robbo203
17th July 2010, 17:44
SMASH CASH!
(Article by a then Socialist Party member that was
published in 1968 in issue 17 of the sixties counter-culture
magazine OZ - any thoughts?)
____________________________________
400BC: Hey all you thirsty people, though you’ve got no money,
come to the water. Buy corn without money and eat. Buy wine
without money and milk without price. (Isaiah).
1652: There shall be no buying and selling . . . If any man or
family want grain or other provisions, they may go to the
storehouse and fetch without money. (Gerrard Winstantley).
1968: The Abolition of Money. The abolition of pay housing, pay
media, pay transportation, pay food, pay education, pay clothing,
pay medical help and pay toilets. A society which works towards
and actively promotes the concept of “full unemployment” . . .
(Yippie election leaflet).
Abolition of Money! Down through the ages this wild and
visionary slogan has been whispered by a subversive few.
Ever since human beings discovered cash, they have hated
it and tried to rid themselves of it – whilst their own
actions have kept it alive. In this respect, money is like
syphilis.
Today the whisper has become a shout – though still
the shout of a tiny minority. Tomorrow it will be the roar
of the crowd, the major topic of discussion in every pub
and coffee house, factory and office.
The abolition of money is an ancient dream, the most
radical demand of every social revolution for centuries
past. We must not suppose that it is therefore destined to
remain a Utopia, that the wheel will simply turn full circle
once more. Today there is an entirely new element in the
situation: Plenty.
All previous societies have been rationed societies,
based on scarcity of food, clothing and shelter. The modern
world is also a society of scarcity, but with a difference.
Today’s shortages are unnecessary; today’s scarcity is
artificial. More than that: scarcity achieved at the expense
of strenuous effort, ingenious organization and the most
sophisticated planning.
The world is haunted by a spectre – the spectre of
Abundance. Only by planned waste and destruction on a
colossal scale can the terrifying threat of Plenty be averted.
Money means rationing. It is only useful when there are
shortages to be rationed. No one can buy or sell air: it’s
free because there is plenty of it around. Food, clothing,
shelter and entertainment should be free as air. But the
means of rationing scarcity themselves keep the scarcity in
existence. The only excuse for money is that there is not
enough wealth to go round – but it is the money system
which makes sure there cannot be enough to go round. By
abolishing money we create the conditions where money
is unnecessary.
If we made a list of all those occupations which would
be unnecessary in a Moneyless World, jobs people now
have to do which are entirely useless from a human point
of view, we might begin as follows: Customs officer, Security
guard, Locksmith, Wages clerk, Tax assessor, Advertising
man, Stockbroker, Insurance agent, Ticket puncher,
Salesman, Accountant, Slot machine emptier, Industrial spy,
Bank manager, before we realized the magnitude of what
was involved. And these are merely the jobs which are
wholly and utterly useless. Nearly all occupations involve
something to do with costing or selling. Now we should
see that the phrase “Abolition of Money” is just shorthand
for immense, sweeping, root and branch changes in society.
The abolition of money means the abolition of wages and
profits, nations and frontiers, armies and prisons. It means
that all work will be entirely voluntary.
Of course, the itemizing of those jobs which are
financial does not end the catalogue of waste. Apart from
astronomical sums spent on the Space Race, and the wellknown
scandal of huge arms production, we have to realise
that all production is carried on purely for profit. The profit
motive often runs completely counter to human need.
‘Built-in obsolescence’ (planned shoddiness), the restrictive
effects of the patents system, the waste of effort through
duplication of activities by competing firms or nations –
these are just a few of the ways in which profits cause
waste.
What this amounts to is that ninety per cent (a
conservative estimate) of effort expended by human beings
today is entirely pointless, does not the slightest bit of good
to anybody. So it is quite ridiculous to talk about “how to
make sure people work if they’re not paid for it”. If less
than ten per cent of the population worked, and the other
ninety per cent stayed at home watching telly, we’d be no
worse off than we are now.
