Excerpted from a reflection on a non-monetary economy, from the Moneyless Society blog :

“All of the ‘alternative solutions’ to the problems we have in the world today deal with solutions within the monetary system. We have ‘recycling’, ‘carbon shares’, ‘cradle to cradle’, ‘environmental protection’, and so forth. All of these deals with the industry and the monetary system staying as it is. ‘Recycling’ means that we have to recycle the minerals and raw materials used in many of our products. ‘Carbon shares’ is a ‘monetary way’ for the society to be able to continue to pollute the environment, but it will cost a bit more for the polluter. ‘Cradle to cradle’ means that industries produce everything with the termination and recycling of the product in mind, not using any harmful agents in the product. ‘Environmental protection’ is the total of all measures taken in regards to protect the environment, but still within the monetary system.

All of these measures assume that the monetary system, the industry, the free market and so forth stay largely as it is. With recycling, cradle to cradle and carbon shares thinking, we still think in terms of continuous consumption and unlimited economic growth.

It is understandable that the majority of people can not think in terms of changing the whole system, from the root and up, because it is very difficult to think that far ‘out of the box’.

We have all become used to our way of life, with tonnes and tonnes of different products in thousands of different categories. And we all think that this has to go on. We all think that we need hundreds of different producers of cell phones, lap tops, cars, mattresses, guitars, etc. etc.

Yes, we, humans are an industrious race. We have ideas, we produce, we manufacture, we consume, and we do it all over again. This is who we are. Isn’t it? Humans have proven to be full of ideas and ingenious solutions to many of the problems of being human. We are also very good at creating problems for ourselves, so that we can have yet more to solve. We constantly do this, and it seems to be human nature. And we all wan’t to be free. Free to do what we want, travel where we want, think and say what we want, work with what we want and live wherever we want. Of course, this kind of freedom is limited to only a few in our world today.

My point and question is; How can/will a resource based economy work on a global scale, without it becoming a ‘totalitarian’ system? For sure, none of us want’s any ‘global machine government’, even though that is what Jacque Fresco of The Venus Project proposes. We all want’s to be able to make our own decisions. So, how can it work, then? We are all so indoctrinated into thinking that if there’s no ‘penalty’ in terms of ‘job loss’, ‘money loss’, ‘property loss’ and so forth, we can’t get people to do what is needed in society.

We think that if everyone will be able to ‘do whatever they want to do’, then we will lack a whole lot of people to ‘dig ore’ as our commenter puts it. No one will take on a dangerous job like going into the mines and dig out the urgently needed minerals to produce our cell phones, because when he/she get’s everything he/she needs, he/she could simply walk away whenever he/she want’s. Since there wouldn’t be any binding contract (in terms of money/property/job loss) in a resource based economy, the whole of society would simply collaps.

Trust me, I truly, really and utterly understand this concern and this disbelief in a resource based economy.

The first time I heard about RBE, I immediately got a feeling that ‘this is good’, but at the same time, I couldn’t get it to work in my intellectual analyzing mind. And that’s why I started this blog. I felt strongly that RBE is possible, and not only possible, but the best alternative humanity has ever been able to choose. But I couldn’t prove it. Because I too was totally indoctrinated in my mind in regards to thinking about money and property as givens. As something that’s always been there, like air. It has taken me a couple of years to ‘dedoctrinate’ myself into seeing how RBE can be possible.

So, back to our question. If we have no money or need for money, and everything is provided for everyone, what will make people ‘work in the mines’ and do all the ‘dirty work’ needed in our society? It is a very good question, and I am not sure that I can give a 100% answer to that. Because I don’t know. I can only speculate and imagine, which I have done for a couple of years. And my answer goes like this:

Firstly, we have to think of RBE as a totally and utterly different society. We can not think of an RBE society with our ‘monetary goggles’. We have to take them off. We have to be able to imagine that the individuals on this planet can actually shift their way of thinking from a ‘penalty based’ society to a ‘freedom of contribution’ society where we do what we do because we want to contribute to society in meaningful ways. Many people think this way already and refuse to take jobs ‘just to earn money’ but do what they do because of their conviction in a different society. They have an inherent need to do something meaningful that truly contributes to this world. Thinking that there has to be a ‘monetary penalty’ lurking in the background to get people to do what is really needed in society is seeing this with the old ‘monetary goggles’.”