Revolt against Money

[joeylovesgaia]

People have been fighting for workers, for the indigenous, and Gaia for generations. Yet things keep getting worse. Why?

Well, to be short it's money. The ones who print money, the ones who manage money, the ones who have the most money are, essentially, the same old boys' club. They claim to compete, but they're in cahoots. And money is just symbols on paper or bits in a computer--an illusion.

They have tricked us into thinking that money is a real thing. That we need it to survive. When the truth is that we need the Earth and certain skills to survive, like farming, house-building, and forming a community with one's neighbors. They have prevented us from learning these skills, maneuvered us into overspecializing, and killed our sense of community. They have made us dependent on their Machine for our very lives. Worse, they are so greedy, shortsighted and stupid, they are running us into the ground.

It's not too late. We can relearn the skills we and our great grandchildren need to live. We can start talking to people and rebuild our communities. We can revive the gift economy, build a new resource-based economy, and start valuing people and nature over pieces of paper.

Do, of course, make that donation to Survival International, The Sierra Club, etc. While the Machine is still strong we will have to use the weapons of the enemy, so to speak, to protect the vulnerable against it. But don't be fooled into thinking that this will solve the problem. Those who control money are very good at making sure their victims never have enough of it. When fighting the Beast it is not enough to slice off a tentacle here, a claw there-- you must stab it through the heart.

[Mr.]

Mate do that, your not gonna have the ****ing internet, cars, films, tv.

99.9999% of us are happier with these things, if you 00.00001% want to live without money, go and try it for 5 weeks, I guarentee you will be 10X more depressed

[PaTRioT1987]

If you haven't already, i suggest you download a documentary called Zeitgeist.. some very very interesting, eye opening stuff in there

[KalaKuival]

If you haven't already, i suggest you download a documentary called Zeitgeist.. some very very interesting, eye opening stuff in there

Good recommandation! I find Zeitgeist Addendum is better with explanations and a soluton, but one may indeed start with Zeitgeist 1...
-----
Money is bad and i agree that we must get rid of it some way. But no technology? The situation would probably go as it did in Russia in the early 20th century. The revolution and violance and all that followed......
People wouldn't accept a life with no technology. We couldn't even satisfy the basic needs of the human beings, food, fresh water all that...

We need technology, more than ever. If we use it to FREE ourselves from work and make the machines produce us things we could produce abundance and therefore eradicate the need to have wars or inequality in life.
-----
The Venus Project (http://www.thevenusproject.com/)

[RDAGoon]

Nothing like railing against how evil money is and then asking people to make a donation to the Sierra Club... with money. What a hypocrite.

So what happens when I want some apples and the apple grower doesn't want what I'm offering. I can't get the apples. Money is a universal system of value that makes it so people can get what they want and need and not have to worry about that crap.

Until we can make things out of thin air like on Star Trek there will always be money. It's better than robbing and stealing what we want.

[NYSEF816]

this is a joke right?

[Neytiri]

The truth is that no one needs money to survive. However, human culture is so entrenched in money that to whisk it away from people cold turkey there would be tremendous upheaval. Yes, money is the tool of the cognitive miser. Yes, it's a cheap shot to our heart and our intelligence. Yes, its a miserly attempt at happiness. However, it is also the path humanity has chosen for thousands of years. Yes, it's a simple minded idiotic attempt to reduce our world to one variable - MONEY! - for simplicity and convenience and laziness and blind selfish competitive ambition. Yes, simplification to one variable it useful in theory but when you apply it to real life to the extent we have done with money, YES IT IS GOING TO WREAK HAVOC ON OUR REAL WEALTH.... But again, humanity has made this choice for thousands of years... We should not have money, because it takes the focus off our real wealth - ourselves, our family, our community and our environment, and puts the center of attention on a piece of paper - however, we are very entrenched in it. The next best thing to abolishing a common medium of exchange is to begin shifting to what the Navi Movement recommends which is re-localization... getting our focus back to our communities in the context of a monetary system. Geting back to OUR REAL WORLD. Our communities. Only faceless corporations - this is the only beast that can survive and thrive best on an international level. The human animal best thrives on the local community level. The power of the people lies in the existence of many, small local owners, not a few gigantic consolidated international behemoths. Getting our focus back on COMMUNITY COOPERATION instead of continuing on this destructive path of every-man-island-unto-self simpleton type of competition is what we need to be doing. This is all we really need to do in order to make great changes to our way of life. Re-evaluate our understanding of freedom. Consciously acknowledge that money is not our real wealth - it is the human being and his/her land - self, others - family, community - and environment. This.Is.OUR.Land. Remember the human being understands the importance of Humanity and Nature. They are our Lifeblood. For the Corporation, the lifeblood is money. Humanity and Nature are not factored in.

