedürfnisse negierenden Welt sie leben. Es ist der allumfassende Krisenprozess der kapitalistischen Gesellschaftsformation, wie er eindringlich im vierten Teil des Films dargelegt wurde, der den Kollaps der ideologischen kapitalistischen Matrix ermöglicht. Trotz aller oben dargelegten Mängel besteht das Verdienst dieses Films darin, diesem Prozess des massenhaften Ankommens in der „Wüste des Realen“, in einer vom Prozess der nur noch dem Selbstzweck dienenden Kapitalverwertung verwüsteten Welt, eine ungeheure Dynamisierung verliehen zu haben.
aus: www.hintergrund.de, 09.02.2011
From: streifzuege.orgComments
11-02-11
The demonetize logo
As you can see, we started with a project logo, which is a »coin« (not any specific one) with is crossed out by a red »x« to signal: Let’s get rid of money. On a friendly mailinglist (the commoning-list) we got some feedback saying:
- the logo is not clear enough concerning different intercultural readings
- the coin is not clearly identifiable as such
- the red »x« could be read as an approval (like in votings)
There have been some proposal to solve this ambiguity:
- use of a pile of coins replacing the single coin
- use of a »let’s get rid of«-logo like in this post
- use of a generic currency symbol (however, the currency sign seems to be too abstract)
- use of the word »NO« instead of the red »x«
- find a new logo
Do you have some more ideas or proposals or sketches? Please leave a comment!
[Update] Here are two new drafts using a pile of coins:
(smaller cross)
(thicker cross)
This is the final new logo (please use this instead of the old one above with the single coin):
11-02-11
Richard Wolff – Capitalism Hits the Fan
Richard Wolff – Capitalism Hits the Fan
Dr. Wolff is Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. The video is just over 1 hr long. Brilliant description of what has happened in the US over the last 30 years. He understands that the problem of unemployment is hot the result of individual failures, as the neocons would have us believe. He offers some alternatives, especially the worker cooperative. But did not address the fact that even cooperatives have the overproduction problem. Although he says we should talk openly about the problems and make deliberate value choices, he does not ask why must we pay to live on the planet we’re born on? Still, this is worth watching if only for the understanding of the historical context that the media doesn’t talk about. He’s a good speaker. Too bad he had a small audience. Fortunately, the video has had over 19,000 views on You Tube. Check it out!
From: endmoney.infoComments
11-02-09
Demonetization as a playing field
Franz Nahrada
The idea to call for “demonetization” and the call for this initiative brings together a very broad range of perspectives, theoretical traditions and social activists. – So how can we build on our common understanding of the problematique of money relations and the logic of exchange of equivalents and strengthen synergies while respecting a big bag of cultural, theoretical and strategic differences and making controversies fruitful? read more…
11-02-08
Is jailing debtors the same as debtors jail?
Some legal experts say the practice violates state constitutional bans on debtors prisons.
By CHRIS SERRES, Star Tribune
Last update: June 9, 2010 – 7:38 AM
Herman Button listened in stunned silence as a judge in Perry County, Ind., threatened him with jail time unless he agreed to pay $25 a month toward an eight-year-old housing debt.
Unemployed and living on a disability check, Button decided to fight back after the January 2009 hearing. He and an attorney from Indiana Legal Services appealed, citing the Indiana Constitution’s Bill of Rights, which says "there shall be no imprisonment for debt, except in case of fraud."
To Button’s surprise, a state Appeals Court judge agreed. "I’m no lawyer, but I knew we abolished debtors prisons in this country a very long time ago," said Button, 50, who now lives in Hawesville, Ky.
The Button case highlights a potential pitfall for creditors that use the law enforcement system to collect old debts. Most state constitutions, including Minnesota’s, have clauses dating to the 1850s that expressly prohibit the jailing of people for their debts. As legal actions against debtors intensify, attorneys are taking a fresh look at these clauses.
"We have created a de facto debtors prison system in the United States that is largely unconstitutional," said Judith Fox, a law professor at Notre Dame Law School. "In some parts of the country, people are so fearful of arrest they are scrambling to pay money they might not even owe."
In states such as Indiana and Illinois, people are being locked up for not making court-ordered payments. Known as "pay or stay," it can mean days in jail and multiple arrests for the same debt. Some legal experts say the practice is unconstitutional because the arrest is directly linked to the failure to pay a debt.
In Minnesota, the issue is less clear because warrants to arrest debtors are issued for disobeying court orders, such as not filling out a financial disclosure form and missing a required hearing, not for failure to pay debt. So long as someone fulfills the court order, they can avoid incarceration.
