Beyond Money (video)
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At one extreme of what socialist society could look like is Zeitgeist. At the other is this. Anitra doesn’t indicate how small the “Yenomon” (No Money, after Samuel Butler’s “Erewhon” if you haven’t worked it out) communities are to be but the background music suggests smaller rather than even medium-sized, I imagine.
Given where we are in terms of societal development, technology, urbanisation and population density, I would have thought Zeitgeist were more in tune with the spirit of the time.
having said that, the thing about socialism is that, once humanity has got rid of capitalism and the operation of its economic laws acting on humans like uncontrollable laws of nature, humanity will be in control of its destiny and can decide what it wants.
Anyway, the idea of a future moneyless society is catching on. There’s not much that we could disagree with in the first couple of chapters of her book Beyond Money where she puts the case against capitalism and its production for trade (as she puts it). It’s reviewed in this month’s Socialist Standard here:
Thanks Alan, Great that she shares so many of our ideas, but this video promotes the idea of exchange between local producer communities (at 6 minutes 40 seconds) and there’s no discussion of how stuff that can’t be produced locally or on a small scale (steel or MRI scanners, for example). Seems a bit backwards looking to me. As he has read this and other stuff from the author, perhaps Cde Moss can shed some light on these 2 issues…
Sadly, Howard does not frequent this forum too often.
You may have to suggest he visits to comment on the video.
Yes, she does and has to for the other reason you give (how are the Yemonon communities to get steel and MRI scanners). Since she rules out money these “exchanges” would presumably be in kind, like barter. But if production in socialism was organised at regional and world as well as local level (as envisaged in our “Socialism As A practical Alternative” pamphlet) then her communities could just order such things without having to offer anything in “exchange”.
It would be less of a problem for the larger, ecoregions (the size of a medium-sized country) envisaged by Murray Bookchin in his “Towards and Liberatory Technology”.
I would have thought that there would, even in the future she envisages, need to be some organisation above the local level and also on a world level. A permanent organisation like the WHO at world level would be useful to coordinate dealing with a pandemic, wouldn’t it? And what about the International Postal Union or the World Wide Web? Even Kropotkin envisaged the former continuing.
I draw attention to this month’s Material World
“…Socialism involves building democracy for our workplaces and in our local communities. But it also involves an administration on a world scale. We can envisage certain existing UN international bodies such as the World Health Organization, the International Labour Organization and the Food and Agriculture Organization continuing. We can expect air traffic and air safety to still be organised globally under the authority of the International Air Traffic Association ensuring that your pilot and those in air control guiding your flight are properly certified and qualified. There will remain the World Meteorological Organisation and the Universal Postal Union. World NGOs such as the Red Cross, Oxfam, War on Want, Save the Children and Doctors Without Borders could continue.
Those conspiracists on the far-right construe that this will result in a globalist one-world government. We are not talking about a world Big Brother but rather about a world cooperative commonwealth, a network of organisations operating in coordination and collaboration for the welfare of the world’s population…”
I’ve posted a comment on this month’s SS front page. I think it’s most heartening that the two reviewed books have been published and that others are seemingly catching on to socialism (even though they don’t call it that – maybe a positive thing?) Will they succeed in getting the message across better than we do?
As a follow up some may be interested in Anitra Nelson’s expressing her ideas on degrowth in this video interview
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