[RDAGoon]

Blaming money for human greed is like blaming the gun or knife for a murder. Completely crazy.

[Neytiri]

Blaming money for human greed is like blaming the gun or knife for a murder. Completely crazy.

We do not blame money for human greed... however we do blame human greed for the existence of money, and the extent of what we have allowed it to do to Humanity and Nature ;)

[Ocyris]

Money as Debt is another pretty good series on the subject.

YouTube - Money As Debt (1 of 5)

[NYSEF816]

money as an economic theory is an absolutely brilliant; it is literally as revolutionary as the alphabet or the discovery of the scientific method as far as civilization goes.
Money allows us, among millions of other things, to have a consistent bartering system so we don;t have to say to ourselves "i make quilts, but i want to buy a car, how many quilts is one car worth?' simple - how much money are people willing to pay for quilts? how must money are people willing to pay for cars? WTPc/WTPq = how many quilts you must make to buy a car.

this is an extremely simple example (which doesn't take into account supply, I was assuming a prfectly competitive market with no barriers to entry and exit), but the ramifications are exponentially greater then few other things ever developed by humans. the reason why we don't need to know how to farm anymore is because we have an industry of farming. the excess of workers who would have been farmers without money can now trade the farmer's corn in a commodities market or build machines used by the farmer.

i understand your feelings towards harming the environment, but don't blame money. money is one of the many reasons we have computers, internet and a 2.5 billion dollar movie (of which the proceeds go to News Corp).

[Ocyris]

My opinion on the matter is money itself neither is nor ever been the problem. Fiat currency on the other hand has through out history has caused the collapse of nations.

When trade stops crossing borders soldiers are soon to start.

[Tudhalyas]

Neytiri, I hear you. I've explained my positions about money in other threads too.

I don't like what humanity has become over the last thousand years, and I don't like the fact that today our most important goal seems only to be to gain more money. Our values have been distorted, and first and foremost we have to change this if we want to achieve anything.

The problem however is that you can't destroy money all of a sudden, not at least on a large, global scale. You still need it for trade, you can't always rely yourself on barter because - as RDAGoon said - you maybe don't have anything to trade in exchange for something you need from a specific vendor.

The only thing we can do for now is to start on a small scale, in our own communities, and then try to spread somewhere near. Re-localization is a good point to start from.

But again, you have to change people's minds first if you want to achieve your goals, and that will be the most difficult part of it all.


The power of the people lies in the existence of many, small local owners, not a few gigantic consolidated international behemoths. Getting our focus back on COMMUNITY COOPERATION instead of continuing on this destructive path of every-man-island-unto-self simpleton type of competition is what we need to be doing. This is all we really need to do in order to make great changes to our way of life. Consciously acknowledge that money is not our real wealth - it is the human being and his/her land - self, others - family, community - and environment. This.Is.OUR.Land.
I approve every single word. Well said!

[Neytiri]

Neytiri, I hear you. I've explained my positions about money in other threads too.

I don't like what humanity has become over the last thousand years, and I don't like the fact that today our most important goal seems only to be to gain more money. Our values have been distorted, and first and foremost we have to change this if we want to achieve anything.

The problem however is that you can't destroy money all of a sudden, not at least on a large, global scale. You still need it for trade, you can't always rely yourself on barter because - as RDAGoon said - you maybe don't have anything to trade in exchange for something you need from a specific vendor.

