SPGB June Events (2026)

Party News from the June 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

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Blogger's Note:

Justin Fairchild's book, Unchained. Living Without Money, was reviewed in the September 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard.

Work: Paid and unpaid (part 2) (2026)

From the May 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

Part 1 of this article last month considered how people react to work according to whether it is paid or unpaid and how hierarchised and authoritarian work structures are increasingly affecting their lives. This second part looks at the feasibility of attempts to ‘humanise’ work under the current system of production for profit and points to how such humanisation is only truly feasible in the context of a different social system.

Together with the intensification of the employment process previously discussed, in recent years there has also been considerable discussion about whether there might be more effective and efficient, and at the same time more humane, ways of organising work – even within the existing system of production for profit.

Hierarchy challenged

There are examples of companies instituting freer, less rigid work structures and even more ‘equal’ pay. One of the most striking instances has been the American ‘Valve’ video game company where the owner decided to establish a ‘flat’ non-directive structure based on the conviction that people work better and more efficiently when they’re relaxed and don’t feel they’re being surveilled and constantly judged. Another example is the financial services company Gravity Payments. Here the CEO decided to pay all his staff a minimum wage of $70,000, that being the amount he decided was necessary to live what he called ‘a normal life’. This compared with the previous average salary of $48,000. At the same time, he slashed his own salary of $1.1m to the same $70,000. Then a recent programme in the ‘Analysis’ series on BBC Radio 4 asking the question ‘Does Work Have To Be Miserable?’, included the boss of the Howorth Air Tech company in Salford explaining how he had moved strongly in the direction of putting resources into helping to bring out his employees’ latent talents and not simply regarding them as ‘factors of production’.

Other reactions to hierarchy and authoritarian work practices in capitalism have included a beneath-the-radar move among some workers away from the conventional jobs market – a rejection, partial at least, of the normally life-sapping existence of wage and salary work to lead what has been called ‘a low-desire life without gruelling competition’. Those who choose this path still do of course need to carry out some paid work and to participate in the buying and selling system, but what they are seeking is an existence that offers them more freedom and less stress. This kind of choice was recently highlighted in the BBC radio series ‘The Digital Human’ where the presenter, Aleks Krotosky, talked about how, unexpectedly, in China, a country she referred to as ‘the most competitive society on earth’, a good number of young people were managing to ‘opt out’ from full-time paid work and attempt to lead that ‘low-desire life’.

Reorganising capitalism?

The more radical view, such as espoused by the Socialist Party, that the nature of work can only be fundamentally altered by a new social system, also has advocates in a significant number of quarters. In a ‘Ted Talk’ from the University of Edinburgh given by Jade Saab in 2018 and called ‘A World Without Money’, the speaker includes a section entitled ‘Why and how we work will be different’. On social media too there are groups hosting similar discussions with names that speak for themselves, for example ‘Moneyless Society’, ‘World of Free Access’, and ‘A group around the world where we are all anti-capitalist’. This is matched in book publication by more than just a few writers proposing various different kinds of non-hierarchical work organisation.

Some of these proposals, when closely scrutinised, amount to suggestions for reorganising capitalism, which we would regard as utopian, since it would be impossible in reality for the capitalist system, given its profit-seeking basis, to implement them. We would agree with Anitra Nelson, in her book Beyond Money. A Post-Capitalist Strategy, that ‘modified forms of money and markets … are bound to fail’ with the vast majority being ‘unable to enjoy the full benefits of their everyday work and have little say in how they live or work’. Her conclusion is that we cannot ‘tweak the system to overcome its weaknesses’.

Such flaws as pointed to by that writer are also to be found in otherwise perceptive books about work such as Daniel Susskind’s A World Without Work. Technology, Automation and How We Should Respond (2020) and Michael D. Yates’s Work, Work, Work. Labour, Alienation and Class Struggle (2022). But even if the conclusions of those writers fall short of advocating a completely different social order or of being convinced that this may be possible in the foreseeable future, they can still have a lot of powerfully relevant things to say about work and its meaning in human society. Susskind, for example, while in the end not venturing beyond the idea of buying and selling, describes work as ‘a source of meaning, purpose and direction in life with community recognition of that work rather than wages fulfilling the human longing for personal fulfilment and social interaction’. Yates, for his part, states: ‘Regarding work (…) we should strive for a society in which this word is no longer used except to describe the past. What we are, as human beings, is a species that can thoughtfully produce what is needed for survival and enjoyment (…) only cooperative and beneficial production, with substantive equality in all aspects of life’.

Work in a non-market society

But others go further in seeing as a practical possibility a society where work in exchange for payment would not need to take place at all – and this within the framework of a completely different social system than the one that dominates the world at present. Recent examples of this outlook are to be found in Matthew Holten’s book, Moneyless Society. The Next Economic Evolution, in Aaron Benanav’s Automation and the Future of Work, and in Half-Earth Socialism: a Plan to Save the Future from Extinction, Climate Change and Pandemics by Troy Vettese and Drew Pendergrass. These writers stress the downsides of employment for money with its imposition of a daily stretch of work, lack of variety, hierarchical organisation, and the potential precariousness of keeping your job. And they are generally keen to point to the fact that, in a future post-capitalist, non-market society, non-socially productive activity (e.g armaments, insurance, banking, sales promotion, taxation, legal contracts, etc) will disappear and all the work that takes place will have a useful and necessary function with no stigma attached to any of it.

As to specific details of how work could be organised in a non-monetary society and the nature it would take, it is probably Benanav who puts his finger on it most tellingly. In his final chapter, entitled ‘Necessity and Freedom’, he argues for ‘the abolition of private property and monetary exchange in favor of planned cooperation’, and ‘a world of fully capacitated individuals … in which every single person could look forward to developing their interests and abilities with full social support’ and which will be ‘the first time in their lives that they could enter truly voluntary agreements – without the gun to their heads of a pervasive material insecurity’. He goes on to say that ‘we would divide up responsibilities while taking into account individual aptitudes and proclivities’ with some tasks needing to be performed locally, but many capable of being ‘planned on a regional or global scale, using advanced computer technologies’. And finally: ‘The realm of freedom would be the one giving rise to all manner of dynamism: that is where human beings would invent new tools, instruments, and methods of accounting, as well as new games and gadgets, rapidly reallocating resources over time and space to suit changing human tastes (…). The world would then be composed of overlapping partial plans, with interrelated necessary and free activities, rather than a single central plan’.

Commentators such as these are clearly not talking here about strategies within capitalism for dealing with problems thrown up by that system, for example climate change or environmental degradation. They are not looking for more ‘sustainable’ ways for production, consumption and work to continue much as before, for ‘green deals’ or for ways of finding replacement work for those who lose their jobs through automation. They are talking rather about a society in which people will no longer have to do jobs they do not necessarily like (or may even hate) just for the money but will be able to do work they want to do and ideally enjoy doing. And for any ‘less popular’ jobs, there would be a focus on automation and the use of robotics to give assistance.

Above all one of the first things that will end in the kind of society being envisaged, which we would call socialism, is the link between work and consumption: what people will consume will not depend on the amount of work they do. Above all people will cooperate to do the work that makes society function and they will make decisions democratically – in workplaces, in their local communities, in their regions and, in some overarching cases, no doubt even globally. Above all there will no longer be top-down control by leaders, governments and bosses and no more money controlling people’s lives, wasting so much of our time and energy. There will be no useless toil, only useful work.

Howard Moss

Blogger's Note:

The following books that were mentioned in the article have been previously reviewed in the pages of the Socialist Standard:

• Mar 2020: A World Without Work. Technology, Automation and How We Should Respond by Daniel Susskind
• Feb 2021: Automation and the Future of Work by Aaron Benanav
• Oct 2022: Beyond Money. A Post-Capitalist Strategy by Anitra Nelson
• Jan 2023: Moneyless Society: the Next Economic Evolution by Matthew Holten
• Mar 2023: Half-Earth Socialism: a Plan to Save the Future from Extinction, Climate Change and Pandemics by Troy Vettese and Drew Pendergrass
• Oct 2023: Work Work Work. Labor, Alienation and Class Struggle. By Michael D. Yates

Letter: Ending the money system can save the planet (2026)

Letter to the Editors from the February 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

Ending the money system can save the planet

Dear Editors,

Money may feel neutral — just a tool for exchange. And environmental destruction is usually framed as a technological problem, a political failure, or a lack of individual responsibility. But the primary driver of ecological degeneration is the system we live under. It requires endless growth, even though the earth itself does not grow – forests regenerate slowly, soils take centuries to rebuild.

