Money in anarchy?

I think money should be abolished, people should produce for the people, not to get money from a big, fat, corporate capitalist anyways.

 

One question that really intrigued me about this topic is that, although it is true that money should be abolished, people in these modern times have more needs and wants than they did in the older times. e.g gaming Consoles, Computers etc How are the people going to "buy" these if there is No such thing as money? Labor tokens? barter?

 

I feel like people should organize themselves in small communities where everyone should produce "their goods", and everyone could have a certain amount of those goods as long as they help the community by doing what is needed to keep the community going.There would be people that produce food, and there would be people who produce certain things like consoles etc, I don't think that would be impossible.
Anarchism should eliminate technology.

 

Sorry, but an Anarchist society will be not only stateless, but also classless after abolishing capitalism and the state, which are our actual enemies in "our" era of the classwar.
Money is a symbol of power and also a symbol of corruption - and in capitalism it's a tool to accumulate power and to make that power take effect.
Given a state- and classless society in Anarchism, we will have no need for money anymore, 'cause people will produce and work for people needs only, without the capitalist ambition to achive surplus of worth to use it in whatever antisocial way - so there will be no need for money as a tool to accumulate wealth anymore.

The thing with less important/necessary production for life, like entertainment technology is a bit tricky, 'cause today's capitalism isn't only serving the real need of people "who can afford it", capitalism and its management tactics is producing "needs" to further the profits, and it's part of the brainwashing system too.
Gaming and entertainment technology isn't that important for living - but everything is a matter of discussion.

 

Money is purely a means of exchange, it has no use value (or the saying 'you can't eat money'), it is thus superfluous and would be rather pointless in a society where wealth is held in common. I'm more concerned about having direct democratic control over the means of production.

On the other hand:

Sauce

 

I see no reason why Anarchy should eliminate technology. Besides its not possible, you can't undo technology.

But my question remains, I know that it isn't an important part of living but MANY MANY people play games/watch TV so without money how can a person get these things? I mean you can't just give it away for free?...can you?

 

Times 2

He also says this:

A spelling mistake perhaps? (considering it takes technology to produce food and consoles, etc)

 

This man would fight you over that one!


BTW, did you know that talking to ppl is like oppressive and stuff?

 

perhaps...or maybe by technology he specifically meant guns/bombs etc?

 

I wish i had more money so i could buy more records and drugs.

 

Well, goods are being given by the community for those we find help society a lot (for example Doctors with long educations and hard work days might get a bigger house, but is otherwise equal). Should this be done with money, we would soon have a social elite again, and we would face capitalism all over.

but just the same, someone who can provide technology to the community will be serving his or her community too

 

I dont know about you, but games and tv now are just luxurys that we have, unless the power grid stays active after a revolution, you can kiss both of those good-bye. You cant go backwards with technology, but a lot of it today can be rendered useless without power, cell phones, cars, basically everything you guys have grown to love technology wise. But for me, so fucking what, i can live without all that shit, computers, crap like that, and you people should be able to live without it too, i think personally...

And John Zerzan isnt a complete psycho, he's actually a really nice guy and does have some good points about the state of our civilization, personally speaking again.

 

I dont think there's anything wrong with money as a concept, in fact the idea of currency is a good way of simplifying exchange. The problem is really the distribution and hoarding of wealth.
Of course, without a government, we'd have to go back to trading things with hard value, like lumps of gold, which wouldn't be bad at all.

Technology is easily dismissed, but I question whether people are really ready to jump back 200 years overnight. Without electricity, no more computers or TV. That's not so bad, but it doesn't stop there. No more ramen, cause your microwave is gone too. You'll have to make candles if you want to stay up past dusk, and those are more of a fire hazard.
Without electricity, your record collection is completely useless, and live shows will all have to be acoustic, without speakers, meaning that their size will shrink.

Not to mention that tall buildings would become impractical to use (no elevators) and probably be abandoned, eventually collapsing. Medicine will be fucked entirely, no xrays, cat scans, ultrasounds, life support, etc.

My problem with anarcho primitivism is mostly just how it idealizes the natural state of things, which is in truth just as fucked up as civilization. Did you know chimps have wars?

 

Vegetarian Barbarian:
I don't think that anarchy would be the same as technologic stagnation. It's true there are things we don't need, but capitalism tells us we need (the newest iphone and such), but other things have been practical to society (cellphones for example).

Also, we need technology - What about hospital equipment? People wouldn't support something that involved them being more often ill and dying earlier, and i can understand why.

I don't see why the community shouldn't be able to own power plants too. That's means of production too!

 

Fair enough, I'm sure he's lovely. His writings on language are a bit ridiculous imho though (refer: the failure of symbolic thought , i think, in future primitive). At least he's not as batshit crazy and as fucked up as Stephen Booth.

Why wouldn't the power grid stay active after the revolution? Why would it be necessary to abandon electricity in an anarchist society?

 

It wouldn't, as it didn't in 1936...but we'd have to figure out a whole new system as it obviously isn't 1936 anymore. Technology is pretty essential to modern day anarchism as a means of total communication in a global resistance movement. As Romantic as the green anarchists and primitivists are it isn't practical to a worldwide revolution is it?

 

this is an interesting question that i've thought upon many times. personally, i believe that economic revolution is the most important (not really class war in my opinion, but similar maybe) step in a self governing or self sustaining society. the biggest problem that people have today is the fact that they can't afford certain things (food, medicine, education, etc), or if they can they're in certain economic slavery (save the lucky 5%), which has to do with money and a capitalistic system. personally, i think an anarchist society could provide those things that capitalism does now, but it would be primitve without mass globalization or mass production. Besides, the reliance that humans today have on the tertiary sector of the global economy (service, entertainment, resturants/fast food, etc.) would leave us weak and infantile in a situation like anarchy or even primitivism. In other words, our reliance not only on money as a means of trade but also as a means of gaining some sort of virtual self-interest or instant gratification has left humanity in a pretty weak position. However, without money, providing necessary things would be much more difficult, but would have much less ramifications on the environment and on the health of animals (including humans) on this planet. No more money wouldn't mean no more technology, but it would mean a whole lot of conservation because of power plants not nearly the size of , say, Edison Power and less use of oil and other fuels. Community computers for the win.

 

i think the bottom line is the needs of the people in a community. Some sort of money or monatry exchange could become necessary for certain things, but how far would that get out of hand. I think the major argument behind money is equality. in all points of economic revolution or reform to benefit the people is always to go back to a more equal state, rather than having a small amount of people controling a large amount of wealth.

the hard part about mainting an anarchist society, or an anarcho- syndicalist or pacifist society that still had money would be to defeat that golden rule-- those who have the gold, rule. Economic and governing equality would have to be a must in order to maintain peace and order.

primitivsim would be an alternative to leaving society completely and living by your own (or a small group's) way. I personally think humans would be better off as hunter-gatherer tribes again, but that's next to impossible with the rising global economy and community (well impossible for all humans, at least).