Necessities

Let's start looking at some specific things that would need to be addressed immediately if money would disappear.  Here are the basics:

1. Food
2. Clothing
3. Shelter

About what you'd expect, eh?  Probably it will take at least an entire post for each one to get all the ideas out there. So let's start with food.

We can learn from history here if we look back at what happened during the French Revolution. One of the immediate effects of life in the Paris Commune was that all the food was used up pretty quickly, and nobody had planned for how to deal with the food distribution system collapsing. So starvation ensued, leading predictably to panic, finger-pointing, and frequent use of the guillotine.  It was not pretty, and the Revolution started to unravel immediately.

At one point farmers were offered script (revolutionary currency) in exchange for grain.  They were smart enough to realize that the stuff might shortly be worth nothing, and they held back their grain.  People starved, and grain rotted.

Here's what will get the problem solved quickly.  Organize a group of merchants such that everything a farmer could possibly need or want would be available through the group, then offer to let the farmer and any of his family or workers take whatever they might need from the merchants for a year in exchange for the farmer's crop.   The merchants can distribute the crops through their stores, or each merchant can trade it to other merchants. Next year they can negotiate a new agreement.  This largely solves the distribution problem by keeping the trades local, which saves fuel and keeps the goods fresher.

A variation with greater efficiency would be that merchants would merge, creating locally-supplied general stores. These would be replacing today's Big Box stores, which exist only because of the price advantages of scaling up.

Once again, we have eliminated all the bureaucracy and red tape of trying to ensure that everybody in the transaction gets an equal share down to the penny.  We just throw away the yardstick with the understanding that if you contribute what you can, you will get what you need.  We've also avoided the need for some kind of State distribution (and more bureaucracy) by keeping the agreements local.

Who Will Clean the Toilets?

One of the objections frequently leveled against the proposal for the absence of money is that no one will do any work.  The assumption here is that humans are basically lazy and that, if basic needs are met, we'll all just lounge around in our underwear drinking beer and watching sports TV.  Okay, that's the men.  Probably the women would just shop for useless junk and watch soap operas, if we're going to deal in ugly stereotypes.

But have you ever asked someone (or been asked yourself), "If money were no problem, what would you really like to be doing with your time?"  Most folks will tell you that they'd like to be doing something useful or creative.  I submit to you that in reality, people want to make a difference.  They want to set a good example for their children.  They want to be respected by their families, friends, and neighbors.  And they want to respect themselves.  I think that this is where the key lies.

Everybody knows that there are jobs that need to be done, even though they are or seem unpleasant.  I doubt that cleaning the bathroom, especially the toilet, is anyone's favorite task, but the idea of being stuck with doing it for a living is even more repugnant.  We see someone in a job like that, and we have the urge to pretend that we don't see them; we run the other way.  On the other hand, if we know that someone is cleaning toilets for a day at a homeless shelter, we call it community service and have the urge to thank them.  So it's really about the stuckness, the wage-slavery of it, not about the task itself.  And the saddest part is that the person with the job is probably making minimum wage for it.  In a compassionate economy, that person would be paid more than a CEO.

So could you do it a couple hours a week or one day a month?  Sure you could, with the added bonus that your friends and family would admire you for it.  So if we as a community understand this cluster of ideas, the expectation could grow that a person's reputation is built on what one is willing to contribute to the community. And Reputation is crucial to our argument.  The reasons for this will become clear in a post in  the near future.  Stay tuned!

Childhood's End

The long childhood of the human species is coming to an end.  Childhood is wonderful, but it ends when we are old enough and smart enough to realize the sacrifices and the pain that our parents have experienced in order to support our growth.  We have taken, taken, taken without thought of return. The same is true of the economic and financial system in which we are immersed.  We have taken, taken, taken without thought of the cost to the support provided freely by the Earth, by the Nature in which we are immersed.