In a monetary framework, nature has value only when it can be priced. So, for example, a living forest is ‘unused land’ and a felled forest is ‘economic activity’. Clean air, biodiversity, climate stability, and future generations tend to be ignored by balance sheets. It is more profitable to extract than to regenerate and so what cannot be monetised is treated as expendable, the result often being not stewardship, but liquidation. This doesn’t happen because people are evil. It happens because the system rewards the wrong behaviour.

The result is that total global debt now equals more than three years of the planet’s entire yearly output — everything humanity produces in one year, multiplied by three, already promised away. But growth and the borrowing that goes with it means more extraction and more pressure on land, oceans, climate, and people. We have in effect built a system that treats Earth as an infinite credit card — and even after maxing it out, it demands a higher limit.

That is why we do not have a problem that can be fixed with better regulation, greener growth, or smarter finance. The system that requires endless expansion on a finite planet is not malfunctioning. It is doing exactly what it was designed to do.

This brings us to the question of artificial scarcity. Money-based systems depend on scarcity, but not natural scarcity — manufactured scarcity. There is enough food, yet people starve. There are more than enough homes, yet people are homeless. There is an abundance of energy from the sun, yet we burn the planet for fuel. So scarcity is not a condition of nature. It is a condition of design. And scarcity doesn’t just damage ecosystems. It damages people and a wounded humanity consumes to compensate. Much of modern overconsumption is not driven by greed, but rather by emptiness. When work is disconnected from meaning, when time is stolen from life, when worth is measured numerically, people compensate by seeking status, possessions and distractions.

This is a system that erodes human dignity. You are valued only when you are profitable. So rest must be earned, care must be justified, illness is a liability, and ageing becomes a problem. Your right to exist depends not on being human but on being useful.

But ending money would change the questions. Without money, society would stop asking ‘Is this profitable?’ and begins asking questions like ‘Is this necessary?, ‘Is this sustainable?’, ‘Does this improve life for people and the planet?’ When production becomes needs-based, technology serves life, not return on investment, and durability replaces planned obsolescence.

It’s not that people aren’t trying to save the planet within the today’s monetary system — many are. But every serious environmental effort is forced to operate against the system’s underlying logic. Renewable energy must compete with fossil fuels on price. Ecosystem protection must justify itself in economic terms. Climate action must promise growth, jobs, and returns to be considered ‘realistic’. In other words, nature is allowed to survive only if it can be made profitable. And this creates a constant contradiction: we try to heal the planet while preserving the very engine that requires its continued destruction. As long as money, debt, and growth remain the organizing principles of society, ecological protection will always be partial, fragile, and reversible — tolerated only until it threatens profits. That’s why saving the planet without ending the monetary system is not just difficult; it may be structurally impossible.

You may say ‘What can we have instead? This is the only system we’ve got.’ But is it? When land, water, and ecosystems are no longer owned for profit, extraction loses its incentive, care becomes collective, and long-term thinking becomes natural.

Stewardship replaces ownership. The guiding question shifts from ‘How can we extract as much as possible?’ to ‘How do we keep this system healthy for ourselves and future generations?’ Just as a humanity stripped of dignity will compete, consume, and destroy, a humanity that feels safe, valued, and meaningful does not need to dominate its environment.

So while ending the monetary system does not magically save the planet, it does remove the root incentive that is currently destroying it — and it also gives both Earth and humanity a chance to recover. This is the core vision explored in my book, Waking Up – A Journey Towards a New Dawn for Humanity, a story that doesn’t ask whether such a new world is perfect, but whether it becomes possible once the old rules are removed. The question is no longer whether we can afford to imagine a world beyond money. The question is whether we can afford not to.

Harald Sandø

Reply:

We broadly agree, though we see the imperative to growth that is built into capitalism as resulting from its economic drive to make and accumulate more profit rather than from having to make money to repay interest on debt – Editors.

Blogger's Note:

Harald Sandø's novel was reviewed in August 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard.

Material World: Life without money (2025)

The Material World column from the December 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

It’s an ambiguous phrase. It can mean trying to survive without using money within or at the margins of existing money-dominated society. Or it can mean a change of society to one in which money would be redundant.

Then there is the question of what is meant by ‘money’. There are those who want to replace notes and coins, cheques and electronic transfers by labour credits or consumption vouchers. Others though might regard them as only wanting a different form of money. But then, Karl Marx, a critic and opponent of money, envisaged using ‘labour-time vouchers’ instead of money in the early stages of socialism before it became possible to go over to full free distribution and full free access.

Nobody is arguing that all that needs to be done is to abolish money and leave everything else unchanged. That would be madness and would lead to a breakdown of production and distribution. If you’ve got a system based on producing goods and services for profit, you’ve got to have money. So, no, we don’t want to go back to barter.

Socialists want to replace the present capitalist system with a new system based on common ownership instead of ownership by the few and with production directly to meet people’s needs instead of production for sale on a market with a view to profits. In such a socialist (or communist society – the two words mean the same) money would be redundant. So we don’t want to ‘abolish money’ full-stop. We want a change to a society with a system of production and distribution in which money would be redundant and so would disappear.

For us, the case against money is the case against capitalism. Capitalism is the system which now dominates the world. No country escapes or can escape from its influence and effects. It is essentially an economic system where the means for producing useful goods and services take the form of ‘capital’, or wealth used to produce more wealth with a view to profit, where the goods and services produced take the form of ‘exchange value’; they all have a price and have to be exchanged for money.

The farms, factories, offices and other places where wealth is produced are owned and controlled by rich individuals, capitalist corporations and states. Under the pressure of competition, those in charge of these ‘units of capital’ are driven to seek as much profit as they can, not so much for the personal benefit of the owners (though this does come into it) as to get funds to reinvest in cost-cutting innovations so as to be able to compete with, and outcompete, their rivals. One consequence of this is that more and more capital is accumulated. This in fact is what capitalism is all about: the accumulation of more capital out of profits.

One consequence of this is that over time the means of production and their productive power have built up and society has now become able, in theory, to produce enough useful goods and services to meet people’s needs. But the economic mechanism of capitalism does not let this happen. Making profits and re-investing them as more capital always comes first.

It’s an irrational system of ‘production for production’s sake’, of ‘growth for growth’s sake’. There are other anti-social results of capitalism. Such as the recurring economic crises and slumps. Such as the wars and preparation for war that occur as capitalist states compete over sources of raw material, trade routes, markets and investment outlets. Such as putting short-term cost considerations before protecting the environment and respecting a balance of nature. And it does not allow production to be geared to meeting the needs of people for food, clothes, housing, healthcare, education and the other amenities for an enjoyable life.

People’s needs are met but only to an extent – to the extent that they have money to pay for them. There are various ways an individual can get money. They can inherit it (be born with it). They can steal it. They can beg for it. Or they can work for it – which is what most people do. We don’t criticise those who try to avoid this by establishing rural communes or by living off what they find in skips. That’s a lifestyle choice but not an attractive one for most people. We don’t even criticise those who choose to steal money as long as they steal from the rich.

But what sort of society is it where most people have to fend for themselves to get money so they can access what they need to live – and where, even in a developed country like Britain, 10-15 percent can’t keep up and are forced to rely on more or less meagre handouts from the state? This when society has the technology to produce enough for all, especially if we get rid of capitalism’s artificial scarcity (the need to make a profit holds back producing enough to meet people’s needs) and its organised scarcity (not just of wars and preparation for war, but also all of the resources devoted to the counting and transfer of money).

As socialists, we say capitalism must go if we’re going to be able to provide a decent living for every man, woman and child on the planet.

What is needed in place of capitalism is for the Earth’s resources to become the common heritage of all. Then, they could be geared to satisfying people’s needs. If productive resources were commonly owned, then so would what they produced. The issue to be dealt with would be, not how to sell to people what had been produced (how could they buy when they’re already the joint owners?). It’s how to share out what’s been produced. In other words, exchange (buying and selling) is replaced by distribution (sharing out and receiving). For this, money is not needed.

It’s possible – right at the beginning or as a result of some major natural disaster – that some useful things might be temporarily unavailable in sufficient quantities. In which case there would have to be a temporary rationing of them till supplies were increased or restored. But, given modern technology and capacity to produce, the general rule (and certainly the aim to be reached as rapidly as possible) would be free distribution and free access, the implementation of the old communist principle of ‘from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs’. With free public transport, healthcare, education, gas, water, electricity, telephone, internet access, and other public services and amenities. And people free to take from the stores and distribution centres according to their needs. There would be no need for money. It would be redundant. The notes, coins and cards we now use would find their proper place in museums.

