The World Without Money??

I wrote this ages ago and posted it on Indymedia.com. Maybe it will interest you guys as well. I realise it's a bit wordy but give it a skim, see what you think.

Andrew Mactier, 17.12.2001 12:44
It's a statement of intent. It's about how the first inklings of anarchy will, calmly and peacefully, begin to present themselves in our (everyone's) lives. How the revolution doesn't have to be bloody and how some can make a start right now. Starts off with a technical description, then there're a few very generic pictures of how it would work, from micro to macro. Then some answers to possible questions. Please, enjoy.

A hope, a vision, a small way on. The internet remains intact but spawns an offspring for the real world - the GLAN (Global Local Area Network). By simple design it is organic in nature and remains relevant to its local environment. Instead of the WorldWideWeb, new machines are made which more or less constantly stay in touch with computers in their area and/or sector whenever they are switched on. They do so by means of communication technology similar to a modem + (mobile) phone. Chat rooms are available limited to the surrounding (large or small) area. The first computers they access in a search are those nearby. 1) Local business could interest and get to know local customers and, more importantly for that business, vice versa. 2) Local people could get to know each other (as far as they want) by perusal of the local homepages. Frexample, you speak French and someone's homepage says they want to extend their basic knowledge. It also says they play the guitar which you wouldn't mind learning a bit of. Arrange some mutual lesson time and you're both getting something you want for free! I think these glob access consoles would run on a flexible kind of Local Area Network, expandable as far as the user wanted or as necessary for the task in hand. It would run on two, overlapping but different strata; geographical and sector. So a computer in a clothes shop would be linked to people, shops etc in the area (geographical), and to it's larger suppliers and clients (sector).
Hopefully as the technology grows the consoles will work more on their own without the need of outside help for the communication lines and so no one has to pay a company to access computers which are all in the near vicinity. Each person or small group looks after their own equipment. It's important that computers have their own technology built in for getting them a relevant place in the network. Maybe a small amount of the machine would be running all the time like a signal relay on a telecom network. Each computer would contribute to increasing the overall speed and efficiency of the network instead of costing.
I think the GLAN would be much easier to access than the net, in terms of maintenance and information transfer.
Passing on of knowledge - one of the essentially human joys of life. Facilitation of it = bonus. Removal of the ugly money side of it where practical = double bonus (to me). A lot of the cost of money could be removed in this way and who you are and what you could do could take some of its importance. The skills of teaching and learning, sadly devalued in today's society for the simple reason (and chaotic implications) that kids don't want to be in school, would be practised a great deal more to everyone's benefit. People could learn whatever they wanted to learn, however they wanted to learn it. It's big.

And so - with scientific knowledge and information being sold for free on the internet (that's what it was for before all), and skills hopefully being shared a lot more easily through organic LANs, how would it continue from there in your mind?

I see moving, organic practicality...

Let me show you a microcosm. Kid A doesn't have a guitar but wants one. He goes to Ms B down the road who can make guitars having learned from Master C several years ago. Kid A watches Ms B as she makes the guitar and helps out where he can, picking up general pointers as he goes. When the guitar is finished, she checks it over then presents it to the overjoyed Kid A. If Ms B doesn't think Kid B deserves a guitar for nothing, he could pay for it with a visit to the local forest, where he can do some unskilled work for wood, or to a steel mine for string material or anything else that Ms B wants. Because Ms B makes a lot of good guitars there are quite a few in the area and most owners can play a little so Kid A, through the GLAN or not, can easily arrange lessons even if they are just impromptu. As and when he sees fit, he might want to move away from where Ms B has made her home because his guitar playing is one of his few skills (being a mere kid) and everyone in the area who wants to play, can. He might want to go somewhere where his skill is rarer and perhaps interesting to people living there. Near, say, Complex D, the famous hi-fi production facility where he could trade his skills as an entertainer and guitar teacher for hi-fi equipment or a skill that someone offered to teach him in exchange if he was interested. You have to assume that at any hi tech manufacturer there will by quite a few experts in quite a few things at any one time. Movement promotes life, stagnation stifles it.

Let's zoom out a ways. Middlecosm. Each individual or group's homepage would include a certain amount of statistical information made up by questionnaires and give and take lists. Interests, experiences, excess things, things needed, skills wanted and skills offered, empty houses etc. As much or as little as the individual or group wanted to include. The statistics could be converted to colours and overlaid on maps at the control of the GLAN user. This would help guide the rolling person. Trade routes would develop hopefully becoming slowly more reliant on goods exchanges instead of goods purchases but who knows. I wouldn't be in charge (though I'd sure as fuck put in my two cents worth).

