Re: [ox-en] Re: Local economies and Gesellian theory
- From: Stefan Merten <smerten oekonux.de>
- Date: Wed, 27 Jul 2005 08:17:56 +0200
Hi Magius and all!
Date: Sat, 23 Jul 2005 13:15:34 [PHONE NUMBER REMOVED]
From: magius <gmagius gmail.com>
[...]
About your analysis: you said free software is not a "political"
project and that's true, but it's also true that your analysis is
"typically" a marxist one!
Well, Marx said about Marxists that all he knows about them is that he
is none. This applies to me, too ;-) . But of course my background -
among some other influences - is inspired by Marx' theory, yes. This
applies to some more people in Oekonux.
And I agree completely with it!
:-)
I have not
an ideological approach, mine is "only" a practical one.
I don't like ideologies, too. But I like theory. Theory tries to
understand a set of phenomenons in the most adequate way. If you have
a good theory you can use it for orientation. In this sense a good
theory is a guide for useful, efficient practical action. This is how
I try to approach it and since some people in Oekonux are concerned
with the question of practical projects it is high time to discuss
these things.
My question
is: how to FASTER change the context?
On this we agree, too.
My final goal is to abolish
money but I think we need a "transition" period in which money exists
but *changes face*.
The question is in which sense could there be a change useful for
emancipatory goals (I guess we largely agree on these goals, too). For
this some common understanding what money is would be useful. May be
we all can learn something here.
Simply because I actually (but I could change
idea..) think an approach like yours needs a strong awareness in a lot
of people. And NOW we have not it.
It seems to me that you are thinking much along this line of awareness
and how to convince people. As I wrote I think this approach is flawed
and I prefer a more materialist approach: If things are different
people will change their mind. There might be even a point where the
masses grab theory.
Oekonux may serve as a good example here. Free Software developed
without some theory / not as a political project. Well, there were
some left-liberal theory by Richard Stallman but this is basically
very compatible with standard democratic values. Still a lot of people
*felt* that there is a difference in Free Software. This resulted in
names like "communist software" and the like.
Now Oekonux came up in 1999 and developed a theory about what is
happening on a very fundamental level. Some in the Free Software scene
interested in such questions suck up the ideas developed here. This is
an example of a theory explaining what people are doing already. The
awareness comes after things have changed already. You may also
compare this to Marx who explained what capitalims is while it already
existed. And there was no general blueprint for capitalism either.
Gesellian models are in more or less contrast to this. They need to
convince people. They have some blueprints in some drawer which people
are required to execute. It is not practice looking for a theory but
theory trying to change practice of people. This is the leftist /
political approach which failed for so many times now - and usually
does not even get a chance to become reality.
I found in "gesellian money" a tool
to starting abolish money, from abolish his **store of value**
attribute, leaving only the **mean of exchange** one.
Several questions:
* What is value?
* What's the problem with storing it?
* Is it possible to separate the "store of value" function from the
"means of exchange" function?
FAZ is a
"minimalist" collection of tools to try to **homeopatically** change
the status-quo, using money to abolish it (in a similar way as GPL
used copyright licence to abolish copyright)
I see. May be we can develop some ideas together.
and introducing the
concept of "artificial abundance" to fight the "artificial scarcity"
of capitalism.
Can you tell us more about artificial abundance?
As I said you, mine is only a tactical approach. If
there're other better and faster practiceable ways to reach the goal
to abolish money, I'm strongly interested to change my ideas.
Yeah let's do this. I'm also interested in this and this whole project
is about learning so this fits perfectly :-) .
Mit Freien Grüßen
Stefan
--
Please note this message is written on an offline laptop
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