I think it is a plausible idea and will happen sometime in the future. Think about it, most of us work mundane jobs (which could be automated) in order to acquire the necessities of life of which we have an abundance of, with most of the profit going to the the owners of the company. Basically, a minority of people get unimaginably wealthy and live off the energy of the majority.
In reality, it is technology that scientists and engineers created, by building on passed down knowledge, which allows us to live the way we do now. But someone "owns" that technology due to purchasing power and reaps its fruits. What if we collaboratively owned them and used them to provide for ourselves, without the need for money and the supposed owners? This class hierarchy based on economical status is nonsense, in other words.
Best recent example is Planetary Resources, a company formed by a handful of wealthy people to mine asteroids for their resources, of course benefiting mostly their private interests. Yet, they have no idea whatsoever on how to achieve this, so they are hiring the best scientists and engineers around the world to do the job for them.
Today, profit is primary to the environment and even human health and concern. Hunger, poverty, war, unsustainable management, planned obsolescence, and a whole array of social problems result from it. Clearly, something is fundamentally wrong and no politician or money related solution will fix it. This charter is a step in the right direction.
In order to establish this goal I advocate the violent overthrow of the government by a proletariat avant-garde, who will use their newly obtained power to transition into the true equal state.
(The actual words of the Charter were written by Colin Turner, a songwriter and music producer from Dublin, Ireland)
The fair distribution problem is the major issue for Communism. To be fair, with capitalism you have the question of how can you know companies holding most of the cards will be reasonable with the individual employee or client.
On May 05 2012 03:35 Hertzy wrote: The fair distribution problem is the major issue for Communism. To be fair, with capitalism you have the question of how can you know companies holding most of the cards will be reasonable with the individual employee or client.
So, basically I can just walk down to Chipotle and order their tastey burritos for free? I can go on amazon and order the computer parts I want (The ones I really want total $2000)? What's to stop me from ordering lots of expensive products? Nothing?
What would I be doing? Why should I really even do anything when everything is already provided? Granted there will be people that work and pursue their interests and dreams, but what's to say that their work and interests even benefit the rest of society?
That video has made so many wrong and ridiculous statements, it wouldn't convince me even if I watched it high.
Also, this quote "Any political system, including communism, that uses money is ultimately doomed to fail, because it embodies inequality and oppression.". I mean, come on.
On a more serious note if money doesn't differentiate us then suitable replacements will be found to segregate society. That's really the underlying hate of money, that through luck or skill some individuals have a better position in society. If you remove the money and equalize everyone inbalances will still occur. Instead of who has the most dollars it will be prettiest person in the room.
Maybe 3 to 5 generations from now (or more) before this concept would ever be discussed. Because there are plenty of menial jobs a robot cannot do even still. But even then this is a very hard to accomplish ideal. Just dont see human greed letting this become possible. If we all have the same amount of everything then to a greedy person they're "losing." Maybe my kids kids blahblahblah could see a world like this. But I know I won't :p
Edit: I know nothing about natural resources etc... But let's say everyone in the world was well fed and taken care of properly. Wouldn't natural resources run out extremely fast given all the people who weren't eating before are eating now, driving cars, using electricity, using oil, etc.. Can someone enlighten me on this?
On May 05 2012 03:43 Hertzy wrote: I read through the charter, and the beginning struck me as a bit too hardline environmental. However, my main objection is to section six:
Our community provides for all its members the necessities of a healthy, fulfilling and sustainable life, freely and without obligation.
This is the sort of ambiguity they said they were trying to avoid. Also, this would enable cydial's counterexample.
I'd like to elaborate on this; There should be an obligation to do your share of the work. Yes, there should be some accounting for disabilities and such, but if you declare a policy of giving everyone a basic living stipend, to borrow a term, you risk ending up with a community of deadbeats with a few bitter dutiful members carrying the load.
Without money you have the problem of how to assign value both to both goods and services and more importantly to labor, both physical and mental.
The future is not going to be the Jetsons where automation can provide all the amenities of middle-class life while people only have to work 9 hours a week pushing buttons that make sprockets.
I'd like to elaborate on this; There should be an obligation to do your share of the work. Yes, there should be some accounting for disabilities and such, but if you declare a policy of giving everyone a basic living stipend, to borrow a term, you risk ending up with a community of deadbeats with a few bitter dutiful members carrying the load.
That's the problem of a society where everything is free. You can't obligate people to work with any kind of scheme except the one called money.
This isn't a new idea, but it's one that has merit. The problem is you can't switch how society works overnight, this isn't Civilization. I do believe people should be striving for a non-monetary society, but it has to be gradual and the changes required for this shift would take a lot of time, more than a generation. As the world works now, the minority with all the wealth and power would never allow this to happen. First we should work towards fairer distribution of wealth, and once a norm is established without significant outliers either way (CEOs earning more in a month than an employee in 10 years), that is when money will start to be looked at as unnecessary. EDIT:
On May 05 2012 03:48 DeepElemBlues wrote: Without money you have the problem of how to assign value both to both goods and services and more importantly to labor, both physical and mental.
The future is not going to be the Jetsons where automation can provide all the amenities of middle-class life while people only have to work 9 hours a week pushing buttons that make sprockets.
This is what I mean. If you arrive at a point where all the population has the same spending power, that's when you can cut out the middle man and abolish currency.
This is what I mean. If you arrive at a point where all the population has the same spending power, that's when you can cut out the middle man and abolish currency.
It doesn't work. It never has and it never will. Precisely because achieving a population where everyone has the same spending power is the same thing as having a society with no money. Same result, everyone has the same spending power. It doesn't work
doesn't work for humans and money isn't really the problem, people would get a better position in society because of sth else...
Exactly. People will transfer the drive for money and the status money brings to something else. More likely than not, political power, from the highest to the low. That is what happened to the political economy of the Soviet Union, from the smallest kholkoz up to the Presidium itself. Instead of striving to improve their economic status directly people strove to improve their economic status through political power since political power was the route to access to a better material life.
Appreciation will become the new currency, no amount of "hypothical worth" can equate to the feeling of appreciation shown by another.
The sad truth is, this world is so abundent, yet a very few claim to own the vast majority, while the vast majority are left with the little that is left.
In this day of awareness, the fact that people can still be homeless in supposedly "first world" countries is beyond me. There is enough commercial waste to feed and clothe all of these people and more many many times over.
EPT