Adam Buick

Letter: Beyond money (2025)

Letter to the Editors from the November 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

Beyond money

Dear Editors

I want to thank the Socialist Standard for the thoughtful and generous review of my book Unchained: Living Without Money in the September 2025 issue. It is both humbling and encouraging to see my work placed in conversation with such a long tradition of literature and activism envisioning a society beyond money.

Your review captured well the spirit in which the book was written: to help people imagine what it might look like to move from a system based on scarcity and profit to one rooted in cooperation, equity, and access. I especially appreciate your recognition of how Unchained seeks to address common objections — from ‘human nature’ to so-called ‘dirty work’ — in ways that reframe the conversation around what capitalism itself conditions us to believe.

At the same time, I want to briefly clarify the ‘non-political’ framing you note. My intent was not to dismiss the necessity of political action, but to emphasize the power of grassroots practice, imagination, and lived experiments in shifting consciousness. Free stores, time banks, mutual aid networks, and community projects may not abolish capitalism on their own, but they expand people’s horizons of possibility. They give form to what many assume is impossible and, in doing so, prepare the ground for larger systemic change.

I understand and respect the Socialist Party of Great Britain’s long-standing position that governments under capitalism cannot be instruments for emancipation. Where I differ is in leaving space for the possibility that policies such as universal housing or healthcare, while constrained, can normalize access-based thinking and open cracks through which movements grow. History is full of examples where small openings in the system gave people the courage and imagination to demand far more. I do not view these reforms as endpoints, but as catalysts.

What encourages me most is the clear common ground between us. Whether we emphasize revolutionary political action or grassroots contributionist models, the destination we envision is strikingly similar: a democratic world without money, bosses, or exploitation, where governance becomes the transparent administration of things and not the rule of people. I believe the diversity of approaches can be complementary rather than contradictory. Political strategy and cultural practice need not compete; together they can reinforce one another in the shared project of building a society based on need, not profit.

Thank you again for your generous reading. I hope Unchained can continue to serve as a small contribution to the broader movement the SPGB has long championed. The task before us is too urgent and too vast to allow our differences of approach to overshadow the deep unity of purpose that animates us both.

Justin Fairchild

Letter: Money system (2000)

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

Money system

Dear Editors,

Tim Collier (Letters, July) is right when he says that reform of the tax system would be Utopian, for greed, self-interest and aggression are endemic to any money system. We are so accustomed to dealing with money that we have come to think in its terms and find it difficult to imagine a world without it.

Money was useful in the past when local conditions created temporary shortages, but had there been overall scarcity, world populations would not have expanded from a few scattered tribes to the billions we have today.

It is the money system that creates the scarcity, because money has to be limited in order to maintain its value. But since today our digital information systems can make knowledge of what is required instantaneously available, and we can manipulate the bases of matter to produce it without limit, the use of money is the only impediment to the satisfaction of wants.

We have laws to protect property so that eventually, without market pressures to buy and the need to flaunt luxury articles as a sign of wealth, the concept of possession, individual or collective, would disappear.

It is the money system that restricts choice and freedom.

M.B.A. Chapman, 

Bath

Editorial: This money business (1956)

Editorial from the October 1956 issue of the Socialist Standard 

Socialists do not hold that “money is the root of all evil". (And before knowledgeable readers rush for their pens to let us know that we have the quotation wrong, Socialists likewise do not hold that it is the love of money that is at fault.) What Socialists hold is that the root evil of the modern world is Capitalism, the social system based on private ownership of the means of production and distribution. Capitalism presupposes the existence of an owning class and of a working class, and the whole arrangement for producing goods and services for sale at a profit. Money is a necessary part of Capitalism. It is not the root, but a rank, festering jungle growth on the surface in which the world's population blindly gropes its way.

The way the Socialist views this jungle growth is quite unlike the way of the various non and anti-Socialists. This is an acid test and it separates the Socialist from all the others. When the Liberal or Tory believer in Capitalism says “Of course you can’t do without money,” he is at least talking a sort of sense, for what he means is that you can’t have Capitalism without a money system. But the Socialist has no desire to keep Capitalism and knows very well that if you have Socialism you do not need and could not have a money system.

It is at this point that the Labourite and Communist joins the Liberal and Tory and echoes their jibe that nobody in his senses really believes in a world without money. Which just goes to show what a deplorable effect the Labour and Communist policy of running Capitalism has had on their ideas. Half a century ago not only Socialists but also the pioneers of the organisations that eventually produced the Labour and Communist parties were quite familiar with this proposition and felt no need to break into asinine guffaws about it. They knew then that this was an essential part of Socialism. Now their successors are deeply shocked by the suggestion, which comes to them out of their forgotten past as from another world. They have handled Capitalist problems so long that they are Capitalist-minded. Now they line up with the open defenders of Capitalism to produce their muddled plans for dealing with dollar gaps, balance of trade deficits, inflation, direct and indirect taxation and all the rest of the rigmarole. And what a rigmarole it all is.

Let us ask them one question. When they say “you can’t do without money,” what is it they think they are doing with the money system. Anyone who wants a good laugh should go to any of the orthodox economic text-books and read about the functions money is supposed to perform, or alternately go to any Labour or Communist electoral programme and compare their promises of what they would do with what they actually do when in office, here or in Russia. One of the jokes in the textbooks is that money is “universally acceptable.” Apart from dollars and gold bullion there is hardly a currency in the world that meets this requirement. Or take the nearly universal swindle of the past quarter of a century practiced on depositors in savings banks. Authority assures them, and they believe, that they will get their money back, with interest; in fact they get back depreciated currency which will buy far less than the amount originally deposited.

It isn't only Socialists who are critical of the ever more complex monetary and taxation systems. Money is supposed, according to the textbooks, to smooth the working of industry, promote greater production and in particular to facilitate efficient international exchange. Yet, what do we see? In America farmers have for years been paid money to increase production., Now the stuff has piled up into mountains of unsaleable surpluses while elsewhere in the world, and in America itself, are millions of undernourished people who cannot afford to buy it.

On this ponder the Economist (June 9, 1956);—

“Farmers will soon be ploughing growing crops back into the ground under Government auspices, something they have not done since 1933."

The American Government is now going to stifle production by paying farmers to take land out of the cultivation of cotton, maize, wheat, rice, tobacco and peanuts. But because the Bill could not be passed in time by Congress some of these crops are already growing and to get the money from the Government for not producing crops the farmers are being allowed to plough them in. Mr. John O’Rourke, editor of the Washington Daily News, who is in this country, read about the English titled lady who was ejected from her farm for not producing enough crops (for which incidentally British farmers likewise receive government subsidies). So Mr. O’Rourke wrote to the Daily Express (June 11, 1956) suggesting that this crazy muddle could be straightened out by a trans-Atlantic switch; let the English lady lease her unproductive farm to an American who could then be paid for not having produced, and in return she could hire an over-productive American farm and be paid by the English Government for producing more. Would this be crazy? Surely, but not more so than the reality.

And in face of this, the empty-headed opponents of Socialism tell us that it would not work!

Now take a glance at two believers in Capitalism and see what they have to say about their money system. First, Mr. George Murray, who in the Daily Mail (February 20, 1956) had an article “Is Money Out of Date?” 

"Between the wars Britain tried deflation as the remedy for her currency troubles. The result was that prices and wages fell. We had to drive such hard bargains with our overseas suppliers of food and raw materials that they could not afford to buy our goods. We had chronic unemployment. To-day we are hell-bent for inflation. The result of this is that the price of our goods is forced so high that our overseas customers still cannot afford to buy them, though they are much better supplied with money. And we have 'overfull' employment"

Mr Murray, who, of course, does not really/believe that money is “out of date,” lamely ends with a "plea for finding, somehow or other, some means to strike a balance: as if Capitalism ever did, or ever could provide price stability and an uninterrupted flow of production and sale. 

Lastly, there is the witty and sometimes shrewd economist who is permitted by the Sunday Times to poke irreverent fun at our rulers and their financial antics, Mr. George Schwartz. In the issue for April 15,1956, he discussed the popular but quite baseless belief that Chancellors of the Exchequer are really able to master the monetary monster nominally under their control. Mr. Schwartz doesn't think that Mr. MacMillan even understands the simpler aspects of monetary policy such as the connection between the note issue and the price level; but even if he did, it is Schwartz’s opinion that the whole thing is now hardly comprehensible or controllable. Here is a typical passage:—

“Who’s in charge of it? I can tell you that right away. No one. Of course, Chancellors talk largely of operating switches and of pulling plugs as if they were in charge of a control panel that registered the pressure in every part of the kingdom, and the outside world as well. But it is nothing like that. A Chancellor to-day is confronted with a vast refuse heap of smouldering fiscal expedients that have piled up over the past fifty years. On Budget day he can only make elaborate flourishes and then deliver a few pokes at the accumulated rubbish. If he did any more it might come down on his head or burst into flames. At the end of this ritual the Chancellor mounts the pile for a peroration, and for the rest of the week there is a rattling of the lids of empty dustbins which passes for a debate."