"It looks on the surface like debtors prison," said William G. Ross, a law professor at Samford University’s Cumberland School of Law in Birmingham, Ala. "But it’s really not, because the person isn’t being punished for the debt, but for failing to appear."
In Illinois, the issue is more straightforward.
Jack Hinton of Kenney, Ill., was sentenced to jail indefinitely in January after he fell behind on a court order that he pay $150 a month on a debt of $6,440.
According to a court transcript, Hinton, then a self-employed roofing contractor, said he broke his neck and back in a fall from a roof and filed for disability. The judge got upset after learning that Hinton used $1,000 for other bills rather than his court-ordered payments. Hinton was ordered to the county jail indefinitely until he could come up with $300.
After three hours in a holding cell, his wife got him released by borrowing $300 on a credit card. He is considering a challenge to the ruling on constitutional grounds. "I couldn’t pay, and I was stuck in jail until I did," he said. "How is that any different from debtors prison?"
In Button’s case, the judge threatened him with jail if he didn’t pay $25 a month toward a $1,865 judgment. After Button twice said, "I can’t," Judge Lucy Goffinet responded, "I’m not going to accept, ‘I cannot,’ and if the next words out of your mouth are ‘I cannot,’ Mr. Button, then you’ll set … at the Sheriff’s Department until you find a way that, yes, you can," according to the transcript.
Alan White, a law professor at Valparaiso University in Indiana, says even the threat of jail for debts is unconstitutional. He also questioned the practice — common in Minnesota and elsewhere– of bail being set at the amount of the debt.
"If, in effect, people are being incarcerated until they pay bail, and bail is being used to pay their debts, then they’re being incarcerated to pay their debts," he said.
Chris Serres • 612-673-4308
From: endmoney.infoComments
11-02-06
Is competition in our blood?
I wrote “The Inconvenient Truth about Competition” and posted it to several sites including OpEdNews. There I received several comments from someone called Terrilian, which led to an interesting discussion. Unfortunately, various time, comment-length, and style restrictions enforced by the publisher of that site made it impossible for me to continue to respond to Terrilian as I thought proper. I have decided to post the article that was to have been my latest response to her here and invite her to continue the discussion if she wishes.
First a little background: In the "prime the pump" comment, that is strongly preferred by the publisher of OpEdNews, I wrote,
Why must we pay to live on the planet we’re born on?
Why must we earn a living? Aren’t we already living?
Terrilian asked me to clarify because the thought I meant that none of us should have to work. So I explained:
I am pro-work, anti-jobs as we know them know. Right now, work and jobs are thought of as equivalent terms but they are not. I want to abolish jobs, which are rationed goods that are not available to all, while having people realize that work is all around them. This includes full-time homemaking/child rearing/elder care.
I recently saw a documentary called The Economics of Happiness. Information on it is at the website http://www.theeconomicsofhappiness.org/ It begins with the people of Ladakh, a culturally Tibetan area of Indian-ruled Kashmnir. Before the region was open to Western influence in the mid 1970s, the Ladakhi people lived off their land & traded regionally. All had spacious homes & jewelry & no unemployment or great income inequality. In fact, they did not use much money at all, only for certain luxuries that had to be obtained internationally. They were also proud of their culture.
Enter Western competitiveness & in one generation they had unemployment, poverty, & a sense that their culture was inferior to Western consumerism. We have to get back to a culture where everyone is needed & works according to their talents: builders will be builders, farmers, farmers, healers, healers, artists artists, etc. & economics will not be the center of our lives. This is what indigenous cultures have to teach us if we will only listen.
I object to the fact that we must pay, but no one need allow us to make the money to pay. We can be thrown out of the labor force, yet told it is our responsibility to "pay-our way". I understand the freedom of an individual to chose his employees or the products and services she will use. But why should a person’s ability to survive depend on being wanted by others, especially when the economy does not need everybody?
There have been millions of jobs lost in the US in the last few years. Yet do you hear of shortages at the grocery store or any other shops in your town because there weren’t enough workers to get goods to the shelves? Probably not.
To earn something means that someone else has to decide that you have deserved it. I say that no one has to earn their existence. It is given to them, either by a Creator or by an accident of biology, chemistry and physics. Jefferson was right. All men (and women) are created equal, because they come from the same source. No one on this planet has the right to say that you or I deserve what we need to survive as a biological being (food, clothing, shelter, health care) or to thrive as an engaged member of society (education, transportation, communication and the tools of your chosen trade or profession). But with monetary systems, we have some people improperly deciding the fates of others.