But there would be no need for them to watch telly all
the time, because without the profit system work could be
made enjoyable. Playing tennis, writing poems or climbing
mountains are not essentially any more enjoyable than
building houses, growing food or programming computors.
The only reason we think of some things as ‘leisure’ and
others as ‘work’ is because we get used to doing some
things because we want to and others because we have to.
Prostitutes despise love. We are all prostitutes. In a
Moneyless World work would be recreation and art. That
work which is unavoidably unhealthy or unpleasant, such as
coalmining, would be automated immediately. Needless to
say, the only reason these things aren’t done by machines
at present is because it is considered more important to
lower the costs of the employer than to lower the
unhappiness of his slaves.
The money system is obsolete and antihuman. So what
should we do about it? In years to come, with the
increasing education and increasing misery of modern life,
together with growing plenty, we can expect the Abolition
of Money to be treated more and more as a serious issue,
to be inserted into more and more heads. The great mass
of individuals will first ridicule, then dare to imagine
(Fantasy is the first act of rebellion – Freud), then
overthrow.
In the meantime, as well as propagating the notion of a
Moneyless World, those of us who see its necessity have a
responsibility to sort our own ideas out, in order that we
may present an intelligible and principled case. We must
stop thinking of the Moneyless World as an ‘ultimate aim’
with no effect upon our actions now.
We must realise that
the Abolition of Money is THE immediate demand. A
practical proposition and an urgent necessity – not
something to be vaguely ‘worked towards’.
Unfortunately those who want the Moneyless World
frequently wade in a mire of mystification. Above all it is
necessary to understand the workings of this society,
capitalist society (Moscow, Washington and Peking are all in
the same boat) if we are to know how to destroy it.
For example there is a commonly held view that
Automation is going to settle all our worries, that money
will expire automatically as part of a “natural process of
evolution”. This is quite wrong. As pointed out above, this
society only automates to increase profits and for no other
reason. Employers even take machines out and put
workers back in – if they find that labour-power is cheaper.
Any gain from automation these days is more than
cancelled out by the waste explosion. Do not imagine that
the slight increases in living standards of the last twenty
years are the beginning of a smooth transition to
Abundance. Another huge world slump is approaching.
A different illusion, also popular, is that cash can be
abolished by example, by opening giveaway shops or by
starting small moneyless communities which are parasitical
upon the main body of society. These experiments
accomplish little. Those people, for instance, who open
stores to give and receive books without payment, face a
predictable result: a large stock of lousy books.
These projects stem partly from a belief that we need
to prove something. Relax. We don’t need to prove
anything. The defenders of this insane society, it is they who
stand accused, they who have to supply the arguments –
arguments for poverty and enslavement in a world of
Plethora!
All theoretical constructions which relate to wages,
prices, profits and taxes are ghosts from the past, as
absurdly outdated as the quibbles about how many angels
could dance on the point of a needle. ‘Incomes policy’ is
irrelevant – we want the abolition of incomes. “Fighting
crime” is irrelevant – we want the abolition of the law.
‘Workers’ control’ is irrelevant – we want the abolition of
‘workers’. ‘Black Power’ is irrelevant – we want the
abolition of power over people. ‘The national interest’ is
irrelevant—we want the abolition of nations.
And let no one raise the banal cry: what are you going
to put in their place? As though we would say to a research
scientist: “And when you’ve cured Cancer, what are you
going to put in its place?”
Then there is the myth of the small-scale. We cannot go
back to being peasants and we should not want to. Keeping
several thousand million people alive on this planet
necessitates railways, oil wells, steel mills. Only by intricate
organization and large-scale productive techniques can we
maintain our Abundance. Do not be afraid of machines. It
is not machines which enslave, but Capital, in whose
service machines are employed. McLuhan represents the
beginning of the New Consciousness of man-made
artifacts. Computors are warm and cuddly creatures. We
will have a beautiful time with them.
Many of the worst errors which retard the
development of the New Consciousness, the
Consciousness of Plenty, are to be found in Herbert
Lomas’ piece on “The Workless Society” in International
Times 43. This at least has the merit that someone is
putting forward a case for the removal of money in specific
terms. Unfortunately, they are specific non-starters.