Out once more. Macrocosm. How would things traditionally reserved for the big world continue to take place if money lost its appeal? How would we progress, technologically, without money as our driving force and guiding light? This is perhaps the easiest of all three. Basically - say you have an idea that you think is good. No one in your local world can tell you if there's anything wrong with it so you put it out on the network in one or several nearby areas which are currently hot with the big thinkers in the relevant fields, tell them the idea and where it's being worked on and await results. Could be your idea is already being developed somewhere and maybe they'll invite you there. Could be the people who know can tell you why it wouldn't work. Could be you'll only attract a couple of misters and a few kids keen to put into use what they've been learning at the hot spot where they were, but presumably these people who turned up with an interest and ability in this relevant field will be able to develop the idea some way and explain it more succinctly to tempt the masters of the relevant fields. And so it grows.

Background philosophy summary: Exchange of information is unlike material objects or money, it can be offered to unlimited people though benefiting only some. It is now easy and almost free once you can afford to get yourself a computer. Information to be useful usually has to go hand in hand with understanding and, in many cases, practised skill. Knowledge (info + understanding) unlike money has intrinsic worth. Skills unlike money are rewarding and universally beneficial to acquire. People like to be useful and able and will continue to try to be so for the same reason as they do today - in order to pull, you know, a status thing. Money when you've got it is safe and comfortable. Money has never been fair. I'm not proposing to outlaw it because that would be impractical and I think state control should be minimised where possible anyway, I'm just proposing that an alternative existence should be allowed.

Development:
As the GLAN becomes more dominant on everyday things over it's big brother, the internet could get back to it's roots, ie become something of an arc containing the sum total of human knowledge. The commercial shit really gets in the way of that.
'What's it all about' is the biggest question of them all. A common answer in this world is money and when people say it they know their tongue is only half in cheek. I'm an idealist but that thought gets me down. It may well be a long time before we can function without money, or without government, but when we do I think we'll function better. The point is that skills would be as attractive a force if not more attractive, than material wealth, because once you have money, all you can do is spend it, and that makes it smaller. Once you have a skill, you can use it, or you can teach it and both these acts would make your world richer. It is more important to gain, give and share non-material wealth because it increases it overall - no one is hurt.

 

I want to live in a world without money

 

NAMASTE


This could be done when more people are in union with each other.

 

I love it. Wonderful idea.

 

A world without money would be a lot simpler

 

fabulous idea ! but i propose this, my fellow dreamer... a world without possessions? if we had nothing,we would have nothing to lose-no theft ,no longing for anything,no poverty, no famine, just everyone helpin everyone outwith what they needed. the world simultaeneoussly theirs and not theirs to claim. its unrealistic and i probably wont see it in my lifetime but wouldnt that be wonderful????

peace, hugs and sweet dreams (dont let them dissappear with age) -imgoing to bed xxxxx

 

Questions
Healthcare
Education
Crime & Punishment
Transit
Questions

I haven't read a lot of anarchist musings or ideas so if I'm repeating stuff between here and the end that you've read before elsewhere, I apologise. I'm sure other thinkers must have considered these problems in an anarchist context and come up with more eloquent solutions than me, but in the interests of completeness, read on...

