Letter: Simply a knocking job? (1995)

Letter to the Editors from the February 1995 issue of the Socialist Standard

Simply a knocking job?

Dear Editors,

Debate is useful and I accept that it is wrong simply to accept new ideas uncritically. However, Adam Buick’s contribution on LETS is simply a knocking job. He makes a number of errors in his description of LETS — for examples the recording of transactions is typically already paid (in local currency) not just "voluntary" — but these are secondary in importance. His real concern is to brand LETS activists as “currency cranks".

Adam Buick's own vision of a non-exchange economy is described in one closing sentence. Could he write as much on this in terms of practicalities as he did in criticism of LETS? I look forward to reading it. The idea of a non-exchange economy has in the past been based on the abolition of the concept of property or on the common ownership of property. Both ideas have a history.but neither have established any convincing vision of what the pattern of social relations, the model of social institutions and the organisation of production would instead be in such a world.

However, there isn't a lot of point in dialogue if you're going to be dismissed a crank. Yes. Fritz Schumacher, among others. said that a crank is a small, metal tooth that makes revolutions but this wasn't what was meant.

Get your facts right on LETS. Accept that the mainstream will regard both of us as cranks. Explain your own ideas rather than leave them to the last sentence. Decide whether you are interested in practical, small-scale change as a seedbed for wider transformation. And then we can have a useful discussion.

Ed Mayo, 

New Economics Foundation.

Reply:

We did get our facts right.

Your “correction" — to the effect that LETS members normally have to contribute to the scheme’s running costs — strengthens not weakens our argument that such schemes are strictly limited as to the size they can attain without becoming too costly to run.

We never said that members of LETS schemes were "cranks", only that currency reformers of one kind or another had latched on to these schemes as a way of promoting their cranky ideas, in particular that of a new kind of money that can’t be accumulated and can’t yield interest.

In response to your request for more information on how a society of common ownership and production directly for use without buying and selling could work we are sending you a copy of the new edition of our Socialism As A Practical Alternative pamphlet. Hopefully, after you have read it the dialogue can begin. — Editors.

Letter: Allowing for the placebo effect (1995)

Letter to the Editors from the February 1995 issue of the Socialist Standard

Allowing for the placebo effect

Dear Editors,

Adam Buick states that “aromatherapy, holistic massage, acupuncture, tarot reading and other such new age fads" are "not normally needed by the unemployed".

There are a great many things which people do not need but which they want. Does Adam Buick mean that socialists believe in people only receiving what they need? Or is it acceptable for employed people to get things they want but don’t need, whilst unemployed people only deserve the bare necessities of life? If unemployed people want aromatherapy, tarot readings or massage, why not encourage systems which make these more readily available?

The arguments in favour of local trading systems, although technically these would apply whatever currency was used, are ignored by Adam Buick. These include:

1. The closer the physical proximity of buyer and seller, the less energy (fossil fuel, etc.) will be consumed in the production/retail process: and
2. It enables buyers to keep a closer eye on producers, eg. growers of food, which is miles better than buying from dodgy multinationals.

As for acupuncture, if Adam Buick has evidence that, allowing for the placebo effect, it is ineffective he should say so. If it does work, he should start asking why it is not available on the National Health Service (clue: start thinking about drug companies . . .). Calling it a "New Age fad" is no help to ordinary people who may want to use it.

Katharine Gilchrist, 

Canterbury, Kent

Reply:

Don't be silly. Obviously we weren’t saying that unemployed people shouldn't have access to acupuncture, etc. if they want to. The point the aside was trying to make was that, in contrast to the claim that LETS schemes can help the unemployed satisfy their basic needs without money, a disproportionate amount of the services on offer in actually existing schemes were of the type mentioned (and were actual examples from a scheme in Kingston. Surrey).

The aside wasn't really commenting on whether the various types of alternative medicine were effective or not (though clearly tarot reading is a load of rubbish). That is another issue altogether.

To return to the main point, we note that you confirm that Lets schemes are just a rearrangement within the buying and selling system. - Editors.

Letter: LETS all not get excited! (1995)

Letter to the Editors from the February 1995 issue of the Socialist Standard

LETS all not get excited!

Dear Editors,

I read with interest your article on the LETS scheme. This was first brought to my attention several years ago when, as I understand it. the system was in its infancy. (It would seem, incidentally. that it has done little growing up since.) I was attending a dinner party of sorts with a group of friends who do their views and ideas no justice by clinging to their '60s hippie image whilst expecting to be taken seriously as local and national political figures (Green Party, etc.).

Anyhow, they were raving about this revolutionary “no money scheme". Obviously I listened with anticipation. My heart sank, and they could not understand when I said simply “For LETS read pounds sterling". They had convinced themselves of the wondrous nature of the system and seemed under the delusion that, although accumulation of credit, book-keeping and cheque books were all relevant factors, by changing the name of the currency they had abolished money. The final shot in the foot for them after several hours of debate was that in order to initially join the scheme you paid a fee in sterling. This was to cover costs of operation of the scheme.

So intense was their belief in the system that they could not understand my scepticism. It is sometimes upsetting that the indoctrination of society is so deep that even those with good and honest intent cannot throw away the shackles of capitalism.

Neil Pettitt, 

Bristol

Reply:

Thanks. We were beginning to need a bit of support.  - Editors

These FoolishThings . . . (1995)

The Scavenger column from the February 1995 issue of the Socialist Standard

The basic contradictions in capitalism cause widespread death, destruction, pollution, poverty and waste. But this is to take the world view. Most of us experience day-to-day capitalism as a series of small stupidities, irritations and frustrations. Here are a few. If you encounter any worth a wry smile, please send them to The Scavenger, who will publish the best.

“I won't claim the Workhouses didn't have their problems. but they were set up by people who cared. " Edwina Currie MP.

Central eating - a letter in a local newspaper:

“Did this caring government not promise to provide a little more for heating to keep us old ones warm?

I applied for heating allowance at the age of 81.

I was refused, so with my 25p bonus for reaching 80 years I bought a packet of extra strong mints.

So there you are! I had something to cat and something to keep me warm at the same time.” 

L. Edwards.

Bimbos for Christ’s sake!

Deep cleavages and micro skirts are currently the height of fashion for those models who give prostitutes a bad name. But now religion is becoming fashionable too. Girls like Samantha Fox and Mandy Smith (ex-Mrs Bill Wyman) have embraced a few men and bared a few square feet of flesh in their time. But now, apparently, they arc embracing Christ and baring their souls as well.

Let’s face it — it’s got to be true if the barbie dolls believe it.

"We are prepared to shoot and kill in the interest of society. " Chief Constable James Anderton.

Dazed and confused

Emma Nicholson, Conservative MP, writing in the Mail on Sunday bewails the fact that charities are becoming career vehicles for highly paid executives who run them like businesses. She says of her own experience with Save the Children.

"As our fundraising improved, so did the notion that success should be measured in terms of the latest spectacular increase in collected cash rather than in the number of lives saved or bettered by the relief of poverty. "

The Scavenger