91–100 of 390 posts
Money is one of many solutions designed to allocate resources on a large scale. Of course, there are others, but he doesn't propose any alternative system. He's just a parasite. A pre-industrial society most likely wouldn't be able to support his existence so easily and he would either starve to death or start working.
He wants everyone to suddenly stop using money. If that happened, who would wash the dishes? Many communes have failed over this exact issue. They go on for several years with several people, usually women, making the sacrifice and doing what needs to be done. But eventually, the people who do the dishes get fed up and stop, or leave. And then the whole thing collapses. The alternative is for the leaders to have some…
The mostly uncontacted hunter-gatherer bands in the Amazon jungle have no money, and not much punishment. Men all go out and hunt. If they are old or young or sick, the hunters give them food. If they are fine and refuse to go out on a hunt, they tend not to eat.
There is not much coercion. The women gather berries and the men hunt. If you don't go out and get food, you don't eat, unless you are gifted food as the young, old and infirm are. There's no coercion other than a hungry stomach.
Of course in civilized society, there are a class of rentier heirs who do not work, who have a relationship with those who do work, of expropriating their surplus labor time. Obviously this is done with coercion and punishment.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> People who want clean dishes will do dishes. And people who want to eat will farm their own food? And people who want medicine will craft their own medications? Self-sufficiency and moneyless societies are pure fantasy, unless they include giving up all modern amenities. I don’t think these people really want to return to the days of hunter gatherer lifestyles or even the days of homesteading. It’s an extreme amoun…
To add to that it isn't even legal to be self sufficient. I know how to make several prescription drugs but the moment I provide them to anyone else or anyone finds out I make them I will be put in a cage.
He wants everyone to suddenly stop using money. If that happened, who would wash the dishes? Many communes have failed over this exact issue. They go on for several years with several people, usually women, making the sacrifice and doing what needs to be done. But eventually, the people who do the dishes get fed up and stop, or leave. And then the whole thing collapses. The alternative is for the leaders to have some…
> They go on for several years with several people, usually women, making the sacrifice and doing what needs to be done. While I agree with most of what's said above, the proposition about "usually women, making the sacrifice" is dubious at best, if not untrue. In any society or commune few will lead - the rest will be workers or followers. These will be both men and women, and they will both suffer from necessary sa…
Most communes and cults that give up money end up using some other form of control. NXIVM is a recent example, but most of these fringe movements discover women are more useful and less trouble than men.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but he's a leech on society. He has two children he could not support (and has no contact with), he's constantly mooching off others for his basic needs, and there's not a word in the article about him ever doing a single thing productive for society. And unlike many other homeless people who legitimately are unable to contribute productively, this is all his choice. He's lucky he's…
Funny, he'd fit more in a hunter-gatherer society because guess what they also don't have... (to spell it out: money). I mostly agree with what you write, but "You have to contribute productively" is such a capitalist mindset that it draws for me the picture of you being a Gordon Gekko type. I wonder if he'd agree to do some work like cleaning the city parks in exchange for some "gifted" groceries and a room. Obvious…
Hunter-gatherer societies would have an equivalent of money not literally notes and coins but trading their effort and time. It is literally a society, people gather in a group for mutual advantage. The advantage being I don't want to personally make, build, do everything to survive so you trade skills which is effort and time which is essentially money.
This reminded me of that- though it doesn't seem that Johnston is doing any bartoring.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Haven't you ever done your own dishes? I use something so that it gets dirty, so I'll wash it off. Dishes is just one example. You may wash your own dishes, but did you buy those dishes from someone who was selling them as their job? Do you grow all of your own food? Do you also sew your own clothes? Build your own shelter? Engineer your own transportation and manufacture your own iPhone? The truth is that a societ…
In the case of a small community, it can be left to volunteers (optionally offer them a meal/beer) or simply rotation so everyone does the unwanted jobs. It's a fair system and people will do it.
People will not do tasks merely because it's "fair". Otherwise crime would have evaporated, life would be harmonious, and judges would be bored.
He wants everyone to suddenly stop using money. If that happened, who would wash the dishes? Many communes have failed over this exact issue. They go on for several years with several people, usually women, making the sacrifice and doing what needs to be done. But eventually, the people who do the dishes get fed up and stop, or leave. And then the whole thing collapses. The alternative is for the leaders to have some…
I mean, isn't this "the invisible hand of the market" at play, just without the intermediate medium of exchange?
It is true, though, as the end of the article points out, living this way defies pretty much any kind of planning, and that can be scary for people.
All of modern society joining a monastery or becoming enlightened is perhaps an even bigger ask.
This Victoria man has another kind of power: The power that gets other people to take care of his needs for him without objecting or rejecting him.