about this talk and he said something
that caught my attention he told me an
idea this extreme would automatically
put them off I thought to myself wow is
this an extreme idea I mean if anything
I thought people would think of it as
being utopian something to grant so that
will work in theory that has no real
practical implications but also got me
thinking about how we use the third
extreme if the idea of a world without
money is extreme and what kind of words
would we use to describe a world with
money
moderate safe are these the words you
think about when you think of your
relationship with money or do you
automatically start thinking about how
much more of it you need to meet your
next goal maybe it’s to buy a house or
start a family maybe it’s more immediate
things like paying this month’s rent or
getting enough food now that you’re
thinking about money are you feeling a
bit stressed out anxious well you’re not
alone money issues have consistently
ranked as the number one cause of stress
and anxiety in the US and the UK the
thing is most of us don’t put an
inherent value on money we think of it
as a means to an end
we also understand the type of precarity
we’d be in if we don’t make enough of it
whatever that means for us since we know
we need money we’re willing to make
sacrifices over what we do to get it
we’ll take up jobs we’re not happy with
put up with bad bosses and colleagues
we’ll take that unpaid internship in the
hopes to get a paid job and some of us
will even take out student loans to
study things we might not necessarily
want the things that we hope will give
us a better chance in the future to earn
the living the thing is money doesn’t
just impact our own choices and
decisions
it also interconnects us all through
competition we all compete for the
opportunity to work and
this competition we’ve built a system
around it a system we liked with now
think of as a science we call it
economics but this that this competition
also means that many of us will lose
access to some of the basic needs some
of us will automatically be pushed out
through this competition
now some countries have governments that
say no no matter how much money you make
or whether or not you have the
opportunity to make that money you
should always have your basic needs met
here in Scotland for example health care
and education and for the most part
covered for those who need more
assistance there are things like food
banks shelters and subsidized housing
the thing is even these systems that are
put in place to counteract the
coerciveness of money are themselves
coerced how many times have we heard of
the term balanced budget in the news
governments find themselves in a
position where they’re balancing between
those who own the resources and provide
the jobs and those who actually fulfill
the jobs so things like money supply
creating jobs and inflation become what
the government does instead of directly
meeting our needs but even with all
these attempts to control the economy
and to try to make sure our mean needs
are met every once in a while and with
increasing frequency we have a financial
crisis and every time a crisis happens
even more people are left without the
resources they need but let’s say we
don’t want to look at money through the
complexity of the government and the
economy let’s say we want to look at it
through its exchange value right that’s
how most of us look at money we use it
exchange goods and services well even
then aren’t we trading your time for
money does I mean we don’t even own our
time isn’t that where the phrase time as
money comes from and then are we all
working with the hopes that eventually
we have enough money to buy our time
back to buy our freedom back isn’t that
the concept
pension of retirement so no matter how
you look at it
money is an extreme idea on individual
level it forces us into decisions we
might not otherwise make as a society it
forces us to compete against each other
and it even paralyzes our government
from being able to meet our needs what’s
the alternative here so we go back to a
bartering phase well here’s where it
gets interesting anthropologists the
world over agree that the entire barter
phase of the economy we think about
never existed societies have always
existed on an implicit or explicit
understanding of debt or favour and
everything has been used as currency
from construction nails to feathers and
seashells where trades existed it was
between societies and not as individuals
bartering within it so if you want to
think about a world without money it’s
not to go back to some kind of mythical
barter phase of the economy that never
really existed we need to move beyond
the idea of exchange altogether a world
of equal access a world where everything
from housing food education and even the
things we consider as leisure such as
entertainment and Technology require
nothing in exchange a world where all of
these things are absolutely free now I
know what you’re thinking this is
absolutely insane if there’s no money
where’s the incentive to work why would
anyone do anything and we’d all be
fighting over the same things well let’s
break that down and think about it when
it comes to your work why do you do what
you do most of us want to become doctors
engineers musicians or ecologists
because we understand the value that
gives to society we want to be a part of
moving things forward and improving the
quality of life it might also be our
passion and a way we find meaning from
our lives itself but see here we’ve
already fallen into the trap of thinking
of work
as an exchange how many of us in our
free time also volunteer or give to
charity we do these things not expecting
anything in return we do them because we
understand we belong to a society and we
want to play an active role but let’s
say we don’t believe in any of these
noble aspirations in a world without
money all we’d want to do is follow our
own passions well within that eventually
also benefit society think about every
great inventor out there did they do
what they do for money I mean of course
they made money out of it and we value
that an ardent on every entrepreneur
today but I doubt Alexander bell created
the telephone thinking I’m gonna make my
