Letter: Limited LETS (2000)

Letter to the Editors from the August 2000 issue of the Socialist Standard

Limited LETS

Dear Editors,

Like some other members of the Socialist Party, I am also a member of a local LETS group so my curiosity was aroused on coming across the article on LETS by Kaz in the July issue. Though interesting and informative, I did not find its line of argument altogether convincing.

Kaz appears to lump LETS together with various other “reformist schemes” which he condemns not so much because they are inherently ineffectual but because of the (unrealisable) “hope attached to them by often desperate members of the working class”. “Alternative currencies,” argues Kaz, “like experimental communities and a dozen other half-baked schemes have been tried before, more than once, as a solution to the problems of capitalism and each time have been found wanting.” There are two points I would like to make in response.

Firstly, it would be quite wrong to brand LETS as a “reformist” type of activity for it is no more reformist than, for example, trade unionism. By “reformism”, the Socialist Party means, quite specifically, policies enacted by the state which seek (futilely) to modify the economic behaviour of the capitalist system in such a way as to eliminate or alleviate certain problems that are inextricably part of that very system itself. In no sense does LETS fit this definition.

For one thing, it is simply a form of mutual aid at the grassroots level. Essentially, it does not involve the state at all—even if, sometimes (for example, in the USA) the state may choose to involve itself for its own reasons by providing funding for some LETS-type organisation. But this does not mean such organisation should be shunned anymore than we should shun trade unions because of their formal links with the Labour Party. For another, LETS constitute a particular kind of micro-economy qualitative different and separate from the capitalist macro-economy—the real focus or object of reformist activity. LETS are an essentially non-exploitative, egalitarian and voluntaristic arrangement which, like Marx’s “labour-time” vouchers, do not involve the use of money at all—one of the defining features of a capitalist economy.

Secondly, as a socialist I have no illusions that LETS offer any real solution to the problems of capitalism. Indeed, I doubt whether many members of the LETS movement would think any differently. LETS are essentially a way of coping with life under capitalism and are particularly beneficial for people on a low income, like myself, or the unemployed. Moreover, the range of activities involved is vastly more expansive and diverse than the caricature that Kaz paints (“giving lifts to old lades and trading organic lentils”). My local LETS group, for example, publishes a fairly substantial directory each year which lists literally hundreds of different kinds of services (and goods) offered or requested—from plumbing and house painting to holiday accommodation and computer repairs—which enables our members to a limited extent to circumvent the capitalist money-based economy to meet our own personal needs. Granted this is never going to be more that a rather limited circumvention but, for someone like myself, it is by no means insignificant.

It is highly regrettable that the title of Kaz’s article (“LETS not make the same mistakes again”) should convey the impression that workers should not become involved in LETS groups. This is emphatically not the view of the Socialist Party and it would be utter folly if it ever were to become that. LETS do not represent an alternative to the absolutely essential task of organising politically to establish socialism and just because enthusiasts like Dave Boyle entertain fantasies about what can be achieved through the LETS movement, this does not mean that we should then proceed to shoot down in flames the very idea of LETS itself.

The significance of LETS to the working class is not that they will provide any real and lasting solution to the problems we face under capitalism; it is that they offer a practical instance of what Kaz rightly calls a “form of voluntary labour for the good of the community, surely the basis of work in socialism”. If they, along with experimental communities etc. have been “found wanting” in this respect then so too, it has to be said, has the purely “propagandistic” or political approach adopted by the Socialist Party. For after nearly a hundred years of consistently applying this approach we have unfortunately made very little discernible progress.

The answer is surely not to reject one approach in favour of the other but to embrace both. While it is not the business of the Socialist Party to directly involve itself (in a practical sense) in the development of the LETS movement, it will certainly benefit by adopting a more explicitly sympathetic approach to this movement. Yes, let us recognise its limitations but let us also recognise that by involving ourselves as individuals in this movement we can each help in a small way to nudge the consciousness of our fellow workers in the direction we desire.

Robin Cox, 

Redruth, Cornwall

Reply: 

We don’t presume to tell workers (including our own members) what strategy to adopt to survive under capitalism—beyond, that is, urging them to fight back against downward pressures via trade unions, tenants associations and the like. So if people want to join LETS schemes, we have no objection. Our criticism of them (as of trade unions) is that they are not the solution—there is no solution to workers’ problems within capitalism—nor are they somehow “stepping stones to Socialism”. When people make such claims as Dave Boyle did in his book on Funny Money we criticise them. LETS schemes are not socialist or a step towards socialism. They are, as you put it, “essentially a way of coping with life under capitalism”.

Editors.

Letter: “Not gradualist” (2004)

Letter to the Editors from the August 2004 issue of the Socialist Standard

“Not gradualist”

Dear Editors

Congratulations on an excellent centenary edition. I feel I should point out, however, that there were some errors in the article, “Getting Splinters”, in which reference was made to the 1987 discussion document, “The Road to Socialism”, circulated by Guildford branch and which I co-authored.

This circular did not claim “socialists would use their influence politically (through parliament and local councils) to adjust patterns of state income and expenditure in ‘socialistic’ directions, including the provision of free services”. Something like this appeared in the Spanner magazine long after Guildford Branch ceased to exist, but not in the Road to Socialism document itself – even though this statement seems little different from the Party’s own stated position that socialist MPS while still a minority, would consider reforms on their own merits.

Nor is it true that “Guildford’s vision was a gradualist one in which the materialist conception of history as applied to the coming of socialism was turned on its head: the economic structure of society would be essentially transformed before the socialist capture of political power, rather than afterwards”.  To say capitalism would be “essentially transformed” before the socialist capture of state power implies we are no longer talking about a capitalist society. But this is precisely what was not claimed! Guildford acknowleged the commanding heights of industry will still be in capitalist hands despite the predicted erosion of capitalist economic relationships within society, thus still necessitating  the capture of state power.

