Selten tritt die Ungerechtigkeit des Geldsystems noch schärfer zum Vorschein, als in Fällen, wo jemand ein ganzes Leben lang fleißig sein Geld gespart hat, und dann, etwa durch eine Schussligkeit oder durch ein Versehen – mal abgesehen von einer möglichen Beraubung der Person – das ganze Ersparte mit einem Schlag verliert, wie erst jüngst wieder in Schweden passiert. So eine für eine Person sehr schreckliche Tragödie wird es in einer Welt, in der alles Geld im Verkehr der Menschen untereinander ausgeschaltet wurde und nichts mehr zu melden hat, da man zu einem gänzlich geldenthobenen Wirtschaften übergegangen sein wird, zum Glück nicht mehr geben.

Und daß einzelne Volksgruppen, die traditionell in ihren Gesellschaften eher eine Außenseiterrolle spielen, wie zum Beispiel die Zigeuner in einzelnen Ländern, zu Zeiten einer, wo man auch hinblickt, landauf landab wütenden Wirtschaftskrise, wie wir sie jetzt erleben, und zwar diesmal schlimmer denn je erleben, böse diskriminiert und unverdienterweise an den öffentlichen Pranger gestellt werden — auch dies wird es in einer Welt so ganz ohne Geld nicht mehr geben.

Nach der allgemeinen Ausklinkung aller volkswirtschaftlichen Vorgänge einer Gesellschaft aus deren Geldvermitteltheit wird überall automatisch endlich der soziale Frieden hergestellt sein, von dem man bisher nur träumen konnte.

Bleibt nur die große Frage, wann dies so weit sein wird. Nach meinen Schätzungen, die sich auf die zu meinen wohlwollenden Präsentationen hinsichtlich einer allfälligen künftigen Geldabstellung eingehenden Kommentare stützen, wird es noch längerer Aufklärungsarbeit bedürfen, bis die Menschen kapiert haben werden, was die Beseitigung des Geldwesens eigentlich bedeutet, was sie gerade zu einem so erstrebenswerten Ziel macht — die generelle Abkehr vom Tauschdenken auf der Basis einer prozentuell für den Erfüllungsgrad der Beschickungen hochzurechnenden neuen Freiwilligkeit des Mitbestreitens des total von jeglichen Kosten- und Nutzengegenrechnungen freigestellten Ablaufs aller menschlichen Geschäfte.

Solange Kommentatoren immer noch danach fragen – rhetorisch ironisch noch dazu -, womit man denn dann zum Beispiel sein Bier an der Tankstelle bezahlen wollte, wenn es kein Geld mehr gäbe, “ob es wohl dann mit einem Packen Mehl eingetauscht würde”, zeigt es sich eindeutig, daß die wunderbare Grundidee einer möglichen Geldabschaffung immer noch nicht in den Köpfen der meisten, die man damit konfrontiert, angekommen ist.

✪ Deshalb will ich hier noch einmal, kurz und knapp in einer einfachen Sprache zusammengefasst, darstellen, was das Herzstück eines panvoluntaristischen Systems des Wirtschaftens, bei dem es keinen Platz mehr für Geld gibt, ausmacht:

Gefragt ist nur noch das Geben unter den Menschen. Alles Nehmen, wofür man bisher immer zu bezahlen hatte, wird unter der Hand ablaufen, ohne dabei daran zu denken, ein Geld dafür zu verlangen.

Alle geben sozusagen sich und ihre Schaffenskraft und Energie, so sie sie denn freiwillig in den Dienst der Gemeinschaft stellen wollen — und die meisten werden mit Sicherheit dabei sein und aktiv werden, wenn sie eingesehen haben, daß es dabei eben mehr oder weniger auf jeden einzelnen ankommt, so daß man sich die Welt ohne Geld realiter leisten kann – hier sind natürlich in erster Linie die Schulen der Zukunft gefordert — umsonst her, also ohne irgendeine Entlohnung gegen Geld im herkömmlichen Sinn dafür zu erwarten. Im Gegenzug holen sich dann eben alle dafür alles, was es in den Läden im Angebot gibt, entsprechend ihren dem System angepassten Bedürfnissen, also all die feinen Sachen zum Leben, gleichermaßen umsonst ab, ohne wie bisher noch irgendwie dafür bezahlen zu müssen. Luxuswaren werden glücklichen Gewinnern von allerlei Gesellschaftsspielen zugeschlagen – oder privat getauscht, was den Menschen natürlich vorbehalten bleibt. Aufgabe der freiwilligen Administrative der neuen Welt ohne Geld wird es sein, die bestmögliche Belieferung und Ausstattung der Bevölkerung zu koordinieren und zu überwachen.

