Freeconomy Blog
Fri
22 Jan
Money as Debt
I've got to apologise for the lack of blogging activity over the last week or two; the Honesty Experiment was only meant to run for a week, but due to my own lack of time it became two weeks by default. Which backfired on me, the questions in the first seven days were tame, and it wasn't until last week that the taboo subjects finally came out. That'll teach me.
Last Friday I got 'The Moneyless Man' back from the editor again, and he wanted a lot more changes than I had anticipated, meaning that I've had to work flat out this week (and next also) in order to get it in shape for its final deadline. In some ways it has been a very challenging process for me, trying to write a book that retains all its integrity (in terms of the philosophy behind why I live this way and the issues that I feel really passionate about) and at the same time keeping it accessible not just to those who are open to alternative ways of living, but to a much wider audience.
Both my agent and editor have been fantastic, however, and I've learned so much about how to communicate effectively to the majority of the population from them. I hadn't realised what a crap writer I was (they'd tell me not to use the word crap though, some people don't seem to like it) until working with both of them, to be frank. So it has been frustrating and fantastic in equal measures!
Through doing lots of research this week, I have come up with a mix of random quotes, and as I am really short on time tonight I thought I'd relay a couple of these, mainly as a way of writing a really quick and easy blog. I am sticking with this total honesty thing, by the way.
Here is a selction of some of those I found -
"Money is a new form of slavery, and distinguishable from the old simply by the fact that it is impersonal, that there is no human relationship between the master and the slave." - Leo Tolstoy, author of classics such as 'War and Peace'.
"Anyone who thinks that exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist." - Kenneth Boulding, prominent 20th Century economist.
"It is well enough that people do not understand our banking and money system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning." - Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company.
"Let me issue and control a nation's money and I care not who writes the laws." - Mayer Amschel Rothschild, founder of the House of Rothschild.
"The process by which banks create money is so simple, the mind is repelled." - John Kenneth Galbraith, famous 20th Century economist.
"A definite factor in getting a lie believed is the size of the lie. The broad mass of people, in the simplicity of their hearts, more easily fall victim to a big lie than a small one." - Adolf Hitler, asshole, but a clever asshole.
If you have a spare hour, I really recommend watching a movie called 'Money as Debt'; if enough of the population did, Henry Ford would probably find his prediction could come true. Well, it would if we weren't all so damn apathetic.
Have you any quotes of opinions about money? Is it a problem in itself or is it just our use of it? You know where I stand on the subject, so lets see where you stand on it by leaving a comment below, and I'll respond at first chance.
THE FREECONOMY BLOG is written by Mark Boyle, founder of the Freeconomy Community, and who has been living without money for the last 14 months.
Comment on this Post:
jen steiner comments ...
money? it's not really real, is it? just pieces of paper with numbers printed on. it's bothered me for a while, to be honest, it just seemed like everyone else believed in it, like the emperor's clothes...
Shirley comments ...
I am glad to hae read about your efforts in Permaculture Magazine. I had a dream about a money free place to live and was knocked out when I read your story. The fact that I bought a Permaculture Magazine might not quite jive, but I just had too.
spammer comments ...
mark boyle how are you personally helping those in haiti? I respect you, I do - but I'm thirsty to get under the boyle's skin. I want to bring out the best in people, I think honesty is the best conduit.
in a more reserved manner I want to ask how will a 'freeconomy' help someone dying in haiti right now?
so this community of 10,000 people or so, without money, spread across the globe, how will it help haiti? How will it's efforts be better than a capitalist system that pours money into haiti, albeit with some money lost to corruption.
it's not money that's the problem, it's the people who handle it. Money won't disappear, it's just imaginary bills, it's our emphasis on money - that's absurd, money is meaningless without us. I'm sure you know that.
I love what you preach, it is without a doubt beneficial to consume less, both mentally for ourselves and physically for the planet. but money is what's being passed around haiti right now to get haitian's the aid they need. money although meaningless, is powerful. perhaps it will end up funding some war indirectly as that is the nature of the circulation of currency, but right now, it can help the people of haiti.
circulation will never stop, but who controls the stream? we think that nature does, but as we've found with some ingenuity we can control the stream, so that stream isn't blasting through the walls of schools at the rate of explosion of C4.
so I want to ask again, for emphasis - how will a freeconomy help haiti?
'compassion is rage without hatred'
spammer comments ...
look what if, that is how the world rolls, that yes we will never get out of debt - there's no possible way - that is just how it is.
so what! we can live with debt - it's phony just as money is phony.
person A - F are not bad people. person G is a little greedy, a little selfish, but he happens to be sitting on a real dank pile of money - preach to person G and O and P, turn their hearts and you have a better world, instead of the impossible of burning up all their money.
there is this man that I really looked up to, he really kicked up buddhism in the west. he was like a real rockstar buddhist guy, he had his hand up everything, including numerous skirts, and his own little oil company. he did not follow any conventions, he lived as he would say as a child of illusions, he believed fully and completely life was sort of like a dream - that everything did not have it's own inherent meaning (to the extreme sense that buddhists bring it). someone who hardly studied him, would consider him mad, corrupt, sleazy. but if you never hear his teachings, you'd never understand his behavior were all forms of teaching.
he adapted to every situation. and did not give a shit about what people said of him, or the controversies that surrounded him.
that to me just shows how compassionate he was. where being the world's fool, had not an effect on him, and how much he cared about giving his students that same heart & mind he shared.
I can't really capture the magnitude of this man. So I fail again to express myself.
Seamus Bradley comments ...
Money has been singled out as the root of all evil but in fact, money as a means of exchange purely aids convenience – it is the value that is associated with it by humans and their apparent insatiable appetite for it that gives money an evil connotation. Therefore, it's not money as such that needs to be reassessed but our relationship with it (i think). Think you're doing a great job Mark. Really raising awareness.
Sandie comments ...