Mr. Schwartz delivers many more blows at the monetary and fiscal system, and ends by demanding at once and just as a first instalment the instant abolition of purchase tax, entertainment tax and the distributed profits tax. But does Mr. Schwartz believe that this will be done? and if it were would it seriously diminish the monumental muddle? Capitalism is a mess, of which its monetary contortions are a symptom. There is no cure within Capitalism. There is even little chance that it will ever get back to the crude but less complicated monetary chaps of the 19th century. Socialism offers the only way and by comparison its proposition that people of the world shall co-operate to produce what the world needs and provide free access to it, without ownership, sale or profit, is simplicity itself. And if you think it still sounds shocking in its simplicity, a little thought about it will soon rid it of its terrors for you.

“Money Must Go”: Letter from the authors (1946)

Letter to the Editors from the September 1946 issue of the Socialist Standard

The authors of “Money Must Go” write the following letter about the review published in our July issue : —

Dear Comrades,

We were pleased to see the review of our book, “Money Must Go,” in the July issue of the Socialist Standard. May we draw attention to several statements made by the reviewer, L.J., which might give a wrong impression?

(1) The book is not intended to be “an attempt to simplify some of the fundamental ideas on Socialism,” if by this is meant the critical analysis of Capitalism, etc., which is the basis of Scientific Socialism and constitutes the bulk of its teaching. It is intended to suggest to the Socialist propagandist a different mode of approach to the problem of interesting workers in fundamental social change. It does this by (a) giving a general picture of Socialist society in order to induce interest in Socialism as a practical project; and (b) by emphasising the moneyless character of that society, which factor sharply demarcates the Socialist aim from those of all pseudo-socialist factions. On the other hand it provides a means of implanting the idea of Socialism as a working system of society in the mind of the non-socialist without using “that blessed word.” We are of the opinion that the word “Socialism” has become so debased through constant use by reformist organisations and “political tricksters” that the use of the word can well be delayed until the idea has sunk in. For the use of the term “World Commonwealth” we have a precedent in the Socialist Standard of May, 1922.

(2) We think that the charge of “over-insistence that money is ‘the root of all evil'” is unjustified. This dictum is referred to but once (p. 15), and there we merely point out that such an idea was current about a hundred years ago. We do refer to the ownership of the means of wealth production by a small minority as the cause of the poverty of the majority (p. 7) and to the class division of society as the source of social evils (p. 13). Neither do we “make a direct attack on money” nor propose its simple abolition. We advocate, and in this book supply a positive approach to the idea of a world without money and in which goods are produced solely for use and/or free distribution as an alternative to the present system of production for profit (p. 16). That with the achievement of such a system the means of production would simultaneously become commonly owned by the whole of the community is implied in unorthodox fashion on page 17. Nevertheless, the statement at the top of page 17 (incompletely quoted by L.J.) is quite true. A statement of the same nature which accords with L.J.’s version is given on page 132. We have found that this approach induces interest, whereas the use of the economic and more precise terminology does not. Interest precedes desire. Workers can themselves easily see the possibilities of life in such a world organisation. It is so simple to visualise a world in which all capable of working take their part in the world’s work and in which all the goods produced are distributed to stores and warehouses from which the people will take according to their needs without payment of any kind. True, money is a medium of exchange. Then surely if there is to be no exchange there will be no need for a medium of exchange. Is not this as simple to understand as the four characteristics of capitalism, given by L.J. ?

(3) We do not define Socialism—we explain it. We conceive it as a system of society. On page 25, and again on the back cover, we concisely sum up the essential characteristics of a Moneyless World Commonwealth. The term “common ownership” may be precise in meaning to those who know what it really means. This did not prevent the Common Wealth Party from using it—to mean something quite different.

(4) To most workers the State appears as an abstraction, an intangible power above society, but controlling it and manifesting itself through the individuals that compose it. Similarly the “heavy hand of ‘the law,'” referred to by L.J. To them, more concrete is the heavy hand of the policeman, and later, the heavier hand of the gaoler. As a “public power of coercion” we do explain the State adequately on page 121.

(5) We deny our “misreading of the class struggle.” In its first and present phase the class struggle is only over the question of the division of the workers’ product. The “wages, hours of labour, conditions of work, etc.,” referred to by L.J. are essentially aspects of this. There is hardly as yet a “political struggle over the ownership of the means of wealth production.” That is yet to come, and we show its necessity in Chapter 18.

(6) “Clarity is essential in explaining Socialism.” We do that. But almost all Socialist propaganda is devoted to explaining capitalism and neglects to explain the features of Socialism as an alternative system of society. It is that we deplore, and we have tried to show how this shortcoming can be made good. The important question directed to Socialist propagandists to-day is, “How will Socialism work?”, and this should be seized upon as a potent means of agitation. Explaining capitalism can well come later.

(7) “Confusion plays into the hands of those who defend capitalism.” Again true. And it is for this reason we avoid the use of those precise terms, “capitalism,” ”working class,” “Socialism,” “class struggle.” In spite of their precision in use by Socialists these words have been and still are used by every confusionist party claiming working-class support. Every schoolboy “knows” what Socialism means—so does the Evening Standard ! Precise terms can be used by opponents to spread confusion. We have found mental pictures more useful for our purpose.

(8) “The word Commonwealth is not synonymous with Socialism.” In “Money Must Go!” we do not once refer to “Commonwealth” alone; always to “World Commonwealth,” and at least once in each chapter we add the adjective “Moneyless.” The comment that “its use by all sorts of political tricksters should have warned the writer of its vague and confusing character” therefore does not apply to “World Commonwealth.” The comment as it stands can be applied aptly to the word “Socialism.” Even Hitler used it !

Fraternally,

PHILOREN.

Philo—

—Ren.

Reply:

“Philoren” has swopped horses. In his preface to “Money Must Go” he says that the “main purpose” and the “only justification” for the book is that he is sure that the “great mass of the people” will accept the ideal of World Commonwealth, “would they but take the trouble of understanding the barest essentials of the idea.” His suggestion that it was intended to show Socialist propagandists a different “approach” is only an afterthought. We are answering paragraphs 1, 3, 7 and 8 in one section as they deal largely with the same subject matter.

He does not deny that he avoids using definite terms; on the contrary, he states, “Precise terms can be used by opponents to spread confusion.” Is that a good reason for substituting confusing and vague terms in place of words that have a definite meaning? Why do political parties which serve capitalist interests use such words as “the people” or “the Commonwealth”? Simply because they are vague, abstract and indefinite terms. In 1940-41 a “People’s Convention” was organised, which demanded a “People’s Peace”; others described the war as a “people’s war”; an ex-Liberal formed a “Commonwealth Party,” while apologists refer to the Empire as the “British Commonwealth of Nations”; many other instances could be given of this use of abstract Language, which hides more than it reveals. That “Philoren” had to go to a Socialist Standard of 24 years ago to find the term “World Commonwealth” is a sign that it has fallen out of use with Socialists, while it is increasingly used by non-socialists. Socialism is clear enough without using the ponderous “Moneyless World Commonwealth.” If others use the name of Socialism to spread confusion, that is all the greater reason for us to insist on its real meaning and to increase our efforts to get it understood by workers. The task of doing “long and persistent” educational work cannot be evaded by dropping scientific methods and using the slovenly jargon of our enemies.

(2) If words mean anything, then we are right in saying that “Philoren” insists on money being the cause of social problems. He describes the present system as a “money-based system.” On page 96 he says, “Think of all the misery, the worry and the illness all caused by these funny pieces of metal,” while later, we are told that, “In a sense woman is doubly enslaved—to man and to money” (page 99). We showed that money is not the basis of capitalism and he has not troubled to answer that point. He claims that he refers to the class division as the source of social evils (page 13), but, as a matter of fact, it is the “ever-widening division of the people into rich and poor” that he states gives rise to social problems; a view held by the Labour Party and other reformists who seek to narrow the gulf between rich and poor. “Philoren” knows that nothing was omitted from the quotation from Page 17, which altered its meaning.

