An article crowd-sourced by the fall 2013 Ethics Class
UCR Philosophy Track
What you have before you is something quite peculiar: A document written by about 25 students, on the subject of money. This surely must be the first such article published in the Tabula Rasa. The title reflects one of the unique qualities a crowd-sourced essay appears to have, and as you will read on you will see which other qualities a conglomeration of minds can achieve, especially regarding matters of opinion. These coming paragraphs should reflect which thoughts passed our minds during one of our Ethics classes (on November 22nd). We hope it will spark you to think big thoughts.
On the Merits of the Venus Project
The class discussed the following statement: should we abolish money in favor of a resource-based economy? We had just been discussing the many problems inherent to money, like the power of banks, unequal divisions in quality of life across the world, the inability of many to pay off their debts, and the influences capitalist advertising has on our ways of thinking and buying. Not to mention the problems to do with the worth of money. Should we have a gold standard, or is virtual money (money based only on trust in our governments) acceptable?
With the government shutdown in the US, the shaky economy in South-Europe and major cuts in the Dutch budget, we are left with only one conclusion about money: it is not perfect. Granted, it works, but if we see how wealth is distributed and abused we must also admit we are able to do better.
What then is the alternative to a currency-based economy, you might inquire? We cannot go back to the society of self-sufficiency, as that would rather be devolution. Therefore “economy” will be a term kept in a new system proposed by the Venus Project Institute. This futurist institution is trying to design a fairer world. They defend the ideal of a resource-based economy, which they describe as:
A holistic social and economic system in which the planetary resources are held as the common heritage of all the earth’s inhabitants. (…)
The aim of this new social design is to encourage an incentive system no longer directed toward the shallow and self-centered goals of wealth, property, and power. These new incentives would encourage people toward self-fulfillment and creativity, both materially and spiritually.
What they propose is a world of abundance, where everyone shares everything and there is enough to suit the needs of the people. In short: there would no longer be scarcity. It would require an extremely efficient production chain, but through technology this can be reached, or so professes the Venus Project. In practicality there would be hubs in our modern cities where people could get any product they desired, free of charge. People would return whatever they would not need anymore, just like in the library model. This would lead to less wasted resources. For example: how often is that electric drill people own actually used? If you could share it with others, it could serve many at no expense of the owner.
The utter lack of ownership would ensure many human rights, for stealing would become irrelevant in a world owned by all, and if all people could simply retrieve what they needed the effects of discrimination would be (economically) non-existent. The collective, would manage the flow of resources where everyone lends their hand, and no single person is in control.
The world of The Venus Project is futuristic, uplifting, and above all, beautifully designed. The latter is true for both aesthetics and ideologies. However, can one shape people’s thoughts like that? Can one prescribe a way of acting?
Then it was our turn to think: what is our opinion on this ideal of the resource-based economy as a contender to our current currency-based economy? We have briefly discussed the benefits of the resource-based economy, and the disadvantages of the currency-based economy; let us now turn to taking a critical look at the disadvantages and the feasibility of the former.
There appear two major difficulties that have to be overcome in order to call the resource-based system a realistic one. Firstly, we must account for the aforementioned requisite of shaping people’s thoughts. People with a spirit of competition and ownership would ravage a Venus city. Secondly, we must acknowledge money to be an incentive to many people nowadays. How will a resource-based system fill this gap? What would keep people from sitting on the couch watching the television and doing nothing for the remainder of their lives?
Let us illustrate the first point by telling you a story first. It is a story based on true events, one that had been confided to us by one of our class members.
A World of Infinite Crayons
In fair Kindergarten, where we lay our scene, from ancient urge grows new society. It must have been about 20 years ago that she last sat at that table. It was a long table, and its many painted accidents created a work of art not unworthy of Pollock’s name. Drawing classes were always fun, for she was an artsy kid, and her works were always praised by the teachers. At the middle of the table, in the shade of those uncut vines on the windows, there was an enormous stack of crayons. These crayons were of all colors, and there were always plentiful. Kids would use these crayons for their drawings, swapping them whenever they desired another color, and they always returned them after class, at least, all but one. Our heroin had another way of looking at the world. Even though there appeared to be an abundance of crayons, she felt the urge to secure them for herself. She made sure to never be short of drawing utensils by keeping a nice box filled with one crayon of each color. She took the thing with her wherever she went. Oh yes, this green box was her pride, and she was very fond of cherry-picking the best crayons to go inside of it.