I've been studying my feelings or energy around exchanges, since your talk last week.
Positive energy seems to flow when those involved in the 'transaction' are under no pressure, come from an equal footing and both wish the exchange to occur.
Negative energies drain and block the flow when the balance of power shifts and one party dominates: perhaps when one is employed by another.
I think I'm getting my head around this stuff. Will experiment more this week.
wishface comments ...
Surely the only people who are able to see money for what it is are those lucky enough to have it or those who dont need it.
I have a couple of hundred quid that will last me until march. If I dont find an income by then, it's back to the jobcentre which is not the way i want to go. If someone can tell me how to live without money they'd be doing me a huge favour. But farming is out the question as is raiding supermarket bins for me. So the only alternative is buying stuff - and you won't get decent glasses by raiding bins either!
keyur comments ...
@spammer - could please tell the name of this guy whome you are talking about, who kicked up buddhism in the west.
Ytrish comments ...
I just found this - a bit long and I do not know who coburg is but is signed by him.
Many years ago I read an interesting story regarding an alleged argument between the banking elites in Europe and the "United States of America Incorporated" (circa 1870s), in relation to the 'labor management system' required to engineer and build the City of London's 'Industrial Revolution.'
Allegedly the North American banking interests were still pushing for some form of 'institutional slavery' but the Europeans argued for a modernized system of 'serfdom.'
"Keeping slaves," they argued, "required accomodation, food, medicine, hospitalization..." In effect a kept slave necessitates similar expense and treatment accorded to the best 'yoked' animals in our business stables and pastures. The employed serf ('wage-slave') can be dismissed at will, works for a pittance under duress, feeds and clothes his family, will happily pay us three times for a mortgaged house over a generation, and will be totally dependent upon the 'Owners of Capital' for his continued mutual survival."
And better still -- according to the story -- by releasing slaves, more 'money' could be borrowed into existence by the new tranche of 'freed-men' using their 'Credit System" to further empower the generational plan of the global elite usurers for absolute world control.
So the tragic, ruthless, employment system we now must all endure in the West (and eventually in the East) was created over a century ago by -- and for -- the personal benefit of the richest people on Earth.
Humbling, isn't it?
coburg
Ytrish comments ...
Even though that last is scarey and very much to the point for the purpose of revealing what I always call the "myth" it doesn't mention love as the solution and not the anger and frustration that this revelation could bring. So peace, even to the scarey (really scared) ones !
Mr Herman comments ...
I feel some people make money to easily, they wil give you the excuse its bussiness. I believe you must sweat for youre earnings.
Why must a few people have steak,
if everybody could have had a hotdog.
comments ...
Ytrish is correct: the system is utterly wrong. In fact it is sad that people think we must sweat for our lot in life. The hallowed protestant work ethic. I find these views counter productive, limiting and downright harmful. They only benefit the status quo while everyone else scrambles around for crumbs from the table chastising each other for either wanting more or not doing enough (look at how society regards the unemployed - as the lowest of the low; being a paedophile isn't regarded much worse it seems).
However for freeskilling to work, people need to have skills to offer and the system has to work all the time for everyone. Clearly this isn't the case. Partly because society doesn't give peopel such emancipating skills.
Living without money is functionally impossible as well. How will you get medicines for example? What if you need glasses or a hearing aid? What if you have specific dietary needs that you won't find growing in an english garden or in the bin of a supermarket? Practical solutions are needed, not pie in the sky theory. That would be a better discussion.
Lara Ghazal comments ...
Mark, I just read your reactions to criticism in the Guardian and wanted to add a short comment. Hopefully it will be ok to do it here. Its rather a question than a criticism, even if it reads different. I saw the guardian movie feature in which you took expired food from a supermarket. I support to do so because I think it is a thing about our economy which has lost a moral attitude towards food as in so called "western" societies we are living in societies of superabundance. It was once John Locke that said that wasting food or generally products should be punished by society - of course...he said this under different circumstances. Anyway...I was in this case somehow questioning your lifestyle because it is more realistic than idealistic. I wonder what would happen if more people would start to live the way you do. I wonder if what you do is maybe mostly a very economic exploitation of an abundant society. What could possibly happen if more people live on like this? Well, possibly at some point it wouldn't work out any more and people would have start again hard substantial working...which then would evolve into a society in which goods are exchanged...which would be again: money - or better: change of value.
Let's put it like this: I am not against money and I wouldn't be against this evolution. I am also not against an exploitation of an abundant society. In my oppinion it is not the money which creates a decadent society it is the relation people interact and act towards goods.
You can't think medicaments or computers without the industry behind but anyway the industry is not a problem. It can become a problem if it is not sustainable.
Thank you for your effort and making my day. Surely your acting is (as I said) rather realistic than idealistic (i wouldn't call it hypocritic though) but this is maybe the price you are paying for other people to change their minds. Thanks again and good luck!
Ollie comments ...
I've come to the conclusion that money is the root cause of many social ills. I believe most crimes wouldn't exist without money, and therefore most laws wouldn't exist either. Next time you hear about somebody breaking the law, try to understand why that person did what they did, and I think you'll usually trace it back to money.
@Spammer - the people of Haiti have a real chance to begin from scratch now. They could instigate a society without money. It takes a massive catastrophe before people are willing to change. Unfortunately, they're being occupied by US forces.
Cedrik comments ...
Mark you are really free man. Its great. Dont stop it. This life, your life - no monay... awesome.
Congratulation from Poland!
Chris comments ...
Money, money money!
Is it the root of all evil? Was there no evil before money. Probably not, what the proverb probably means is the love of money, or greed, that so often accompanies it.
The thing about money, is it's so useful. It's much easier to take a few coins to market to go shopping, than lug a few sacks of home-grown veg around with you in order to barter for those shoes you need. Which would be why it was invented independently in so many societies - some using discs made of precious metals, others using shells, cocoa beans, or other locally valued, but small and more easily transportable, commodoties.
