The no-money nation

Post Reply New Topic

Since it seems that money really is the root of all evil I propose a state with no money.

How will it work? Short outline below (this is brief!):

1) People work in companies (that have no shareholders), they make no salary. They work because it's fun and they need something to do, social life, excitement, sort of for the same reasons some rich people in capitalist societies work for charities. Because employees work for free, companies will do their utmost to provide optimal working conditions because otherwise people just quit and then they have no work-force/skills.

2) Crappy jobs that no-one wants are taken care of everyone who have to spend x years (e.g. 2 years) working those jobs. Sort of like a draft, but instead of being soldiers, they just do the crappy jobs. Everyone has to do this, usually it will be students. (same like in capitalist societies, the crap jobs are often taken care of by students)

3) Food and goods are available in shops, but everything is free. It's based on the assumption that no-one really wants to eat caviar all day long (you do get tired of that too), and also no-one really wants to have 15 flatscreen tvs in their house. If society has a shortage of some things then those things are rationed (i.e. you have to wait x days/months before you can get one), same like in capitalist society where you would normally save up money for x days/months in order to be able to buy something that is scarese (and therefore expensive).

4) Anyone can start a 'company' and appoint a board of directors. You apply to local government for means (buildings, goods, raw-materials etc). If there are just too many of that type of company you want to make then the means to build it are denied. People will start companies because it's exciting and they want the power/prestige etc. (same like in capitalist societies).

5) All government functions are completely de-centralized, down to the per-street level. There is no president or prime-minister.

6) Government can trade with foreign nations using money (they can swap goods for foreign money, and buy goods in other foreign nations with that money).

What do you think? utopia?

Russian anarchists proposed such a system in the late 1800's. What they got was Lenin and Stalin. The soviet anarchists needed a central group of officials (Lenin's Vanguard) to make a transition to an anarchist economy, but that central government had no incentive to leave power and nobody was in a position to make them leave, and that's how the soviet government came to be. There's also the fact that people need incentive to work and do a good job at it, whether that be by geting paid well or someone holding a bayonet to their back. Also, assuming you get people to work, you could not let people take as much as they want, because people will hoard whatevere they can.

trade with pretty rocks&shells please. nature does offer us a solution, and there everywhere! although i must admit man-made gems would become a huge problem

Yes they never got to this stage.
The transition to such a society is a big problem, and I am not proposing any solutions to the transition problem. Maybe this is on a new island!

I think hoarding won't be that big a problem. People also hoard in capitalist societies, if anything hoarding of products will create more work so no-one will be un-employed.
Regarding motivation to work, I am a strong believer in not putting bayonets at peoples backs, instead there must be incentives, but the incentives must allways be in such a way that there is no class-division (i.e. no-one is richer or more privileged than others). Personally I think part of the solution is that society is organized in communities (sounds more and more like communism, hehe) that are very small. So everyone belongs to a community where they live (of say 200 people). If you are not working, the community will tell you to work or ostracize you.
Another part of getting people motivated, is that they don't really need motivation(!). There are many many people in our societies that work in (what others would say) crappy jobs because that's where their friends are and they need to pass the time or get away from the husband a little, they would get really bored siting at home all day. Also look at one of the worlds richest people, Bill Gates, still works 80 hour weeks...
Another big benefit of having no-one more privileged than others, is that there will be no 'economic' crime (because you can have anything anyway).

One more thing in this society:

Nothing is forbidden:
Since forbidding things don't stop people from doing them anyway then we might as well not have anything forbidden. People follow their own internal moral law anyway so the only thing that happens when you forbid things is that people end up doing them anyway and then we have to 'punish' them and then we have this whole big problem of prisons. And we all know that executing murderers don't stop them from murdering anyway. So, nothing is forbidden. There should only really be one principle: If you commit violence (physical or psychological) to another person then you are committed to a sanctuary where psychologists or other care-workers help you understand the error of your ways, and you are only released when they think you have learned something.
And since nothing is forbidden, we need not waste resources on much police (just to keep public order, yes disturbing public order is indeed forbidden because that would mean violence and violence is the only thing not allowed).

well, i reckon the chinese's Shang dynasty used cowry shells as money, they're kinda hard to reproduce, so it worked for them it seems.

I don't see how money is the root of all evil, it seems that people are.


Why would people work then? I enjoy reading and talking to my friends, but that does not seem to provide sustainable social benefit, so if I could avoid working I am pretty certain I would. I'd think that many people would be similar, partially based upon culture.


I don't like drafts. Not at all. I think they are fascist.


Well, I would consume more snacks, much higher quality food, I would get a much better computer, I might even get a car and replace a lot of my clothes much more quickly if I had no limit. I think that most people would be similar, and overconsume.

Your response would then be mass-shortages of everything. This is actually much worse than saving up money though, because if you need things sooner, you can allocate more of your income, but rationing has queues. Not only that, but a lot of people in the ration line really wouldn't care, but just would want something for free. I mean, if you could get a free Ferrari, whether you needed one or not, then why not sign up on the list? I might even do it, and I don't even care about fancy cars.


