The Zeitgeist Movement... why not?

[paximperium]

I'm lost. What do you mean by "competitive"? I was talking about a simple concept. Think about this, if you can, like if we were dealing with an organization problem, just using your logical abilities. A determinate country produces enough food to feed every inhabitant, yet some of the people are starving. How can this be? Easy, the distribution process is the problem, not the availability of food.

So you're arguing about the poor distribution of food?
What was the relevance of this point again when you started to rail against the modern food production system?

 

[paximperium]

True. I just bring them to the equation because they clearly demonstrate that you can create a successful commune.

There is nothing successful about an insulated, religiously motivated, isolationist community that retards their children's education. If you are brought up in that environment, there is no way out of it. How do you go to college when you're taught garbage in their 18th century schools? There is nothing successful about it. I hope it dies out.

Ok, let me try to solve those issues. It could be arranged that if you do not work you don't have access to certain goods. This is, just because you are alive you are entitled to education, house, food and health care, but this doesn't mean you could have access to tv sets, computers, videogames or other amenities. In this way we can keep the external motivations.

That is an pseudo-workable socialists idea and is actually is done in many socialist nations. The issue when it comes to it working it simple. We are not yet at a tech or wealth level to be able to provide such services to a society if a huge chunk of the population decides not to work up to a level that pays for their level of usage of resources.

What is someone decides to not work but uses up all those resources? What is 50% of your population decides to?

And an important difference to the current system is that it doesn't matter what you can do or choose to do, you just need to do it to access those amenities. You don't deserve more or less by working in waste disposal than if you are an actor.

So who's going to haul loads of crap across the country, perform menial office work or declog sewers?

If you mean that all these jobs get the same "Luxury Bucks", why be a sewer declogger when you be a librarian in a nice cool library?

 

[PingOfPong]

Bodhi, you're ideal society sounds so condescending to me. I don't need a nanny to take my hand. I don't want a beauracracy hanging over my head deciding where I live, what I eat, and what I deserve. I don't want to live in a world where the only relevant skill is the ability to fill out paper work in order to influence the beauracracy. I would rather scrub toilets for a living than live in one your arcologies.

Oh, and I have scrubbed toilets for money. I did a brief stint as a janitor. I've also packed furniture onto trucks, bottled fuel additives, and operated a riveter machine on an assembly line. I'm not ashamed of it. Humble work is good for the soul (I mean that metaphorically you skeptics). I've been deep in debt, but I'm not any more. Nope, I'm rolling in money now.

Even if it's possible, your world without struggle sounds mind boggingly boring.

Before you make your counterpoint of: "It isn't what you think it is; it's what I say it is", I have to warn you that it doesn't matter. In all seriousness, would you expect a 100% approval rating from all members of a ZM society? And that brings us to one of the unanswered questions of utopian ideals. What do you do when 10% of your members want to leave and start a new society that competes for the same resources that you need? Maybe they're wrong to do it. Maybe they're fools. They still won't listen to you. So, what is to be done?

 

[David Wong]

I love people who rail against wasteful frivolities like soda and Starbucks coffee, while typing on a computer hooked up to the internet.

Talk about frivolous! Talk about waste! Do you seriously think that any kind of "back to basics" economy would ever, ever, in a thousand years, have brought forth a miracle like the internet? And can't you see how our appetite for "frivolous" things made this miracle of communication and information sharing possible?

 

[David Wong]

For some reason this reminds me of an argument I got into with some kids after one of our favorites sites started charging for premium memberships. The kids were outraged, because the internet was free, and everything on it should be free, and they were sick of the greedy capitalists trying to horn in and profit from something that by its nature was free and open to all.

These kids just could not conceive of guys in muddy boots laying miles and miles of fiber optic cable, of guys working long, tedious shifts installing routers and troubleshooting servers, all of which was powered by power plants burning coal, mined by guys in hard hats working 16-hour shifts and breathing black dust.

I guess if you haven't had certain life experiences, if you like your job and have no problem getting out of bed to do it every morning, it's hard to grasp how many millions of people are breaking their backs so that you can do that job instead of busting rocks somewhere.

