Introducing The End Of Money Project

[TheEndOfMoney]

In this era of foreclosures, layoffs and debt, it is time for us to ask, "Why must we pay to live on the planet we're born on?" I am starting a global movement to get people to ask that question. I have a video introducing my plans to do a documentary and book on the subject, but as it has a fundraising pitch at the end, I didn't put it on this site. But it is uploaded on VIMEO at
http://vimeo.com/16299789 and all of you are welcome to view it and send it on along with the project page URL at http://kck.st/btAWg6 The project web site is http://endmoney.info/

[TheEndOfMoney]

LOL! I wish! Though I tell you that answering these comments helps to a certain extent. But it is not a very organized way to write a book. It does help me feel like I am getting something done while I'm listening to the World Series. GO GIANTS!

[BlancheNoE]

@ LtAdams- HAHAHAH (ow), and Kellia, learning is never a waste of time. My goal with the patent was mostly to get a patent for something that I invented and maybe see it used and appreciated by others. I'm half way there. If it had been mostly about the money, I would have found the funding even if I had to make it myself.

[AnnelidaFilms]

Hi Kellia! Several years ago I suffered from chronic depression and my doctor sent me to a psychiatrist. Up on meeting Dr. Yanovskiy, I thought "Great, I'm depressed and they send me to a Russian." After a few visits, I had impressed upon Dr. Y. my disdain for money and capitalistic goals and the related pressures and stresses, whereupon he stated that I was a communist!

When I asked if he would teach me the secret handshake, he assured me that he came to America because he believed in capitalism, that communism was a nice ideal with no possibility of success in reality. Witness Russia, China, South American countries, etc.

Abandoning a monetary system (or any system of tradable earned credits) opens a Pandora's box. Where ideally each of us would work in our chosen discipline, supply and demand would call for, say, more farmers to feed us all. I don't want to be a farmer. I'll give up my avocation and grow food for you - maybe - but only if I got something extra out of it. Two steps later, we're right back into capitalism.

If I need a new camera, who will pay for it? Who will build it? Who will deliver it to me? Who will build the cars and repair the roads? Where does the fuel for that delivery truck come from? Barter can go just so far before somebody demands something a bit more refined.

What will prevent thieves and robbers from taking what they want? What will prevent prostitution and slavery when in the absence of any other skill or worth, a woman's body is the only thing she has left of value to trade for food? What will prevent mob mentality - a very strong Human trait - from creating hierarchies of power?

What will prevent capitalism? Nothing that I've ever heard of.

I agree with That Girl when she asks for your proposed solutions. It's not a cart-before-horse situation. It's having a road map so we can see where we're going.

I agree with Peter that your book is being written as you discuss these ideas. And if you cull and organize the ideas, one or more plausible solutions may become evident.

I agree with Amy that you should learn to apply for grants. Organize your project's goals, itemize your fiscal and bartered needs, and then pursue the funding. The money is there for those who do the paperwork and meet the criteria. Dr. Y. convinced me to join the ranks of the reality-based community, to recognize and respect the value of money. Since then I've raised hundreds of thousands to produce songs, plays, and independent film.

And I agree with you, Kellia, that there has to be something better than this horrific rat race. You have the passion and intelligence to write your book. I'm older than you are and I'm writing apps for the iPhone, a children's book, 5 blog sites, and running a local gift store (and all because I want to, by the way). You can do it, and I'll buy that book, too.

[TheEndOfMoney]

Jim, can you not imagine a world where everything is free? That is where I am headed with this and to achieve it we have to review our values as a society (globally, this is not an issue strictly for the US or even the West.)That is why is say that asking for practical how to's, at least from me, is putting the cart before the horse. There are other people working on the practical side now and I gave one website in an earlier post. But I think we have to talk a look at the values of the current systems and the values we would have to cultivate (some people and cultures already have) in order to create a new paradigm.

No need for theivery because you cannot steal what is free. (BTW, that principle was established in a California case where campaign workers removed copies of a free newspaper from stands in downtown SF after the front page showed an unflattering picture of their candidate. Of course the response was for all free publications to put a price on their papers and say that one was free and the rest you had to pay for. A stupid overreaction to the overreaction by the campaign workers, I think. Who would really enforce you taking only one paper, especially if you don't take them all at once or from the same stand?)