Ist das denn wirklich so schwer zu verstehen, liebe Mitmenschen?! Ich glaube, nein. Eigentlich müßte diese vorgestellte, gerechte Verfahrensweise einer Geldabschaffung jedem halbwegs vernunftbegabten Kind einleuchten.

Ich kann mir deshalb andererseits eigentlich nicht vorstellen, daß es noch allzu lange dauern dürfte, bis auch die letzten verstanden haben werden, was genau zu tun anstünde, um die so schwer angeschlagene, behandlungsbedürftige Menschheit endlich von ihrem chronischen Siechtum namens Geld zu befreien.

thank you for your answer. I first responded to your shorter mail, but then I saw, that you address same points in this longer mail, so some points may be redundant.

We may have different premises, but since we live in a common world,
if there is to be a political dialogue, we still have to answer each other’s objections.

Of course, I will remind you.

So, my reproach is not that you critique my support for a peer to peer money infrastructure, but rather the lack of arguments about why this would be bad, or at any rate worse than the current meltdown-related-financial-system. It is the habit of ridiculing p2p money movements and initiatives, without cogent arguments, that I find objectionable.

Beside the tone of my critique, I find my arguments very cogent, but not yours. Isn’t that the nature of a discussion with different points of view?

From my side I can say, that it doesn’t help, when you simply ignore my arguments instead of giving counter arguments. You prefere to reproduce your position. Ok, then I will check your new text.

Also, let me repeat that what I find utopian is that you want a moneyless society, but that you do not give an answer of how we get there.

I did not give an answer, because until now, it was not the question. Generally, it is a valid question (which I ask many people myself), but the starting point for me was to criticize your transformation model — not entirely, we have many points in common — but the special “money point”. Your model must be consistent independently of me, of want I think is the best way. So my non-answer to a non-question is no criterion.

More then that: I do not find it convincing to say, that one has to reject all critics without proof, because there is no better idea.

You say the same about me, but I have given you a strategy via the Oekonux list. I.e. the integrated construction of new life practices in all areas of human life.

Yes, thank you. Strategies can be wrong. You must be eager to get false proofs, because you want to do the right thing and not the wrong ones.

What is absolutely clear to me is that, since currently peer to peer only works for immaterial exchange, for for the design phase of physical production, that we need mechanisms for physical production. Because these cannot be the same, at least not at this stage, we need better and more distributed financial mechanisms as well.

I do not draw the conclusion as you do. Yes, physical production is special, no, that we need more distributed financial mechanisms being the best way to solve the special challenges with physical goods.

You mention Christian Siefkes proposal, and imply that I have ignored it. First this is untrue, I have about a dozen blog  references and dedicated a whole wiki section on his proposals. But second, this is indeed an utopian proposal, in the sense that it is not being tried out anywhere, and that I seen no concrete prospects of it being tried anywhere.

Yes, you documented it, great, thank you, but did not integrate it in your vision. You simply expand what is. You don’t ask deeply enough, if this is right or wrong. I can’t see any concept of societal transition according to the five step model. There are not qualitative steps, just expansion and withering away. I don’t think, that societal transitions occur this way.

And concerning peerconomy: any new model must be tried once for the first time. But to me the main role of peerconomy is to sharpen our mind and to use elements or principles in our projects.

By contrasts, peer to peer money is a thriving social movement, producing many benefits in the here and now.

So it’s time to critically reflect these experiences. In my view, there are pros and cons.

One of your key arguments is that peer to peer money would reproduce capitalism, if I understand you correctly?

Yes and no. Yes, in the sense, that it is no escape and thus finally will reproduce capitalism. But this can’t be an important argument, because with our daily live we reproduce capitalism all together.

No, because it is not that simple. The key critique is, that alternative money does not solve or address the equivalence problem. More then that: It does not see equivalence as a problem at all. I explained this critique in my previous mails. You did not pick up this point.

But that is simply not the case. Interest and fractional reserve banking, and other aspects of the current monetary system, are designed as scarcity-based money, that facilitate accumulation, and require infinite growth.

This is a mistake: Money was not “designed”, it has historically developed together with emerging capitalism. It reflects the mode of production and is its integral part. I can’t be cutted away or replaced by voluntary mechanisms like alternative money.