 

[Travis]

In Town X, before the establishment of the moneyless society, there is one baker who provides the town with bread.....except the baker doesn't want to be a baker, he always wanted to be a archeologist and with the elimination of money he might as well go do that.......so now Town X has no baker and no bread. Consequently the people of Town X get angry and demand a new baker but nobody wants to be the one to do it (they're all too busy being astronauts, rock climbers and Colonial Marines) so they demand a robot baker but no one wants to build one because they are much more interested in building sex robots that also play badminton. In desperation some of the Colonial Marines take the guy who now tries to teach squirrels sign language and tell him to be a baker or else. He retaliates by getting the guy who makes robot ninjas to wage war on the Colonial Marines who prevail by numerical superiority but now also have to force people to run the water treatment plant and shoe factory because they were killed by the robot ninjas. These people don't like this one bit since they aren't being compensated and are being forced to do a job they don't want by pain of death. To deal with this the Colonial Marines strip them of their names, give them ID numbers instead and install surveillance everywhere.

Congratulations the Moneyless Utopia is now, by necessity, a Fascist Dystopia.

 

[Francesca R]

Not only the best, the only ones. As I said, money is useless unless you exchange it for something else. You do not work to earn money, you work to earn respect, admiration, recognition, love and such kind of things.

This is not an argument that "gaining recognition, respect and love are the best incentives" for action, still less an argument why that may be the case. This is a pity--I must conclude that your starting premise is in the realm of belief and personal assumption.

 

[Francesca R]

I believe my point is clear.

So far it is clear that you are in favour of property rights, viz.:

Actually I have several incomes, and I love everyone of them.

But what is not clear is that you also say :

we live in a world that uses money and nobody questions it. [ . . . ] For instance, we can question what is a "property" (key concept for economics) with the same impetus, but I don't see this happens very often.

Perhaps you can sort out those two? You do not seem to be questioning your income as "yours", and "owned by you".

Care to address the conceptual part step by step?

Posts 17, 24, 25, 28 cover the concepts of assets, income and growth. After that most of my posts are directing you back to these issues.

Every member of the community supports other members, it is a reciprocal system. We all need each others, exactly like what happens in this society, but with important changes of course. Regarding our "audience" (this is ourselves I guess), mm I have expressed since the beginning that I was asking questions, I do not claim to have any of this sorted out. Ok? I'm just curious about why it is not possible to believe that something like the ZM would work.

You refer to the comparative and competitive advantages of specialisation and mutually efficient gains from trade. These are concepts that are as old as Adam Smith (and of course the practices are about ten millennia older than that). So you have nothing new here concept wise. And what you have works. But not very well at all if you jettison the medium of exchange and the contract of ownership. So

1) Why do you want to?
2) Why will this represent anything other than a huge step backwards ( a catastrophic fall in collective output)?

Key problem. Why on earth do we need to exchange our work for anything else?

See immediately above.

Let me tell you what is this it is a dogma! exactly like the dogma about that you are the owner of some things. Both are mental constructs, ideas on our minds, concepts that belong to our mental universe but that do not have an ontological existence on their own. And if we can accept that they are not real outside human circles then, maybe, we can figure out that we can invent other concepts and live by a different set of rules.

Improving standard of living is not real outside human circles.

 

[quarky]

And since capitalism and debt are two different issues, you can have your non-sequitur back.

They aren't seperate issues. Debt is that which can keep growing in a finite system. Its worth discussing ways around this.

 

[Bodhi Dharma Zen]

If of course you're willing to live like them, and correct me if I'm wrong, but the Mennonites are largely integrated into the larger economy. They used to repair houses in the town I went to college in. Even the Amish are fairly tied in, selling from craft store and shopping at Wal-Mart. Socially they may be separate, but this is an economic issue.

Agreed, my point with them is showing that it is possible to have a separate society from mainstream (some people were claiming that communes have been always a failure). Now, the next goal is to have a separate society that is also economically independent.

With you here. This is, AFAIK, a similar mindset to most first world nations.

Some, yes. But the US is way behind them, at least regarding health services. Americans live by the motto that if they are poor they do not deserve to be healed.

When the fun jobs give the same benefits as the crappy ones (eta: ) and anyone can do whatever they like, the crappy ones don't get done. Now you need a method to get people to shovel **** instead of being a famous object of mass adoration.

I'm sure that not everybody wants to be a movie star. I, for instance, have ZERO interest in reaching that "goal". And I also know people who like to work with their hands instead of thinking and having to decide things. Not every individual is an "Alpha Male", this is something that this society have been exploiting, but at the expense of denigrate almost every other individual value.

