Moneyless economic system
If the concept of money were to end tomorrow, most of us would not be doing what we do. You may be tempted to think that we would all stay at home and relax or in other words become lazy. Yes, maybe we all would do that, because we’r stressed from the kind of work we did under the influence of money. Maybe because some of us have even come to believe that all work mostly sucks!
The services you receive would slowly end. Paper would not be delivered to home, heck news would not be printed at all as all workforce is resting at home. Milk won’t be delivered home, Damn, it won’t be packeted even. All this would make us feel, it would have been better if we had money to control people and put them back in place ! Note, it would put you back to your work too.
But you would see some wonderful things too — Maybe the local restaurant is still open and serving basic food to people in these difficult times when everything is shut. Maybe a farmer shares the vegetables he has grown freely. Maybe a doctor’s clinic is still open to serving patients in dire need. Such people constitute the 13% of us in today’s world- Those who are actively engaged in their work. They love what they do and do it not because of the money they get but because it adds purpose & meaning to their life.
The lazy ones, would soon get bored of relaxing. They see a lot of problems in the society and these are opportunities to work and find our passions. Its time to discover that work which gives you joy. Remember there are no incentives (no money) for work — so there is no discrimination of work — all work is worship : Your way of worship is in no way inferior to mine. (All paths lead to the “one” — The Gita)
Seeing shortage of power, like minded & passionate people would get-together and start harnessing solar power. Journalists passionate about covering stories would write about these passionate workers producing electricity, thus inspiring others in community to join them or start their own works for community. Seeing shortage of fuel & doing research on why oil industry workers left their jobs, people will come up with increasing safety standards at production level or try to automate the hard & dirty jobs.. Passionate environmentalists who otherwise went to say IT companies can pursue their interests.. and if these environmentalists suggest that fossil fuel burning is resulting in a disastrous climate change, the oil industry guys will easily agree to shut it down — why ? Because, remember, people working in oil industry are not working for incentives, they started working because of community’s need for fuel to run cars/buses. So they are doing a service / seva just like the organic farmer growing food for them, and if they realise their service is causing more harm than good to the world they will be ready to stop it — they are not driven by greed but by love for this world. Maybe they will involve themselves in researching & building solar technology cars, planes, etc.
Meat & poultry industries would be found vacant, cause workers fled away due to bad working conditions (New study reveals just how brutal meat & poultry work is for workers).. so people passionate about food, may take up those factories — they would now ensure safety or bring in process innovation… See how the absence of money connects people to their passion. Now, when working in meat industries some people might realise the amount of cruelty & violence involved in it for the first time in their lives (“If slaughterhouses had glass walls, the whole world would be vegetarian” — Paul McCartney). Many might convert to a vegan lifestyle, says my biased feeling. But maybe many will work in that industry to serve people outside with delicious food.
Bottom line is, we won’t need to shout and cry about issues like environmental crisis, or make people aware about going vegan (like PETA Reverse videos) or conduct protests to increase safety at workplace. All these problems fall in place when money disappears — the concept of using money to “make” someone work is slavery — we have to accept and digest this fact.
Money is not magically going to disappear tomorrow as I stated hypothetically in the beginning of this article. We need to put in the hard-work towards achieving such a society. It starts from You. If you are an entrepreneur or a business owner, I urge (beg) you to think on these lines and start an Unselfish business. What is such a business? Two hints for now, 1) Worker Co-ops 2) Non-profit. Have you ever heard of a non-profit shampoo company, a non-profit chips company ? Why not? — Such companies will beat capitalistic competition by Price and ethical values. Then starts an interesting journey towards the vision, which I shall explain in later posts.
If You do not own a business, you can help too. Stop believing in the power of money — Money gets its power from our belief in its power. So, just don’t value it. Stop exercising the power that money has. What does that mean? Stop unnecessary expenditure (Start living a simpler life like Gandhi) — This will collapse the existing economic system if it becomes a movement like Satyagraha and increases awareness about how weak Capitalism really is and how it flourishes by selling us what we do not really need (Noble prize economists say it) OR You can help unselfish businesses grow & expand by supporting them & crowdfunding them — because such businesses do not make profits, so they cannot expand on their own.
Slowly but surely with Unselfish businesses and informed consumers, the value of money would be coming to an end.
