The purpose of this is to fight a class war. People create classes, money does not. 

I think money will be with us for the foreseeable future, even as we start to build an economy based on abundance.  Self-sufficient people and villages need to buy things from external suppliers.  This is done using money and no way around that.  As such, people and villages will need to have a cash income of some kind.  Sadly, this ties us to the old economic order.

Speaking for my own self-sufficient enterprise (Phase 3 Farm), my strategy is to maximize my income and use it to build a self-sufficient infrastructure.  I don't think I can keep this up forever ('ll be in my 60's in a few years), so it's important to prioritize our building.  Roughly, this looks like:

1.  House (about 1/3 complete at this point)
2.  Chicken coop (a move towards being self-sufficient in meat production)
3.  Pasture and Field development (a new 1 acre field is under development and being seeded with pasture grasses).
4.  Pole barn (for my equipment)
5.  Workshop (building exists, needs tools and an extension to build LifeTrac in ).
6.  Farm Pond (provides water reserve, fire fighting reservoir,
aquaculture, and micro-hydro power)
7.  Solar power installations (SolarFire?  Steam Engine? PV Panels?)


The above will take years to complete and many dollars - especially since it is our policy to avoid debt at all costs (even delaying things).  If you look at the above list of projects, it's easy to see that money will be needed:  various bits of hardware (screws, nails, etc.), new tools (lathe, drill press, mill), etc.  That's assuming I can mill my own lumber (I do have lots of trees).  Still, I am hoping that my need for external spending decreases over time (essentially our operating expenses) by developing my own local resources (a micro-economy of abundance).

- Mark

I don't see money as the problem at all, not even loans.  One, it is true that there is too much emphasis on it and traditional economics because that is the only thing we know much about - there is some reliable research that indicates that the reason for the wall-street centric economics view within traditional economics is not that is is oh so special but in fact that economists almost all have a conflict of interest and competing systems just are not studied.  Therefore not talked about and not understood and not as useful as a tool.  As a result we get stuck with wall street.

It's very interesting how the predatory behaviour of banksters etc. can extend well into scientific understanding in this way.  Science is not always a bastion of truth - at least not the whole truth.

What this comes down to is the predators in our society. Read the economist James Galbraith for more information on predatory behaviour.  Banksters only use money as a tool for profiting *at the expense of the rest of us*=predation. 

We can stand up to them, but like true predators they disrupt our communication by using their louder voice to put ideas in people's heads that shut out other ideas - like hatred of communism and other such silly things.   Even when a small number of people see through the fog and understand what is going on they cannot get their message out there.   In a million different ways the use their existing power to consolidate their power over their prey.  But we can fight back, and we must as it is the only way. 

They don't know everything and they can't predict the future.  Fortune favors the prepared mind, and we may find a way to enlighten the people yet despite them.

@WP9

I have heard of such things on a local basis.  Tool libraries, etc.  While it can work, there can be problems with failure to return, breakage, lack of training, etc.

- Mark

@WP9: We have a few tool libraries, in our area. One of the biggest barriers is availability - a tool library has no guaranteed stock. The other is accountability - breakage and delay, as Mark mentioned. The solution that I've been fiddling with for a while is a 'Depot': anyone who joins, provides an account they'd like to exchange through (a bank account, PayPal, whatever), and they can LEASE items from the Depot up to the value of their account balance. (You break it, you buy it.) The OSE-style game-changer is the ability to produce goods for the Depot, and have all proceeds from the lease of those goods funneled into your account. The Depot takes a 'consignment & storage process fee', enough to finance its operation, but like a co-op, the profits flow to the users. Leasing is better than borrow - it allows longer-term use, limits transaction costs of daily exchange, and encourages stocking of more valuable goods. Want to build a shed? Tool library is good for borrowing a saw, but no good for full equipment rentals. Depots could handle classes of needs; rather than owning your trade tools, you'd lease them. (My kingdom, for a GVCS Depot!) Also, having a way to add to the stock creates a market for durable goods: if you make weed-whackers that are cheap, handy, and resilient, you could earn a lot more money on successive leases than a corporation pumping out buyer-beware tinfoil obsolescence. (Yeah, my weed-whacker is funky, too.) The critical development hurdles are in the structure of the organization: accountability procedures, for lost/broken/complaint/etc, accrediting process, for accepting 'Depot contributors' of reliable skill, with reliable products, and reputation methods, for leasors and leasees to coordinate reliably, and to weed out 'tool-trolls'.