I sometimes think that perhaps we should see money as a form of energy, or potential energy. When it flows freely between all of us, things run smoothly, and everyone can prosper. When people hoard it, they create energy blockages, which disrupt this flow, and prevent the necessary energy supply from reaching all who need it.
Just an idea.
In any case, the fundamental problem is distribution of wealth and access to resources, whether the wealth be in the conceptual form of money, or in the form of people fencing off huge tracts of land and saying, 'All of this is mine! If you farm it, I'll let you have a small amount of what you grow, and I'll keep the rest!'
My favourite quote about money is a Spanish proverb: The greedy man is not the owner of his gold, but rather its slave!
Jurgen comments ...
Money is neutral and supposed to be a means to an end, though most people have made it an end in itself. Jesus (and Paul) leveled a lot of criticism against the pursuit of riches and rich people. It is not money that is the root of all evil - as often misquoted - but the LOVE of money! How can five percent of the world's population own 80% of its resources? It is sickening! Do you really think those rich and super rich people give at least 10% of their money to charities? No ways, the best of them give maybe .5 of a percent. How can you buy a second car or live in opulence, when some child in Africa is starving from malnutrition!? Capitalism has been shaken recently in America and elsewhere. Maybe it is God that is shaken it!? And maybe some of the basic values and ideas of socialism ain't so bad after all? That is why I am a social democrat. Money and things can never fill the empty inner void that only God and meaningful relationships can fill!
Jurgen comments ...
Oh yes, I forgot to say; for most people and even Christians, money is their God. Why would they otherwise spend so much TIME worshiping at its altars? Money is a hard taskmaster - we become eventually just like the idols we worship!
James comments ...
I am so happy to find another who's aware of what's happening to us. Your ideas are well communicated and you can boast action not just rhetoric. You may cringe, but you are a hero.
Natalie comments ...
Hi Mark,
My eyes have been opened to the elusive sense of security that money has created for the masses. I have recently watched a video called the money masters, in which the narrator Bill Still, discusses the role that a few select individuals have played in manipulating the worlds money supply.
From that I realize that anything can be used as money, silk, coins, paper, grain as long as the masses consider it valuable and can be easily manipulated. I don't believe that money or the exchange of services for good, or talley sticks etc.. are bad I believe the intent behind the money used and those actions give it, its power.
Aristotle, said it best with this quote," There are two sorts of wealth-getting, as I have said; one is a part of household management, the other is retail trade: the former necessary and honorable, while that which consists in exchange is justly censured; for it is unnatural, and a mode by which men gain from one another."
Thank you for sharing your experience with the world, I am so inspired.
4ndy comments ...
Sadly I think some of the people who commented haven't taken the 40-odd minutes to watch that movie yet.
It may have been partly true in the past that money was oil in the cogs of the economy keeping transactions moving smoothly, but the truth about how it works now really is no more than a process of slavery. The problem with money now is that it is not a commodity to trade, it is no longer a 'lighter equivalent' of taking barterable goods to a store to trade, because all modern money is counterfeit. The biggest problems with the modern money system are its creation and interest, because even if, say for example, there was one billion pounds or dollars in the world, and you somehow managed to acquire and hoard them all, you would have nothing, because the banks would be able to create a trillion out of thin air and loan it to everyone to oil the cogs again, and what you held would become worthless. The first ridiculous con there is that banks can create something out of nothing with next to no effort, especially with digital money, the second is that the people given that money are then all required to pay back more than they received, and that extra money does not exist. That second con guarantees that someone must give up their home to the bank. Overall what happened here? A bank wrote some numbers on a computer screen, and they got a bunch of houses in return.
Spammer, you need to realise that regardless of what we are capable of, money will not help anyone, and the USA are not giving away money to help the haitians. There may be some real aid sent over in terms of food, but that is at best a front for an invasion to keep Haiti firmly under the thumb. I do feel sorry for them as such, and we can only truly help them if we can find transport to get over there and help clear the rubble up. You would likely be shot by the invading soldiers unless you could get close enough to speak to the human beings inside them and show them that what they are doing is wrong, but it would still be worth the effort.
To Chris and others, money as it exists today is not neutral, because by definition a contract of slavery had to be agreed upon in order for it to be created. The problem is not just with the people who hoard it or who have become rich using it, it is with the system itself that encourages corrupt behaviour and forces people to fight between each other or lose everything.
The movie Money As Debt does explain the essentials of the money system quite well and in simple enough terms, but to realise why it is such a problem for society, I still think Zeitgeist Addendum is better overall, especially as it explains how a society without money can be managed. It's 2 hours long, but I do recommend it if you have the time: bit.ly/ZGADD
Finally, Mark I think the most pointed quote I have heard on the subject is this one:
"The modern banking system manufactures money out of nothing. The process is perhaps the most astounding piece of sleight of hand that was ever invented. Banking was conceived in iniquity and born in sin. Bankers own the earth; take it away from them, but leave them with the power to create credit, and with the stroke of a pen they will create enough money to buy it back again. . . If you want to be slaves of the bankers, and pay the costs of your own slavery, then let the banks create money." Josiah Stamp - Director of the Bank of England in 1928
Jonathan James Harrison comments ...
I am an enormous fan of "money as debt" which I watched about three years ago. It made me question soo much. Most accountants and people who work in banks can not explain how money comes into existance. Its facinating.
I strongly recommend you watch the money section on a internet film called Zeitgeist Addendum
See link: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7065205277695921912#
Luis Gaspar comments ...
Eradicate the issue of interest. Money would become a tool rather than a curse.
Interest has been forbidden in Judaism and Islam. God forbids what is bad for humanity and provides guidance in the scriptures-in particular the Qur'an whose authenticity has not been spoiled over time.
comments ...