Thanks for asking that question.
Due to the character-count restriction, I did not point out what I will point out here. Not only are some people improperly deciding the fates of others, but they are often doing so on the basis of rather suspect criteria: race, gender, age, sexual orientation, immigration status etc.
Terrilian then posted a reply called "We Compete Because We’re Alive"
I can’t agree with any of this. Competition is part of our reality and can’t be wished out of existence. Every living organism on the planet competes with others for space, sunlight, water, resources, status. If you try to outlaw competition in economic matters it will just morph into competition somewhere else. It’s what we do on planet Earth.
"It means that we don’t need monetary systems. If we didn’t have to pay for things we actually could do more work. Have you ever wanted to do something but didn’t have the money to buy the tools or the training?"
I certainly have, and it is dammed frustrating. But the only other option to paying for those tools is to take them. I’m a weaver. Should I be able to take a loom just because I want to weave? Should other people have to take my handwoven scarves in exchange for the resources I need to live. Do my wants or needs obligate others to fulfill them? No, and no, and no. Plunder is not a moral system.
Without money you still would have to pay something for your upkeep. Perhaps in indebted labor or in future obligations or in loyalty to the warlord who IS supplying the resources. In non-capitalist feudal times you paid for your "living" as farm labor and cannon fodder. Or by keeping slaves yourself.
I like money exchanges because they are anonymous and they don’t incur a future obligation.
Here is my response, the original "Is Competition in our Blood?" which was somehow too long for the OpEdNews’ comment section:
Competition & cooperation are both part of our lives. But we choose when to use which, & different societies have had different mixes. There is no legislating out competition but we can grow in consciousness about its use.
Your preference for anonymity & lack for future obligation (a preference shared by many Westerners, I suspect) is a cultural preference & not something encoded in DNA.
I think your assumption that either we have money or we go back to such undesirable practices as slavery, indentured servitude, warlords and plunder is unnecessarily restrictive and dualistic. We do not have to go back and forth between two equally unpalatable “options”. We can, if we open our minds, come up with other possibilities.
I can picture a community in which you, a weaver, take a loom produced by someone who likes to make them. He is also a weaver so he does not need your scarves. He needs bread from the baker, who is cold & needs your scarves, which you were able to make because you were weaving, not working in an office for money. You are on a low carb diet so you don’t take bread but you do take veggies from an urban farmer/landscaper who takes care of the loommaker’s yard, etc.
It’s not plunder; it’s sharing. It’s people in a community taking care of each other. No one is a slave or an overlord. Everyone works according to their interests and skills. Diversity of people is respected as more diversity provides more choice. Your obligation to the community is to keep weaving, maybe teaching others who want to learn, in person or through writing a book about it. In other words, to be you rather than what someone else wants you to be because he can profit by it.
See Eisenstein’s "A circle of gifts" https://endmoney.info/?p=334
If no one wants what someone does, maybe there is a related task that contributes to society. If no one likes my poetry, I can read books to children in a library, make audiobooks for the blind, or teach adult literacy & still write poetry because the point is to provide a service, not to work X number of hours. Who cares that it takes me a fraction of the time to write my poetry than it takes the urban farmer to do her work, if farming is her favorite job & she wouldn’t trade it for a hill of gold?
We can have some mediums of exchange. I have nothing against supermarket coupons. But money has intrinsic value & I find that problematical. More evil is done for money than is done for coupons.
While I was writing that comment originally, Terrilian added another comment about The Economics of Happiness. She had visited the web site and was largely in agreement with its localization message. I appreciate her willingness to be open minded and at least have a look. The first step to freeing ourselves from the violence and economic, cultural and environmental plunder that so many of us rail against daily on sites like OpEdNews is to rid ourselves of the intellectual hegemony of corporate economics, the limited politics of our own society, and habit, tradition and history for its own sake. We shouldn’t just discard the past willy-nilly–chances are that our great grandmother’s cooking was healthier than our own–but we should question what we have always done to figure out if it is still working well or should give way to something new.
I, for one, think monetary systems have outlived their usefulness. You may disagree. But to even entertain a question such as "why must we pay to live on the planet we’re born on?" means we are thinking and not just walking in lockstep down a well-worn trail, solely because "that’s the way it is." That is the difference between humans and ants.
Are you a human being or are you an ant?
From: endmoney.infoComments