(4) Because, it is claimed, most workers regard the State as an “abstraction,” are we to call it that? A feeble reason to give for an incorrect view. The explanation on Page 121 is not adequate but most sketchy. He merely deals with the State as a deterrent to “crime” ; its function as a power holding in check the disruptive force of class struggles is not touched upon.

(5) Because the working class is not class conscious in the sense of understanding the full implications and significance of the class struggle, “Philoren” assumes that the “present phase” of the struggle is only over wages, etc. This, we repeat, is a misreading of the class struggle. The class struggle exists, otherwise how could a political party whose purpose is to end the private ownership of the means of wealth production come into existence? What is the Socialist Party but the expression of the class struggle on the political field. He states that he advocates political action in Chapter 18, but it is after suggesting political action that he refers to the class struggle as “no more” than a struggle over a “bone.” In any case, to state that political action is “yet to come” is simply ignoring the existence and activities of the S.P.G.B.

(6) Both here and in the latter part of section 2 (Workers can themselves easily . . . without payment of any kind) he shows that he is nothing more than an Utopian Socialist. He wants us to cut down our criticism of the ugly economic system under which we live and draw up beautiful schemes of the new society in the hope that they will attract workers. Many Utopian Socialists did this in the past and their beautiful schemes are infantile in relation to modern conditions. Not merely that; Socialists are not building a “brave new world” from any “blue prints”; they have, in the words of Marx, “to set free the elements of the new society with which the old bourgeois society itself is pregnant.” Capitalism fetters the free production of goods—and it is through explaining the nature of those fetters, the economic laws of capitalism, that we create amongst workers the desire to break those fetters. The problems that face workers are the problems of capitalism, and we concentrate on explaining capitalism in order to pave the way to Socialist understanding. Workers who understand capitalism, generally desire and work for Socialism; they want no fanciful dreams to stimulate them to play their part in ending the hideous reality of capitalism.

L. J.

Unchained: living without money (2025)

Book Review from the September 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

In recent times we have reported on and reviewed a variety of books and other publications which have made the case for a world without money and buying and selling. Some of these, such as Description of the World of Tomorrow: A World Without Money or Barter or Exchange: a Civilisation of Free Access by Jean-Francois Aupetitgendre and Marc Chinal and Moneyless Society: the Next Economic Evolution by Matthew Holten, are essentially ‘non-political’ in that they see the new society they advocate as evolving somehow ‘naturally’ through an extension of social developments they see as already taking place in the currently existing order. Others, like Half-Earth Socialism: a Plan to Save the Future from Extinction, Climate Change and Pandemics by Troy Vettese and Drew Pendergrass and Beyond Money: A Post-Capitalist Strategy by Anitra Nelson, see the change to a new moneyless, wageless, leaderless society of common ownership, democratic decision-making and free access as ultimately coming through revolutionary (albeit peaceful) channels with a focus on the need for political action by the majority to bring about that revolution.

Now to add to the list we have Unchained. Living Without Money by Justin Fairchild (2025, 269pp), which makes much the same case – and in its own refreshing and plausibly argued way. It falls very much into that first ‘non-political’ category, picking up as it does on many aspects of existing society and activities by certain groups and individuals which it sees as leading towards a different kind of society – one based on a moneyless form of living. In this objective it aligns closely with what the Socialist Party has advocated over the last 120 years: a wholly democratic society of meaningful work which frees all humans from the threat of poverty and where the government of people is replaced by the administration of things. This book staunchly argues the need for a move from – in the author’s own words – ‘a system built on scarcity and competition to one grounded in cooperation, equity, and access’.

Objections and roadmap

It also confronts very effectively indeed many of the typical objections to the possibility of this kind of society. Examples of this are the ‘human nature’ argument (ie, aren’t human beings selfish, competitive and aggressive by nature?), the ‘dirty work’ criticism (ie, ‘If there’s no money, who will take out the trash? Clean the toilets? Work in sewage treatment plants?’), and the ‘resources’ challenge (ie, would there be enough to go round?). The author answers all such objections in a convincing and well-reasoned way while providing evidence of the social conditioning that puts them in people’s heads in the first place and showing how these arise from processes fundamental to the society we live in – capitalism. He points to the way in which ‘capitalism centers money as the organizing force of life’ and ‘incentivizes cost-cutting over care, scale over sustainability, and individual gain over collective well-being’. At the same time he shows a compelling awareness of the difficulties of overcoming the existing mindset and of imagining a society without money, given that ‘the use of money is so woven into daily life’ and ‘shapes nearly every decision we make—from what we eat to how we live to what we dream about’. Yet he is clearly optimistic about the possibility for change.

But how? How will humans go about organising an interconnected world system of living without the intermediary of money? How will they, as the author puts it, ‘distribute food, housing, tools, and medicine without the invisible hand of the market or the coercive power of profit?’ To attempt to answer this, he lays out what he calls ‘a roadmap’, or ‘a framework’, for the ‘journey to a moneyless society’. And certain elements of this we would fully accept, in particular the idea that public dialogue and consciousness-raising are necessary to ‘normalize the idea that economies can be organized around needs and contributions, not scarcity and profit’ and ‘to inspire people to question the assumption that money is natural or inevitable, and to help them imagine alternatives’. We would also agree that, without widespread acceptance of the idea of a society based on need not profit, such a society could not be established. No minority group could hope to lead the majority to such a society until that majority understand it and are active participants in its establishment.

Governments and elections

But we would part company with the author in his idea that the necessary raising of consciousness can somehow be contributed to by governments. The previously mentioned ‘non-political’ nature of his vision means that he does not share (or has perhaps not considered) the Socialist Party’s view that the unchangeable role of any government in modern capitalist society is to defend and support the interests of the minority owning class – those who do not have the need to sell their energies to an employer for a wage or salary in order to survive. So we see as a non-starter his idea that governments can somehow be used to facilitate this process of ‘systematic transformation’ by granting, for example ‘universal access to housing, food and healthcare’, or bringing in ‘ownership laws that support open collaboration’.

Of course, there is one aspect of the current system of government that can be used to establish a marketless, free-access society – and that is the ballot box. Democratic political action by the majority class (ie, wage and salary workers) can be the instrument for establishing the kind of society whose salient features are laid out in this book. But this can only happen once this majority has the necessary consciousness and understanding of the society they wish to establish and take the necessary political power to do that. So, though, in these circumstances, a transition in people’s thinking and decision-making will have taken place, the new society will be brought in by a political revolution and not just a social ‘transition’ with capitalism being democratically voted out of existence. The point is that this new society cannot coexist with capitalism, not even, as the author has it, ‘in transition’, where, as he would like, ‘hybrid models—local currencies, time banks, free stores—can operate alongside capitalist economies’.

‘Contributionism’

Having marked this difference in perspective with the author, we can only welcome his overall vision and indeed his interesting attempts to draw a picture of a society in which ‘cooperation replaces competition, access replaces ownership, purpose replaces profit’. To this society he gives the name ‘contributionism’. He talks about education in it as being ‘holistic – teaching emotional regulation, empathy, and conflict resolution from an early age’, and as ‘no longer preparation for a career’ but ‘preparation for a life of meaning, contribution, and community’, teaching ‘people to care, to think, to connect, and to act, and nurturing ’potential, curiosity, and joy’. As for economic organisation, he lays down, in broad terms, that ‘planning and transparency replace pricing’, but also offers much more detailed proposals, stating, for example, that ‘without markets, goods must be distributed differently’, with ‘direct resource allocation’. Some ‘working models’ he puts forward are ’centralized or decentralized hubs where people access food, clothing, tools, or medical supplies based on need’, ‘digital or in-person boards where people list what they need and what they can offer with matching taking place automatically or through community coordination’, and ‘rotational use systems’ where ‘items like cars, equipment, or appliances are used on a rotating basis, tracked by open systems’. He stresses the potential of automation and AI in this process, whereby ‘resource use is tracked, shared, and constantly rebalanced to reflect actual needs, not artificial demand’. And sharing our own insistence on fully democratic organisation and decision-making, he goes on: ‘Decisions are made publicly. Everyone has a voice. Governance becomes a tool of the people’. And all this with ‘no cash, no boss—just shared trust and transparent systems.’

Wide-ranging

He has thought-provoking insights into a range of other areas too. Examples of this are the forms that art, culture and creativity would take in his ‘contributionist’ society and how ‘crime and punishment’ would be approached (‘justice is no longer synonymous with punishment’ but ‘becomes restorative—focused on healing harm— and transformative—focused on changing the conditions that created it’, and ‘without a system of winners and losers, the desperation that drives theft, fraud, and exploitation fades’). He recognises of course that no human society can eliminate all disputes between groups or individuals (‘a moneyless society does not assume perfection’), but he has clearly reflected closely on how dispute resolution in the society he is arguing for might be managed and his views on conflict resolution are nothing if not instructive and broadly summed up in the insistence that such resolution should be ‘rooted in values of restoration and community’.