4ndy - get real. an invasion - keeping haiti under the thumb. yeah! because there is huge profit to be had in haiti - where even before the earthquake and the storms last year, haitians lived in squalor. maybe military reasons - I'm not hip with that shit.
the fact is haitians are dying everyday, we aren't waiting for them to die! are you in anyway acquiring a boat, you are just like me sitting at home.
there are doctors on the field, there are volunteers on the field, millions of people are displaced, countless nameless children, recent orphans and you want to say that. they don't have enough medical supplies, they don't enough food, the water is contaminated - get your boat - get your men - because your expertise I'm sure could stretch far to help all these problems.
I'm sorry... money right now would be the best answer to hire professionals, and get them the equipment they need - from doctors to construction workers - they need the instruments and machinery. period. now. now. you are going to need a donated fleet - donated oxygen tanks - donated medical equipment - donated construction equipment - and the experience instead of making the whole situation worse. can you possibly remove rubble more safely than professionals? imagine yourself infront of that rubble - screaming - now imagine yourself before an a makeshift operating table with a little girl lying in front of you.
the ideal, a world we're we are giving each other college level education available to everyone - where nobody is either paying high tuition rates or high taxes - nothing. we slave out our passion to provide the best possible service out of the kindness we receive ourselves. it sounds beautiful, it sounds like a task.
but freeconomy is selling, the small scale interactions we have on a daily basis, small communities, where compassion, and respect for your neighbour and nature is cultivated. it's more a green/spiritual ideal life - that isn't appropriately equipped to handle the hard realities of people suffering globally. instead perhaps they master total equanimity, or perhaps they let that pain burn them but yet they find themselves hopeless to be of real help.
I believe these small communities are a good thing - like going to some buddhist monastery to learn the subtle layers of compassion, and the subtle layers of the mind - but at some point you have to leave and I hope everyone leaves 100x stronger and more capable of taking care of the world.
that's really what I guess I want to point out, if this is ever going to break ground, compassion needs to be the driving force. Hot heated compassion that doesn't let up.
an army of people who are at first naive enough to build boats, but build them, and cross the sea - warriors - like in the old days of native americans. I'm talking that strong, that capable.
but we kind of are laxing around, survival not a necessity per se for us, because we all come from comfortable societies - so we have the fortune of being able to work on our community gardens, to coast through life using freecycle and couchsurfing and you name it to get by.
trungpa brought up the idea of the warrior, and I understand why now. we are so captivated and lulled into sleeping our burning compassion away on prairie fields and tilled earth. But not making the effort to make the earth tremble in tears, for how rich and powerful we can be - insanely compassionate, insanely capable people.
Many of us at home, can't even handle our domestic situations with compassion, rather we run away from it. we can't even give ourselves compassion, so we run away from people we care about.
keep that bravery and honest heart facing the world.
don't box yourself in to just one idea of how to help the world, help the world anyway you can! If now calls for gathering all the money you can, do it. if now calls for cultivating human kindness, and compassion do it. what matters in the end is that people were spared, and given the same opportunities as you.
I passive go back into my life, with that hanging eye dear of going on bicycle door to door collecting donations for haiti - or that bicycle chain of donated goods to some drop off point like the red cross who isn't accepting donations at this time because transports are having a hard time entering haiti. I go passively into my life and forget, because why is it so hard to perhaps be the target of peoples attention -
when I can perhaps help save a life?
my two words I have to type:
girders after
wishface (again) comments ...
Watching the video. Two minutes in I find that in fact Mark hasn't lived without money at all as he admits to buying a solar panel.
I'm also pretty sure that laptops aren't free either - Ive been looking for a free pc for months. In fact I've asked here and got no response (which can be said for all but one post).
Mark Boyle comments ...
@ Wishface - Yeah I have never claimed to have not used a bit of money before I started the year - I just bought a solar panel.
In times past, a slave would often have to buy their way out of slavery, a once of payment so that their children could be free. I think there may be parallels.
I respect your point.
wishface comments ...
I think you raise some valid points. But I'm also sure that you are not living without money. It is incongruous to say that you are having invested money (directly and indirectly, through the kindness of others) to set up the process. That is not living without money. I think it's disingenuous to say that you are. Better would have been to simply engage in the discussions about waste, capitalism and consumerism.
Even then it's not anywhere near as simple as you make it. I live in a small village; foraging skips for examplehere would be completely out of the question. This sort of lifestyle depends on a larger settled community to survive off. Without that you simply won't find what (and indeed who) you need. Even a bicycle - something i've been searching for on freecycle (ironically) for years (literally).
I think you are taking some of what you have been donated for granted in this respect. That's not to say you aren't grateful for it (that's not the point I'm making). But as I said before freeskilling and freecycling and freeganism etc all depend on the systems they are supposedly against in order to survive. My experience of those systems is that they are great in principle, but in practise we don't all get free laptops, caravans, bicycles, skips full of food, etc.
I'm not trying to piss on anyone's cornflakes either. But a discussion based on one example of a lifestyle that offers wildly divergent experiences seemingly be deign of circumstance is a misrepresentation and it's not healthy. How many peopel are there like me who really are on the breadline who aren't getting support? Who can't find the stuff they seek? I bet it's a damn site easier doing all this in Bristol than it is in the sticks.
Chris comments ...
4ndy,
first may I apologise for not having watched the video. I only found this site a few days ago, and at the moment only have access to a computer that won't play internet videos! Hopefully I'll see it in a few weeks' time.
You talk about, 'money as it exists today,' which is not money per se, but rather the present financial system, which is obviously twisted and dangerous to the vast majority of the inhabitants of this planet, so I think we probably have a more similar opinion on this than you seem to have imagined.
So, don't get me wrong - I think what Mark's doing is great, and good luck to him. When I first lived in Spain, for a long time I had very little work, but survived for almost three years living in a squat, and going to the local market at closing time to ask the stall holders for fruit and veg that would be no good to sell the following day. A very few would give us nothing. Most would find some things that were fine to eat the same day, but would've been a bit past it the next. Some gave us some fresher stuff too.