Also, far from Guildford’s vision “turning the materialist conception of history on its head”, it affirmed the link between material conditions and the spread of socialist consciousness. The latter is unlikely to happen to any significant extent without being driven to some extent by changes in the material circumstances themselves, viz. the development of non-capitalist economic relationships, prefiguring socialism (e.g. LETS, intentional communities, voluntaristic associations  etc). These will not in themselves automatically lead to socialism; they need to be infused by a socialist consciousness which, in turn, will then be able to harness them synergistically to its advantage.

The problem with the traditional SPGB approach is that it concentrates almost exclusively on the role of “abstract propagandism” (political education) as the means of bringing about socialism. While this is necessary it is unlikely to suffice on its own. This is ironic considering the importance the SPGB attaches to the Materialist Conception of History; its own “exit strategy” from capitalism appears to be an idealist one, relying on the spread of ideas only! In contrast, Guildford argued we need also to develop new material practices to help break the ideological hegemony of capitalism and enable workers to develop the necessary confidence that an alternative to capitalism is materially possible.

Finally your writer claims: “While most members readily acknowledged that the growth of the socialist movement would have profound and perhaps unpredictable impacts, and while it was the already established Party position that socialists would be organised on the economic front as well as the political front to ensure the smooth changeover of production and distribution from capitalism to socialism, this did not equate with seeking to mould capitalism into socialism from within, in a gradual way.”

This is misleading. Firstly, as the Guildford circular pointed out, what the Party meant by organising on the economic front (viz. planning for socialism) prior to the political enactment was not at all the same as envisaging the growth of non-capitalist socialistic relationship within capitalism prior to that enactmnent

Secondly, it is not true that what Guildford was proposing was to “to mould capitalism into socialism from within, in a gradual way”. We were not talking about “moulding” capitalism at all (which smacks of reformism) but, rather, the contraction in the extent and scope of capitalist economic relationships in inverse proportion to the growth of non-capitalist economic relationships within society as a whole.

Thirdly, the Guildford circular went to great lengths to point out that the kind of “socialistic” or non-capitalist relations it envisaged as developing within the interstices of a capitalist society did not constitute “socialism” but only prefigured socialism and then only to the extent that they were infused with socialist consciousness. “Socialistic” in our terms did not equate with “socialism” proper.

Finally and perhaps most disappointingly, no attempt was made to address the key arguments Guildford adduced to demonstrate the implausability of the traditional “Big Bang” theory of revolution held by the Party – dubbed  thus because it assumed capitalism would remain completely unaffected in its scope and extent by the growth of the socialist movement. But if you agree that the “big bang” theory is unsound you are logically bound to accept something rather like the vision that Guildford Branch articulated in its original discussion document.

Robin Cox, 

World in Common

Reply:

The ‘Getting Splinters’ article dealt with six political tendencies which broke away from the Socialist Party during the course of the last 100 years, with a section devoted to each. The particular section entitled the ‘Guildford Road to Socialism’ was – like the others – a brief description of the key events involved and an articulation of the main points of disagreement that lay behind them. It was not intended to refer solely to the initial discussion document called the ‘Road to Socialism’ but to the line of thinking as a whole and its differing conception of the socialist revolution to the Party’s traditional one. The initial Guildford circular was followed by others and its meaning was clarified further in the journal Spanner produced in Guildford by the same elements.

One essential point is that Guildford/Spanner believed – among many other things – that socialists in parliament and in councils should use the state to redistribute wealth and provide services for free. This was most certainly the group’s stated view. Here’s Spanner’s own explanation of (and justification for) the initial Guildford ‘Road to Socialism’ document, published in its very first edition:

“The document went on to argue that the growth of the socialist movement would nevertheless facilitate the development of non-capitalist or ‘socialistic’ relations which prefigured socialism itself. A variety of forms in which these socialistic relations might invade the capitalist economy have been tentatively proposed. These include: “A massive expansion of free (subsidised) services provided by the state in response to the growing number of socialist parliamentary delegates who would be able to wield increasing influence over the patterns of state income and expenditure.” (‘The Road to Socialism’, in Spanner (1), p.39).

While the Socialist Party has always accepted that, faced with a growing revolutionary socialist movement, capitalist governments may well offer all sorts of reforms such as free services in a bid to ward off their complete expropriation, we have never argued – as Spanner did here – that any Socialist MPs should use any influence they might have to actively seek and promote such reforms, still less hail them as “socialistic”.

When we cut through the semantics, the other points you make about the materialist conception of history, etc merely reinforce what we said in the article. Guildford (and then Spanner) believed that socialism was impossible unless capitalism was ‘invaded’ by what they termed ‘socialistic’ relations of production, i.e. co-operatives, LETS schemes and ‘free’ state services. This is based on completely muddled thinking about these types of productive activities within capitalism – as well as about the general relation between productive relations and social structures – and why they should be labelled ‘socialist’ or ‘socialistic’ when they are nothing of the sort.

As for the supposed ‘Big Bang’ theory, this simply does not represent our views accurately. We certainly do not believe that the growth of the socialist movement will leave capitalism completely unchanged until a cataclysmic revolution occurs. But we cannot now predict in any meaningful way the various ways in which capitalism will change as socialist ideas spread, so we do not think it is possible or advisable to incorporate some version of these changes into our political position. And it is certainly not true that rejecting the caricatured ‘Big Bang’ scenario means accepting the gradualist views put forward in ‘The Road to Socialism’.

Editors.

Small is … small

From the May 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

LETS, or local exchange trading systems, boil down to being localised barter clubs each of which has its own purely digital or recorded currency or credit system. Participants keep their own individual accounts which are, in effect, a register of the credits they earn or spend depending on the goods or services exchanged.

An important difference between this and a conventional money system is that we are not talking about a quid pro quo exchange being effected between participants. In some ways it resembles or aligns with a model of generalised reciprocity which lies at the heart of a socialist society but there are important differences as well.