In a relatively short space, it is difficult to do full justice to the wide-ranging exposition of ideas that this book presents. However, to give some idea of both its depth and breadth, we would draw attention to examples both of the trenchant nature of the author’s overall take on capitalism and of his characterisation of some of the salient features of the ‘contributionism’ (we would call it ‘socialism’) which he advocates to replace it. So, it is worth quoting the following: ‘While capitalism has generated immense material wealth and technological progress, it also rewards exploitation and short-term thinking. It incentivizes cost-cutting over care, scale over sustainability, and individual gain over collective well-being’; ‘Without money, work becomes cooperative by necessity … Instead of rigid hierarchies, decision-making is decentralized and democratic. Projects are launched based on needs, and people opt in where their interests and abilities align’; and ‘without profit pressure, decisions can center on resource stewardship, renewable energy, and ecological balance—not quarterly returns. Finally, as the author also writes: ‘A moneyless society doesn’t claim to be perfect. But it directly addresses the root issues [of] inequality, alienation, and environmental ruin.’

Howard Moss

Blogger's Note:

Oct 2022: Description of the World of Tomorrow: A World Without Money or Barter or Exchange: a Civilisation of Free Access by Jean-Francois Aupetitgendre and Marc Chinal 

Jan 2023: Moneyless Society: the Next Economic Evolution by Matthew Holten

Mar 2023: Half-Earth Socialism: a Plan to Save the Future from Extinction, Climate Change and Pandemics by Troy Vettese and Drew Pendergrass

Oct 2022: Beyond Money: A Post-Capitalist Strategy by Anitra Nelson

Response to our question (2025)

From the September 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

Last month’s Socialist Standard contained a review of a new book entitled Waking Up. A Journey Towards a New Dawn for Humanity. Though a work of science-fiction imagining a world with far more advanced forms of technology than currently exist, it advocates and attempts to describe the same kind of society the Socialist Party has campaigned for throughout its existence – stateless, moneyless, marketless and with common ownership, voluntary cooperation and free access to all goods and services. It depicted, to use the author’s own words, a society of ‘seamless harmony between humans and nature’ with everyone leading ‘their own versions of a good life, respecting each other and the planet’.

One reservation the review had, however, was that there was no explanation of how we got there in the first place, how it all happened. The book’s author, Harald Sandø, has now taken up that challenge by providing a short, imagined account of the ‘shift that changed everything’, of the ‘move from a system of money, ownership, debt, competition, war and scarcity to a world of cooperation, sharing, abundance and peace’. He has also said he may integrate this into a future edition of the book. It happened, his account says, via a shift in consciousness of a ‘spiritual’ kind, whereby people voluntarily ‘began questioning the foundational assumptions of the system’. Even billionaires did this and this was especially important since they were the ones who funded the new system. They became out-and-out philanthropists redirecting private property to become ‘humanity’s shared inheritance’, so that ‘paradoxically enough the new moneyless world was created with money’. All this, we are told, happened in an entirely voluntary way with ‘no war’, ‘no forced redistribution’ and ‘no bloody revolution’.

We have in common with Harald Sandø one important aspect of this vision. That is the idea that the shift from the current society of private ownership and control, gross inequality and production for profit – which we call capitalism – to a society of common ownership, economic equality and production for need – which we call socialism – requires a profound shift of consciousness by the overwhelming majority of the population. We cannot, however, regard as plausible his notion that this will somehow be triggered by the generosity of billionaires electing to share their fortunes. Rather we see the prime condition – the sole condition in fact – for such a change in a spread of consciousness among the vast majority of wage and salary workers, which will then impel them, by democratic use of the vote, to take the power necessary to abolish capitalism and set about organising a genuine socialist society – very much of the kind looked forward to by the author of Waking Up and by a good number of others with a similar vision.

So though we welcome this book as, to quote the author’s own words, ‘a canvas for exploring possibilities’ and ‘an invitation to imagine, question and reflect’, we would insist on the need for democratic political action by the majority as a prerequisite for the successful establishment and organisation of the kind of society we share his desire for.

Howard Moss

Waking up (2025)

Book Review from the August 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

One of the common jibes directed at the Socialist Party is that, though we have been in existence well over 100 years, we have made little or no progress in garnering support for the system we advocate to replace capitalism. We’re talking here about a stateless, moneyless, marketless society of common ownership, voluntary cooperation and free access to all goods and services – one that will be organised democratically on the basis of from each according to ability to each according to need. Our response to the jibe has always been that what we are at least doing is keeping the idea of that society alive and it will be there for the majority to establish once social consciousness has developed sufficiently for them to see the necessity of it.

Positive signs?

And we do see some positive moves in that direction, evidenced by the idea of a moneyless, borderless world society being advocated from a variety of quarters, often quite independent of any contact with or knowledge of the Socialist Party. In recent times, for example, we have reviewed books such as Beyond Money: A Post-Capitalist Strategy by Anitra Nelson from Australia and Description of the World of Tomorrow: A World Without Money or Barter or Exchange: a Civilisation of Free Access by Jean-Francois Aupetitgendre and Marc Chinal from France. A couple of years ago, in the United States, we had Moneyless Society: the Next Economic Evolution from Matthew Holton, founder of the ‘Moneyless Society’ Facebook site, which boasts 20,000 members. Earlier this year, Justin Fairchild, also from the US, brought out Unchained: Living Without Money, advocating a society in which ‘cooperation replaces competition, access replaces ownership, purpose replaces profit’. And now, from Harald Neslein Sandø, a Norwegian living in Spain and writing in English, we have Waking Up. A Journey Towards a New Dawn for Humanity, whose subject of exploration is unmistakeably the kind of society we have always advocated, even though he does not call it, as we do, ‘socialism’ or ‘communism’.

Exploring possibilities

Sandø ‘s book also differs from the others in that it is a work of fiction, science fiction in fact. In his introductory note, the author describes science fiction as ‘a canvas for exploring possibilities’ and his book as ‘an invitation to imagine, question and reflect’. It chooses, in fact, to tell the wholly imaginary story of an individual, Benjamin, who, having been cryogenically frozen when about to die from cancer in 2015, is brought back to life 100 years later after a new society has been established. This is a society based no longer on money but on ‘community effort’, where, as Benjamin is told by one of the first characters he meets, there is ‘shared stewardship’ of the planet and ‘no one owns it – we belong to it’, and there is ‘no money, no ownership, no competition’.

We get little explanation of how this new state of things was brought about, apart from asides such as ‘the planet was about to collapse due to climate change and pollution’, ‘the need for a completely different system became clear’, ‘the monetary system was killing the planet as it demanded a constant overconsumption of resources’, ‘it was a global, democratic decision’, and ‘this transformation has been made possible through a new mindset – a mindset of trust and respect’. We are, however, supplied with intricate details about how the society operates via Benjamin’s discovery of the new way of living people have and the unimaginably advanced forms of technology that challenge everything he once knew. He finds a sustainable world in which human beings collaborate with one another, innovation thrives, mutual support has taken the place of conflict, and there are ‘no supervisors, no bosses, no payroll, no urgency’. And he is told: ‘For the first time in the written history of mankind … we have evolved to a stage where we can look at this planet as a whole, see humanity as one family, and live without borders. This is a world where we all coexist peacefully, without war.’ He also learns that ‘through the efficient management of resources, we have achieved a relative abundance that allows everyone to live comfortably in their own way, regardless of where they are in the world’. It has also become a world of regenerative agriculture where ‘rewilded landscapes flourished’ and which ‘thrived not on domination but on unity’. One of the characters Benjamin meets tells him: ‘We take care of each other, and in doing that, we take care of ourselves. There’s no struggle, no scarcity. Just collaboration.’ The same character goes on: ‘Human nature turned out to be not only selfish and violent. You can choose and, you choose friendliness, which I’m very happy for’.

Human interest

A bit of a fairy tale, a pipe dream, some might say. But it is made less of one – and given a certain plausibility – by the author’s continual explanation of how it works in practice, how the highly advanced technology used to make it operate has been developed and keeps developing. This plausibility is enhanced – and the reader is drawn into the narrative – by the ‘human’ story it tells of how the individual who has been brought back to life adapts to the new world he finds. The book had begun by painting a picture of Benjamin’s former existence when he was a billionaire capitalist driven entirely by the need he felt to accumulate wealth. Now on waking up to find that money plays no part in anyone’s existence, he first feels out of place, ‘obsolete’, ‘not knowing where he belongs’, as he puts it, and he (and we) wonder whether he will cope mentally, how he will accept and adjust to the completely new system and mindset he finds all around him..