Besides, a good goal for such a society would be to create interesting things for everyone to do, and eliminating jobs that destroy our "humanity" (so to speak). Again I wonder, how many of the worst jobs that exist in our society would be really necessary if money was no longer present?

Some have insisted in call my attention to such jobs... but how many people actually perform them? The vast majority of humans don't need to perform such works, and this is now when it is CHEAPER to have someone there... in a society in which "cost", is an IRRELEVANT CONCEPT... things would be different.

As an aside, I'm actually enjoying exploring the topic with you. I don't think it's possible at all, but I get that you're trying to come up with ideas to make it work.

Thanks me too, and absolutely, I'm trying to figure out (with the help of all you) if this kind of things are possible in principle.

 

[Bodhi Dharma Zen]

So you're arguing about the poor distribution of food?
What was the relevance of this point again when you started to rail against the modern food production system?

Because I believe the system's efficiency is astonishingly poor. And sometimes, the easiest way to prove it is to use the simplest facts available. That's why. If you have enough food, and you have the power to distribute it to every member of society, and you don't, then you are not doing your job very well.

 

[Bodhi Dharma Zen]

There is nothing successful about an insulated, religiously motivated, isolationist community that retards their children's education. If you are brought up in that environment, there is no way out of it. How do you go to college when you're taught garbage in their 18th century schools? There is nothing successful about it. I hope it dies out.

Well, this is easy, contrary to the communist communes from the 60s, they have been right there for CENTURIES. That's what makes them successful.

That is an pseudo-workable socialists idea and is actually is done in many socialist nations. The issue when it comes to it working it simple. We are not yet at a tech or wealth level to be able to provide such services to a society if a huge chunk of the population decides not to work up to a level that pays for their level of usage of resources.

This is very interesting (to me at least) Why do some people automatically ASSUME that if no money were involved and the basics for life are covered... a LARGE proportion of the people will not want to do ANYTHING AT ALL? Must rich kids would be parasites by this logic. How come (I would bet) most become successful citizens after all, and not fat people eating hamburgers and watching tv while they are smoking weed... Ok, I don't know if a large number of this kids do become parasites, but it would be interesting to find out what the statistics are saying.

I believe, or at least I want to believe that people in general (and this is something related to our genes and not to our cultural painting) do want to do things. Some will love to use their hands and follow directions. Others will love to use their brains and will create new things and improve the existent ones. Some will be sport geniuses and will continue to amaze sport fans. Others will still love to cook food, or to design cars, computers, and etc. etc. etc.

What is someone decides to not work but uses up all those resources? What is 50% of your population decides to?

Again, how can you substantiate this claim? Is it a gut feeling or are there hard data demonstrating that large portions of a population would do NOTHING if their basic needs are covered?

So who's going to haul loads of crap across the country, perform menial office work or declog sewers?

You tell me, how many people actually perform such jobs? A fairly great amount of any city? or about .00000001% of the population? And if this is the case, why do you assume that when costs are no longer an issue we would not be able to implement and create better systems for almost everything you can think of?

If you mean that all these jobs get the same "Luxury Bucks", why be a sewer declogger when you be a librarian in a nice cool library?

Again, some people will naturally prefer to use their hands and sweat instead of having to decide things and have more responsibility.

 

[Bodhi Dharma Zen]

Bodhi, you're ideal society sounds so condescending to me. I don't need a nanny to take my hand. I don't want a beauracracy hanging over my head deciding where I live, what I eat, and what I deserve. I don't want to live in a world where the only relevant skill is the ability to fill out paper work in order to influence the beauracracy. I would rather scrub toilets for a living than live in one your arcologies.

What are you talking about? Are we in the same thread?

Deciding where do you have to live? to eat? what you deserve? or GIVING YOU FREEDOM for the first time because you will born in a society in which "debt" will not be printed in your forehead and you will not be expected to be a "good employee" keeping your head low and satisfiying the needs of your employer.

Nanny is what the American car industry and bank institutions desperately needed. "Sorry but I'm not competitive and I have made a few mistakes.. please can you help me out of this mess?" Add to this that their heads (CEOs CFOs etc) can keep all the benefits the made ut of their efforts, that for every "Friend's" actor who made a million per show there are millions of people having trouble to keep their houses and send their children to college, not to mention that this society is in a deep trouble regarding their health care prospects. Why? because you own your health care, it is not a born right.