This clash of paradigms was never an issue for this miniature society, for she kept her box and the others continued using the pile. However, once upon a time there happened something to disturb this peace. A stubborn boy had suddenly taken an interest in her crayons, which were so tidily kept in that green box of hers. When she had her mind on finishing her drawing, he quickly reached out to the box and grabbed one of her crayons. When she turned back to her box, she was surprised. And when surprise turned into shock, only one thought lingered on her mind: theft. She was devastated that such a thing could happen in her Kindergarten. She grabbed a new crayon from the pile, but it wasn’t the same. There were many crayons like it, but that one was hers. She could not spot the culprit, gazing across the sunlit table. All those innocent faces were idly gazing at their drawings, seemingly in that other state of consciousness that artists inhabit.
She resolved to continue drawing, but to also keep her eyes on the box, which she now put right in front of her, behind the drawing. Then, some 30 minutes later, as expected, a quick hand reached into the box. Her reflex was immediate. She bit the boy in his upper arm, maiming his sweater, and leaving the class at least as shocked as she had been half an hour ago. The day after she grabbed more crayons from the pile, and stacked them neatly in her box, in case someone else would steal one of them. From now on it was in front of her as well, so it could be surveyed constantly.
As soon as other pupils noticed this transfer of goods, and the sudden creation of a militarized zone, they too started to procure personal crayons. From that moment on the pile of crayons slowly moved from the table into pupils’ boxes. After about a week the crayons were practically privatized. The pile was gone, and was now replaced by a circle of locked boxes. There remained only two ways to get new crayons. Firstly, to trade. Secondly, to draw. The teachers had no idea what to do with the situation. Any crayons they added to the pile were immediately seized when they turned around for a moment, so they decided to hand out crayons to those that drew best and most, in order to prevent hoarding by others.
Pupils used to draw in order to enjoy themselves. Now, they could not shake off the feeling that they did it for the crayons. Drawings became a currency to buy goods; goods were required to make drawings. Money had been introduced in Kindergarten.
Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things. And when you are satisfied, dear reader, do continue and we will reveal what this story did to us.
A Different Mind-Set
What this story managed to show is that an ethical system cannot be forced upon people. It also shows that the ideology of abundance can be a fragile one. What would keep someone from hoarding drills to put on the wall as trophies and thereby disrupting the mechanics of the library system? Nothing but solidarity. And one would need a big feeling of solidarity in this society.
On this matter we proposed that indoctrination is not necessarily evil. “The noble lie that unifies people for a purpose” might be the best way to put it. This noble lie would need to exert a strong feeling of solidarity amongst the people of a Venus City. It should inspire people to share and should give them an absolute disgust of purposeless hoarding. Only that would warrant that the social control in this city (for there would be no politicians) would be up to snuff to keep people from turning the pile into private enterprises.
This would not be unlike Plato’s republic and More’s Utopia, two worlds also unified in purpose. We shan’t dive into those here though, but we recommend you visit these great works.
Incentives in a World of Abundance
The second problem we have to face is the matter of incentives. First of all we shall discuss incentive to work, secondly to do dirty work, and thirdly to innovate.
Is the ideal of the Venus Project too romanticized? We can surely not prevent that there will be slackers in that society as well. Without money and with collective means of production there would be no contracts, and no need for long-term work agreements. People could hop from place to place (or stay at one job forever). Because of this the standard of living might go down, because there would be no forced specialization and not a high incentive to work. However, in this matter we must step away from the idea that personal gain is the only motive to act. Creativity and the joy of sharing are alternatives to the extrinsic incentive of money.
When we thought about solutions for the second question we came up with another currency in society that circumvents monetary worth: participation. Without market leaders there needs to be a collective understanding of what needs to be done to keep the society going. People would understand the necessity of dirty in order to continue their overall high quality of living. This introduces a system where participation would be rewarded, where doing the dirty work puts one into a respected position. A small community would be key to this system, as an increase in size would also reduce personal responsibility.
If this does not work as expected, we surely cannot know in our ivory tower here, there might be a need for a harder incentive: if one does not do any work, they will be barred from the resource system. If no dirty work is done, people are assigned to them for short periods. However, we think social control would go a long way before that would be needed.