I still feel that the fundamental problem in the world is the insistence of a handful of greedy people on controlling the resources that are needed by the many - whether it be through money or without it.
On another topic - it's interesting how many people have mentioned slavery here. Eduardo Galeano in his book 'Las venas abiertas de America Latina' ('The Open Veins of Latin America - which Hugo Chavez gave a copy of to Obama when he met him) maintains that capitalism was the reason that slavery was 'abolished,' but only in name.
The story runs that Britain had expanded its trading networks so much, that it was running out of consumers, so the idea of 'freeing' the slaves was merely to increase the pool of consumers for the commodoties that the empire was selling, and had nothing really to do with humanitarian concerns (which is why the 'emancipation' was only in name, and conditions for the newly-created wage-slaves were little better than before they gained their 'freedom').
Similarly, the reason that the northern states of the USA fought for 'emancipation' was due to a need for cheap manual labour in the factories being built in the north during Americas's industrial revolution. Meanwhile, the south was still plantation land, and the white ruling elite were doing just fine with things as they were.
Personally, I have long maintained that capitalism is just neo-feudalism, but I believe that the problem is largely one of property ownership, rather than money necessarily. Those who own no land or house have to work there behinds off to pay rent to those who have a piece of paper saying that the property is theirs, whilst the parasitic property owners just have to collect the rent and live it up. Just like feudalism - the landless keep the landowners in the lap of luxury!
NAGA comments ...
The collection of essays by Arundhati Roy titled "the algebra of infinite justice" is a very fine and clearly written expose of Globalism, the banks, monetarism, the military/industrial complex,who started the Taliban in '79 (the CIA !)(Frankenstein's monster?) and for anybody still starry eyed about "India", what goes down there.
In spite of all that, the problem is not money, the problem is attitudes to money. If your not living off fresh air and sunshine in the middle of nowhere, you are living with money, somebodies money, however many times removed.
Mark- You owe me £9.99 to be precise. Hows the memory? Unfortunately I destroyed the evidence, but remember the table that got smashed at the Freastival. You see, someone, somewhere along the line, has to pick up the tab. Somebody had to pay for the Electricity, the Gas, the Transport.
There aint no such thing as a free lunch!
Mark Boyle comments ...
@ NAGA - I agree, big fan of Arundhati Roy also. As regards your claims, I find them absolutely incredible to be honest, and I answered them in response to a private email you sent to me only days ago, which makes me wonder your intentions behind writing them here even though I asked you in an email (which you never replied to) what on earth you were talking about. If I had known a table was damaged (and I am trusting it was) at an event 2mths ago before last week, I'd have gotten a replacement made up.
As regards someone having to pick up the tab on electricity, gas and transport for the Freastival - we produced all our own electricity, the gas was from half empty cylinders that didn't have enough pressure in them for their previous owners needs, and the transport could have been done on vegetable oil. The fact it wasn't isn't something in my control.
Its not that things can't be done without money, it just they aren't done without it at the moment.
frosty comments ...
hey, just stumbled upon your blog. great stuff. There's a great book from 5 or so years ago which is available free on line called "short circuit" by Richard Douthwaite. It goes into great detail about debt money and local alternate / barter currency etc. You're most likely aware of it already but if not it was a good read and a google search for those words will bring up the online edition.
frantasia comments ...
@Mark:
Mark, I find the likening of buying a solar panel to slaves buying their freedom makes me quite uncomfortable. 'parellels'? I don't think so.
Good wishes.
Tanya comments ...
hello.
i`m russian.
you have any knowledge about the experience that i need.
I will read your writing when gradually see what's what in English.
the purpose of life without the money necessary to be able to decide how the task and their acquisition.
good luck!
Mark Boyle comments ...
@ Frantasia - just to clarify, I wasn't comparing myself buying solar panels to slaves buying their way out of slavery. I was suggesting that me buying myself (and others) out of this inherently corrupt system, by getting land for the first real freeconomy community, had parallels. I hope that makes you feel less uncomfortable. Are we all not slaves at the moment anyway, though?
@ Lana - you can email me at mark@justfortheloveofit.org and let me what you're hoping to do why you'd want to live without money too.
NAGA comments ...
Simply stating the facts. Are you calling me a liar, Mr Boyle? Dats foitin' talk. What claims are they now? Well, Mr Boyle, i wouldn't be arguin' wit' de blarney, now, would i...but claims ?? - not.
As it happened, I picked up the tab on the table, which you said you would do, but you didn't know how.
Your email certainly didn't say you would get one made up. I even sent out a group appeal for a replacement, with zilch in response.
Your reply gave me to understand that you weren't that bothered, and that you were constrained by your holy vow.
And it was somwhat longer than a couple of days ago : you were on holiday for a week or two if I remember rightly, and then again, I can have a holiday when I want one also. I am replying to your eMail now am I not?
Any way, MY point is that every single thing used at the "free" feastival was paid for at some time in its life from production to consumption, probably several times as well as in cash, in human lives and effort and exploitation and that was part of the equation to which you seem to have developed an entirely blind spot. The gas wouldn't be half empty if it had not been full, and paid for, once upon a time.
Whats vegetable oil got to do with it? Is there some mystical magical source of second-hand chip fat I dont know about?
What about the clothes you wear? Did they spring spontaneously from the earth or fall down from heaven? Did you grow your own T-shirt or was it stitched in a sweat shop by some poor devil who had to have money to survive? Have you seen the scavengers in the Turd World, competing with the dogs and sacred cows and vultures for scraps from the garbage heaps? Try that for a year and maybe I'll begin to take you seriously.
You are not living without money, you are living with other peoples money. Furthermore, I do not see much of "just for the love of it", I seem to see only " Please scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" or " barter" or "Trading skills" whatever you like to call it. Or a special offer of ten pounds off, what has that to do here? Come on folks, lets have some real giving, service to others, work without attachment to the fruits of work, Karma Yoga? Just for the love of it? Not for something in return? All I see is basic trading offered with the emphasis on "I want" (something for nothing)
Basic trading is how money started, with little cowrie shells or other small, valu-able objects.