If you need a new camera in an all-free world there will not be any paying for it. You must drop the idea of things having to be paid for. Why must we pay to live on the planet we're born on? Cameras will be built by people who love building cameras and working with that kind of technology, and food will be grown by people who love the idea of growing food. (Including valuing the necessity of it.) Do you really want things, cameras, food anything, provided by someone who is just working a job to pay the bills? Look at all the crap products we have, that get recalled, that are poorly made and deliberately disposable just to keep economies going. And how much more of that can the earth take? Why do people often think Mom's homecooking is the best. A loving mother puts good intentions and care into her cooking, so even if it is simple it is good. You don't get that in the mass-produced world were everything is generic in the sense that all businesses exist to make money.

There will still be whores in the sense of women (and men) who do it will anything that moves, but there won't be paying for sex. There will be more thinking about the morality of our choices because we don't have to put aside out ethics to survive. No need to commit crimes for money, or because you don't have money.

You are still caught up in the idea of paying and earning. I say let go of this crap! A job, as opposed to work, means you have to apply, which means you have to ask permission to work! What nonsense! You are also subject to being out of work if the employer (a twelve dollar word for user) goes out of business or doesn't need you any more. What happens to you then? Ask the people who have been looking for jobs for a long time in the new great depression.

Great that you are doing stuff that you want to do. I want everybody to be able to do that, and because we are all different, we all won't want to do the same things. And I want people to be able to do what they want to do all their lives, not after 30 years of "workin' for the man" and I want then to be able to do it even if the current market will not accept their art or their invention or whatever. Why must we be of profit to someone else before we can get want we need to survive and thrive? Like the man in my video, many people are going unwanted in the labor force. Should they just die if they are unwanted by the market? That is what Malthus thought but you don't come across as a Malthusian to me, Jim. Wouldn't you rather say that people should not have to be wanted by any market in order to live decently?
Grudging welfare and unemployment compensation programs won't do that. A free world will.

Can you imagine not only barter but a gift economy. The gift economy works everyday in your social life. Friends and family do for each other without accounting. We have to expand that feeling of friendshaip to all the world. The Internet has done a good job of getting that ball rolling.

You say "The money is there for those who do the paperwork and meet the criteria." What about people and ideas that don't meet the criteria? They are the wrong age, sex, region of the world or they are proposing ideas that nobody is interested in funding. Like I say in my video, what if Vincent Van Gogh had been an only child?

Billions of people in the world are living in poverty. There have got to be answers beyond the money-based duality of capitalism and socialism. But we can't get there unless people can think outside the paradigm of money. That's hard because we were born into it. But as Einstein said we can't solve problems with the same level of thinking we used to create them. That you or Blanche or anyone else were able to overcome the hurdles of money to achieve something does not mean those hurdles should exist.

[AnnelidaFilms]

Yes, Kellia, I can imagine a world where everything is free. I've read and seen such worlds depicted by Heinlein, Wells, Bradbury, Asimov, Orwell, Roddenberry, and others. These worlds invariably have a dark side, a price that makes the trade-off unacceptable. If those dark "kinks" could be worked out, then maybe it could work. So yes, by all means study past and current systems to create a viable paradigm. In other words, draw the map.

But count on thievery always existing. Hoarding is an instinct of human nature. So is control, envy, and jealousy. Springsteen described it as "Poor man wanna be rich, rich man wanna be king, and a king ain't satisfied till he rules everything." Humans always want more. Everything being free is not enough.

My question still stands: Who will make all those free things? I can't believe that supply and demand will find a balance without some governing device. Short of threats and slavery, the lure of money / bartering credit / power / "whatever" is the most persuasive means to balance such trade on a global scale.

I believe such lures are what drive human evolution. Otherwise we'd be as primitive as the geese in your video. Entrepreneurism would be stymied in a non-capatilistic society; in the absence of capitalism of some form, capitalism would quickly evolve from sheer human nature.

And yes, I would prefer my camera to be made by someone who has the talent and incentive to make it well. The demand for such a quality camera would be higher than average. The supply would probably be too low. So how do I get one? Just take it from someone else because it was free to them?