A final question of paramount importance in this world is to ask whether any form of ambition is possible. The eagerness of people to achieve something will be less, hypothetically, since the reward they are so used to having will not be there anymore. People might be forced to do work which they do not like to do, and subsequently will not be able to make the most out of themselves.
While it is true that people will have jobs that do not lie in their interests, everybody can do whatever they want after they are relieved from their daily duties. A nice example of how this is already practiced is the astute movement of the Kibbutz in Israel. Here people live in harmony with each other and just do the work they are assigned to. If someone really has sound objections against the work they are doing, they will be allotted to a different job. What we see is that people have to work for four hours a day, and have complete freedom in what they do thereafter. The people get everything that they need. The desires of these people are completely met, quite a change from the capitalist 9-to-5 workdays.
A second element of ambition is innovation. Without innovation a society would not improve its means of production, nor would it create new ways of human expression, leading to stagnancy in both economical and creative progression. The subsequent question is: will an innovative mind-set be feasible in this world of the noble lie? Innovation, we argued, thrives in a world in which people have a specific expertise. It is experts who contemplate about improving methods instead of simply accepting the existing technology. However, we have to keep in mind that, in a Venus City, everyone would still have the freedom to either choose a profession they stick with (which may or may not be alternated with societal work, as we stated earlier), or they can dedicate themselves to a craft after they are relieved from their duties. In fact, we have a real-life example of this: the Kibbutz. These people create numerous innovative products that are popular across the world, such as Plasan Sasa’s Flat-Pack Armor Kits.
A Malthusian Catastrophe?
Of course one has to be wary that this approach could lead to a Malthusian catastrophe, in which the population growth exceeds the resources. Resources are not infinite, and though there would be abundance for a selected world population, exceeding this selected world population would lead to a Malthusian catastrophe, which would lead to a scarcity again and thereby destroying the existing society. To counter this we deemed it appropriate for a society to introduce a policy similar to the China’s “one-child policy.” The consequences of violating this policy should be different from those in China and proportional to the damage done to the society at large. Abundance is not boundless in a bounded universe, and therefore we need to also think about creating circumstances in which a resource-system can thrive.
We sincerely hope that we gave you some background to aid you in solving the ethical problems of the Venus Project system. It is now up to you to see if you prefer this ideal above the capitalist one. There is no single answer to these questions, a fact strongly proven by this crowd-sourced experiment. However, before we leave you to your own thoughts, let us inject one final idea.
Surprise!
You are already part of a resource-based society. “How?” you ask. Well, it has been there for more than nine years now: the Roosevelt All Student Association. Board members are paid nothing (or pitiful sums) to keep a constant stream of services running. By doing this, these people contribute to the society that is UCR. One project of particular interest here is Common House Elliott, which is going to be the fortress for student life. By studying this successful harmony we can almost see how a completely resource-based society would work.
It was brought up that some people only join these boards to put the experience on their resume. Possibly, but is that necessarily a bad thing? Such achievism is not restricted to a capitalist system, and might be what we were talking about with our currency of participation. Being “somebody” is not tied to the money system in any way.
In the end, by class majority, most (all in our case) people join RASA boards to improve the world, on a local scale. This philanthropy should be the main incentive to act; next to having fun, of course.
Crayons for all!
We like the Venus Project. It does have its flaws, but then again, so does the capitalist system. We urge you to look into it too, to let these big thoughts flow through your synapses (even though Professor Aiken would disagree with using “thoughts” as a noun-kind-of-a-thing).
Ethics needs to be a practical field, one that can be put to use. Because otherwise, what is the point? Of course, we cannot simply start an island nation and build a modern utopia. There is, however, a better way of implementing the ideals of a resource-based economy: to start locally. Grassroots movements are always the beginning of bigger changes in our societies. One such movement is RASA, next to other student organizations. By becoming part of a RASA society, by joining a board, or doing volunteer work, you help build a society based on participation and ethically sound ideals. If we all lend a hand, we are sure that over a few decennia we will have the perfect case study to write another one of these essays. And with it, we will convert the world.
Watching
FIRST LOOK Inside the FEDERAL RESERVE, USD, CASH, GOLD monetary SYSTEM – Americas Money Vault PART 1. – http://youtu.be/_1NNEgmNc8k
Exposing the Federal Reserve! – http://youtu.be/RrwbgdtbdXE
Paradise or Oblivion (The Venus Project) – http://youtu.be/KphWsnhZ4Ag