Its "only" crystallized energy- its what you make of it, how you make it, what you do with thats important. The fact of its existence is NOT an evil. It is Attachment to money that is the big problem, greed, simple human greed. And any good Karma Yogi will tell you that Aversion is just another form of attachment, the other side of the coin, as it were....
Its not a question wether things can be done with or without money, point is things need to be done with compassion and without "attachment" to money.
Chris, your first post was absolutely spot on, money started as little shells and has progressed through Gold to even smaller shells called electrons. Its value has always been arbitrary and determined by the powers that be who created the standards of exchange. Every system is as bad as the other, or as good, depending on the human hearts which invest them. Arundhati Roy makes that point very clearly. The finest minds come up with perfect systems and human venality and greed destroys them...
My reasons for "here" ?
a) Because I agree completely with Chris, and others.
b) Because I can.
c) Because I am funny like that.
My yesterdays two words?- be amazed
Today? - to humorist
Now, about the emperors clothes.....
JaneyMac comments ...
My favourite quote about money is a chinese proverb:
"an inch of gold cannot buy an inch of time"
it makes me pause as I dash out to work of a morning. I think it's really admirable what you are doing and I like the way you discuss the paradoxes that such a radical position exposes. It's made me think more about what money means. I don't think money is evil of itself, it's what we do with it and the horrible motivations that we allow it to rouse in us (greed, avarice, materialism).
I'll look forward to reading your book. Kind Regards.
Robert (Montréal) comments ...
Mark,
Below you'll find fodder to support work revising the new book, as requested on your blog.
Excelsior,
Robert
Montréal, Québec, Canada
______________________________________________________
A man does not 'by nature' wish to earn more and more
money, but simply to live as he is accustomed to live
and to earn as much as is necessary for that purpose.
Wherever modern capitalism has begun its work of
increasing the productivity of human labour by
increasing its intensity, it has encountered the
immensely stubborn resistance of this leading trait
of pre-capitalistic labour.
Max Weber, 1904
______________________________________________________
The nature of people demands that most of them
be engaged in the most frivolous possible activities —
like making money.
Herbert Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980)
______________________________________________________
If you want to know what God thinks of money,
just look at the people he gave it to.
Dorothy Parker
US author, humorist, poet, & wit (1893 - 1967)
______________________________________________________
Nothing more clearly shows how little
God esteems his gift to men of wealth, money,
position and other worldly goods,
than the way he distributes these,
and the sort of men who are
most amply provided with them.
Jean de la Bruyère
_______________________________________________________________
Ask a great money-maker what he wants to do with his money, —
he never knows. He doesn't make it to do anything with it. He
gets it only that he may get it. "What will you make of what
you have got?" you ask. "Well, I'll get more," he says. Just
as at cricket, you get more runs. There's no use in the runs,
but to get more of them than other people is the game. So all
that great foul city of London there, — rattling, growling,
smoking, stinking, — a ghastly heap of fermenting brickwork,
pouring out poison at every pore, — you fancy it is a city of
work? Not a street of it! It is a great city of play; very
nasty play and very hard play, but still play.
John Ruskin (1819-1900),
The Crown of Wild Olive (1866),
lecture I: Work, paragraphs 23-24
______________________________________________________
...We were too uncivilized to give great importance
to private property. We didn't know any kind of money
and consequently, the value of a human being was not
determined by his wealth. We had no written laws laid
down, no lawyers, no politicians, therefore we were not
able to cheat and swindle one another....
John (Fire) Lame Deer
Sioux Lakota (1903-1976)
__________________________________________________________
Advertising may be described as the science of arresting
human intelligence long enough to get money from it.
La publicité peut être décrite comme l'art de suspendre
l'intelligence le temps de lui soutirer de l'argent.
Stephen Leacock
______________________________________________________
A warlike nation like the Germans,
without cities, letters, arts, or money,
found some compensation for this savage state
in the enjoyment of liberty.
Their poverty secured their freedom,
since our desires and our possessions
are the strongest fetters of despotism.
Sir Edward Gibbon
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
______________________________________________________
Bill Moyers on the Economy
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/moyers_on_2008/economy.html
2008-10-30
= = = = = = = = = =
John Bogle
John Bogle, 77, created The Vanguard Group, Inc., in 1974, which today is one of the two largest mutual fund organizations in the world, and was was the first index mutual fund. He retired as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the fund in 1996, yet remained Senior Chairman until 2000.
In 2000, Mr. Bogle established the Bogle Financial Markets Research Center with Vanguard, which supports his continuing work on behalf of mutual fund investors.
"My estimate is that the financial sector takes $560 billion a year out of society," Bogle explains to Bill Moyers. "Banks, money managers, insurance companies, certainly annuity providers. They're all subtracting value from the economy."
On the financial industry today:
"When I came into this business in the 1950's, it was a business focused on the wisdom of long term investing. We changed in that period to a business that is focused on the folly of short term speculation. And think about this for a minute. If you're a true investor holding a company for the long term, you're well aware that the value in that company is company's earnings compounded over time, developing new products and services, developing efficiencies, trying to size up the proper corporate strategy — you know — making the company more valuable. But, in the folly of short term speculation, you're just thinking 'will that stock be worth more or less six months from now, or a year from now?'"
______________________________________________________
The big difference between sex for money
and sex for free is that sex for money
usually costs less.
- Brendan Francis, Playboy, 1985
___________________________________________________________
The love of money as a possession — as distinguished from
the love of money as a means to the enjoyments and
realities of life — will be recognized for what it is, a
somewhat disgusting morbidity, one of those semi-criminal,
semi-pathological propensities which one hands over
with a shudder to the specialists in mental disease.