According to Herbert Lomas, a political party is to be
formed which will take power and proceed as follows.
Useless workers in industry will be gradually be laid off and
paid for not working. The process will be extended until
money can be abolished. In the meantime, those being paid
for doing nothing will do what they like. To begin with many
of them might play Bingo; eventually more and more would
aim at higher things.
What is wrong with this projection? Many things, but
chiefly two. First, it fails to take account of the systematic
nature of society. Second, it assumes that present-day
society exhibits a harmony of interests.
In the first place, Lomas says: “Why are these people
working? They are not working for the sake of production,
for the truth is that if they were removed production could
be increased beyond measure”. He concludes that they are
working because of their attitudes, the attitudes of their
employers, the attitudes of the rest of society. But the fact
of the matter is that these workers are working for the
sake of production – not the production of goods but the
production of profits. The reason why things are “made
with great ingenuity to wear out” is not because of the
attitudes of the people involved. The management may
think it’s criminal but they are paid to optimize profits. If
they produced razor blades to last for centuries, the firm
would go broke. It is not the attitudes which are crucial, but
economic interests. If a teetotaller owns shares in a
brewery, it does not make booze less potent.
Which brings us to the second point. Today’s world is a
jungle of conflicting vested interests. The Abolition of
Money will represent the liberation of slaves, yes – but also
the dispossession of masters, i.e. the employing class. We
cannot view the government as an impartial panel which
looks after the best interests of everybody; it is an
instrument used by one set of people to oppress another.
On one point Herbert Lomas is correct. The
movement for the Abolition of Money must be political,
because when we destroy money we destroy the basis of
the power of our rulers. They are unlikely to take kindly to
this, so we must organize politically to remove them.
For the moment though, what is needed is more
discussion and more understanding. We must be confident
that the movement will grow. We must think, argue, and
think again – but never lose consciousness of the one,
simple, astounding fact: Plenty is here. The Moneyless
World is not an ultimate millennium. We need it now.
DAVID RAMSAY STEELE, OZ, 1968
(Article by a then Socialist Party member that was
published in 1968 in issue 17 of the sixties counter-culture
magazine OZ - any thoughts?)
____________________________________
400BC: Hey all you thirsty people, though you’ve got no money,
come to the water. Buy corn without money and eat. Buy wine
without money and milk without price. (Isaiah).
1652: There shall be no buying and selling . . . If any man or
family want grain or other provisions, they may go to the
storehouse and fetch without money. (Gerrard Winstantley).
1968: The Abolition of Money. The abolition of pay housing, pay
media, pay transportation, pay food, pay education, pay clothing,
pay medical help and pay toilets. A society which works towards
and actively promotes the concept of “full unemployment” . . .
(Yippie election leaflet).
Abolition of Money! Down through the ages this wild and
visionary slogan has been whispered by a subversive few.
Ever since human beings discovered cash, they have hated
it and tried to rid themselves of it – whilst their own
actions have kept it alive. In this respect, money is like
syphilis.
Today the whisper has become a shout – though still
the shout of a tiny minority. Tomorrow it will be the roar
of the crowd, the major topic of discussion in every pub
and coffee house, factory and office.
The abolition of money is an ancient dream, the most
radical demand of every social revolution for centuries
past. We must not suppose that it is therefore destined to
remain a Utopia, that the wheel will simply turn full circle
once more. Today there is an entirely new element in the
situation: Plenty.
All previous societies have been rationed societies,
based on scarcity of food, clothing and shelter. The modern
world is also a society of scarcity, but with a difference.
Today’s shortages are unnecessary; today’s scarcity is
artificial. More than that: scarcity achieved at the expense
of strenuous effort, ingenious organization and the most
sophisticated planning.
The world is haunted by a spectre – the spectre of
Abundance. Only by planned waste and destruction on a
colossal scale can the terrifying threat of Plenty be averted.
