[GiftEconomy] Great little article. Puts it into context.

[Tereza Coraggio]

Hi, Frank

Thanks for the response. I'll answer in line in blue below:
>
> Id love to respond, but before I do, I have to understand fully what  
> you are saying, so below I have put my questions to what you said,  
> which I write in italics:
> It doesn't, imo, get to the root of the matter of the exploitation  
> that backs our money, and that a money backed by labor, food and  
> goods, community, or charity would have different results.
> I don't understand what you are saying here, could you explain it to  
> me in a different way. What in your opinion is the exploitation that  
> backs our money? Are you saying that we can have something called  
> fair exchange?
> In Ellen Brown's book Web of Debt, she talks about the nobles being  
> patrons of the arts and how, by giving everyone a living stipend,  
> everyone could have this same ability to use their time for high  
> pursuits. But the nobles didn't back their money with their own  
> labor. The money that the nobles gave to artists was backed by the  
> labor of the peasants, who grew and produced the food and goods.  
> Through their militaries the nobles forced the peasants to pay taxes  
> in gold or else they took their land. And so, rather than making  
> products for their own benefit or for trade with other people making  
> real goods, the peasants had to sell them for money to pay their  
> taxes. The artists who worked for the nobles got money that would  
> have been worthless except for its ability to buy products from the  
> peasants. The peasants gave their products to the artists to get  
> money to give to the nobles so the cycle could start again.  
> Likewise, our money is backed by our "entitlement" to take the  
> products of someone else's labor without giving any of our labor in  
> return. Through debt and violence other countries are forced to work  
> for US dollars rather than their own trade currencies. Our money  
> would be worthless unless it gave us access to this pirate's booty  
> of exploitation.
> In order to move from a society divided into consumers and producers  
> we need, I think, a mechanism that gives an incentive for this.
> I don't understand this, surely there are always consumers and  
> producers. If I make the tea, others consume it. Or if someone else  
> has made a pot of tea, I will be a consumer, when I pour my cup out!  
> What do you mean?
> Good example. You don't make the tea. You merely prepare it. Someone  
> else has grown the trees, harvested and dried the leaves, processed  
> and packaged the tea. What has your labor, or the labor of the  
> person you pour the tea for, ever done for the person who made the  
> tea? What have you made for them in return? Can the money they  
> received for their tea buy anything that you - or anyone else in the  
> developed world - do for a living?
> In the US, money prevents us from being producers because no one can  
> afford the land, property taxes, insurances, licenses, and labor  
> costs for help. A gift economy for services, labor, and sharing  
> tools makes sense within a community - if you can get around the  
> laws that use liability to prevent it.
> Oh, this is my problem with money. It socially excludes us, it  
> causes scarcity!  and in the case of food - death!   I am very  
> interested to know what you mean about liability that prevents it?  
> (sounds like you mean insurance costs here)
> Sort of. If I want to share my labor helping on a chicken ranch,  
> they can get fined $1000 a day for not putting me on their payroll  
> and worker's comp. If I loan out my chicken plucker, as I did today,  
> and somehow you break a finger on it, nothing protects me from  
> liability even though I did you a favor.
> A global gift economy for medicines and "intellectual property,"  
> including anything that can be put on the web, makes terrific sense.
> I agree. Lovely to share. To give to others and so enhance all “our”  
> lives. :-)
> But I don't think that the gift economy is the solution to all the  
> problems that our exploitation-backed money has created.
> How not? Are you seeing the gift economy as a small local thing, not  
> able to create big changes?
> It's the local level where it doesn't work - in the virtual global  
> world it works fine. But you can't give what doesn't belong to you  
> in the first place. When you buy the tea, you've paid your debt to  
> the shop owner. You've paid the distributor and corporate  
> manufacturer, all of whom exist in the same economy you do. But the  
> tea grower is half a world away. If her labor has been forced  
> because the corporation took all the land, or imposed debt and  
> taxes, or used violence, then the tea doesn't really belong to the  
> manufacturer or distributor or shop owner to sell. And you still owe  
> a debt to the people whose lives were destroyed in order to force  
> them to grow your tea.
> We also need a currency that reverses the exploitation, before we  
> can even get to a trade-backed currency.
> Trade backed currency? What is that, is it , does it relate to your  
> first sentence at the top?
> I don't think a trade-backed currency is possible in the US because  
> we're a services labor force - we don't make products. What I've  
> been working on is a charity-based currency. In example, say we  
> provide services in return for people making donations to int'l  
> human rights organizations. For every $50 in donations a Fair Trade  
> 10 is generated which can circulate in the local economy with a  
> variable value. If used for food, it's worth $10. If used for  
> products or services, it's worth from $20-$30. But when used for the  
> kind of education we want to encourage, it's worth $40. So it  
> facilitates trade within a community based a mutual regard for people.
> What are your thoughts, Frank?
> Tereza
>
>
> --- On Sun, 27/3/11, Tereza Coraggio <tereza at retrometro.com> wrote:
>
> From: Tereza Coraggio <tereza at retrometro.com>
> Subject: Re: [GiftEconomy] Great little article. Puts it into context.
> To: "frank bowman" <greenwomble at googlemail.com>
> Cc: gifteconomy at lists.gifteconomy.org
> Date: Sunday, 27 March, 2011, 16:28
>
> It has a good analogy about representative government making us like  
> a rat in a maze running from one party to the other but without an  
> exit because both serve the party of money. It doesn't, imo, get to  
> the root of the matter of the exploitation that backs our money, and  
> that a money backed by labor, food and goods, community, or charity  
> would have different results.
>
> In order to move from a society divided into consumers and producers  
> we need, I think, a mechanism that gives an incentive for this. In  
> the US, money prevents us from being producers because no one can  
> afford the land, property taxes, insurances, licenses, and labor  
> costs for help. A gift economy for services, labor, and sharing  
> tools makes sense within a community - if you can get around the  
> laws that use liability to prevent it. A global gift economy for  
> medicines and "intellectual property," including anything that can  
> be put on the web, makes terrific sense. But I don't think that the  
> gift economy is the solution to all the problems that our  
> exploitation-backed money has created. We also need a currency that  
> reverses the exploitation, before we can even get to a trade-backed  
> currency.
>
> Thoughts?
>
> Tereza
>
>
> On Mar 27, 2011, at 4:43 AM, frank bowman wrote:
>
> > Gets to the heart of it. The issue. And the why and how to act. Link
> > from demonetize:
> >
> > http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/mar/26/protest-rule-of-money
> >
> > :)frank
>







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