Education - I'm sure schools would continue to exist but how they are run is one of the things that is likely to vary from place to place. The format I'm sure would be very different after not very long at all. One thing that I've noticed about teaching is that it seems in many respects to be easier to teach / learn from someone who is near the same level as you, rather than your average professional teacher (today) who has to be able to teach to a wide range of pupils and must know at least a little more than the highest level (s)he'll teach at. Obviously the whole process is massively inefficient when either the student or teacher has little interest. Also, I'm not alone in thinking that today's education system (particularly up to and including GCSE / A-levels) is way biased towards the academic side with little time or effort given to practicable, beneficial skills, ie they teach us shit, but they don't teach us how to do shit. Changing that is one of the main aims of the GLAN system. Personally, I think literature should be discovered when it becomes enjoyable, and discussing it should, again, be something you do if you feel like it - not so your opinion can be judged by someone who is likely to have a very different outlook on life than you and (especially bad in my mind) is likely to think that his opinion or way of expressing it is more valid than yours because of his/her position. All subjects that exist in education do so because some people found them important. As long as opinions don't change, I don't see why any subjects would die off, it's just that fewer people would study those subjects that they don't find relevant, useful or interesting in their lives. There are of course those bigots who think that, because they like a subject, everyone should but I don't want these people in charge of forming my, or anyone else's life. I expect schooling to become as varied as human interest as it becomes less of a cobwebbed institution and more of a result of what people think to be important.
One template for how skills would be taught would be the first thing I hope to set up. A workshop - later factory - putting together the machines that will run the GLAN technology once it has been designed. At first, production will be small and, because a GLAN machine is no more useful than a computer unless it has a network to be a part of, we won't be sending this stuff out to buyers but rather picking a few people that we trust and trying to get them and their world full enough of GLAN machines for it to form a big enough network to become useful. When it does, hopefully word will get around and there a demand will grow. When that happens and we get requests, if they seem to have the right attitude we'll invite people down to do our work for us for a bit once we've shown them how and then send them on their way with one or two computers. The important thing is that they will know how to make them so if they can find the space and parts they'll start building and teaching too. As long as anything is being produced at a place there will have to be people there who can keep it up and running so it will be in the interests of all concerned to teach the necessary skills to those that express an interest.

Healthcare - Anarchy doesn't have a good reputation for things like healthcare and justice but I think that's because of the last wave of anarchists who's idea of being productive was going round spraying circled A's on the wall and threatening to steal everything. Many people have a natural desire to be involved in healthcare and it's knowledge that is damn useful wherever you go. As a bonus, most major hospitals are part of a college/university already. Even doctors in a society as money driven as the USA have trouble with the idea that it should be directly paid for by the accident / disease victim. However, obviously those concerned should be rewarded for what they do. I would hope that when a doctor / nurse / whatever, left a hospital after getting training and practice it would become custom simply to remain affiliated with that hospital. Having those skills would make that person a more valuable person to have around no matter where they went so if he went to work for a production co-operative or whatever, the group would know who they owed. What person and what institute. When the hospital needed something, like with most things, it would put a shout out on the net and those that owed the place something would be likely to be the first to respond. I don't see why it takes government and money to do this these days. If a person goes through life trying to be productive and getting the opportunity to, with all we have technology-wise it's ridiculous to think that that person could possibly get to the end having produced less than (s)he consumed. So the aim would be to get the excess to the places where it would do the most good and hospitals would come pretty high on most people's list.

Crime & Punishment - Most people have a slightly fuzzy idea of right and wrong and only the truly dead inside think that right = legal and wrong = illegal. This is because things in the world of right and wrong can be very subjective, so what will be done about the law? As long as the law does exist, and certain acts are defined absolutely as crimes, I think it would be better if local people had a direct influence through the GLAN of what that law was. Aside from a few of the clearest ones [murder, rape, vandalism (I personally don't think of decent graffiti as vandalism) etc.] there aren't many things that are universally regarded as crimes which is why I think a nationalist approach to the law and legality is not really fair. There will also be problems to overcome when it comes to enforcing it, after all, who in their right mind would want to be a policeman for nothing? It would perhaps get easier to enforce the law when more people were in agreement with it, as the amount of laws decreased and as society became more fair in general but, although I personally am generally opposed to the legal and penal system, in certain cases it would still need enforcement otherwise why bother with it at all. I have high hopes for the GLAN system because I have faith in people and believe that most of those that turn out 'bad' do so as a reaction to bad things around them but I'm not in a position to say that everything and everyone could be beautiful (inside at least). There's bound to be things and people that go wrong so I don't know. In any case, even if I can get the idea off the ground and even if it ever gets far enough for self rule to take over from national government it's not going to be for a while yet so we can get ready to cross this bridge if and when there are indications that we may need to.

Transit - As people become more functional in their own right the need for government and its institutions should decrease. Roads and rail both take quite a bit of maintenance which at the moment are taken care of by these institutions. With roads I would suggest that we leave it to us. When a road gets too bad, those that it affected would do something if they wanted. Rail's different though because it has to be systematically checked or the problem might not be noticed till it's caused a disaster. I don't really know how skilled the work is but the checking itself couldn't be too hard and one possibility is a software programme which could be written fairly easily to run throughout the rail sector network to inform local people when a section of rail has gone unchecked for too long. As the great man says: "I know nothing". The problem's hardly unsolvable though and I'm sure there are a million possible different ways of taking care of things. I'll leave it to the Great Unknown. As people become more sufficient among themselves and begin to take responsibility for their own needs I hope that renewable fuels would grow in popularity as a natural progression. Petrol ain't easy for everyone to come by. The thing about money is that it is easy and to an extent necessary to hoard it. If the goal of life was to acquire the right things, things that were essentially yours and practical for the way you live, hoarding, greed, would no longer be accepted and those that succeeded in hoarding would no longer be admired as they are today. I hope (optimistic?) that trust would grow.