As a way of trying to comfort Benjamin and ease his integration into the new world, the guide assigned to him puts an ingenious twist into what he is finding by saying ‘We are all capitalists, as we are living off the shared capital of the planet and universe’. He is then pulled into the drama of a small group of ‘renegades’ who seek (unsuccessfully) to sabotage things and return the world to its old competitive ways, but he comes out the other side in clear opposition to this and in support of a ‘borderless globe’, where, in words that he himself now utters, there is ‘seamless harmony between humans and nature’, where everyone leads ‘their own versions of a good life, respecting each other and the planet’. All this lends some genuine ‘human interest’ to what might otherwise be an accumulation of dry technological detail and, in fact, manages to make the book something of a page turner, its 200-odd pages having been devoured by the current writer in a single sitting.

How do we get there?

There is clearly some comparison to be made here with other attempts at depicting life and organisation in a future non-market society of voluntary cooperation and free access. For many it will bring to mind, for example, William Morris’s late 19th century News from Nowhere, Robert Llewellyn’s News from Gardenia from 2012, and, in particular, the very recent attempt by Troy Vettese and Drew Pendergrass (Half-Earth Socialism: A Plan to Save the Future from Extinction, Climate Change and Pandemics) to provide a kind of day-to-day outline of what a future society ‘without money or a market’ might be like, something they call ‘a total alternative to capitalism’ and offering, as the authors put it, ‘everything from a plan for resource allocation to an outline of what life will feel like’. The main difference between this book and Sandø’s, however, is that, while Vettese and Pendergrass’s depiction is founded on profound knowledge of and reflection on the scientific and technological problems that a marketless society would need to deal with and overcome, Sandø’s vision, while also technological, is far more ‘imaginative’, fantasy-laden one might say. At the same time, it must be said, this is a factor that contributes to its readability.

From a socialist point of view, the main problem that arises from Sandø’s book – and indeed the others mentioned here, including William Morris’s classic – is that none of them deal effectively with the ‘how’, ie, how we get there. None of them specify the spreading of consciousness by the vast majority of workers as the prime condition – the sole condition – under which a socially conscious working class can, by democratic use of the vote, take the power necessary to abolish capitalism and set about organising a genuine socialist society of the kind looked forward to by all these sources – even if they do not all necessarily use the term ‘socialism’ to describe it.

Howard Moss

Blogger's Note:

A number of the other books mentioned in this review have themselves been reviewed in previous Socialist Standards:

• Oct 2022: Beyond Money. A Post-Capitalist Strategy by Anitra Nelson
• Oct 2022: Description of the World of Tomorrow by Jean-Francois Aupetitgendre and Marc Chinal
• Jan 2023: Moneyless Society: the Next Economic Evolution by Matthew Holton
• Mar 2023: Half-Earth Socialism by Troy Vettese and Drew Pendergras

"Money Must Go": A Review (1946)

Book Review from the July 1946 issue of the Socialist Standard

We have been asked to review a booklet, “Money Must Go” (Published by J. Phillips, 203, Lordship Lane, N.17. Price 2s. 6d.). The subject matter is dealt with in the form of conversations between “Professor” and “George.” It is a genuine attempt to simplify some of the fundamental ideas on Socialism, although the writer, instead of using the word “Socialism,” uses the vague term “World Commonwealth.” Some of the ideas are all right, but we haven’t the space to deal with them here. There are, however, weaknesses, due to the over-insistence that money is “the root of all evil.”

The writer apparently holds the view that it is easier to make Socialists by a direct attack on money than by a direct attack on Capitalism. We do not hold this view. In our experience it is most difficult for workers to see that it is possible to produce and distribute wealth without the use of money, unless they have some knowledge of the elementary facts of capitalist production. Most workers regard money simply as a means of exchange, and nothing in this book will remove that idea. Money is a means of exchange, but, as gold in its metallic form, it is also a commodity, and it will be abolished as money only when commodity production is abolished. The expression “a money-based world” is repeatedly used, and if it is intended as a simple definition of capitalism it gives a wrong impression. Money is not peculiar to capitalism, nor is it the basis of capitalism. The essential characteristics of capitalism are: (a) Private ownership of the means of production and distribution ; b) a dispossessed or propertyless working class; (c) the production of goods for sale (commodities) ; (d) large-scale industrial production. These elementary facts can be grasped by any worker and cannot be easily simplified without becoming meaningless. The term “money-based world” is meaningless.

Another difficulty is the mixture of right and wrong ideas in the book. It is slated that “the abolition of money alone would solve no problems” (page 16), but on the next page we read, ” . . . . since money would not exist …. no person could say that he owned a share …. in the people’s means of production. In fact, all the world’s means of production would, then belong to the people of the world.” In this passage it is clearly implied that it is the abolition of money that will lead to common ownership. The correct position is that when the means of wealth production and distribution are commonly owned and democratically controlled there will be no exchange of goods and the need for money disappears. On both these pages efforts are made to define Socialism, but somehow the author leaves out the term “common ownership.” Also, while he states that every form of slavery will disappear, he fails to state that the present form of slavery is wage-slavery.

There are also serious theoretical errors. The, State is called an “abstraction” (page 120). This will appear strange to those who have felt the “heavy hand” of the law. The State is the public power of coercion used by the dominant class against the subject class. Later he explains, the “civil war” raging in society as a struggle over the goods produced by the workers. He says, “This war — or perhaps more accurately — this struggle is nothing more than a conflict between two dogs for the same bone” (our emphasis). The bone is the wealth produced by the workers. This is a misreading of the class struggle. In the industrial field the class struggle is a struggle over wages, hours of labour, conditions of work, etc., but it is something more than that; it is a political struggle over the ownership of the means of wealth production.

If the purpose of the book was to present a simple statement of the Socialist case, it is by no means a success. Subjects can be so over-simplified that they lose meaning. We can be sparing with words, but we cannot be sparing with sound definitions and clearly understood terms. Clarity is essential in explaining Socialism. Confusion plays into the hands of those who defend capitalism. It is strange, therefore, that, the writer avoids using such precise terms as “capitalism,” “working class,” “Socialism,” “class struggle,” but uses vague words such as “the people ” and the “World Commonwealth.” The word Commonwealth is not synonymous with Socialism. Its use by all sorts of political tricksters should have warned the writer of its vague and confusing character.

L. J.

Blogger's Note:

An excerpt from Money Must Go was reprinted in the World Socialist No.4 Winter (1985-86).

A PDF of the book is available over at Libcom.

Decimal coinage (1974)

From the June 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

The 70th anniversary issue of the Socialist Standard carried throughout its pages a series of snippets from old Socialist Standard articles highlighting the SPGB's unique position on issues of the day. Where possible, I've provided a link to the full article.

. . . Not that we are concerned about a decimal system of coinage. Its obvious efficiency as a labour-saver may be admitted, but is hardly likely to appeal to the unemployed clerk in post war days. Also, we are expecting to establish Socialism before Mr. Craig gets even a good start with his scheme to revolutionise the coinage, and under Socialism, in spite of Karl Kautsky, we shall have no use for either mils or £ s. d. There will be neither giving nor receiving of change, nor weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth over the, too late, discovery of a bad ‘un. And if, as Mr. Craig says, the ha’penny has killed the farthing—poor mite! —Socialism will kill the damned lot.

[From the book review of Sterling Decimal Coinage by Walter L. Craig, Socialist Standard, June 1918]

Five Benefits of Not Having Money (2008)

From the December 2008 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialist society will have no need for money. This will profoundly affect all aspects of life.

Removing money from the current economic equation would strike most people as impossible, unthinkable, absolutely imponderable. Everything we do, every transaction we make, from a simple cup of tea to sending a space probe to Mars, from birth to death and at every step in between, money has become a necessary part of getting what we require. It has become an accepted, entrenched method of acquiring anything and everything but it wasn’t always so and in a genuine socialist system money will be shown to have been an unnecessary, wasteful and divisive way of ordering world communities.

When initially presented with the notion of a world without money the first imperative is the willingness to contemplate a huge paradigm shift, to put aside all familiar long-held views and preconceived notions and to enter into an adventure of discovery that there is a place for all at the table, that it doesn’t entail regression to the Dark Ages and that the welfare and progress of people doesn’t have to come at cost to the environment.

