| Subject: Re: Who are you? |
| From: Inverted Vantage <invertedvantage@gmail.com> |
| Date: 3/20/11, 16:51 |
| To: Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com> |
I'm sure I'll read about what you folks find when you're finished, you don't need to tell me anything else about it at the moment. :)
As for our debt, I focus on the international and the student. As I wrote to a classmate of mine;
"One of the problems with the US right now is that there is no other system of acceptable exchange except money. I would say many other countries have a barter system running in parallel, whereas here, we do not. If there were a government program to send volunteers overseas, and in exchange they get their family taken care of back home and their needs taken care of overseas, however spartan, well, let's see;
Joe and Bill need a job. Joe volunteers to go overseas to help out - Bill doesn't want to, he wants to work in the US. They both go to a public program and, upon signing their name on the dotted line, Joe goes off to help and Bill gets a list of things he could do to help support Joe and his family - be it farming, house construction, research, etc. So while Joe is off rebuilding, Bill makes the decision that he wants to help maintain Joe's family's electricity. So he helps to install new, energy efficient wiring, and helps to hook it up to a much more ecologically friendly power grid.
But wait, you ask - what about Bill? Now he's just doing this all for free! What about his family?
Well, Bill also signed up and is also granted the same protections as Joe. Rebecca comes along, and needs work too, so she signs up for the program. But you might say - well, this will go on forever, and eventually someone will be at the end of the line. Not so. With ecologically friendly ways of doing things, it's feasible that if, theoretically, everyone has only one task to do and completes it, when everyone is done we will have a functioning, sustainable society. This works better if you break it down to a local level. Say here in Rochester, we have 1 million people.
250,000 decide to build new wind farms.
250,000 decide to build new financial institutions.
250,000 decide to rebuild the city
and 250,000 decide to do general maintenance tasks.
By the end of it, Rochester would become a self-sustainable city. After everything's built, all of those things are going to require maintenance - so there are further jobs. I'd like to pose the question though, at this point - where people are working for food, shelter, and things, such as in a trade-based system, how important is money? I'm not saying get rid of it, I still think there's a place for it in many transactions, but how important does money become if people are working for things instead of thepromise of purchasing power to buy those same things?"
to which he replied;
"So instead of getting paid, everyone just works and gets taken care of? That's communism. Which, because its only a subset of the country participating, and voluntarily, might work, as long as those that don't voluntarily join are not affected."
wherein I said;
"Well, that's why I said a monetary system would exist at the same time - those who don't join would still be able to find work and get paid - money would still be a part of daily life. There are a lot of things that money is necessary for, especially with the net. It's also not like those who didn't join wouldn't be affected - their water would be clearer, their air more pure, etc etc - all the side effects of a more ecologically friendly society. I guess I'm proposing that we as Americans be given the freedom to choose whether or not we actually have to use money in our society."
Thoughts?