Compensation is one of the most effective incentives. Workman's pride goes just so far. Besides, wages are a sign of accomplishment, a tangible manifestation of our talents, of our relative worth. We have egos. We need to have ways to measure our successes.

I realize that I'm not the norm, but I haven't applied for any of my current work. I was asked to run the gift store, please. I write and program because I want to. Money comes my way because other people offer it to me for my talents. Maybe I'm in an early stage of exactly what you're talking about. Every day I practice my own personal part of a barter and gift economy.

I'm more Methuselian than Malthusian, but I agree with Malthus that human nature is immutable, and that it precludes a utopian society. Malthus believed that prosperity leads to increased population which leads to unachievable demands on food which leads to corrective famine, disease and poverty, ultimately reducing population before the cycle repeated. In the 200 years since, nothing has proven his basic premise wrong.

I also agree with Bill Clinton's practical answer to one's own unemployment: Learn another craft or skill that is in demand. And with Jagger's observation, "You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes you get what you need." And with Johnny Depp's lyric, "Nothin's for nothin'."

Anyway, to answer your question "Why must we pay to live on the planet we're born on?", I'd have to say because that's the way it is. Frankly, Kellia, if you could detail a viable alternative, I'm on board. Wanting it isn't enough; we need that road map. I'd love to see a non-wage-based society that thrives. Show us how, and let's try it out.

[TheEndOfMoney]

As for show me, I'd be glad to. but not here because that is what my project is about and it will take more time and space than we have in a comment. But as for the dark side to the non-money world's envisioned by the writers you cited, what are they exactly?

The fundamental difference I see between our ways of thinking is that I believe humans can change. We have deeply ingrained habits but we are not automatons who are programmed to think and behave only one way. The problem is that we have to think, as Einstein said, at a different level of consciousness than the level at which we created our problems. That is hard when we are in the midst of the problems. You say in response to my question that we pay for things "because that's the way it is." My project is an invitation to people all over the world to get out of that fatalistic attitude and imagine something else. That means looking at different times, cultures, people (you are on the first steps of the path I envision) and the imagination of people like the writers you cited. That is what I am doing. It takes recognizing that the current way is unworkable, ie we will never have full employment and even if we did for a while, we would have overproduction that will eventually require layoffs.

Studies have shown that Bill Clinton was full of it. Retraining has not worked out for a lot of people. For example, if you are above a certain age, the employers won't hire you when they can get a cheap recent graduate unless you give tax incentives. Also it may take a while to retrain and by that time the hot new job skill isn't so hot, especially in fast moving technological fields. A lot of new jobs pay very poorly, especially if they are in services.

Who will make the things? The people who want to make them, who see a personal need or a community need for them. In this, the open source software communities are leading the way. Communities of volunteers are contributing to inventing and improving software. Interestingly enough Kickstarter's most successful project to date is a software project. In a non money economy and even in today's world there are non monetary incentives. I read an article a few years ago about how a well-known person in the open source community hardly needed money at all because others in the community were willing to do things for him. In that sense, reputation becomes a form of currency, and that is ok. You do something great for the community and it gives to you in return.

Why make things that you don't get money for? Necessity is the mother of all invention and curiosity is its father. Thus, money is not the only or even the best incentive for all people, though I acknowledge it current is the major motivator for some people.

Yes, I know Malthus' basic premise of the human boom/bust cycle has not been proven wrong ...yet. But for how many millennia did people think the earth was flat? I believe that we are at an evolutionary choice point forced on us by ecological problems that will not be overcome unless we CHOOSE to adopt ways other than hoarding and greed. Consider this: yes, in the first few years of a free world, some people will hoard. But then they will realize that there is no sense in it. Peer pressure will also be a factor in making people drop the hoarding habit.

Frankly, Kellia, if you could detail a viable alternative, I'm on board. Wanting it isn't enough; we need that road map. I'd love to see a non-wage-based society that thrives. Show us how, and let's try it out.

Like I said, that is what the project is for. I am on a journey of exploration that will result in a documentary and book IF I can get the support for it. But if I have to keep living one step ahead of the bills I probably won't get it done. Just today Jeff and I finally got paid for a bunch of work we did but we also found out that we are going to have to renegotiate what we thought was going to be a four month retainer.

I am fed up and burned out on the way it is now.