Timebanks, unlike LETS schemes, do not have their own local currencies as a metric for keeping tabs on transactions. The only metric used is time spent in making a labour contribution. Moreover, and again unlike LETS schemes, the way in which labour time is evaluated is strictly egalitarian. Thus, one hour of labour performed will equal one ‘time credit’, regardless of the type of service performed.

By contrast, in the case of LETS schemes, there is some scope for negotiation over the price of the service or good offered in terms of the local currency (and hence, also, the possibility of a degree of transactional inequality). This makes such an arrangement somewhat closer in certain respects to a conventional market economy than is true of Timebanks.

Both LETS schemes and Timebanks are examples of highly circumscribed, or localised, ‘exchange rings;’ by their very nature they cannot be implemented on the large-scale society-wide basis. What that means, in the case of both LETS schemes and Timebanks, is that they will be rather restricted with regard to the range of activities individuals can engage with these arrangements.

Since they basically involve face-to-face interactions, this suggests that the forms of activities this might entail would be more along the lines of some form of personal service such as repairing someone’s car or computer or tidying up their garden. Obviously, you could not really operate a modern railway system or a power station on the basis of a LETS-type arrangement.

However, this is not to detract from the value of such arrangements as a means of coping within existing capitalist society. There are also certain benefits to be gained in terms of fostering a kind of outlook more conducive to a post-capitalist society. In these cases, the emphasis is very much on forging relationships with other individuals and building local communities. Thus, the underlying logic is radically different from that pertaining to market transactions which are quid pro quo by nature and socially atomising in their consequences.

Workers’ co-ops

Most of the advocates of so-called ‘market socialism’ have seen its basis as the state ownership of the means of production. However, that particular version needs to be distinguished from earlier versions, such as ‘Proudhonian socialism’ or ‘mutualism’, that go back to the 19th century and which have enjoyed somewhat of a revival following the collapse of Russian state capitalism

These versions envisage a role for the market in ‘socialism’ but emphasise, instead of state ownership, various kinds of worker-owned institutions – such as co-operatives and credit unions – as the instruments through which such a system of ‘market socialism’ would operate.

Nevertheless, it is difficult to see quite how they connect with the basic ideas of socialism as a post-capitalist society. The classical or Marxian concept of socialism derived from the observable fact that the process of production was becoming increasingly socialised. There is nothing that is produced today that does not involve, directly or indirectly, the labour inputs of countless numbers of workers right across the world. Hence socialism – at least as it was traditionally conceived – entailed bringing the pattern of ownership of society´s productive resources into line with the character of modern production itself.

In other words, social ownership of the means of production is the logical expression of the social character of production. But social (or common) ownership also, of course, logically entails the complete exclusion of buying and selling since the latter implies private, or sectional, ownership of these means.

It does not matter that the members of a co-operative, say, might own it in common amongst themselves (and hence, to the exclusion of everyone else). It is still a form of sectional ownership. The relationship of such a co-operative to the world around it is, essentially, a capitalist one since it has to purchase its inputs and sell its outputs – not to mention, generate profits in order to effectively compete as well as compensate its workforce in the form of wages. These are all, needless to say, the tell-tale indicators of a capitalist mode of production.

In effect, what the exponents of this form of ‘market socialism’ advocate is the continuation of private, or sectional, ownership of the means of production as far as the wider world is concerned — even if one might grant that, internally, the set-up pertaining to a co-operative, say, may well be a lot more equitable compared to a conventional business and that working for such an institution may likewise be a lot more congenial.

There is also the point to consider that the scope for co-operatives is quite limited in the context of the pattern of capital ownership within the larger capitalist society and may even diminish should the increasing concentration of capital in the hands of a few giant corporations become more pronounced than it already is.

Robin Cox

Letter: Meeting each others needs (1995)

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

Meeting each others needs

Dear Editors,

As I run a LETSystem in Canterbury I was amused to read Adam Buick’s article "LETS Abolish Money" in your December issue.

Despite Mr Buick’s evident dismissal of the very concept of LETSystem I was amused rather than perturbed, because even with the research that he had evidently undertaken it is clear that Mr Buick simply fails to understand either their ethos or their future potential. This is not at all unusual. LETSystems are so simple that a great many people have difficulty in understanding them.

Mr Buick dismisses LETSystems for being small, or rather for the twin reasons that they are small and that the range of goods and services that they offer is limited. That they are is undoubtedly true, but there is a very good reason for this. LETSystems are a new phenomenon. most individual ones are very young, even the oldest in Britain is no more than four or five years old. I don’t suppose that even Mr Buick was a towering and influential socialist intellectual at the age of five.

Having grown to a membership of 200 in less than twelve months the Canterbury LETSystem is beginning to attract the interest of "high street" businesses whose own involvement is likely to increase the system’s appeal, even to ordinary people (i.e. other than middle-class hobbyists and New Age dreamers).

As the system grows in size it will become more rather than  less able to pay people to run it and still be far more efficient than the conventional, money economy which requires approximately 10 percent of its workforce to be employed in "financial services".

There may well be an optimum size for any given LETSystem, the bigger they are the more services they are likely to offer and the stronger and more credible they are likely to be perceived, the smaller they are the more intimate they are and the quicker will a person's spending come back to them as earnings. But we do not need to arbitrarily impose limitations upon a system, its natural dynamics will enable each system to find its own optimum size, which may number in the hundreds, the thousands or even the millions.

Beyond these matters, which essentially pertain to the practical aspects of establishing and running a system. Mr Buick's most striking failure is his inability to understand the long-term potential that LETSystems have for converting the present-day market-dominated society into an egalitarian one where everyone’s needs can be met, their dignity maintained and where the environment can be protected. Trading with a LETSystem is not barter, Indeed, use of cash is actually closer to barter than is use of a LETSystem. The Pound Sterling is derived from an entity of intrinsic value — a pound of Sterling silver. So when you use cash you are exchanging one item of intrinsic value (or rather a paper representation of it) for another, which is precisely what bartering involves. By contrast, the credits that one earns or spends in a LETSystem are purely abstract measurements. That they are given a nominal value, usually in relation to the Pound Sterling, is solely to enable everyone to share a common valuation.