— John Maynard Keynes
______________________________________________________
The American Republic will endure until the day
Congress discovers that it can bribe the public
with the public's money.
Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859)
______________________________________________________
Only when the last tree has died,
the last river has been poisoned,
and the last fish caught,
will we realize that we cannot eat money.
The Cree Nation,
North America
Amema comments ...
Brilliant! I've tried to describe this to people since my own "dawning" in 1990. The top thing I've noticed is how hard it is to do something differently - regardless of what, really - if everybody else uses their flock mentality.
I also guess that any money scheme that is controlled hierarchically is doomed. Money as tool is nice, but when it's as corrupted as the thing we call money today, it just doesn't work as the tool we think it is.
wishface comments ...
Someone posted a link to a site where people can swap books with each other. This is a great idea, and why shouldn't people do this.
However, doesn't this affect the author? If fewer people buy books new then isn't that going to have a knock on effect?
How to reconcile these things?
su burke comments ...
"A man cannot serve two masters for he will hate the one or despise the other-you cannot serve both God and Mammon(money)" Jesus said that. I have seen the difference and agree with who-ever said "Money makes a good servant but a terrible master." Money is not the [point nor is the lak of money the point the point is what do you depend on and I am discovering the truth in "Seek first the kingdom of God and all these things will be given to you" God as your selected master promises to supply "all your needs according to His riches in glory"- "He provides for all that He has made"all quotes from the New Deal between God and man described in the "New Testament"
Jane comments ...
I remember years ago reading Chaucer's 'Pardoner's Tale' (part of the Canterbury Tales) for 'A' level English. In it, the 'pardoner' confesses to the other pilgrims that he has been a fake. He has used fake bones and other objects, pretending that they are relics from saints and getting them to pay him money for touching them and being pardoned. One of the central themes of the book is 'radix malorum est cupiditas' or 'the root of evil is greed'.
I love the freeconomy community and all it is doing, but I have to say that ultimately I don't think money itself is the problem. Money should be a mere tool to make bartering easier, but it isn't because of what we have made it. If we merely remove money from the equation, greed will still exist. This really exposes a deeper underlying problem to me. Converting to a moneyless system will require an revolutionary transition, but removing greed from people's hearts? Well that's another thing altogether, and far more difficult. We will need a whole culture shift and perhaps that's where the true value of freeconomy lies, rather in just the superficial removal of a bartering system based on money.
comments ...
Adding some more thoughts to what I wrote above, I would also say that when we come into this world, there is one thing that we will have plenty of and that we can give in abundance, and that is time. The only reason we stop being able to give our time freely is that we get caught up in a nine to five (or longer) five or sometimes six day week slogging our guts out to pay for holidays, clothes, mortgages and all the other stuff we get roped into along the way.
By needing less, buying less, slowing down etc we will have more time. Unfortunately once you get caught up in the whole system, it's hard to get out.
What I like about the freeconomy thing, is when people give their time for free. I don't expect free stuff unless someone has finished with it and is giving it away.
If I went to a freeconomy event where someone had given their time for free to teach a skill, I wouldn't expect them to necessarily be able to source the materials for free too, although often that might be possible using second hand, unwanted stuff.
In a moneyless system, there would be loads of really great, honest people who only took what they needed and made sure they created plenty in return which they would give away. There would also be large amounts of people who would just take and take and give nothing away. Some people are wonderful and honest. Some people just take for themselves without a thought. It is this second group which means that a moneyless system would be very difficult as those who give would end up with very little.
If I were to spend hours using my skills to make things to sell, I wouldn't want to give them away for nothing as I might end up with nothing. If someone wanted me to spend hours using their materials to make those things, while teaching them at the same time, I could happily do this for free.
comments ...
A moneyless society cannot work unless the whole world lives that way, without exception. This isn't likely to happen anytime soon. Anything else surely is a waste of energy.
Ytrish comments ...
@comments (?)
Someone has (people have) to bring on the changes, else they'd never happen.
Being the change etc ...
goafenny comments ...
Money is the root cause of evil, not exactly money but people mind who misuse and abuse money.so as long as money exist, no matter how much people try their best to use it responsibly,they will not be successful. Thats why the best alternative
to cut down all sort of crime by at least 80% in this money world is to struggle as hard as possible to get rid of money .This is happening as you can see more and more people are joining
"justfortheloveofit",so there will always be hopes until almost all people if not all,accept this freeconomy concept. Freeconomy is not exactly free, but its free of money which eventually will happen when almost all participate actively.
freeconomy is also free cause the concept says all things freeconomist do unconditionly.Later if you want help, just ask and hope some freeconomist will give you unconditionally.Its not barter system. some highly qualified/skilled people are needed to
join freeconomy community to speed up the process.If people dont get greedy including greedy in having not more than 2 kids ,that will put less strains on the resources of this world, which will help in ths success of The freeconomy community concept.
comments ...
If we lived without money we wouldn't be talking here. There'd be no internet to connect people to swap skills and get help.
Mark Boyle comments ...
@ last commentator without a name - if we lived without money there'd be no need for this website anyway.
My greatest dream is for there eventually to be no need for this website or blog.
We don't need money for things to come into existence. All the materials come for free from nature. Money is merely one method of rewarding people for their efforts in making something happen. Its a method for a world where communities are much to big for trust to exist between all members.
But it is only one way. What I am proposing is what I believe to be another, more ecological way of doing things.
And I agree with Ytrish, it has to start somewhere. It is about transition, not revolution.
comments ...
That doesn't make much sense. The need for the website would be the need for those who want help, for free, in some area. How would living without money remove that? Removing money won't remove people's needs.
Mark Boyle comments ...
@ comments (can you please use some sort of name?) - I think you misunderstand. If we lived in a world with relocalised economies, people wouldn't need a website to get help with things and to share stuff, they'd ask the relevant person in real life. It wouldn't have to be organised online.
mpbriars comments ...