The only thing we can do for now is to start on a small scale, in our own communities, and then try to spread somewhere near. Re-localization is a good point to start from.

But again, you have to change people's minds first if you want to achieve your goals, and that will be the most difficult part of it all.


I approve every single word. Well said!

I agree completely that taking money away from humanity on a large scale is not feasible at all for a long time to come - barring any major catastrophe which forces society to reorganize. There are some groups that are actively seeking this end much more forcefully like the Venus Project - who created the Zeitgeist awareness movies. There is actually a forum at www.atlasinitiativegroup.org that are trying to build a model resource-based city asap, actually. I've been spending some time there too in order to gain some perspective. However, although I do believe that if humanity really wanted to CARPE DIEM and aspire to our best and greatest humanity we should create a resource-based economy... I know that only baby steps can be taken on a large scale... the main thing to get people to do on a larger scale basis NOW, is - like you said - focus on re-localization. This is a significant emphasis of the Navi Movement. Getting people to realize that although money is a great convenience, when we allow it to run amok, when we allow it to so overtake our lives that we become its servants instead of its masters - this is where we need to say F-ING STOP! We have completely lost perspective! Our real wealth is humanity and nature and if our money system is not serving our ends, then our money system needs reform. And it can be as simple as getting people to realize this and begin nudging them back to the local community sphere... Who would you rather trust... who would YOU rather trust? Honestly? A giant corporation like Monsanto or Farmer Joe, 2 miles down the road? I'll pay double for tomatoes that I KNOW for sure are organic and grown with love and care and were picked yesterday. Tomatoes whose nutritional content is 100s of percentages larger than conventionally grown tomatoes in dead pesticide soil... Why do we have so many chronic illnesses in the modern industrialized super corporatized western world? Why do we kill our life savings in our elder years on expensive hospital bills? One of the reasons is improper nutrition... Coming from food grown by large corporations who couldn't give a rat's frozen behind about your health and my health. As long as we hang around long enough to exhaust our prime working years, giving THEM our bestenergy, instead of giving it to our family, community and local environment... that's all they care about. What's the solution? Making people aware that money is the tragic distraction, and our real wealth, OUR - THE PEOPLE'S - THE GIANT MAJORITY'S - real wealth... real priority... is fellow Humanity and Environment. THESE are OUR lifeblood. NOT MONEY. Money is only the lifeblood of corporations.... Money is a tool that must remain at OUR service, not become our master.

[Wildfeatures]

money as an economic theory is an absolutely brilliant; it is literally as revolutionary as the alphabet or the discovery of the scientific method as far as civilization goes.
Money allows us, among millions of other things, to have a consistent bartering system so we don;t have to say to ourselves "i make quilts, but i want to buy a car, how many quilts is one car worth?' simple - how much money are people willing to pay for quilts? how must money are people willing to pay for cars? WTPc/WTPq = how many quilts you must make to buy a car.

this is an extremely simple example (which doesn't take into account supply, I was assuming a prfectly competitive market with no barriers to entry and exit), but the ramifications are exponentially greater then few other things ever developed by humans. the reason why we don't need to know how to farm anymore is because we have an industry of farming. the excess of workers who would have been farmers without money can now trade the farmer's corn in a commodities market or build machines used by the farmer.

i understand your feelings towards harming the environment, but don't blame money. money is one of the many reasons we have computers, internet and a 2.5 billion dollar movie (of which the proceeds go to News Corp).

Money and fiat currencies are very much to blame for the current state. Sure, it is good for bartering but the current currency has no real backing, other then the issuers word.

And the rampant use of money has put a price even where there shouldn't be one, and this price is often influenced by companies. How can there be a price for what the forest and all of the other eco-systems are providing us with -clean air, fresh water, medicine against our illnesses and so on. Who are these people who think that they can buy this and expect us to work for them to be able to use it?

Too often we see an industrialized country getting the resources of a undeveloped one. This is done by money. The rich country doesn't have to give something up instead it just prints money. They bribe the person running the country, or organize a coup if he/she isn't willing to, for the rights of those resources. In the way money is being used today it is very detrimental to us.

[Na'viking]

umm...okay...?