This purely abstract nature of their units of currency underlies one of the great advantages of LETSystems. Whereas if you are exchanging cash for goods or goods for cash you have to have one or the other with LETSystems you don’t. You can spend LETS units before you earn them, even before you are able to earn them. Given the strongly inculcated resistance that most people have towards going "into the red" new members of the Canterbury LETSystem are positively encouraged to spend, spend, spend!, for by doing so they are putting credits into other people's accounts which will further encourage them to spend and so increase everyone's opportunities to earn.

Within a LETSystem the sum total of everyone’s accounts at any one moment will always be 0. So for some people to be in credit it is necessary for others to be "in commitment", this differs from debt within the conventional economy because it is not seen as being irresponsible, it is necessary if trading is to take place.

It is this feature of LETSystems that will enable the market economy to continue to meet people's needs (or rather be the means by which people will continue to meet each other's needs) whilst causing it to cease to be a means by which some people can attain power over others.

Mr Buick’s statement that "A hoard of cash is no more useful than a large LETS credit balance" is an extraordinary one to come from anyone other than a contrite capitalist apologist, if some people have a large hoard of conventional money (in whatever form), given that there is a finite amount of it, other people must have little or none, and given that one must have it even to meet one's basic material needs, clearly those who have the stuff in large quantities have enormous power over those who haven’t. By contrast, given that LETS credits are purely abstract measurements with no limit and given that one can spend freely even with a “negative" balance no one with a large LETS credit has any power over someone else who might, at a given moment, be in commitment.

If, as Mr Buick proposes, the elimination of want is to be achieved by the elimination of the market system whereby people exchange goods and services to meet their needs, how will these needs be met? By a central economic authority with complete power over everyone's lives? Mr Adam Buick?

We can retain the benefits of a market economy whilst removing its current absolute dominance and less benign aspects, we can enable individuals and their local communities to secure greater power and responsibility for their own lives, we can remove the inefficiencies and environmental destructiveness of an excessively competitive society and so achieve the type of society that is the dream of many, whether socialists or not. by the very simple idea that is the LETSystem.

After a myriad of Utopian dreams have come to nought down the centuries we now have the means of creating a just and egalitarian society.

Anne Belsey, 

Faversham, Kent

Reply:

Your letter illustrates perfectly the point we were trying to make: the exaggerated claims of the benefits and possibilities of LETS made by some of its enthusiasts. You see LETS as a means towards creating "an egalitarian society where everyone’s needs can be met. their dignity maintained and where the environment can be protected". We are all for creating such a society, but say that LETS schemes will only ever play a marginal economic role.

For LETS to replace "the present-day market-dominated society” they would have to spread out of their present field of personal services, repairs, home cooking and gardening into, and the list is not exhaustive, farming, the generation of electricity. the provision of water, gas. sewage and telephone services. the manufacture of the cookers, fridges, heaters, cars, bikes. TVs. radios, computers (that LETS members merely repair not produce), not to mention the manufacture of the machines and equipment to make these consumer goods and the maintenance of a transport system to move them. They've got to take on and beat economically the public utility companies, the supermarkets, the multinationals and Big Business generally. We are sorry to have to break the bad news to you, but LETS schemes are not going to do this. They are never going to spread outside their present restricted field and even there they are never going to predominate.

This is because LETS are essentially an arrangement for conducting multi-sided barter amongst self-employed individuals. This means they are going to be restricted to the sort of things an individual can do. It also means that they have little interest for those in full-time employment with an adequate wage or salary. (For such people it is always going to be more convenient to pay someone to repair their TV out of the money they have earned than to commit themselves to a couple of hours extra work to exchange for this.) In addition, as the article stated, above a certain size LETS schemes become more cumbersome than resorting to ordinary money. This is not a defence of conventional money, merely recognition of a fact of life within "the present- day market-dominated economy”.

Our answer to the market economy is not to reform it as you want but to abolish the market. No, this does not mean some central economic authority deciding what people need. We envisage a self-regulating system of production for use. in accordance with the principle “from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs", with individuals deciding what their needs are. On the basis of the common ownership and democratic control of all land and industry, individuals would set the productive system in operation by what they actually took from the common stores to satisfy their needs under conditions of free access; this would then be transmitted to the stores' suppliers and from them to their suppliers and so on down the line and throughout the whole network of productive units.

Finally, don't get us wrong. We are not saying people shouldn’t join LETS schemes, nor that they are a complete waste of time within the present economic system. What we are saying is that they are merely one mechanism for surviving within the present system, on a par with housing associations, coops, building societies. Christmas Clubs, etc. People can join them if they want, but they should be under no illusion that they contain the germ for the transformation of society.

For this to happen, the large-scale socially-operated industry where the bulk of the wealth of society is produced today must first be taken into common ownership and democratic control. And this requires society-wide political action, not what our next correspondent calls "practical small-scale change” which leaves the commanding heights the economy in capitalist hands. - Editors.

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

LETS not make the same mistake again (2000)

Book Review from the July 2000 issue of the Socialist Standard

Alternative currencies are coming back into favour but, as a solution to the problems of capitalism, they have been tried before, more than once, and each time have been found wanting. This time will be no different.

According to David Boyle in his recent book Funny Money there are various local currencies currently in use in the USA: (1) “social money” (particularly involved with helping old people, reforming young offenders etc); (2) “labour money” (exchangeable scrip received for work done); and (3) “local currencies” (based on a fixed amount of a commodity – e.g. $10 of meals in a restaurant or a cord of wool!). Essentially these are all variations upon LETS.