Oh, and I have scrubbed toilets for money. I did a brief stint as a janitor. I've also packed furniture onto trucks, bottled fuel additives, and operated a riveter machine on an assembly line. I'm not ashamed of it. Humble work is good for the soul (I mean that metaphorically you skeptics). I've been deep in debt, but I'm not any more. Nope, I'm rolling in money now.

Why should you? Now, in my view such kind of jobs are as valuable as the labor of the actors of Friend's. Are they entitled to a better life? Do they worth more than you?

And no, you are still in debt, you will be in debt for the rest of your life, when you require health care you will have to pay for it. You owe to the hospitals and doctors, and nurses and pharmaceutics. Oh yes, you owe BIG TIME.

Even if it's possible, your world without struggle sounds mind boggingly boring.

So I guess is boring to have the basics solved and the rest of your life to explore everything you could want. You could write books, become a Chef and delight others, become a scientist and cure Alzheimer, maybe become a star basketball player. YOUR CHOICE BECAUSE YOU ARE FINALLY FREE. And no matter what choose, you are a valuable member of society and you are entitled to enjoy the fruits of common labor.

Before you make your counterpoint of: "It isn't what you think it is; it's what I say it is", I have to warn you that it doesn't matter. In all seriousness, would you expect a 100% approval rating from all members of a ZM society? And that brings us to one of the unanswered questions of utopian ideals. What do you do when 10% of your members want to leave and start a new society that competes for the same resources that you need? Maybe they're wrong to do it. Maybe they're fools. They still won't listen to you. So, what is to be done?

They can always return to this world, and be automatically in debt, seeing how some few can enjoy the fun stuff while they have to save pennies to survive. Oh and about the world I have the impression that is big enough to provide for all our needs.

No that this last point of yours is not interesting, in fact, is the best you have raised.

 

[Bodhi Dharma Zen]

I love people who rail against wasteful frivolities like soda and Starbucks coffee, while typing on a computer hooked up to the internet.

Talk about frivolous! Talk about waste! Do you seriously think that any kind of "back to basics" economy would ever, ever, in a thousand years, have brought forth a miracle like the internet? And can't you see how our appetite for "frivolous" things made this miracle of communication and information sharing possible?

Excuse me, but then you have not being paying attention. Who said here that technology is not allowed? That every technological and scientific improvement should be banned from a non monetary society? Short answer, you.

Yes, starbucks and canned soda, and a whole lot more of things, are nothing but by products of a society based on money. Candies are even bad for our health for crying out loud! And yet this society pushes and will continue to push anything that can represent a profit.

And, again, who said this about "back to basics??? Again, just you. I'm talking here about possible EVOLUTION of a monetary economy in to another that would be a more efficient system of production, distribution and consumption of "human made stuff" and "natural stuff". Seriously, what's wrong about considering how it could be?

Still, you are right on one thing: that it is our appetite as humans what have bring us all here, to create computers and the Internet. But, I fail to see what is "frivolous" about it.

 

[quarky]

The "what ifs" of alternative possibilities need to be tempered with the considerable reality of present day problems. Considerable effort goes into making most human's lives miserable.

I'd like to see a change in that equation.
Perhaps some are unaware of the crisis.
Others are doing well amidst it.

Is Herman Daly a curse word here?

 

[Bodhi Dharma Zen]

Francesca, I have answered your other questions, but we have a problem of communication. I believe it would be interesting for the current discussion if you can dig a little bit in to what are concepts and how are they achieved and maintained.

Again, I believe that "property" is a key concept for this discussion, and I have clearly stated that it is not fixated in the human mind. In the same manner that we can learn to see ghosts or mediums as unreal, we can learn that what constitutes a property is merely a consensual agreement. We ascribe authority to a piece of paper that claims that the car you drive is "your property", but since there is not a piece of paper "proving" that you also own the bus then you accept it is not yours.

From an external (to this culture) point of view, both vehicles are capable of taking you to your work and back to the place you live in. Maybe a bad example, but I didn't want to go to eat before answering.

Improving standard of living is not real outside human circles.

Still, this is a good point. Why cant we think (and thereafter create) a system in which MORE individuals have an improved standard of living compared to what most can achieve in this one?

 

[PingOfPong]

What are you talking about? Are we in the same thread?

