The 99% Solution

Well, friends, I stopped talking about this world economic situation for over a year while I looked for a different solution.  I'm sorry to admit that I didn't find one.  Given the way things are shaping up in the EU and the speed that things are approaching meltdown around the world,  my guess is that one big default is all it's going to take to trigger a collapse that cannot be controlled.  It's possible that the EU can survive if Germany bails out Greece, but Italy is very close to default as well, and there isn't enough money in the EU's coffers to bail them out.

Desperate times call for desperate measures.  So here's what we will have to do.  The first thing that has to happen is that we have to simultaneously, worldwide, realize that money is a FICTION.  It's a representation of value, not value itself.  Value is not the same thing as cost. Cost is value measured, traditionally in money. We've been doing that since the Babylonians, so long that we have forgotten that cost and value are different,  Value is only what a thing can be used for, even if that is merely to find pleasure in it or in its beauty.  So here's the solution.  It's very simple--only three steps.

1. Abolish all currencies and all debt.
2. Keep doing the work you have been doing.
3. Take care of everyone who needs it.

Obviously the financial institutions and those who work in them will have nothing to do.  Great!  Volunteer somewhere.  Everyone else should continue on as if nothing had happened.  At the grocery, people will still come for food and leave with it.  But nothing will be exchanged for it.  Everything is free.  Trucks will arrive with more food.  Gasoline will be pumped into the trucks' tanks.  Refineries will still make the gas, oil companies will pick it up and deliver it where it is needed.

Farmers will still grow food and deliver it to the markets through whatever distribution networks exist.  Hospitals will continue to deliver health care.  Everything will continue as before, except that everyone will be giving away their labor, and everyone will receive what they need.

Whatever you have or live in or wear or drive will be yours to keep or give away as you see fit.  If you need a new car, refrigerator, suit, pair of shoes, or house, it will be given to you.  BUT...

The most important thing to understand is that we are all in this together, and it is your responsibility to receive only what you need and no more than you need!  Hoarding makes no sense anyway unless something is no longer being produced.

The word "afford" has to simply vanish.  It especially means that we all need to take responsibility for those who previously were in need because they could not "afford" what they needed.  We must all see to it that everybody gets what they need.

But with this great shift there is great responsibility.  People must work just as they did before if this new economy is going to succeed.  Your value as a person will be measured by the extent to which you contribute, not the amount of "stuff" you have piled up around you.

Much will have to be negotiated; we understand that.  But the world cannot simply grind to a halt because we won't exchange the value of our labor for the value of goods and services we need (and want) because currency isn't involved in that exchange.

We can turn crisis into opportunity and opportunity into Utopia, if we just realize what we are actually dealing with.

Not So Far-Fetched, Eh?

Since the last post, trillions of dollars have spewed from the US Government's coffers to shore up the collapsing financial system, the auto industry, and other segments of the economy. If all this fails--and no one has come up with a better idea that hasn't failed (e.g. supply-side, trickle-down economics)--it's quite possible that currencies as we know them will be a thing of the past.

If so, what are we left with? Answer: the intrinsic value of goods and services. What's no longer here is a convenient yardstick to compare one thing against another. Conceivably, such a yardstick could evolve on its own as time goes on, but in the short run people with no currency can't buy the necessities of life. People could starve, be evicted, and go naked in the midst of immense wealth simply because we are all focused on the economic fairness that a currency allegedly provides.

The point is that nothing has lost its value simply because we have no way to measure it. In the absence of money, people instinctively begin to barter goods and services, and that's fine as far as it goes. The problem is that we are so conditioned by the presence of money that we would try to make sure that every bartered transaction is "fair", and we will be so hamstrung if it isn't that we won't trade until it is.

This attitude is based on the notion of scarcity. From scarcity comes hoarding. Both are based on fear: fear that we won't survive if there isn't "enough." Wealth, as we normally understand it is a form of hoarding. It is based on the notion that if we put enough of an economic armor around ourselves, we will be "safe." The chink in the armor is capsulized in the saying "You can't take it with you".

All of our notions about scarcity, safety, and wealth are based on the illusion of separate, individual existence. Advances in physics, biology, ecology, and other sciences should convince the most hard-boiled among us the this really is an illusion. As an example, our bodies seem to be the same from day to day, but if one looks at what's really going on from a systems point of view, we are constantly changing: inputting oxygen, outputting carbon dioxide and other waste products of the food that we input to keep the system functioning. I'd have to check the numbers, but I seem to recall that nearly every cell in our bodies is replaced in about seven years. The "body" is a matrix for all this activity. For this to work, the entire ecology has to support it.

Given this fact, the notion of getting and spending have to be called into question. Stuff flows in, stuff flows out. More accurately we're looking at the flow of stuff through matrices, and it's only because we can't apply our five senses (especially sight and hearing) to what's going on in the microscopic realm, that we can't operate from this perspective in the first place. It normally takes holding this conception in mind constantly to not operate this way.

But there are circumstances that push us out this set of attitudes. For instance, how do people behave in emergencies and national disasters? They almost automatically start helping each other. Newscasts always show neighbors helping neighbors in the aftermath of tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, as well as man-made disasters such as war, often at significant risk to themselves. Our better instincts demand it, and only the most fearful can resist the urge. People who rescue others, soldiers who act to protect their buddies almost universally are puzzled when we label them as heroes. They always say, "I was just doing what anyone would do."

My guess is that this is what we'd do if confronted with massive economic collapse. We would make sure that everybody has what they need. Our better instincts are to protect the survival of the group rather than the largely illusory individual.

Next post: Redefinition of wealth.