In the old days poor folk used to do each other favours—a lift to town or some home-grown veg. Sadly this sort of social behaviour is disappearing and alienated individuals often need an intermediary to be brought together. This is what the local currencies can do. There is therefore some use for such self-help schemes within capitalism.

These kind of currency schemes are also useful to socialists in showing how people can co-operate—how human nature is not just all war and whacking off. In many cases (in particular the “Time Dollars” used in Washington) the system is little more than the able-bodied doing something for the old folk. Charity, if you want to sneer, but all the same a form of voluntary labour for the good of the community, surely the basis of work in socialism. As an addition one might add that in the Washington case the scrip is a useful way of indicating the extent of voluntary work done by an individual.

If these currency cranks stuck to giving lifts to old ladies and trading organic lentils between themselves nobody would be particularly interested. But they’ve got bigger plans. According to Boyle these local currencies are “revolutionary” and “will turn the world upside down”, poverty will be abolished and it is even predicted that “Funny Money” will solve the Northern Ireland conflict (this is reminiscent of the Pankhursts’ claim that female suffrage would abolish prostitution and VD).

Like all reformist schemes the problem lies not in these flabby and ineffectual palliatives themselves but in the hope attached to them by often desperate members of the working class. Alternative currencies, like experimental communities and a dozen other half-baked schemes, have been tried before, more than once, as a solution to the problems of capitalism and each time have been found wanting. Funny Money shows that even as palliative measures “alternative currencies” fall down. The Philadelphia scheme operating in a hell-hole called Camden (one in every thousand of its population murdered each year, 60 percent on welfare, probably the poorest place in America) collapsed before Boyle could get there. Since up to 85 percent of scrip can remain unused this outcome is hardly surprising. People actually do like to help each other. Formal something-for-something schemes can get in the way and are a waste of time so far as voluntary work goes. Meanwhile in Washington the alternative money scheme is being phased in to replace simple food handouts so that, as the “liberal” twerp running it said, the poor folk can make friends. The comment of one slum dweller “I don’t need no friends—just gimme the free food” just about sums it up.

What is worse is that such measures help to do the capitalist class’s dirty work. In Washington “Time Dollars” mean that old people can live at home rather than having to be lodged in old folks’ homes “at far greater expense to the public purse”. Similarly in Minneapolis it is hoped that “people will flood off welfare” to earn “Commonweal Service Dollars” (Jesus!). In other words, Boyle’s “revolutionary” schemes help lower taxes—a great boon to the capitalist class. And this of course is a good clue to why most of the “alternative currency” organisations in the US are backed by grants from the government.

Marx of course has to enter the arena at some point. Boyle thinks “the old monster” unworthy of consideration but one of his comrades holds that local currencies must be communist as they operate on the basis of “from each according to their ability and to each according to their needs”.

Boyle also finds time to sling mud at Morris. He wonders what a “medievalist” like Morris would think of credit cards, “invented” in Bellamy’s Looking Backward. Only the wilfully ignorant could read News from Nowhere and not know that it was a direct response to Bellamy’s statist nightmare.

Boyle also pours scorn at those who spend their Saturday mornings in “dull committee meetings trying to change the world” and says they would be better off joy-riding. Presumably he spends his Saturday mornings in dull LETS meetings trying to piss in the wind. Perhaps if he spent his Saturday mornings reading some decent stuff he might get his economics sorted out.

Boyle is clearly one of those blokes aware that “something is amiss in the state of Denmark” and who wishes to do something about it. His solution is local currency based on “something spiritual” inside us. But the real problem is the capitalist mode of production of which money (as wages) is an essential component. According to Boyle money is “too useful” to be abolished. So useful to the people of Camden, New Jersey and all the rat-holes of the earth. But people of Camden, New Jersey, just like the people of Camden, London and Camden anywhere else come to that, need currency, DIY or otherwise, like they need a boil on the bum.

Keith Scholey

Market leader (1993)

From the April 1993 issue of the Socialist Standard

Has it ever appeared to you that in this revered “democracy" of ours, despite the efforts of successive governments over the decades, the politicians who claim to have the solutions to the country's problems are just fumbling in the dark? Has it occurred to you that no matter what supposedly new schemes the power-brokers dream up and sell us like a new brand of detergent, the social and economic ills which afflict our lives seem to remain with a tenacity rivalled only by Jeremy Beadle's attempts to embarrass the entire population before his retirement?

If your answer to these questions is yes, then rest assured that you are not the first to have serious doubts about the merits of our so-called democratic system of government. It is not uncommon to find yourself exasperated at the fact that nothing really changes, regardless of which band of political incompetents has lately deceived the electorate into handing over its decision-making power.

After all, haven’t we been consistently assured that eventually abhorrences such as poverty, inequality and war will become merely topics for the history books? And yet we still find the politicians continuing to grapple with the problems which our grandparents hoped would have long been consigned to memory by the time their grandchildren had reached maturity. Not an unreasonable aspiration when you consider what an intelligent and co-operative species human beings can be.

Disturbing reality

The disturbing reality is that here we are, seven years shy of the milleniuni. on the brink of what many a science fiction writer has dreamed would be a fantastic age of unity, enlightenment and space travel, and human existence continues to breed conflict and despair. How could this have been allowed to happen, when in most parts of the developed world, we the people have the power to select the representatives ostensibly best able to tackle the corrosive features of our society?

Surprisingly, the answer to this question is terrifyingly elementary. The truth is that no democratically-elected representative anywhere in the world, no matter how well-intentioned or altruistic he or she may be, has any real power to improve the lot of the majority of people, the working class. Many idealists have boldly entered the world of politics with commendable notions about changing society for the better or serving their fellow men, but on becoming elected they discover that their plans are foiled by an uniquely ascendant and irresistible governor—the market.