Money means rationing. It is only useful when there are
shortages to be rationed. No one can buy or sell air: it’s
free because there is plenty of it around. Food, clothing,
shelter and entertainment should be free as air. But the
means of rationing scarcity themselves keep the scarcity in
existence. The only excuse for money is that there is not
enough wealth to go round – but it is the money system
which makes sure there cannot be enough to go round. By
abolishing money we create the conditions where money
is unnecessary.
If we made a list of all those occupations which would
be unnecessary in a Moneyless World, jobs people now
have to do which are entirely useless from a human point
of view, we might begin as follows: Customs officer, Security
guard, Locksmith, Wages clerk, Tax assessor, Advertising
man, Stockbroker, Insurance agent, Ticket puncher,
Salesman, Accountant, Slot machine emptier, Industrial spy,
Bank manager, before we realized the magnitude of what
was involved. And these are merely the jobs which are
wholly and utterly useless. Nearly all occupations involve
something to do with costing or selling. Now we should
see that the phrase “Abolition of Money” is just shorthand
for immense, sweeping, root and branch changes in society.
The abolition of money means the abolition of wages and
profits, nations and frontiers, armies and prisons. It means
that all work will be entirely voluntary.
Of course, the itemizing of those jobs which are
financial does not end the catalogue of waste. Apart from
astronomical sums spent on the Space Race, and the wellknown
scandal of huge arms production, we have to realise
that all production is carried on purely for profit. The profit
motive often runs completely counter to human need.
‘Built-in obsolescence’ (planned shoddiness), the restrictive
effects of the patents system, the waste of effort through
duplication of activities by competing firms or nations –
these are just a few of the ways in which profits cause
waste.
What this amounts to is that ninety per cent (a
conservative estimate) of effort expended by human beings
today is entirely pointless, does not the slightest bit of good
to anybody. So it is quite ridiculous to talk about “how to
make sure people work if they’re not paid for it”. If less
than ten per cent of the population worked, and the other
ninety per cent stayed at home watching telly, we’d be no
worse off than we are now.
But there would be no need for them to watch telly all
the time, because without the profit system work could be
made enjoyable. Playing tennis, writing poems or climbing
mountains are not essentially any more enjoyable than
building houses, growing food or programming computors.
The only reason we think of some things as ‘leisure’ and
others as ‘work’ is because we get used to doing some
things because we want to and others because we have to.
Prostitutes despise love. We are all prostitutes. In a
Moneyless World work would be recreation and art. That
work which is unavoidably unhealthy or unpleasant, such as
coalmining, would be automated immediately. Needless to
say, the only reason these things aren’t done by machines
at present is because it is considered more important to
lower the costs of the employer than to lower the
unhappiness of his slaves.
The money system is obsolete and antihuman. So what
should we do about it? In years to come, with the
increasing education and increasing misery of modern life,
together with growing plenty, we can expect the Abolition
of Money to be treated more and more as a serious issue,
to be inserted into more and more heads. The great mass
of individuals will first ridicule, then dare to imagine
(Fantasy is the first act of rebellion – Freud), then
overthrow.
In the meantime, as well as propagating the notion of a
Moneyless World, those of us who see its necessity have a
responsibility to sort our own ideas out, in order that we
may present an intelligible and principled case. We must
stop thinking of the Moneyless World as an ‘ultimate aim’
with no effect upon our actions now.
We must realise that
the Abolition of Money is THE immediate demand. A
practical proposition and an urgent necessity – not
something to be vaguely ‘worked towards’.
Unfortunately those who want the Moneyless World
frequently wade in a mire of mystification. Above all it is
necessary to understand the workings of this society,
capitalist society (Moscow, Washington and Peking are all in
the same boat) if we are to know how to destroy it.
For example there is a commonly held view that
Automation is going to settle all our worries, that money
will expire automatically as part of a “natural process of
evolution”. This is quite wrong. As pointed out above, this
society only automates to increase profits and for no other
reason. Employers even take machines out and put
workers back in – if they find that labour-power is cheaper.
Any gain from automation these days is more than
cancelled out by the waste explosion. Do not imagine that
the slight increases in living standards of the last twenty
years are the beginning of a smooth transition to
Abundance. Another huge world slump is approaching.