If the local government controls what companies can exist, then couldn't they control all corporate existence? This kind of system seems prone to corruption and power-mongering, and ultimately to collapse. The prestige people get from the capitalist system is usually getting rich though, which your system automatically rejects. If you don't make much money for being a top-manager, then why bother wasting so much of your life trying to get good at that??


Contradicts 4 outright. Corporate existence cannot be limited to the "per-street" level. Even if I granted you this, how do we coordinate everything? I mean, it is not as if companies are really going to care about the queues, heck, the easiest way to handle customer service under such a system is to scrap it.


What would be the point? I mean, nobody gains from trading with the other country, at least not directly, and what we see is the problem of the commons.


Utter failure. Automatic collapse. If society has heterogeneous values, then where does the motivational force to act as a unit to create value come from? If society has homogeneous values, then how do we maintain the homogeneity enough that moral stability emerges? How do we ensure that the original homogeneous values are strong enough to maintain society?

Ultimately, I think that this kind of society will have only 2 solutions:
a) Collapse, as each person acts upon their own value scheme and the group suffers
b) Totalitarian force, as social controls ramp up to be stronger and stronger to maintain the social order that pushes people to continue creating despite the fact that leisure typically has much higher value to them.

Your idea sounds like some strange derivative of market socialism that would quickly fall flat on its face.

Such a government would fail. As AG noted, people would not work if they did not have to. I would read, surf the Internet, hang out with my friends, play video games, watch Family Guy, etc, and not work. Also, if there were queues for everything and everything were free, I'd just sign up on every list in order that I could hope to at least get something which I would then trade on a thriving barter-based black market for what I actually wanted. I also would likely be extremely unmotivated and unproductive at whatever crap job you drafted me into.

You wouldn't opt for the 15 flat screen TVs, Orwell? I'd get those, plus a Dodge Viper, some machine guns, and a golden helicopter. Then I'd take over the pseudo-anarcho market socialist system with my new toys. You could join me while you play hooky from your crappy government job scrubbing sidewalks.

As robots and automatic machinery become more sophisticated and competent and economically available the decline in the need for workers will force something of the sort to be accommodated. It may take half a century to attain reality but precluding the total fall of civilization it is inevitable.

Will we someday reach a world as envisioned in Player Piano? In Vonnegut's fantasy, technology and automation had progressed to the point where labor was no longer necessary for production, and enough could be produced for all with only a handful of people working as managers and engineers. Everyone else was subjected to a degrading life on welfare working crap jobs. Hopefully, if our technology ever enables such plenty, we will find a way to distribute it that does not demean and devalue people.

Cyanide, I don't even watch much TV. I'd get the 15 flat screen TVs, and then I'd swap them for someone else's high-powered computers or game consoles, probably a car even though I have no interest in fancy sports cars, and certainy some weapons as you mentioned. I'll join you in your takeover, of course- I've got dibs on the Caribbean. You can have continental North America, except of course when I come north during hurricane season.

Except, the whole idea is *not* to have or need any forms of money, be it gold, paper, shells, prmises, etc.

People hoard the resources already allocated to them in capitalist societies, but people hoarding beyond what they create is a significant problem, as these resources are not going to where they provide the most value at all, and not even close.

Unemployment is only bad because people tie money to work. Frankly, unemployment is GREAT if you have a lot of wealth already. It is BAD to create more need for jobs if there are considered problems already with getting an optimal level of employment with the current set up as it stands. This is one of the pressures that is already identified as likely leading to an economic collapse.


So, social pressure? I hate that. Like, literally loathe it. For one, unless people can force others out of their society, then people will mooch off of the highest producing society. Once people can separate others from their society, they will break it down to the individual level to reduce mooching as much as possible. In any case, individualism will merely destroy the collective.


Yeah..... I don't think that this is the greatest number of people, nor do I think most would pick conventional work if they chose it. I mean, I am pretty clear on the fact that I prefer reading. If most people had the freedom, they would likely just express their hobbies more strongly rather than work cooking fast food, or sorting mail, or any other annoying job.

Bill Gates is also an aberration, he has A LOT of power in his job, he also is likely a person who enjoys work, a necessity for becoming a super-gazillionaire. I mean, if you already are a hard worker, sure, you might work some, but most people really would prefer to be with their family, or some other thing other than this.


Institutionalizing economic crime does not make the world better.


Murder isn't an error to be educated away, and attempts to do this are called "re-education", which is considered punitive and somewhat invasive as it stands, so you do not avoid the problem at all. Educating away murder is the same as punishing away murder. It also will have the same social and life-based results as well. Not only that, but do you think that psychologists for murderers would love their job???? You deal with the most dangerous people in existence, I wouldn't want to do that. And the guards if they do anything would just play hooky, nobody wants to deal with crime.

In any case, I don't think you will get rid of cops. Yes, cops are overused to some extent, and their current form is bad, but I don't think you have a solution to society's need for order. The number of disputes between people is rather large, and the problems involved are massive, so much so that people aren't going to spontaneously do this out of some pure goodness of the heart, but rather will require structures to be created and that incentivize actions rather bluntly at times.

So yes.... I still stand on the grounds that this kind of society will self-destruct rather rapidly. It would be a loss for the vast majority of people.

It can't self-destruct if it can't even be put in place to begin with.

Technicalities.

Unworkable. The "free riders" will loot the system in no time flat.

ruveyn