Let there be no delusions; everything related to the daily running of a national or local economy, whether it be production of food, social services. health care or employment. is dominated by the intransigent demands of the market system. Despite the fact that the world is now capable of producing more than enough food, clothing and shelter to serve the needs of all its inhabitants, and technology has provided the potential for a quality of life for all unimaginable a century ago. the politician finds at every turn in the economic labyrinth yet another barrier erected by the market. Nevertheless the market, though possessed of absolute authority over our lives, never has to face election by the people it governs. It is a dictator of the most pervasive nature, without integrity or conscience.

The evidence for this contention is not difficult to find; you need only to switch on the radio or television or pick up todays paper. There we see and hear stories of miners losing their jobs while there are still vast reserves of coal left underground; we hear of hospitals turning away patients because their budgets have been exhausted before the end of the financial year; we hear the prime minister blaming lack of “demand" in the economy for the rising numbers of unemployed. and yet there are millions in need and millions idle who are prepared to produce the goods to meet those needs.

Although passionate believers in the democratic principle. socialists refuse to give their votes in an election to any candidate other than another socialist. Even the so-called socialists of the British Labour Party are merely attempting to ameliorate the capitalist system by endeavouring to reform some of its more objectionable attributes. You will never hear a Labour politician advocate the complete overthrow of capitalism. Socialists maintain that (unless of course there is a genuine Socialist candidate) workers have no real choice when confronted by a ballot paper: whoever they vote for on election day. the result is the same—government by the market.

Beyond the market

As the worst recession since the 1930s drags on, an encouraging phenomenon has germinated in several parts of the country, started by small groups of workers disillusioned with the money exchange system. Necessitated by the severely limited budgets of the unemployed and low-paid. small bartering networks have been set up with their own currencies in order to allow the exchange of goods and services without the use of cash. Although these “local exchange trading schemes" are in essence just another form of exchange and therefore not an alternative to the market system. they do demonstrate that some workers are now questioning the ethos of the capitalist system and are attempting to exercise some control over their own lives:

  Dr Michael Hodges, lecturer in international affairs at the London School of Economics, sees the proliferation of such schemes as the result of a loss of faith in governments to control the global economy (Observer, 17 January).

While socialists do not advocate the idea of bartering as an alternative to the market system. we are nevertheless interested in examples of workers coming to understand that they are capable of organizing their own community rather than subjecting themselves to the ineptitude of incompetent politicians. It proves that we are not isolated in our refusal to accept that the prevailing economic system is immutable.

In a rationally organized society there could not be the mind-boggling anomalies of the sort that are endemic under capitalism, such as millions starving to death while food is stockpiled because it can't be sold at a profit, or ever-increasing numbers of homeless people while construction workers are forced into idleness; there would not be a waste of vast resources on weapons research and manufacture while the infirm suffer for want of rudimentary medicines and health care. In a sane world there would be no market to dictate that only those with “purchasing power" may have access to what they need, because there would be free access to goods and services for all.

We have it in our power to conceive a new order in which all people have real control over their own lives, the power to forge a true democracy where wealth is shared amongst the population of equals and not monopolized by a privileged minority. When the day comes in which the majority of workers decide that enough is enough, that the oppression of the wealth-producers has prevailed for long enough, then and only then will the market system face the scrutiny of the masses in the greatest “election" in history.

On that day it won't be the vacuous grin of the latest Tory or Labour prime minister which greets us on our television screens, nor the platitudes of the newest president or chancellor. When socialism is finally established there will be a worldwide awakening to the dawn of a consciousness which will transport humanity from the desolate age of disillusionment and insecurity to a new era of unity and understanding.

Nick Brunskill

Letters: Rebel Christian (2000)

Letters to the Editors from the September 2000 issue of the Socialist Standard

Rebel Christian

Dear Editors,

I have been reading Justus Weijagye’s article in the July Socialist Standard. I am sorry to find him perpetuating the view that Christianity is only concerned with an afterlife, and is socially reactionary. Undoubtedly great evils have been done in the name of Christ, not only by cults such as those in Uganda, but also by larger institutions, such as the Roman Catholic Inquisition. This no more discredits Christ, though, than the state capitalism of the former USSR discredited real Socialism.

Genuine Christianity has been socially progressive. For example, Robert Beckford, the Black Church historian, has argued that the Baptist missionaries in Jamaica helped make possible the slave revolt (the so-called “Baptist Revolt”) of 1831. This was actually a General Strike; the violence came from the authorities who suppressed it. The missionaries did not encourage the strike, but by informing the slaves of the movement for abolition back in Britain, telling them of their dignity and equality before God, and encouraging them to organise themselves into self-governing churches, they helped give the motivation for it and the means for bringing it about. They also tried to restrain the authorities in their reaction, and suffered for it, as they did in the later uprising (by now supposedly “free” slaves) in 1865. By contrast, the so-called “Christian Socialist” Charles Kingsley supported the suppression of the latter revolt. We can understand why Marx was so dismissive of “Christian Socialists” like that.

For my own part, I agree with the Object of your party, not in spite of, but because of, my faith in Christ.

Bob Allaway 

(by email)

Reply: 

Actually, we never said that Christians were only concerned with an afterlife. How could they be, since to survive all humans have to be practical materialists whatever their professed philosophical or religious views? But we would say that they must attach more importance to their imagined afterlife than to this, our actual—and only—life. Socialism can’t be that important or urgent compared to an eternal life “close to God”—or rotting in Hell. Because it’s the only life we’re going to get is why we should strive to improve our present life through the establishment of socialism, not because of faith in some supernatural being. But, as we said, all religious people, not just Christians, substitute faith for reason. Which is dangerous precisely because it can—and does—lead to events such as those in Uganda.

Whilst it is arguable that the so-called essence of Christianity is separate and different from what has actually been done in its name, it is the very essence with which we have a problem. A slave mentality is a prerequisite for worshipping a make-believe “benevolent creator” under pain of being tortured in hell forever if we disagree. This can only mean that God not only has a fragile ego but if he was human he would be denounced as an evil meglomaniac!

