Why? What? How?
I always had the feeling i'm not doing enough with my life. Eventhough i'm an idealist, I never know where to start in making the world a better place because it seems there is so much to do. So if you have an idea, tell me about it. I will execute the most popular idea of each month for one year! I'm a puppet to your ideals!
Credits Thanks to all the members! and Bart, Thierry, Davide, Ingetje, Paul, Philipp, Yichun, Rick, Mark, my family and everybody else for helping out.
Comments / Votes
What's so bad about money? In essence it is not more than something to make trading goods and services more easy.
(I am not saying that some people do bad things with money)
True. I think that if you choose an idea to start with, it should be an idea worth copying by others. If you do this, and a lot of people copy it, it would harm the economy.
The economy harms in itself.
It will help us to rethink our consumerism
@john, i think what becomes visible of a plan like this is that in our society money is indispensable. Maarten will notify how complicated it will be to get food, get housing and other essential things. How is he supposed to pay his rent, electricity, phone, insurance?
I know Maarten is not much a consumer of luxury goods, he will barely see the effects of this idea on his consumerism. If you want to rethink consumerism, which is a good thing to do, maybe concentrate on making visible how much bullsh*t we buy. Do something on photographing and interviewing people coming out of the mediamarkt, ikea, etc.
I don't buy any of yours 2. ;)
@Bart, you are right; we need to interchange things to survive. We cant sustain ourselves for more than one day without other persons services and products like transportation, bakery, hair cutting, food, etc. Dont get me wrong, I dont support the idea of living in a cave, praying we dont get hungry - lol. I think the idea of living without money will make us rethink what we trade in the sense that we will become more aware of the two-way nature of every purchase instead of the automatic one-side paying behavior is now (I think money has reached a kind of blind side). If for a moment we become aware we are interchanging things, then we will value what we want and need and what others want and need. e.g. if I need bread I can give the milk I have to my neighbor (assuming he needs milk), but if I have a fancy watch and give it to my neighbor who is starving, no use for him neither me (I wont get bread). This will make impulsive buying fade away and so resources usage will get back to balance.
@John: I agree with the blind side thing. Money makes a lot of things invisible. However: doing a month without it doesn't show this very good. Maarten will probably be unhappy that he is not allowed to pay rent.
Maybe he could put al his spendings in a comparison to the source of his money. You can then ask: do i want to work half an hour, just for a bottle of wine? And then compare the costs of what you buy with basic things: bread, tomatoes. Do i want to buy a bottle of wine if I would also be able to buy three breads (one for yourself and two for people who needs it)?
But skipping money has another disadvantage: you would hardly see that with every bread you buy (say 2,50) you are also paying for education, health services, public transport, social services, developing countries (and unfortunately also for military services and asphalt). 6% of the 2,50 is BTW (VAT). And then the baker pays taxes (probably about 40%) on the money he earns.
So money is a good tool for letting people pay for community services. The more money you have, the more you pay.
I think nothing wrong with money, but with some of the people spending it. Use direct trading instead doesn't make those people better humans.
All I read here are sole contemoray non imaginative thoughts, which sound to me as to have been spoon fed to you.
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