That's it for now. Please add, subtract and change anything as you see fit. Later folks.

 

I think however that today's technology is becoming somewhat of a burdon, while also being somewhat of a godsend, to society. Has anybody ever seen the movie 2001: A Space Oddysey? Technology takes over in a big way. The HAL 9000 smart computer, killed the ships crew, because it went haywire. I'm just somewhat afraid that society is moving a bit too much towards the technological and scientific side, and not paying enough attention towards the spiritual, creative, or emotional side.

As the original poster might have said, movement does promote life and stagnation does stifle it, but what about creativity? Creativity is the very fabric of human life. Without the ability to be creative, what are human beings? We would be drones, set to do what some kind of higher evil power wants us to do.

Which is why, I'm only hoping that the technology we have today, only improves in the right ways, and not the wrong ways. The right ways being, faster internet access and smaller computers that can hold more data. The wrong ways being actual thinking machines that could kill you if it goes haywire.

As on the issue of currency... I think that currency should be a concept that must be erradicated. It causes corruption and deception and causes the most spiritual of people to become yuppies. It becomes addictive like cigarettes, alcohol, or hard drugs. People will do anything to get their hands on it.

 

in theory, a moneyless society would work. But so does communism, in theory.

 

I am no fan of money, but it is a hell of a lot easier than the alternative. Our needs, wants, and good produced are so diverse these days. Just think if you were like a fertilizer maker. Hi, I have some dried animal dung. It will help your plants grow. Can I trade you for a sony walkman? I mean, its easier to just get a universal medium for our goods and services, and be able to use it for anything, instead of having to travel around with your sack of fertilizer looking for somebody with a walkman that needs some shit...

 

money sucks..people think money can change everything well maybe the amount of bills you have lol.. You can be a billionaire and be the most miserable person.

peace
chickens

 

How many more god-damned, pointless, anti-society, teenie-bopper threads are going to show up in this place?


THERE WILL ALWAYS BE A MONETARY SYSTEM OF SOME SORT--GET THE FUCK OVER IT!

I for one, will NEVER give up my money or possessions to anyone--especially not to some hairbrained andolescent idea. And I am not alone. So, as long as people like you are in the minority, you will have to find some other way to occupy your time besides writing "manifestos".

 

Me too! I think we should work less, and just enjoy life instead of being slaves.

 

geez...you are so angry. I think it's a perfectly constructive way for people to spend their time, probably more so than your complaining.

 

Im not really a great fan of money. We should trade poetry and paintings like they did in the 60's and 70's. That would be really cool but maybe not to the shops because wouldn't accept it and unfortunately its what makes the World go round.




"When the rich wage war,
It's the poor who die."


- Jean - Paul Sartre.

 

Money is simply a tool used in barter.It's the way its used that's important.It is an inanimate object and has no will of its own.(I.O.W.)Money is not the problem,people are.You can barter without money and still screw the other person.It's done a lot in the trades.Trade a fence for a roof. the roof takes longer.What's lost is time which is more important than money.I'd rather lose money.Money makes it easier to help others.Sure there's plenty of good deeds to be done without money,but try to send a roof to help the storm victims in Florida.It can be done,but is much easier and efficient with money.Money doesn't need to be abolished,just liberated.Free money!

 

I Found You. Good Morning Gate. I Need To Make $50.oo The Hard Way, Can You Help? Although I Can Make It Easy.

 

Charmain,

Free speech is free speech,but you're just sick.Leave it to you to find a forum like this and completely make a mockery of it.It's a good thing you're back in Florida.That's where you belong.So much for tolerance.Gotta go they're busting down my door again.Hippie bastards,they won't get me alive.Damn that brown acid.

 

well, you know us back here in florida. all we do is pick oranges and wait for hurrricanes.

i guess you're not the kind of gate i thought you were. i will remember you fondly in short time we have known each other here at the HIP Forum.

how about a parting picture of you, if not, how about a farting fiction of you.