As revolutionary socialists we are for the abolition of modern slavery (wage slavery) and thus hostile to nay notion of submissive slave behaviour in whatever form it comes – Editors.

Let down

Dear Editors,

I’m glad to hear Robin’s local LETS scheme is hale and hearty (Letters, August), but my local scheme collapsed in disarray and has not revived after three years. Like Robin, I was quite enthusiastic at first. Disregarding the more outrageous claims, one could still see a social value in it. I worked hard at it, not minding in the least, and feeling that I was making a social contribution. I collected dozens of credits, but never used them. There was nothing to use them on anyway, since I didn’t want my dog walking and I didn’t need somebody to write me a poem, instruct me in Feng-shui or bake my bread. When the roof leaked, I still had to pay. When the plumbing broke, I had to do it myself. When I had a van, and offered its use, I was deluged with requests, but when I had no van, I had to hire one.

Finally I got tired of the middle-class bias of it all, the stripped-pine Guardian reading oh-so-nice pretend-liberalism that claimed to include everyone but clearly excluded most people. LETS never left the narrow and precious cultural womb it was born from, and it became for me increasingly twee and garden-party. What killed it was an exclusion issue, and the members’ inability to discuss anything and come to a conclusion. In a certain cultural milieu, it is bad form to have an open disagreement with anybody. Liberals hate “unpleasantness”. The LETS group were faced with an obnoxious man whom women wished to exclude, and the group toyed with “consensus” politics and “three-way votes” which caused chaos and prevented decisive action. The man left town fortunately. But so did most of the LETS goodwill.

I have heard that there are large LETS schemes in certain areas, and I wish them well. But for me LETS failed because it did not examine its own cultural assumptions, and confined itself to “nice” people who, unfortunately, were largely useless philosophy graduates who didn’t know one end of a screwdriver from the other. If socialists operated with similar class biases, we could write our entire membership on a jotter pad and install our Head Office, as our LETS scheme did, in somebody’s basement.

Paddy Shannon,

Lancaster

LETS Abolish Money? (1994)

From the December 1994 issue of the Socialist Standard

If you listen to the enthusiasts they can recreate communities, cure unemployment, undermine the multinationals and even provide an alternative to the global capitalist economy. What can? LETS or Local Exchange and Trading Schemes.

This is what the enthusiasts say. First, Harry Wears from Haverfordwest:

  “I’m really enthusiastic about LETS. I think it’s the most exciting mechanism for social change I have ever come across. In LETS, debts don’t accrue interest and there is no pressure to pay. A LETS cheque can’t bounce, nor a LETS business go bust. LETS sees money as a symbol but, unlike sterling, it can’t be manoeuvred to the detriment of people using it” (Woman & Home, October 1993).

Then Donnachadh McCarthy from Southwark:

  “It is a system to recreate a community economy which we were losing because of multinational companies and big supermarkets. Money which comes into Southwark is used once and then leaves via the banks which use it to finance projects elsewhere” (Independent, 13 December 1993).

And Ed Mayo of the New Economics Foundation:

  “With mass unemployment in Britain many people have the time but not the cash. LETS gives them access to things they would not otherwise have” (Guardian, 12 March 1994).

Finally, from the same Guardian article by John Vidal:

  “The implications, say the theorists, are enormous. In a cash-starved economy (one in five British households is severely in debt), despite the existence of wealth in the form of skills and resources, traditional exchange is hijacked by a lack of cash. With local currencies, as long as people make their goods and skills available, their exchange can go round and round. ‘The community therefore becomes richer,’ says Paul Ekins, a green economist”.

It is, of course, absurd that people who need things should go without even though the skills and resources to provide for them exist. We can go along with the LETS enthusiasts in denouncing this scandal of unmet needs alongside unused resources. The difference between Socialists and LETS enthusiasts is that, while both of us criticise money, they answer “yes” to the question “So, you want to go back to barter?” while we answer “no”. They want to retain exchange and trading with some new kind of money; we want a society based on common ownership geared to producing things directly for people to take and use in which exchange and trading, and money as the means of exchange, would be redundant.

Back to Barter
LETS schemes are essentially local barter clubs. A group of people with varying skills get together and agree to exchange the services they can provide with any other member without using money.

Records, however, have to be kept. Each member has an account and when one member’s services are used their account is credited with the exchange value of that service while that of the user is debited by the same amount. What normally happens is that each member is given a sort of cheque book which they can use to pay for other members’ services either at a published price or as agreed between the two. Clearly for all this a unit of account is needed.

Some schemes define this unit in terms of labour time. Others tie is to the pound. The accounts could in fact be done in pounds but generally the unit is given a special name. In Bath it is an “oliver”; in Brixton it is a “brick”; in Reading a “ready”, and so on.

Do LETS schemes really allow people, as is claimed, to by-pass money and so have “access to things they would not otherwise have”? Two unemployed people with different skills can always barter their services. Thus an unemployed plumber can repair an unemployed electrician’s central heating in exchange for some rewiring by the electrician. Neither needs money for this. A LETS scheme is merely an extension of this: the plumber or electrician joins a barter club and so gains access to a wider range of potential clients as well as access to a wider range of reciprocal services (too often, though, things not normally needed by the unemployed like aromatherapy, holistic massage, acupuncture, tarot reading and other such New Age fads). So, it’s an alternative to placing cards in newsagent’s windows or relying on the grapevipe to learn about work opportunities. As such, like the black economy, it’s one way of surviving in the capitalist jungle but that’s all. But don’t LETS schemes help create a “local community spirit”? Maybe, but no more than any other local club.

Small is Small
The trouble is that the idea has been hijacked by all sorts of currency cranks and funny money theorists who see it as the basis for an “alternative money” and an “alternative economy”. But they overlook two important facts.

