thoreau wrote:
In order to look objectively at ways of removing currency - i.e a method standardising and facilitating exchange of goods and services it may perhaps be pertinent to not only look forward but to look back.
Agreed, as Gue has pointed out there's lots we could glean from things that have happened before
I do not think that humans have reached a mindset or are even close to reaching a mindset whereby they are able to let go of the instinct to take more then what they need or to acknowledge that sometimes others needs are greater. Except perhaps under exceptional circumstances and/or in small groups.
Agreed, I don't see the transition being without challenges/obstacles such as this. There are many precedents of the kind of thinking/attitude that would need to spread and those would be of value in helping people to come to terms with their responsibility to others and others responsibility to them. There would be a need to inform people honestly at every step and answer every concern, long before any form of critical mass was achieved.
I kinda feel that we have opened pandoras box somewhat with consumerism and technological advances and do not think it will be possible in my lifetime to shut it.
I don't necessarily see a need to close that box.
Excessive consumerism would have to be addressed but certainly tech would have a vital role to play. Again, the absence of currency does not dictate a return to the pre-industrial age.
People are used to a certain standard of living - a standard that requires a huge amount of man power and resources to maintain. No matter what we may wish life to be like some tasks are not as popular as others - and people actually offering to do those jobs with no incentive may be a hard sell. Particularly if those tasks required lengthy training and a real skill set to do.
I can't see a reason why standards of living would need to slip, in fact I can see them rising for the vast majority of people on the Earth if currency was consigned to history.
Yes, collectively we'd have to address how we would deal with such things as sewage which few would choose to involve themselves with. Things like this again could no doubt be helped with new thinking on methods of treating them. I envisage less actual work would need to be done than at present. As Dogsmilk pointed out, a large amount of the work done nowadays is utterly pointless, inefficient and it's raison d'etre lies in the profit motive and the currency system which dictates that continual growth of economies is essential. I genuinely believe that the majority would willingly offer their labour and skills, knowing that their efforts benefited all and that their own needs were met. A lot of people take pride in what they do. One thing I do agree with Fresco on is that if freed from the need to labour for money, one may actually be more insentivised.
I may be doing the human species a disservice but I cannot imagine many people volunteering to do tasks that involve hard manual labour, little to no sunlight or fresh air without having to - for the same resources as someone who does a task that appears to be much more pleasant.
For one thing, I don't envisage some kind of rationing where everyone gets the same things as being either necessary or achievable. I take your point that some jobs are shittier than others, that would need to be addressed way before we actually ditched the concept of money. A lot of those shitty jobs may actually be found to be unnecessary, others may be streamlined made more efficient through different systems/designs/tech. Those that remain necessary and shitty would perhaps need to be shared out? I don't know but I'm certain we could work it out.
What would happen to art? and literature? they are both things that bring enormous pleasure to people but would they be given the same weight as a task as for example mining or road building or nursing or any other more necessary tasks. What would prevent people from pursuing the life of an artist even if they were rubbish if every person received the same resources? would resentment not spring from that?
Again, I don't see rationed/homogenized resources being necessary but in common with other areas, to print a 1000 books that no-one wants to read wouldn't exactly lead to a second print run, just as it doesn't today. Today we are all encouraged to use "perceived wealth" concepts, measuring ourselves against others. This would be consigned to the past along with the currencies, there'd be no place for notions like that if everyone had free access to what they personally need. I'd suggest there is no actual place for "perceived wealth" in our heads today and I'd contend it is a product of the current paradigm.
Who would oversee the allocation of resources? decide who should get what and what is a necessity and what isnt?
Certain things could and would obviously be sourced/produced locally. Basic food stuffs for example. It would be possible to use ideas along Eden project lines to vastly widen the range of things that could be grown in specific areas, hydroponics etc similarly. Some of these things may even be produced in the home or
very local community.
As the product got more complex then I imagine it's production would become increasingly more centralized and probably standardized. The range of choice on such things as TVs, home computers etc may need to be narrowed but there'd be no reason why everyone couldn't have a perfectly good and long lasting food processor for example. (I'm skirting around this one a bit aint I
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I think what I'm getting at is that there'd possibly be various levels of a kind of direct democracy. Local communities would decide what they could and would do for themselves, then there would perhaps need to be a regional level and then a more widespread level as the complexity of the product increased. It's certainly one of the key issues you've raised there thor
It's a point that'd take a lot of input to sort out. I suspect that market forces would still be relevant. If there is a desire/need for something it would likely be met, if there weren't it most likely wouldn't.
Personally I do not think that currency is the problem I think that the way in which value and worth is allocated is and always has been the problem.
I do see currency is a problem. I think it will inevitably lead to vast inequality of wealth. It always has done and I see no way of that changing. I see it being at the heart of an awful lot of barbaric actions, an awful lot if not all of things like famines and wars, a huge factor in why we are constantly encouraged to measure ourselves against others and so on.
Ok, you could get rid of it and still be left with marauding tribes running around stealing real world wealth but I think that a race that had got to a stage where it realised that currency is unnecessary would be far better placed than we are now to deal with rogue elements.
In a utopian world we would have enough people to do all the tasks necessary and who want to do those jobs because it brings them pleasure - I cannot see it happening in the numbers necessary. When I read the sorts of comments belittling the disabled, the elderly and even parents as being a 'drain' I cannot get my head around these same people reaching the sort of mentality needed.
That is not to say that I would not like the world to be different.
Don't forget the paradigm we live in that actively encourages the belittling attitudes you point out. The hierarchical systems thrive on it and continually push it. Division, fear, selfishness and other such undesirable things. I truly don't think those things are human nature, I think they are predominantly nurture.
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