Letter: "Money dominates every facet of our existence . . . " (2003)

Letter to the Editors from the November 2003 issue of the Socialist Standard

"Money dominates every facet of our existence . . . "

Dear Editors,

In the Socialist Standard of September last year John Bissett kindly reviewed my free booklet Question Everything in which I speak of the benefits that would accrue from living in a world without money. He pointed out that it required more emphasis on how the free and class conscious decisions of the majority would be attained. He was right, for the narrow pragmatisms, the wastes, inefficiencies and limitations of a capitalism that defeats itself by making people too poor to buy its goods, seems to have become entrenched, making it impossible that we could ever get back to those heady days after the second world war when socialism gave us hope for a better world. Even the higher standards of living that it brought, only increased the number of those who became better off and in turn became seduced by the temptations of the system. Socialism, like capitalism, tends to become a self-defeating process.

The money system that is the source of power and the root cause of all our problems, has ceased to have a purpose or any excuse for being retained now that science and technology enable us to produce anything – and in any quantity – that we want. There is enough food in the world already to feed the entire population, yet millions die of starvation, and manufacturers do not complain that they cannot increase production, only that people do not buy – mainly because they cannot afford to. It is the money system based upon the concept of scarcity that limits growth, because money has to be limited in order to maintain its value – which is why politicians fear inflation!

We spend our lives deciding what to spend, what to deny ourselves, what to save or borrow. Money dominates every facet of our existence, so that it is little wonder that, however poor we are, we imagine that a moneyless system would deprive us of the little we have.

My problem has been that I have been unable to think of any argument against a moneyless society other than that, since only a minority of us actually produce or distribute anything useful, everybody else being employed in manipulating money in one way or another, in sales promotion, in estimating cost and profit, in taxation and investment – and in making and selling arms! – that there would be so much freedom that for those accustomed to having to work to live, once they had tired of perpetual holidays and entertainment they would not know what to do with themselves. Since no healthy person could be idle for long, they would become desperate to make and do things, indeed anything, that would keep their minds and bodies active.

There would be nothing to be gained by theft or dishonesty, no advantage in pushing drugs, no more worries about which firm was reliable or about insuring against loss, so that there would be little need for police or lawyers. There would be little to quarrel or fight over, no advantage in limiting the effect of new ideas by taking out patents. Science and technology would be free to pursue imaginative ideas without having to concern themselves with their commercial significance. With few office workers commuting and public transport free and plentiful, there would be no traffic congestion.

In fact there would be plenty for idle hands and brains to do, in converting all the millions of redundant offices into homes, in bringing the third world up to civilised standards, in conjuring up and carrying out imaginative projects to enhance our lives, and in seeking activities, such as learning, research or woodwork, that they found satisfying.

Above all, no longer would we be treated as units, disposable in our millions in wars to satisfy the egos or ambitions of a few leaders.

But it would require that we learn to adapt, to free ourselves from the pragmatisms, complexities and temptations, the economic and political straightjackets of economic and party political systems, to limit ourselves to simple principles of justice, to policies that are irrefutable and incontrovertible; that we reject opinion, controversy and argument that was not supported by fact or reason, seeing ourselves as both learners and teachers instead of competitors, and recognising the overriding importance of the individual.

Because we all are conditioned by our genes and environments, to criticise or blame others for conforming to the world in which they have been conditioned and so take for granted, or to try to deprive them of that which in consequence they assume to be theirs by right, can only invite indignation, hatred, violence and cruelty – and make them cling ever closer to their possessions and beliefs.

Societies have changed little in 3000 years, but if we allow the limitations and confrontations of money and party politics, the ambitions of our leaders and governments, to play upon our defensive cowardice so that they can develop ever more sophisticated nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, we will surely extinguish ourselves.

We are not free just because we live in a so-called democracy that allows us one vote among 40 million or so every five years, enabling dictatorial leaders and governments to do virtually what they like. If we are to be free and to maximise our influence as individuals in those affairs that affect us without infringing the freedom of others, we need a system in which we can get together with our neighbours to decide what we want in our localities, a system in which those neighbourhood units in turn can commune with each other and so on in an ascending tier of decision-making that eventually develops global consensus.

A free and egalitarian society can evolve only by using reason and logic, by thinking independently of the terms and narrow pragmatisms to which we have been conditioned, and by recognising that people can be changed only if we can convince them that our criticisms are directed at the system, not the person.

To rescue humanity from its primitive pragmatisms, its intellectual stagnation its inherited greed, selfishness and aggression, seems impossible in a society in which even the most obvious and modest proposals for reform become derided, but to sit back and do nothing is to invite species extinction.

Melvin Chapman, 

Bath