Like children, we have ignored what Earth is giving up in order to support our economic growth.  Did you know that up until recently the costs of the raw materials taken from the earth, including the cost of repairing any damage done as a consequence of extracting them, did not appear in the equations of economists?  It's pretty ease to make an economic entity look profitable if you ignore most of its costs.

For a long time, we also have paid no heed to the privations of others who provide goods and services that support the American Dream.  Slowly the awareness has grown, starting with the Labor movement, whose struggles made it possible for workers to have a decent life.  Lately awareness is growing of the deplorable conditions endured by workers in other countries, just as, closer to home, the living standards won by the labor unions are being systematically chipped away and dismantled.  All of this is done in the name of "competitiveness".  I read somewhere recently that not only have wages not kept pace with the inexorable rise of prices, but "real income", which I believe just means "adjusted for inflation", has not increased at all since the 1970s.  Is anyone surprised that the economy is collapsing?  Nobody can afford anything, and yet we now pay for almost everything, including stuff that used to be free (or nearly free) a generation ago (e.g. drinking water).

So to make it possible to continue squeaking by, we increase our burden of debt, and now we can buy even less stuff because part of our costs now is the expense of debt service.  Have you ever given any thought as to why religions throughout history have condemned the charging of interest on debt?  You can only lend money if you have more money than you need. The rich lend the money, and the rich collect the interest.  The borrowers have to show a profit from what they borrowed, or they lose on both ends. If they profit, they still have to pay the interest.  So the rich always get richer, and the poor are always debt slaves.

One grows up and eventually develops compassion for and understanding of one's parents.  The species grows up when it develops compassion for and understanding of all the forces and entities that have supported us as we grew, principally the environment and the poor.  It's telling that those whose vision does not extend past the end of their wallets almost universally refuse to give back to either one.

But time is running out.  Soon the cost of exploiting raw materials from the environment and the cost of further growing the poor population will become so high that the economy will collapse.   What do people do when disaster strikes?  Where do they go when there's nowhere else to go?  They turn to family, friends, and neighbors, to community self-help.  Therein lies the beginnings of the solution.

Start now.  Find out what the neighbors know how to do, and let them know what you know how to do.  Along the way, you'll probably learn what special needs are around you.  Maybe you can help with those.  Maybe you know someone else who could help also.  Don't be sucked in by trying to get a "fair exchange."  Giving freely builds your personal capital, you might need help later that you can't foresee now.

The fact that we don't  already do this speaks volumes.  We haven't needed to.  We pay for everything.  Wonder why you don't know your neighbors?

Moneyless Education

Consider the possible changes in the educational system that would be possible, nay, inevitable, if there were no money involved.  Currently, there are two major motivations for getting an education: the first is to go deeper into something you are interested in or passionate about, and the second is to prepare yourself for a career, i.e., to make the most money possible.  As an artist with lots of scientific curiosity, I can personally attest to the power of the first motivation.

In my youth in the 1960s, I and most of my peers felt that elementary school was for acquiring basic skills, and secondary school (through college) was for a "well-rounded" education.  Unless you were planning to go to graduate school and pursue a career in academia, education was definitely not job training.  The well-roundedness was for creating a cultured person who could thrive in many fields.

Typically, one's parents thought differently.  Their fear was that by pursuing these largely useless fields, their children would be consigning themselves to lives of poverty (or teaching, which amounts to a slightly better-respected brand of poverty) and that they had better be planning for what their lifelong careers would be.

Both camps were secretly afraid of getting the wrong sort of education and ending up in a job one hated, because it was too expensive to go back and do it over.  This is an instance of financial constraints channeling lives willy-nilly. If you were in a job you hated, you probably would not advance along the career track and would live a life of mediocrity and quiet desperation. And for many people, that describes their lives today.  But times were changing, and many others have had several careers as their interests have changed, or what they originally pursued turned out to be a dying field.

It's pretty easy to see the underlying financial motives behind these paradigms, but what if money were not part of the equation?