quick first million a world without
money would also mean that many of the
jobs we may have today become
unnecessary banking insurance and
finance all things that are meant to
either manage money or try to create
more money out of money itself become
unnecessary instead the jobs that will
gain significance are the ones that hold
social values the ones we need to
survive
and the ones that make life worth living
work on these things will be voluntary
people will be motivated by a sense of
responsibility towards themselves and
society we’d be able to structure our
work in a much more democratic way
imagine you can elect your boss or
choose what you can do within your
company where that company should go and
since now there’s no more competition
over money you can start working with
other companies to push innovation
forward and these structures will be
built on a regional level and then on an
industrial and national level so world
without money doesn’t mean that work
will stop being done it just means that
why and how we do work will change the
social reasons of why work exists in the
first place will naturally rise to the
top a world without money also doesn’t
mean anarchy our conception of Anarchy
is tied to one of the core
principles of economics that we all
behave in a way that maximizes
self-interest so we need something like
money to control us to keep a lid on
things but I ask you is this a fair
assessment of human nature or our
current trends of hoarding and you know
just keeping all the wealth to ourselves
a result of this system a system that
puts money before anything else if we
didn’t have to think about money would
be looking to hoard it or just look to
improve ourselves and first look at
ourselves and think aiya I’m the greedy
hoarding type so why do we quickly
accuse others of this behavior well this
ties into another economic principle
that of scarcity and competition we
compete for scarce resources but if we
know anything about our world today
especially here in the West is that not
much is scarce advances in agriculture
in the US has meant that we are now over
producing food and there things are
being dumped on the international free
market in England alone there are more
than 600,000 empty housing units some
being empty for more than 10 years and
then across the world automation doesn’t
only mean that jobs are being replaced
and we don’t need to show up to work but
that jobs are being done at a much more
effective rate if we’ve reached these
levels of advancement then why are we
still showing up to work can’t we all
find better ways to give into society
than be part of a system that over
produces as for the things that remain
scarce well we can use the power of
democracy that side where they go and
what we do with them I mean we might all
want Lamborghinis that doesn’t make
sense that’s just wasteful and
unnecessary we can use the power of
democracy to decide where our resources
should go and what we do with them of
course to be able to make these
decisions we need to technically own our
resources they need to be held in
Commons only then can we be the sole
decision-makers on what happens with
them
if we owned our products in common then
we’d also liberate the government from
its current balancing act and stuff
trying to balance between those who own
resources and those who make the goods
the government’s job will become to help
us identify our needs and meet them
directly it will become to help us
organize into the workgroups we just
talked about and through these new
systems of governance we can
continuously push for innovation I mean
if we’re the ones doing the work I mean
I’m sure we’d all want to do less of it
right and here we can lean on technology
which will also be held into Commons to
continuously push for innovation and do
less and less of the work ourselves
instead of how correct technology is
currently held in comments and behind
trade secrets communal ownership may
sound like a strange idea but it’s
already a part of our colloquialism
think about community gardens or rooftop
solar panels we think of these as ways
to become more self-reliant but there
are also ways for us to take control
away from large centralized and private
organizations there are way for us to
benefit directly from the resources we
have communal ownership has also been
tried on a much larger scale in places
like Spain Italy and Mexico where entire
industries have been run under Commons
from agriculture to manufacturing these
experiences have not only taught us how
to better itself organize but also how
to make sure power isn’t abused ideas
such as industrial signals syndicates or
any and all elected officials being
subject to immediate recall have helped
us build more egalitarian societies
around the world the question then
becomes how are we gonna get to the
society with no money well some people
think it’s not going to happen until all
of us say enough that’s it we need
something better and have some kind of
uprising or a revolution others think
this can happen through government
slowly buying over private stocks and
ionization also called as nasha also
known as nationalizing and the third
school of thought thinks this will
happen through empowering employees
through labor unions and building
workers cooperatives the ideas in real
life examples of a world without money
are as diverse as the ideas we have of
our current world with money yet they’re
continuously thrown aside even though we
know we’re going to have to relook at
our relationship with money as
automation takes over their lives or
work but even if automation wasn’t
happening and there isn’t this impeding
force wouldn’t an idea of a world
without money be worth pursuing just to
counteract the extremes that a world
when money has created a word that has
convinced us we need something external
to us to control and motivate us don’t
we deserve to see ourselves as something
more than that as individuals to be
empowered by our natural resources to
give into society based on our natural
abilities and take from it out of our
needs I think it’s about time we look at
these consider these ideas with a bit
more consideration our future just might depend on it thank you