Practical Revolutionary Economics - Part II

(Following on from the previous post The Economics of Revolution, we now have the concluding part II, with acknowledgements to Royce Christian for his assistance).

Undergound currency or counter economics is a non-violent means to undermine capitalism. The term was originally coined by Samuel Edward Konkin, who defined it as

"the the study and/or practice of all peaceful human action which is forbidden by the State".

The main reasons I suggested we encorporate counter economics in our daily lives was for the following;

Reduces demand on currency by providing an alternative (reduces inflation, consumption)

Ensures a social infrastructure capable of autonomous function with redundancy protection from State failure.

Companies
While not a true anarchist example, I personally believe that a simple way to give back to employees is to engage them in the business through shares. Instead of privatising the company where shares are sold on the market, employees are given shares in the company. Unlike normal shares these cannot be privately sold and are retained only while the person is in employment with the company. Call them an employee bonus scheme or something, where the business profits go back into those who worked hard for the business profits in the first place.

This method has two functions. Firstly, it redistributes the earnings of the business (not neccisarily in a socialist manner, rather contribution means tested). Secondly, the employees feel better about themselves and their jobs knowing that they are working not just for a nameless facless company, but also their own livelihood. I think it makes people more proud of their work. Finally, instead of there being a direct contradiction between an employee and the shareholders (people being laid off because of reduced profits), there is no contradiction between the two. The shareholders are the employees who retain stocks only while they are in employment with the company, and are returned to the company on the employees departure. It's private ownership, so it's not anarchist per se, but it's not capitalist either.

Barter or Trade

I rememer years ago family and friends decided to clean out their wardrobe of their old clothes and shoes. I don't generally like giving to charity because of the lack of control once you hand over your money or your items to their final location. Instead we put all the clothes in a bag and they went around the group. When the bag eventually came back to you, anything of yours still in there was removed and given to charity or thrown out. Instead of doing this with just clothes, why not do it with all sorts of items? If you don't want to setup your own group, you can use Freecycle instead.

I have also heard cases of tradesmen swapping their trades for mutual benefit. This is especially true in country towns. Generally alcohol is used a counter currency, otherwise, straight out bater is done, where a plumber will do a bathroom in exchange for electrical re-wiring. The funny thing is about these sorts of trades is people place more emphasis on quality and professionalism because instead of trading money, they trade their name and reputation.

Alternative Currency

I remember when I was younger my mother belonged to this baby-sitting group. They didn't pay each other, instead they had these cut up pieces of laminate flooring (weired I know). The would exchange one piece of this laminate flooring for every hour that they baby-sat. No money exchanged, and no tit for tat with a large group involved. If you only have one or two people, the onus is that if you do 5 hours of babysitting, you expect the other person to do 5 hours. With the laminate flooring system, you didn't have to do baby-sitting for the person who did it for you. It was a great system, unusual, but it worked.

Alternative currencies available on the market include liberty dollars, Pheonix dollars, Ithaca Hours and digital gold currency like e-gold. These alternative currencies are denominated by weight and backed by a commodity (unlike the U.S or AUS $). Thus, these currencies are designed to be absolutely free of any financial risk. (I.e. assume something happens to the Australian economy and it goes bust, having your money backed by gold means you have little to worry about). There is also no debt or contingent liabilities associated with these systems. However, "the use of these gold and silver NORFED "Liberty Dollar" medallions as circulating money is a Federal crime in the US". Oh well, you've been warned.

Before anyone decides to swap all their cash for e-gold, just remember "Caveat Emptor" Buyer Beware as it has been suggested that some of these guys only say they have gold backed dollars, in reality it could just be a virtual currency.

Establishing the Neighbourhood

Growing your own fruits or vegetables can be a great way to get to know the neighbours. We've all seen the lemon tree in the font yard, and we've all gone and asked nicely for a few lemons. I read in the paper a while back about a Reverend who grew tomatoes next to his picket fence that people would help themselves to. He said he didn't mind because that was the whole idea. While probably not cost effective monetarily speaking, there is no value on the forging of relationships with those around you. This is social infrastructure.