Peer to peer money is designed against accumulation, against infinite growth, to keep more streams of value within communities, and to be under the control of such communities, physical and virtual. So they directly contribute to more autonomous social life, and where applied, do not reproduce the accumulation of capital.

I share the goal, but I think, that all alternative money approaches earlier or later must fail to prepare a commonist society, because of the immanent blindness for the equivalence problem.

Are they sufficient to change the dynamic of the whole society, no, of course not, but along with the other p2p infrastructures, they create areas that are protected from its full scope, and create more room and space for alternatives. Integrated in a full vision of distributed infrastructures though, they play a crucial role, which is why the Hungarian revolution wanted to adopt it.

Which case are you refering to?

But can such use of alternative money wither away? Why not. First of all, it is used freely by associated producers, without coercion; and is structured so as to prevent accumulation. Then to the degree that our society finds other means to deal with scarce resources, through resource-based economics or any other scheme, then the need to use for such money falls way, and indeed, through such process, it can wither away.

In most (all?) experiments we could observe, alternative money indeed withered away by replacing it with “real” money. When the basis of equivalence is more or less the same, why not switch to real money when a partial function of alternative money is reached?

I think you are conflating two things: Markets and capitalism And Unequal exchange with equal exchange

Sorry, no.

Again, you can have non-capitalist markets, and capitalism is based, structurally,  on unequal exchange, in a way that a market is not necessarily. See Braudel and Manuel De Landa on this important distinction.

I refer here to my previous mail.

Why is this distinction important? If you want a fully ‘commonist’ society, only allowing peer to peer dynamics, then I would answer a number of things: It is unprecedented in history to have just one mode, the four intersubjective modes have always co-existed, it’s only their respective dominance that has changed

I don’t understand, what you mean by “intersubjective modes”. I am taking about modes of production.

Even if it were possible, you still have to explain how to get there, and again, you do not seem to have any transitional plans beyond waiting for the germ form process to play out?

This is another topic as said be before. The validity of a theory is independent of the conviction of others.

Some mails ago you drew the picture of apples on the moon (and you did not answer my question). Let me draw my picture: You want to go to the moon and ask me, how to get there. My answer is: due to the gravitation of earth you need to build a rocket. But you answer, this will never happen, because a rocket is to complicated to create. And there are a lot a alternative approaches: building towers. They are definitely some small steps towards moon. We simply have to expand them, and if we are high enough gravitation withers away and then some day we will reach the moon. The rocket plan on the contrary is so stupid and silly and utopian, and therefore building towers is must be the right thing, because they are already there.

Assuming then, that even a peer to peer society would have a plurality of forms, and that there is a continuum of abundance and scarcity goods that need differential treatment, then we can expect a mixture of non-reciprocal communal shareholding, gift economics, markets for certain types of goods, and even, hierarchical or central allocation of certain public goods.

Well, this mixture and plurality image contadicts the understanding of a dominant mechanism guiding all other aspects of societal live. There is no plurality of equally relevant forms. In history there was always a dominant societal form, while other forms were subordered. We don’t have a slavery society today, although there is slavery in the world etc. Any vision has to show, what the new dominant form will be, how it works and how the relationship of subordered forms is structured. You simply collect what is.

There is also the issue of the human freedom to choose. What do you with those that would like to have markets? Granted you could disallow, in a certain type of society, unequal  exchange, but to outlaw freely chosen equal exchange? That can only exist in a society based on coercion.

The freedom to choose is an individual freedom, while a market is a societal organisation. In a society where markets do not play any role, because the societal mediation is dominated by other principles, there is no problem, if someone wants to exchange something — if you find someone to perform this exchange at all. Market does no exist by individual will, it is a societal form. Think of free software: Nobody hinders you to “exchange” your software with something (GPL explicitly allows for taking a fee for instance). But in no aspect this touches the principle of free software being a commons, which is free availble for all.

On the other hand, you can’t simply “disallow” unequal exchange if you have markets. Markets base on equivalent exchange with due to the different levels of productivity necessarily produce unequal exchange (equal-equivalent difference is explained in a previous mail). _This_ could only exist and did existed in a society based on coercion (e.g. real-socialism).

So, in a society of freely associated peer producers, there will be a play of alternatives, and peer producers, when they see better alternatives than the use of using money to trade certain goods, will simply abandon it.