The general structure, if solidified, could act as a method for local coordination of a wide range of goods and services. I'd played with extending this to a smartphone app that coordinates services, similar in concept to the Open Capitalism model (and Craigslist, without being gross and abusive); you create an account, list the services you provide, receive accrediting from accredited members, (whose reputation drops if YOU screw up, so they have an incentive to only accredit folks they know & trust!) and your needs & services 'ping' the network, to coordinate a local match. ("I was at the store, today, and I got a ping from an elderly woman down my block - she was looking for someone to bring her gin and cat food. I also got a ping response for my dog-walking request - a kid at the local high school won the bid. I plan to leave my plumbing-service ping on over the weekend - I can probably pick up a few extra jobs, for that camping trip I have planned. I'll need to swing by the Depot for all the supplies.") These sorts of 'task mobs' could also fragment and coordinate large-scale projects, much as Marcin is setting up.

The major future barrier to these approaches is interoperability - I don't want to be a member of twenty different coordination services, or have to post offers on three different sites, and hop between them to compare results. Folks've been looking for the silver bullet to this one, since Socialism. I think the OS solution will work better than corporate consumerism's trash-huckstering, as well as welfare states' heavy-handed 'utilities' that seem to require secret police to work. They're not hard to beat, but any solution has to grow from the ground up, and that evolution of scale normally kills it; what works at one scale, often won't at the higher scale. OSE adapts, and I bet it'll win. :)

Perhaps in an abundance-based economy, the lazy person looses out on variety or choice.  In a future OSE village, some grains and vegetables are grown communally - perhaps via the crop circle robot.  The process is so labor free that this food can be considered free - just drop by and pick up (when in season).  Still, a diet of wheat gruel and turnips can get old after a while (not to mention all that swiss chard!).  Meanwhile, there are a few enterprising souls in the village who enjoy a greater variety.  Everyone in the village has a small plot of land they is there to do with as they like.  The foodies plant hot peppers, edamame beans, cantaloupes, etc.  When they come into season, they have something they can trade with - perhaps honey, or wheat beer, or strawberry jam, etc.

The lazy man has a RepRap printer, or may be access to one.  He can print up a new coffee mug if he needs one.  There are all sorts of plastic things can can be downloaded and printed out - but they are all plastic and well, kinda generic.  Meanwhile, an enterprising woman has discovered a deposit of clay at the back of the property.  Reading up about it on the internet, she has the fab-lab make her a set of progressive screens that she can work the dry clay through until only the very smoothest of clay is left.  With the clay she fashions pots, cups, bowls, and plates.  Talking with some friends in another OSE village, she learns that glass from the waste stream can be ground to a fine powder and used to glaze her clay pots.  Soon, her pots are in great demand for their artistic value, especially since she takes custom orders.

The lazy man lives in a simple house made from compressed earth bricks with a metal roof shaped by the metal extruding machine.  The brick, even plastered over, are pretty bland (ie, ugly).  Elsewhere in the village, people are experimenting with frescoes (colored plaster paintings), wood paneling, stenciling, etc.  These artistic souls offer to fix up your home in return for help maintaining their solar oven, open source dishwasher, etc.

Even surrounded by abundance, there will be opportunities for people willing to do a bit of work, apply their talents, or think out of the box.

- Mark

I should make a note: there is a difference between a person's motive, and their choice. The choice to 'act greedy' is equated in pop psychology to 'being selfish'. I see greed as the misdirection of a deeper human drive: the desire to provide for the continuance of your loves. Similarly, 'laziness' is the desire to allocate one's energies maximally - why do what you don't have to? More fundamental than either of these is the human desire to belong: we like people, and hope they like us. It's valuable to recognize that the structures to squelch corruption used most often by our non-agrarian brothers are methods of exile. If you're not pulling your weight in the tribe, you'll wake up one morning, and find that they'd packed and left without you. Exile is worse than death: we'll use death to escape the tortures of isolation and the deprivation that results from loosing our connection to the 'common means' (Lao Tzu's phrasing, via Witter Bynner, for the value of being a part of a community). Belonging's primacy over self-preservation motivates altruism, as well as suicide. Check out National Geographic: Solitary Confinement (Netflix has it) for a vivid look into human responses to exile.