I'm taking the ZM ideal to its logical conclusion: a world where resources are distributed by the greater society to its members. I've been reading over the talking points of the Venus project and in truth it looks to me like a form of communism disguised as futurism to make it seem sexy and new. It's hard to be certain because I belive they are being deliberately vague and obtuse.

And no, you are still in debt, you will be in debt for the rest of your life, when you require health care you will have to pay for it. You owe to the hospitals and doctors, and nurses and pharmaceutics. Oh yes, you owe BIG TIME.

Yes, that's how it works. People do something for me and I give them something in return. I'm indebted to my friends and family too. Strangely, I don't feel enslaved to them.

Let's try to agree on a definition for debt before continuing. Debt is owing more wealth to others than one has for oneself. Do you agree to that definition or have you been talking about something else?

No that this last point of yours is not interesting, in fact, is the best you have raised.

I think you missed the point. They may want to TAKE the resources you need.

 

[quarky]

Why would anyone want to take something they already have?

Hopefully, we're discussing the possibilities and problems of a post-scarcity globe.

(or does that simply not fit into our collective vision of the future?)

If the crack-head has his crack, and a tv, why would he steal yours?
And why would the pawn shop pay him anything?

 

[PingOfPong]

Why would anyone want to take something they already have?

Greed perhaps. Maybe they're religious zealots. I didn't say that the hypothetical situation of people leaving the ZM society and taking resources with them had to be right or wrong.

 

[Bodhi Dharma Zen]

I'm taking the ZM ideal to its logical conclusion: a world where resources are distributed by the greater society to its members. I've been reading over the talking points of the Venus project and in truth it looks to me like a form of communism disguised as futurism to make it seem sexy and new. It's hard to be certain because I belive they are being deliberately vague and obtuse.

Since I posted this thread I have learn about them too. Yes, their statements are still vague, I would like to see how they plan to solve most of the problems raised on this thread, for example.

So, in a way, and maybe I should stress this point, I have used them as an example and I'm trying to figure out myself how can such a world be achieved. For me the important thing would be to get rid of past (and failed) political ideologies and religions, and to start a society based on scientific discoveries and technology.

Eradicating money seems, to me, a key point, but maybe we just need a way to base money on something else than debt. I will continue to read and learn about this subject.

So, I don't know about their world but in my view there would be no "greater society" to decide what to do with the resources. Every member of this society is part of the government (say from 30 to 33) and every decision is made by the whole community (for instance, via Internet every one can cast their votes), so its not what the senators or presidents decide, but what every member decides. I know it is incomplete and an oversimplification but at least this is would be the basis of my scheme.

Yes, that's how it works. People do something for me and I give them something in return. I'm indebted to my friends and family too. Strangely, I don't feel enslaved to them.

But in this society you don't have an option, you are simply obligated to give something, and not in return of fancy stuff, but merely to earn the right to be alive. What if we could organize a society in a way that you are not obligated to it, but you do it because it is pleasurable and you gain out of it (which is pretty much what happens right now for countless people). Again you are a slave simply because in this society you have no choice but to pay for your right to live.

Let's try to agree on a definition for debt before continuing. Debt is owing more wealth to others than one has for oneself. Do you agree to that definition or have you been talking about something else?

Yes, this is an important point, and it is a good initiative to be clear on what we mean with key terms. Let's see:

DEBT:
1) An obligation or liability to pay or render something to someone else.
2) The condition of owing: a young family always in debt.
3) An offense requiring forgiveness or reparation; a trespass.

Yes, I think those three work perfectly, yours appear to work to. Now if you agree maybe we can move forward as to determine what do we owe to this society? Answer: Your simple existence, you born, so you owe.

The next question would be: Why do I owe just by being here? And I believe it is because this debt is a dogma, an accepted reality, "it is just how things are".

I think you missed the point. They may want to TAKE the resources you need.

I didn't. I don't believe there is a lack of resources. For example, Kropotkin, a Russian anarchist, proposed once that bread should be free for everyone. Some critics claimed that people would then simply go and take every bread available to their homes, but Kropotkin believe that eventually, they would take exactly the same amount they were already taking; the bread they will eat.

Now sure, there would be a few that would want to have all the bread and to hell with everyone else. These individuals would have to be labeled as criminals and should be kept out of society, how? Well, that is a good question. But since this happens in every imaginable society (until we learn enough about genetics and brain chemistry this is) I don't see how this would be a problem for JUST the type of society we are discussing in here.