No, it is and will not be a thing of arbitrary choice: In a society you always have to use the given form of social mediation. You can’ t simply “choose” another form. Exactly this is the difficulty of a societal transition. Capitalism is relatively stable, because it is the way we are producing our lifes by producing the social form and vice versa, although capitalism is in crisis. There is only a societal transformation, when a new mode of production and societal mediation is able to replace the old form as the dominant one. There is no societal transformation, when you are only modifying the old form, but don’t have a new form, which is able to replace the old. The new is never simply a mixture or plurality of diverse social forms. One will prevail, and you have to analyze, which one. Otherwise you are acting careless, when you potentially know it better, but prefere to ignore the difficulties.

In my eyes, you don’t realize the real dimension of the problem.

Right now, certainly, we have no choice than to accept a plurality of forms. In the context of a really-existing capitalist society, any distributed infrastructure, which increases the economy of freely associating producers, is to my mind a good thing. Remember, the real choice is not between a fully commonist society, but in this transition period, the issue is how to make steps forward. (this is where my correct falsity critique comes in: you are presenting us with a false utopian choice, which does not exist for the moment)

Well, you are presenting us steps with a delusive feeling of going forward, which does not contain a germ form of real transformation.

So the real choice is, and through your attacks on distributed money production you are implicitely, or even explicitely making it, is between accepting the current monetary system, and its in-built unequal exchange, and attempts to construct a better alternative, that is more in tune with p2p values.

This is a false choice, there are many more options. Making views narrow, reduces options to act. Either-or logic does not help.

So again, why are you only accepting the state and financial-corporate creation of money, with negative protocols, and not the social production of money, under positive protocols? You’d have to prove me that they would indeed be worse, from a social change point of view. Neutral is not good enough, as in that case, we would not be worse of.

I am accepting those alternatives, which give us more room to act. No option is excluded, no money tricks either. Yes, I am not in principle against money tricks or money usage in general, but any money dealing is only a dark necessity, which we can’t circumvent in many cases. It should _never_ play any central role in our concepts, because there is no hope and no solution in it. For example: If you have a project which need continuous monetary inbound flow, then the core operations of the project should be decoupled from the money flow: Don’t sell products, in order to keep the project alive!

All of these being said, I do accept critique of distributed money, as they come in very different flavours, and they may be optimal for different things. For example, while I find social lending to a be progress, they are still operating with a mentality based on pure private gain, which I find limiting and objectionable. LETS may require to high thresholds for too many people, and apparently do not scale, etc…  In Argentina, the complementary currencies were under the control of small cliques which ‘owned’ the money, and abused it for private gain, etc…

Some conclude: It does not work.

The truth is that we do not yet know the optimal way to socially produce money, and that we have to experimentally try various options out. But the situation is not different about say the distributed energy grid, where many different configurations will play out. Those are legitimate critiques. But overall, the use of socially produced distributed money is part and parcel of the necessary institution of more distributed infrastructures, all playing their role.

By saying which are legitimate critiques, you exclude positions of basal critique. You are saying, that legitimate critique is only critique within your truth. Oh man. We had a dark period of “legitimate critiques”, and I thought this time is over. And I thought, that you are really an open-minded person, which don’t need to allow any kind of “legitimacy of critique”.

I think that, in the final analysis, your comments come over as profoundly nihilist. You are counterposing a non-existing alternative of full commonism, which does not exist as yet, to condemn a really existing social movement that institutes real and concrete alternatives, that function demonstrably better. And you make a real and concrete choice to continue using, the type of money that has been very instrumental in creating the current meltdown.

By naming my comments nihilist you are excluding other ways of thinking. Now, I will remind you to your own introduction: “We may have different premises, but since we live in a common world, if there is to be a political dialogue, we still have to answer each other’s objections.”

Please don’t hinder yourself.

We may have different premises, but since we live in a common world, if there is to be a political dialogue, we still have to answer each other’s objections.

So, my reproach is not that you critique my support for a peer to peer money infrastructure, but rather the lack of arguments about why this would be bad, or at any rate worse than the current meltdown-related-financial-system. It is the habit of ridiculing p2p money movements and initiatives, without cogent arguments, that I find objectionable.

Also, let me repeat that what I find utopian is that you want a moneyless society, but that you do not give an answer of how we get there.

You say the same about me, but I have given you a strategy via the Oekonux list. I.e. the integrated construction of new life practices in all areas of human life.

What is absolutely clear to me is that, since currently peer to peer only works for immaterial exchange, for for the design phase of physical production, that we need mechanisms for physical production. Because these cannot be the same, at least not at this stage, we need better and more distributed financial mechanisms as well.