A different illusion, also popular, is that cash can be
abolished by example, by opening giveaway shops or by
starting small moneyless communities which are parasitical
upon the main body of society. These experiments
accomplish little. Those people, for instance, who open
stores to give and receive books without payment, face a
predictable result: a large stock of lousy books.
These projects stem partly from a belief that we need
to prove something. Relax. We don’t need to prove
anything. The defenders of this insane society, it is they who
stand accused, they who have to supply the arguments –
arguments for poverty and enslavement in a world of
Plethora!
All theoretical constructions which relate to wages,
prices, profits and taxes are ghosts from the past, as
absurdly outdated as the quibbles about how many angels
could dance on the point of a needle. ‘Incomes policy’ is
irrelevant – we want the abolition of incomes. “Fighting
crime” is irrelevant – we want the abolition of the law.
‘Workers’ control’ is irrelevant – we want the abolition of
‘workers’. ‘Black Power’ is irrelevant – we want the
abolition of power over people. ‘The national interest’ is
irrelevant—we want the abolition of nations.
And let no one raise the banal cry: what are you going
to put in their place? As though we would say to a research
scientist: “And when you’ve cured Cancer, what are you
going to put in its place?”
Then there is the myth of the small-scale. We cannot go
back to being peasants and we should not want to. Keeping
several thousand million people alive on this planet
necessitates railways, oil wells, steel mills. Only by intricate
organization and large-scale productive techniques can we
maintain our Abundance. Do not be afraid of machines. It
is not machines which enslave, but Capital, in whose
service machines are employed. McLuhan represents the
beginning of the New Consciousness of man-made
artifacts. Computors are warm and cuddly creatures. We
will have a beautiful time with them.
Many of the worst errors which retard the
development of the New Consciousness, the
Consciousness of Plenty, are to be found in Herbert
Lomas’ piece on “The Workless Society” in International
Times 43. This at least has the merit that someone is
putting forward a case for the removal of money in specific
terms. Unfortunately, they are specific non-starters.
According to Herbert Lomas, a political party is to be
formed which will take power and proceed as follows.
Useless workers in industry will be gradually be laid off and
paid for not working. The process will be extended until
money can be abolished. In the meantime, those being paid
for doing nothing will do what they like. To begin with many
of them might play Bingo; eventually more and more would
aim at higher things.
What is wrong with this projection? Many things, but
chiefly two. First, it fails to take account of the systematic
nature of society. Second, it assumes that present-day
society exhibits a harmony of interests.
In the first place, Lomas says: “Why are these people
working? They are not working for the sake of production,
for the truth is that if they were removed production could
be increased beyond measure”. He concludes that they are
working because of their attitudes, the attitudes of their
employers, the attitudes of the rest of society. But the fact
of the matter is that these workers are working for the
sake of production – not the production of goods but the
production of profits. The reason why things are “made
with great ingenuity to wear out” is not because of the
attitudes of the people involved. The management may
think it’s criminal but they are paid to optimize profits. If
they produced razor blades to last for centuries, the firm
would go broke. It is not the attitudes which are crucial, but
economic interests. If a teetotaller owns shares in a
brewery, it does not make booze less potent.
Which brings us to the second point. Today’s world is a
jungle of conflicting vested interests. The Abolition of
Money will represent the liberation of slaves, yes – but also
the dispossession of masters, i.e. the employing class. We
cannot view the government as an impartial panel which
looks after the best interests of everybody; it is an
instrument used by one set of people to oppress another.
On one point Herbert Lomas is correct. The
movement for the Abolition of Money must be political,
because when we destroy money we destroy the basis of
the power of our rulers. They are unlikely to take kindly to
this, so we must organize politically to remove them.
For the moment though, what is needed is more
discussion and more understanding. We must be confident
that the movement will grow. We must think, argue, and
think again – but never lose consciousness of the one,
simple, astounding fact: Plenty is here. The Moneyless
World is not an ultimate millennium. We need it now.
DAVID RAMSAY STEELE, OZ, 1968