First of all, it's obvious that kids are learning machines.  They start out curious about everything, and usually as they grow older, become focused on just a few subjects.  But then the pressure begins from parents, teachers, and society in general to pick their field, get the right education, get on the career track, and live happily ever after.

The problem is that not everybody (and probably nobody) successfully makes this choice right out of high school, because the fact is that people frequently continue to change interests as they go through life.  The most courageous find ways to change careers;  the rest have hobbies.  Once again, the problem is money.  Remember that I said that it's too expensive to do your education over?  Another problem with a career change is that because you have attained a certain standard of living, you now have to make a certain amount of money to maintain it, and changing careers would probably mean that you're going to have to start over at the bottom rung of the ladder with a major pay cut and a drastically reduced standard of living.  If you have kids to support, that may be impossible altogether.  Career and child raising are, unfortunately, joined at the hip.

Without money constraints, all those linkages and inter-dependencies are broken.  The concentrated curriculum is no longer necessary.  On-the-job training starts to make sense again.  Has anyone else noticed that being a graduate assistant looks an awful lot like an apprenticeship?  Apprenticeship works fabulously even today.  It's just that if you're wearing a suit, we now call it "Mentorship".

The basics of education could be limited to ways to interface the learning machines (kids or adults) to the media of information transmission.  It looks like we're back to the Three Rs.  Probably should have never left in the first place.  After that the learners just follow their curiosity until it's time for apprenticeship where some guidance is added into the mix.  That model should work all the way from agriculture to brain surgery and everything in between.

Return to the Village

Once you detach yourself from the fear that money might disappear and view it as a positive development, all sorts of interesting possibilities open up. I love to start with the idea that all of a sudden everyone wakes up one morning to find that the entire financial system has collapsed.  All the money is gone.  Say some supersonic computer virus swept through the world's banking network and blew away every bit of financial data.  All the backup files, too. All too easy, but don't even think about it, okay?

What if someone had the presence of mind and the media power to put out the following idea:

"Folks, let's start with the basics.  If you have a roof over your head, that's now your house.  All debts are wiped free.  If you had a job, you probably should show up for work, even though there's no money to pay you.  The new currency is now Your Own Reputation, fueled by your willingness to contribute your time and energy to the community.  What you gain for your Reputation is that your family, friends, and acquaintances are going to take care of you because you are taking care of them.

"Jerry Potsdam, manager of the Super Mega Grocery Mart branch down the street, has a whole store full of food that she can't sell, because no one has money to pay for it, so rather than have it all just sit there or go bad, she gives whatever is needed to anyone whom she or any store employee recognizes or to anyone THOSE people will vouch for.  Instant foodstuffs network!  The employees keep right on stocking the shelves and unloading the trucks, which keep showing up with more food because the food providers keep loading the trucks, and that's because they keep growing it, and that's because they're still being provided with the wherewithal to grow the food.

"And the people who provide the wherewithal do so because they know they can come in to their local grocery store and get the food they need.  Can you see that this only works if everybody understands that their effort is needed?  That applies to everyone who was unemployed when the bottom fell out.  You don't need a "job"!  Just contribute to the well-being of your family, friends and neighbors.  Your reputation and willingness will ensure that folks will make sure you have what you need.

"Now notice that reputation can be gained by any useful activity, so what if you hate your job and would rather be home taking care of the kids?  Stay home and take care of the kids!  That's providing value to the community.  Even more value if you take care of the neighbors' kids (and they take care of yours) as needed.

"Old Granny Parker can't pay for Meals on Wheels any more, but they keep showing up anyway.  She makes sweaters and gives them to the Meals on Wheels people and the neighbors on the block.  Pretty soon the neighbors find out that she can't get to the yarn store any more, so they take her there or just go get her some yarn.  Then when everybody on the block has a Granny Parker sweater, the folks in the next block find out about her.  Somebody over there fixes her dishwasher (that's what his company does).  A local nurse from over at the hospital hears about her because her neighbor has a new Granny Parker sweater."

I'll be here all week....