1. Work

It is well recognised by experts in the health arena that work is one of the most stressful areas of life for reasons such as long hours, extended travelling time to and from place of employment, risk of job loss, lack of security of tenure including competition both within and without, inflexible working practices, difficulty getting release for major personal events such as bereavement, long-term illness of a spouse or partner, or even short-term care of a sick child. Loss of employment can put stress on the whole family, sinking it into debt, causing day-to-day difficulties with the budget and in many cases leading to loss of the home.

When money is not required in exchange for work and when, instead, all contribute their skills, expertise and/or manpower in return for open access to the requirements of life then we can begin to see a different motivation enter the whole concept of the “work” scenario. A moneyless world will free up millions of workers now tied to some very stressful occupations dealing only in (other people’s) money – banking, mortgage brokering, insurance; those occupied in the collection of rates, taxes and utility payments; those in security work such as guards and armoured truck staff engaged only in protecting and moving money and other “valuables” – millions of workers who, when considered logically, currently fulfil no useful function and contribute nothing to society that improves that society.

Right now, worldwide, are millions of would-be workers who are sidelined in one way or another, without employment or scratching on the edges of a black economy and in some of the more “developed” countries we find some termed “scroungers” in current-day parlance.

Within the capitalist system there has to be a pool of workers unable to find work in order to keep the bargaining power in favour of the employers who strive to keep wage levels down, whereas if there is a shortage of suitable labour the bargaining power switches to the employees who try to force wage levels up. The fact that a few “developed” countries have systems which pay a percentage of workers to remain unemployed (receive benefits) is a price the capitalists are prepared to pay to maintain the tensions in society. Encouraging the employed to think that they are the ones subsidising the benefits system maintains one fissure within the working class. Also, allowing a large number of unemployed to be without benefits would cause too many problems for the capitalists with possibilities of mass looting, rioting and damage to their property

2. Increased Leisure Time

With so many extra hands on deck working hours will be able to be considerably reduced which, with the knowledge that one’s work is not tied to the ability to feed and clothe the family, to house them and provide all the other requirements of life, is to remove the stress at a stroke.

Decreased time, but working for the common good rather than increased time working only for personal remuneration. Less working time was the oft-repeated refrain in the early days of the technology era. Workers were to benefit from machine-operated production systems, computers would be able to handle many of the mundane operations previously done manually, the working week would be much reduced, maybe even leading to job-sharing and part-time employment. In fact this state of affairs never materialised and more employees found longer working hours became part of their conditions of employment, earlier agreements having been gradually eroded to the benefit of the employers.

In socialism, with millions released from wage slavery in the then redundant financial sector free to be a part of the production, distribution and services sectors, with the black economy and “illegals” no longer threatening paid workers (pay being redundant) there will be a huge reduction in individual necessary work time. When there is no profit incentive the emphasis will be on the production of quality goods from quality materials and no one need choose an inferior item based on cost. Providers of utilities such as electricity and gas, water and communications will be able to have sufficient workers to install, service, repair and develop their installations more efficiently and effectively. If there is work that no one is prepared to undertake then an alternative will need to be found democratically.

Without the constraints that we have today the workplace will become a different place, one of cooperation not competition, where we work for the benefit of all, not for the profit of a few. The lines between work and leisure may well be much more blurred than in today’s scenario. People will have time, time to be creative, to learn different and multiple skills and to enjoy the time they spend working. Leisure activities seen as hobbies now – vehicle maintenance, gardening, DIY home improvements, baking, the making of all kinds of hand-made items, giving or receiving educational and training courses – could well form part of one’s service to the community, bringing a greater satisfaction and contributing to individual development generally, one of the aims of socialism. With more leisure time available it is also highly likely that more ‘work’ would be created in the leisure area, whether sports complexes, theatrical and music productions and educational courses in the widest sense and with unlimited opportunities for the active participation of those who choose it.

3. Housing

Adequate shelter, a “right” for all enshrined in the United Nations Charter, is still unavailable to millions (billions, probably). There is absolutely no automatic right to housing within the capitalist system. All must pay. To pay, all must work. It is no matter that you work long and hard and that your children work long and hard and don’t go to school. All that matters is that you have enough to buy or rent or build. Maybe you did have enough before the housing market bubble burst and the “worth” of your house went down while the interest rates went up. Well, tough! Look around you. See the empty houses and FOR SALE and foreclosure signs. These people must be living somewhere now. There is always housing stock available – if you can pay the going rate.

This is one very obvious benefit of not having money. The recent economic crisis has focussed many home-owners’ minds. Why should anyone be secure one month and the next find themselves in queer street? Can anybody justify one individual’s multiple home ownership while others live in slums, in cars, in cardboard boxes on the streets? Please! When the majority of us have eventually decided that this scenario is unacceptably obscene we can at last begin to move to a humanitarian way of ordering our societies. Housing for all. Decent housing for all. Materials that are free and belong to all of us. Our architects, builders, plumbers, plasterers, electricians, etc. etc. will all work for free – they also need homes to live in. New housing can be built to the best specifications using appropriate materials, incorporating adequate insulation and services with regard to environmental protection and best use of alternative energy.

Respect for people and respect for the environment. Decisions made democratically as to best use of urban space vacated by the money businesses; by communities wanting to refurbish or upgrade their older stock. The balance between urban and rural will no doubt change. In some parts of the world there will be a mass exodus back to productive farmland, reclaimed for local use and consumption rather than continuing to grow cash crops for export. Decisions will be taken based on the well-being of communities and determined by the requirements of those communities and there will be no constraints or limitations linked to profit for a third party.

4. Health care

As a result of huge stress reduction, no more worrying about salary or wages from the job, no more worrying about keeping up the payments on the house, increased leisure time – all these various factors will surely result in improved relationships all round and, quite soon, a healthier workforce.

At present there are huge variations in standards of health care around the world and also massive discrepancies in availability and monetary cost to the recipients, Universal health care simply dos not exist. Again it is tied in to the ability to pay. Let’s remove this barrier to good health and care of the sick by removing the money element and offer all services, treatments, drugs and medicines free of charge. Hospitals and clinics then will be free of top-heavy budget management and will be able to access resources, whether manpower, equipment or drugs, according to their requirements and not limited by financial constraints. Medical researchers, now mostly tied to global corporations and limited by them in the areas of their research, will be able to concentrate on eradicating disease and providing the best remedies for all comers, not just those with insurance. World diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis and polio will soon be a thing of the past when money, too, is history.

Work and training in one of the many varied avenues of health care will be open to those from the pool of post-money redundant sectors. With the shift from a market economy to societies geared to fulfilling human needs there will probably be more priority given to preventive medicine and appropriate information on suitable diet and healthy living, which leads us to consider the topic of food.

5. Food

Currently the growing, processing and distribution of food is largely dominated by transnational corporations solely in the pursuit of profit. The consumer appears to have a huge choice of goods and numerous decisions to make at each aisle of the supermarket but often the choices are superficial, not actually the choices being sought. For instance, notice the difficulty of buying a processed food which doesn’t contain soya. The soya has probably been genetically modified and the labelling could be unhelpful. The choice becomes buy in ignorance or acceptance, or do without.

It’s well known that products are laced with added sugar, salt, monosodium glutamate etc. to create a certain dependency and craving for more. Last year’s problems of melamine-laced pet foods which caused animal deaths in the importing countries were followed this year by melamine-laced milk products causing infant deaths and multiple illnesses in China, spreading fear to importing countries. There can be only one reason for food to be contaminated deliberately (apart from a mass assassination attempt or the desire to spread fear among the population) and that is in the pursuit of greater profit.

Africa, a net exporter of food until the post-colonial days of the 1960s, became a victim again, indebted to the World Bank and IMF. Recipient of highly subsidised dumping of food from rich countries (US and Europe) the result has been that the countries there have to grow cash crops for export in order to pay off some of the growing debt creating food shortages for the domestic population, many of whom had been forced off ancestral lands (for the growing of cash crops) and who were then without the means of subsistence. There have been a number of studies which reveal there is no problem feeding a world population considerably larger than today’s. There is an enormous wastage of food in the rich world. The major problem for the hungry in the poorest countries is lack of cash.

Food, if regarded simply as fuel for the body, should be clean – free from contaminants, chemicals and the like; fresh – the more local the better; and nutritious. Free food for all would come with the bonus of knowing there would no longer be any incentive to adulterate ingredients. The question of “FAIR TRADE” wouldn’t arise as all along the line farmers, producers, pickers, packers and distributors would have the same motivation to provide good clean food knowing they have the same access as the consumers. This has to be a win-win situation. Another winner in this scenario would be the environment.

Janet Surman

Next month, five more benefits from not having to have money.