You mention Christian Siefkes proposal, and imply that I have ignored it. First this is untrue, I have about a dozen blog references and dedicated a whole wiki section on his proposals. But second, this is indeed an utopian proposal, in the sense that it is not being tried out anywhere, and that I seen no concrete prospects of it being tried anywhere.

By contrasts, peer to peer money is a thriving social movement, producing many benefits in the here and now.

One of your key arguments is that peer to peer money would reproduce capitalism, if I understand you correctly?

But that is simply not the case. Interest and fractional reserve banking, and other aspects of the current monetary system, are designed as scarcity-based money, that facilitate accumulation, and require infinite growth. Peer to peer money is designed against accumulation, against infinite growth, to keep more streams of value within communities, and to be under the control of such communities, physical and virtual. So they directly contribute to more autonomous social life, and where applied, do not reproduce the accumulation of capital.

Are they sufficient to change the dynamic of the whole society, no, of course not, but along with the other p2p infrastructures, they create areas that are protected from its full scope, and create more room and space for alternatives. Integrated in a full vision of distributed infrastructures though, they play a crucial role, which is why the Hungarian revolution wanted to adopt it.

But can such use of alternative money wither away? Why not. First of all, it is used freely by associated producers, without coercion; and is structured so as to prevent accumulation. Then to the degree that our society finds other means to deal with scarce resources, through resource-based economics or any other scheme, then the need to use for such money falls way, and indeed, through such process, it can wither away.

I think you are conflating two things:

- Markets and capitalism

And

- Unequal exchange with equal exchange
Again, you can have non-capitalist markets, and capitalism is based, structurally, on unequal exchange, in a way that a market is not necessarily. See Braudel and Manuel De Landa on this important distinction.

Why is this distinction important?

If you want a fully ‘commonist’ society, only allowing peer to peer dynamics, then I would answer a number of things:

- It is unprecedented in history to have just one mode, the four intersubjecti ve modes have always co-existed, it’s only their respective dominance that has changed

- Even if it were possible, you still have to explain how to get there, and again, you do not seem to have any transitional plans beyond waiting for the germ form process to play out?

Assuming then, that even a peer to peer society would have a plurality of forms, and that there is a continuum of abundance and scarcity goods that need differential treatment, then we can expect a mixture of non-reciprocal communal shareholding, gift economics, markets for certain types of goods, and even, hierarchical or central allocation of certain public goods.

There is also the issue of the human freedom to choose. What do you with those that would like to have markets? Granted you could disallow, in a certain type of society, unequal exchange, but to outlaw freely chosen equal exchange? That can only exist in a society based on coercion.

So, in a society of freely associated peer producers, there will be a play of alternatives, and peer producers, when they see better alternatives than the use of using money to trade certain goods, will simply abandon it.

Right now, certainly, we have no choice than to accept a plurality of forms. In the context of a really-existing capitalist society, any distributed infrastructure, which increases the economy of freely associating producers, is to my mind a good thing.

Remember, the real choice is not between a fully commonist society, but in this transition period, the issue is how to make steps forward.

(this is where my correct falsity critique comes in: you are presenting us with a false utopian choice, which does not exist for the moment)

So the real choice is, and through your attacks on distributed money production you are implicitely, or even explicitely making it, is between accepting the current monetary system, and its in-built unequal exchange, and attempts to construct a better alternative, that is more in tune with p2p values.

So again, why are you only accepting the state and financial-corporate creation of money, with negative protocols, and not the social production of money, under positive protocols? You’d have to prove me that they would indeed be worse, from a social change point of view. Neutral is not good enough, as in that case, we would not be worse of.

All of these being said, I do accept critique of distributed money, as they come in very different flavours, and they may be optimal for different things. For example, while I find social lending to a be progress, they are still operating with a mentality based on pure private gain, which I find limiting and objectionable. LETS may require to high thresholds for too many people, and apparently do not scale, etc… In Argentina, the complementary currencies were under the control of small cliques which ‘owned’ the money, and abused it for private gain, etc…

The truth is that we do not yet know the optimal way to socially produce money, and that we have to experimentally try various options out. But the situation is not different about say the distributed energy grid, where many different configurations will play out.

Those are legitimate critiques. But overall, the use of socially produced distributed money is part and parcel of the necessary institution of more distributed infrastructures, all playing their role.

I think that, in the final analysis, your comments come over as profoundly nihilist. You are counterposing a non-existing alternative of full commonism, which does not exist as yet, to condemn a really existing social movement that institutes real and concrete alternatives, that function demonstrably better. And you make a real and concrete choice to continue using, the type of money that has been very instrumental in creating the current meltdown.