It's always amusing to see, when people argue for the primacy of greed and laziness, how little a role those play in their own lives. What percent of your day is spent scheming to steal, and dodging what needs to be done? Compare that to the time and effort you spend, often without recompense, for your friends, family, and fulfillment. Marcin hasn't been paid well, I assume. Is he greedy and lazy? Are the rest of us?

@mjn
Right there with ya. :) I'd offer that, once folks see that they have options, (that's the part of education I like) they're free to choose their lives, instead of 'the system' choosing for them. The situation has a huge impact on where we direct our choices, and whenever we're in a spot that challenges us, and empowers us, our good natures come forward. We may not all share the same values, but our strengths inspire each other, and we gather around the work that inspires us. I picture the night of a circus: a kid sees, for the first time, a man juggling nine pins! It's human to be inspired, seeing human capacity. The child says to themselves, "We have that power in us." And, when the kid gets home, he practices, all the while thinking: "I bet we can juggle ten." We each strive to be a demonstration of life's possibility and human potential. Trobriand islanders have a system of government and exchange I particularly like: various items are given a history and significance, and become gift exchanges that display your good relationship with others, acting as currency for resolving disputes and weathering emergencies. No one commands another, but the Big Men of each tribe are called upon for direction and steadfast morals. How do you become a Big Man? You throw the best feast for everyone! Ongka, one of the Big Men interviewed by anthropologists, explained as he pointed to his sleepy and full guests, that feasts are better proof of strength than combat: "I have given you all these things. I have won. I have knocked you down, by giving so much!" That guy is my hero. :)

@kunkmiester I would argue that greed and laziness are not inherent to human nature.  Children are born selfish, because they lack the ability to understand things beyond themselves.  In the early teens we develop the ability to think abstractly, from there environment is a pretty big factor in how we behave.  Attachment to the people around us drives us to give to them.

The problem is not the money. The problem is the speculation. Prices of certain necessities of life are inflated artificially, with no connection between the cost of production and the selling price.
You can't buy a home because of the inflated price of real estate. And those who work in construction can't sell and they lose jobs. And there is no solution as long as a group of real estate monopolies keep the spaces empty refusing to sell/rent at a decent price. Because the space is limited.

Money are very good because they are a universally accepted currency. Open Source Machinery brings two vital things: democratization and less speculation. That means, more people can create businesses that make parts for the machines - more democracy, and you won't have to pay another 500$ to replace your washing machine just because it's door is broken. You simply buy another door, with 10-20$ - therefore it's reducing the speculation.

The more you can produce things on your own, the less you need money and the less you need to have a job (i.e. to work for someone else). But as long as people trade things, money are the best way to trade.

We want change, we need change, but we wait!

 Um, the answer is WE need to change.
It begins with an individual commitment to change what we DO,
One must do something different to effect change.

http://TheHourExchange.org

Incremental changes towards a different form of exchange, as it is comfortable.
Loving others enough to recognize their effort as equal to ours is required, remember there is abundance.

Marcin wrote that 6 people can provide for 20. I recognize this to be factual. I believe the same standard of living can be carved down to about 15% activity under the right circumstances. But this carries a negative stigma. I prefer the focus to be: working the same amount - and letting the effect expand outward.

There is abundance.

Local community is key.

Paying it forward transforms a community in under two years.

Starting from raw land is hard, but doable, and then... well, rewarding!

It is difficult to see even five years future.  The standard of living and meaning of life is unparalleled with each year.

Getting to critical mass (15-30 families) is the focus - after that word of mouth will naturally fuse new community members.

Russell Philips

I think money does encourage the emergence of classes. Money is a representation of wealth that can be stored and transferred between individuals. In order for there to be a "wealthy class" you need some form of wealth that can be stored and transferred between individuals, so that the wealthy can accumulate more wealth than anyone else.

So, money makes classes possible. It might not lead to classes in and of itself.

@kunkmiester
"Even a commune needs a way to place a value on the work of it's members, and reward work and discourage sloth.  If you don't have this, the greedy and lazy will leech off the system until it collapses.  Even if you think of something new, it'll probably be called money anyway, because that will be how it will work."

How about kicking out the free-loaders? You don't work, you don't eat. Seems like a fair principle to me.