Another thing you have to remember about counter economics, is that not everyone has to be an anarchist to participate, you will find people are likely to participate because it benefits them, unwittingly contributing to the free-market, making it stronger. So go out there and get involved, and if you have any ideas to add to this, or any feedback send us an email at anarchistalex@yahoo.com

The Economics of Revolution - Part I

The current political system is robust because of it's strong economic model, so the old axiom, "the larger they are, the harder they fall" comes to mind. So what is the best way to bring down capitalism, and re-institute a more socialist, communitarian model? To do this, we need to look at economics and currency under the current model.

Money is an aid for barter, and in reality a piece of paper where two people have agreed upon the value for trade (that is the purchase of goods or services). Money is a valuable resource only because it is used by the state to pay taxes and fines, it is a commodity that is forced onto the community.

So, let us assume that we live in a tribe and rare shells are used as currency. Suppose that only one person in the tribe knows where the shells are found. This person then has a monopoly on the economy. They are able to trade more than their share, by injecting more currency into the economy, which long term makes the shells worth less. (that is, you need more and more shells to trade for the same amount of goods). So this one individual becomes quite wealthy at the expense of the other tribesman.

While a simple example, this effectively describes the function of the Reserve Bank. The Reserve Bank is a privately owned company with a monopoly on the production of local currency, effectively, making your dollar worth less and less. It is assumed by most people that the Australian Government produces Australian currency. This is untrue. The Australian Government has debts owed to the Reserve Bank who produce the currency, and it is our taxes that pay the loan.

As anarchists, there are a few options for us.

Firstly, lets look at radical change. If everyone in the country withdrew all their currency at one time, the economy would collapse. The fractional lending system is based on the fact that 10X more money is loaned out than what the banks actually have. If everyone went at one time to collect their money from the banks, bankrupcy would ensue. The economy would collapse, however, this would only be a temporary measure. Due to the global nature of the economy now, we would find that within 24 hours, the economy would be running again thanks to injections of "liquidity" from overseas. (This just means some rich arsehole realises his system is about to collapse, so he puts his own money into the system to keep it running). Hence, for a radical change, we need a mass critical number to withdraw their funds globally.

However, I have some grave concerns over the plans of our global NWO. If capitalism failed and all currencies became de-valued, money would become concentrated in the hands of a few. As people sell off their assets and liquidate into cash assets, things like houses and businesses are sold for pennies on the dollar. (The great depression of 1929), resulting in people with vast wealth increasing their wealth. So while for you and me the economy is bad, inflation is high, food is scarce, the very wealthy become exceedingly wealthly.

The trick is once the economy falls, not to re-instate their (statist) currency.

I believe the follow on effect from a global economic collapse will be the establishment of a global currency. A currency that is able to handle the ebs and flows of local market fluctations due to civil war or the like. At this point, we need to limit the use of the new currency to prevent it's uptake. Again, this is difficult when taxes and fines are used to pay the state.

So then, what is the best method to subvert the capitalist system?

The best thing you can do, is to start networking with people. They don't have to be anarchists, they just need to be able to offer you something.

Try instituting a barter system, or trading your skills. Anything that doesn't reqiure the exchange of state supplied cash, which is also referred to as "underground currency".

Underground currency systems already exist, like the exchange of alcohol or cigarettes in prison. We need to start implementing systems outside the current socio-political model, to start building our own de-centralised communities. This serves two functions, the first; with a mass critical number you can cause the economy to collapse (which is less likely), but the second, is to have in place our own economic system for when the currrent system does collapse. What we need to do is start building social infrastructure, which places more than a dollar value on our relationships with the economy.

coming soon... part II - Practical Revolutionary Economics