Hi Mark
Glad it is going so well for you. I have been vaguely aware of your efforts since you began but have just read the Independent Magazine article (30/01/10, p.11) and subscribed to your site to find out more. I am a teacher of long standing and hope to retire before I die in post. However, I know that I can not expect to achieve the same income I enjoy at present in retirement, so I hope to work towards some form of self sufficiency over the next five years. Fortunately my job is enabling me to gain valuable future skills as my tutor group and I look after the farm which has been up and running at my school for the last two years. Unfortunately, I am currently recovering from what appears to be salmonella poisoning contracted from our chickens but this has allowed me to catch up on articles such as yours. That aside, and in answer to your most recent blog comments(apologies for not being up to speed on the rest but have only been off a week), "Money is the root of all evil". I'm not sure if this is an actual quote but maybe other bloggers will correct me. But is it? Or is it what humans do with it? Are we the problem? For much as my journey to maybe not a moneyless life but one less monied will be a long and carefully crafted route if I am to succeed, huge questions remain. About how one, being selfish, or society, as one might wish, can achieve a better quality of life without money for medicines and other life-sustaining essentials. I recently saw "Into the Wild" about a lad who wanted to live in Alaska. I won't spoil for anyone who wants to see it but it threw up a lot of the problems that we, as a modern society, are just no longer equipped to confront successfully(yet). I add this "yet" because I believe that we could or even have to be better educated, in order to survive changes beyond our control in the future.
I'm starting to witter on now but will try to catch up on what has already been discussed so that maybe my ideas are a little more coherent next time.
All the best with the book draft. Looking forward to reading it.
Mark
sbradley comments ...
for mpbriars mainly;
Great to read your post, in helping educate children about basic food production you are also contributing to a greater good. In pointing to distinctions between what Mark is doing and what you have done and plan to do, you should appreciate the positives you have already achieved. On money as debt, we can all go some way to being less money reliant. Yeah, 'Into the Wild' is a good show but also extreme. Besides, taking on a challenge is not as daunting if you get others on board in the first instance.
Good luck with your endeavours
Dawn Merydith, Fairfield Iowa USA comments ...
Wow! You are so inspiring Mark. thank-you, thank-you!!!
Eva Schlottmann comments ...
Money leaves me empty inside. The sight of hundred
pumpkins we planted 4 months ago in the Community
Garden makes me feel empowered and delighted.
Access to land and low key shelter is all we need.
And sharing in interdependence and love. Eva.
Ashwyn comments ...
Sorry all, quite aware that the Haiti example here has been well and truly talked over already, also must confess that I was so eager to put in my bit on this subject that I did a page search for references to haiti and read only those posts that mentioned the word, to see if anyone had already covered my point.
Anyway, what I wanted to say is simple. First, anyone needing a refresher on Haiti's history, read here:
http://www.globalissues.org/article/141/haiti
All I have to say is that the earthquake was not the primary cause of the death and suffering in Haiti, on the contrary, it was the history of oppression and poverty in the nation, making for a country with improperly reinforced large buildings.
Examples of similar earthquakes with nil/almost nil casualties.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Hawaii_earthquake - 6.7 richter - 0 casualties
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_San_Simeon_earthquake 6.5 richter - 2 dead, 40 injured
It is debatable as to whether this can be directly tied to a money driven society, but needless to say this is what I believe.
As even those of us who wish to exit from this money driven society need to deal with the reality that it is what we live in now, then yes, money can help these people and is helping now to an extent. However given the history of moneyed society in the country, I think that were the people of Haiti now to construct a moneyless society, they would be far better placed than they were before the quake. Following this logic, efforts of Mark and people like him to spread this concept can be more valuable than monetary aid.
Keep up the good work Mark!
Rowancat comments ...
There is a very interesting article in today's Torygraph (Telegraph 21.02.10)titled 'Our World Balances on a Sea of Debt' written by Darius Guppy which very clearly describes the fraud that is at the heart of capitalism and that causes depletion of the environment because it demands constant growth. You can read it free online.
Shirley comments ...
I applaude your life without money. Don't worry about offending anyone. You are the change you want to see. I had a dream that I traveled to the moon, urealistic as it seems. The thing that stuck with me was when they showed me their garden and a new pod I could live in and just do some work for free to stay so I did. Not only that I got my brother to move up too. I planted more garden for us to eat there and that became my new work. So when I saw the story about living without money in the permaculture mag I bought it. I don't live without money but try real hard to buy nothing I don't really need. I recyle and take part in freecyle here in america. Make my own christmas presents and don't do black friday. Or the day after christmas. I am going to make tissues, paper towels and napkins & homemade detergent for my family this year and lay down a Meijer card and see which one they will pick up. They love my choice christmas so well that I thought I would continue it this way. See if they want the fish rather than learning the way to fish.
Danny Richard comments ...
Hi Mark, I'm training to be an accountant, and am highly interested in financial markets and even spent all of 2008-09 trading various markets, equities UK US Germany, Indices, Forex, puts, calls, government bonds... so I feel quite well clued up on this subject. And I love what you're saying, and agree with you. My problem with the present systemic method is that, although many will argue we haven't yet found a better "system", capitalism doesn't serve "needs", it serves money. ie supply and demand is not really how the system works - Africans often have more needs than the rest of us, feeding people rice does not however drum up very much profitable business. I certainly think we can get more clever about the way we run our society, and I think sharing of information can be a key part of this transition. Therefore it is not "needs that drive markets, but "purchasing power". A good example of this is that in the credit crunch we saw people's "needs" (demand) increase as people struggled to pay bills, yet at the same time less business was being transacted in the uk (dropping supply), so in this example increased demand was met with reducing supply. It is not "demand" that drives the present economy, but wealth, or money. What I would like to see is a steady transition towards being able to better supply for genuine "needs", and the most likely route for this is to help educate one another on how we can take care of ourselves without incurring expense - which is what you're doing - brilliant!