First, the nature of the activities covered by LETS schemes. They are all activities that can be carried out by a single individual such as repairs and personal services, and which in the normal money economy could be done by self-employed people working on their own. In fact, from an economic point of view, LETS club members are acting as self-employed; a LETS scheme is a club in which self-employed individuals barter their services. It could never extend beyond this to productive activities that require expensive equipment and plant and a large workforce—such as, precisely, the manufacture of the things that LETS members and the self-employed repair.

Secondly, there are definite limits to the size a LETS scheme can attain. The biggest in Britain only has 300 members. If they got much bigger than this the administrative work of recording all the transactions would grow and could no longer be done by voluntary or part-time labour; people would have to be employed to do it, which would add to the running costs of the scheme and have to be shouldered by the members. The membership fees and transaction charges already levied by the scheme would rise. At a certain point this would cancel the advantages of being in the scheme and members would find it more convenient to re-enter the money economy and resort to newsagent’s windows and contacts.

Funny Money
What most of the currency cranks who have latched on to the LETS idea envisage is converting the units of account the schemes use — olivers, bricks, readies, etc—into a real money that would circulate.

In fact most commentators, like John Vidal in the Guardian article, refer to the LETS units of account as “currencies”, but this is misleading. They are not money; they do not circulate. They only exist on paper or computer disk as a record of transactions. LETS schemes are in fact more cumbersome than money. After all, with a real money that circulates an individual account of a person’s exchange transactions doesn’t have to be kept.

Some of the advantages claimed for LETS units also apply to cash. So when Harry Wears says “a LETS cheque can’t bounce”, this is true but neither can cash. Similarly, when it is argued that people have an incentive to use LETS credits—and that when they do accumulate them this doesn’t give them any power to manipulate other people—as they don’t pay interest, the same applies to cash as such. A hoard of cash is no more useful than a large LETS credit balance.

What is being advocated as the ideal is a money that can’t be accumulated and can’t be lent at interest, with LETS units being seen as the formula to achieve this. But such an “alternative money” is never going to come into being, because it would be worse than existing money. If you have an exchange economy (which the LETS enthusiasts accept, as is seen by the full name Local Exchange and Trading System) then conventional money is the best means of exchange. Not only does it allow many more exchanges to take place than barter or a modified form of barter like LETS schemes, but the payment and receipt of interest also facilitates more exchanges.

Banks are not, as some LETS theorists (along with the traditional currency cranks) suggest, the villains of the peace who interrupt the normal circulation of money and goods by not making money available to match needs and resources unless they are paid a tribute in the form of interest. Banks are financial intermediaries which borrow money from people who have some but don’t want to spend it immediately, and then lend it those who have something to spend money on but no money of their own. Naturally the banks take precautions to ensure that they are going to get back any money they lend, but the overall result that they help keep money circulating and exchange going.

To want to keep exchange but do away with banks and the taking of interest is unrealistic in the extreme. It is typical currency crankism.

The way to end the scandal of unmet needs alongside unused skills and resources is not to retain the exchange economy while trying to get rid of some of its effects by reforming the money system. It is to get rid of the exchange economy altogether by establishing a society based on the common ownership of productive resources where goods and services would be produced directly for people to take and use and not to be exchanged, or bought and sold, at all.

Adam Buick

Small is small (2013)

Book Review from the February 2013 issue of the Socialist Standard

No Local: Why Small-Scale Alternatives Won’t Change the World. By Greg Sharzer. Zero books, 2011. 180 pages.

According to Sharzer there are two kinds of ‘localists’–those who openly favour small-scale capitalism (small businesses, ethical consumption, community gardening) and those who see small-scale alternative economic arrangements (cooperatives, LETS schemes, local currencies, credit unions) as a way of undermining capitalism and progressing towards a post-capitalist society. His argument is that ‘while small-scale alternatives can survive and occasionally flourish, they won’t build a new, equitable society. Their prospects are severely limited by the power of capital.’They may be ways for some people to survive under capitalism, but are no threat to it.

Pro-market localists share the assumption of mainstream economics that capitalism is a system geared to meeting paying consumer demand whereas in fact it is geared to making profits and accumulating them as more capital. Capitalist firms are driven by market forces to accumulate as, to stay in the race, they must continually invest in reducing their costs of production. Small firms are not exempt from this pressure. Neither are the cooperatives favoured by anti-market localists. Both kinds of localist are ‘faced with the impalatable conclusion that small alternatives won’t outcompete or destroy capitalism.’ Rather, ‘capital’s inherent drives to profit expose local alternatives to ruthless market discipline.’

Ethical consumption can’t be effective because most people can’t afford it. LETS schemes and local currencies are less convenient than ordinary money and only survive because (and as long as) some activists are prepared to put in the extra work to keep them going. Community gardening in towns has to compete with other, rent-bringing uses of the land. If national governments have been unable to delink their economies from the world market how can local communities be expected to?

Sharzer questions both the feasibility and the desirability of localist schemes to maximise local autarky:

‘Consumer goods, let alone mass public transit systems and high-speed internet, are impossible without a highly-developed capacity to source materials, process them into finished products and distribute them across large distances. For example, making solar panels involves advanced machinery and massive financing that would be impossible to muster locally. (…) Even localism’s direct democracy needs high-tech to reduce people’s workload and allow them time to participate.’

Sharzer, then, makes a powerful case as to ‘why small-scale alternatives won’t change the world.’ This, however, is confined to the opening chapters. After them it’s downhill all the way. A whole chapter is devoted to trying to show that localism is the ideology of the ‘petite (sic) bourgeois’ as if this was a separate class (and as if he wouldn’t fall into it himself). Localism could be described as ‘petty bourgeois’ but only in the economic sense of wanting to create an economy of independent artisans and small (‘petty’) enterprises. Rock bottom is reached when he praises Lenin ‘whose movement inspired millions to take up arms for socialism’, i.e., for state capitalism, his own unviable ‘alternative’.  This means that unfortunately his criticisms are not going to be taken so seriously by anti-market localists.

Adam Buick