*********************
“Back to our second principle: as I said, we maintain our individual right to privacy. This principle encompasses private ownership of our immediately useful goods, like
our homes, our clothes, in short our personal things.
All these are possessed
individually.
“In other words, people can’t just come into your home and say, ‘We own this too.’”
“Precisely,” he replied. “That would stir aggressive behaviours,” he smiled. “It is
also the case that much of the wealth we enjoy, we savour as a whole, as a society on a
communal level. We find it flattens life to enjoy all our delights privately. First and foremost, we seize the pleasure of our free-time. That freedom comes from us and how we deal with necessity. It’s the most important part of our wealth. It is our gift to ourselves.”
“What do you do with your time?” I asked.
“We wouldn’t have near the amount of painting and music we have now, if those artists amongst us had been burdened with having to invest hours of their lives in producing superfluous commodities for corporate inspired needs.”
“That makes sense. We do so many things in the Satellite City States which are to my
mind, quite worthless, even harmful. I mean, why are all those flockers employed to stand around in those shops? They are there to see to it that we give them credits for the stuff we take. Yeah, I see. But, I’m curious. What’s the second thing?”
“Secondly we take pleasure in natural wonder. It’s part of our shared wealth. As I
intimated, nobody, no entity can own nature. Such a thought is considered an absurdity nowadays, a relic of pre-history, from days when dominance, alienation and the objectification of living beings played its corrosive role vis a vis our own personal freedom.”
“That makes sense,” I said.
“Thirdly, we enjoy the goods and services which we produce for ourselves socially, as we desire them. Of course, nobody owns another’s time. As within Terran society wage-slavery, or as you know it, credit-slavery has been abolished. We co-operatively produce and consume the social product of our co-operative labour.”
“Based on what?” I asked.
“Based on our needs. We know we cannot achieve happiness or personal
fulfilment through an unlimited, quantitative acquisition of things, of goods and
services. No, we rejected this notion of wealth when we uprooted the psycho-political
foundations of the sick society which ended with the Great Collapse of Old Earth. It’s just not in our interests to repeat those mistakes.. We decided we would be neither a society of ascetic priests nor would we allow ourselves to drift into the meaningless morass of conspicuous consumption.”
“And what about work time? I ask specifically because that is one of the conditions which drove me out of the Satellite City States. I was literally becoming a work beast. Your concept of increasing free-time is really most intriguing,” I said with a big smile.
“As far as necessary work-time goes, we have calculated that if each of us puts in 12
hours of quality, skilled effort per week at some task which has been mutually
considered to be necessary by our community and which we, as individuals, are adept
at accomplishing, then we can share a level of wealth consummate with our desires.”
“When you say, ‘work-time which is mutually considered necessary’, you mean
democratically decided, right?”
“Yes, of course,” he said without hesitation. “We tend to steer our society towards gaining more free-time for ourselves. Free-time is the fundamental measure of wealth amongst New Earthlings. At the same time, we have created the oft-dreamed ‘economy of desire’. This is not to say we constantly indulge frivolous appetites. It’s obvious to all of us that such an attitude would only lead to less freedom and having to put in more co-operative work-time to fill our social stores with the superfluous. It would most likely conflict with another of our principles as well.”
“Like living in harmony with the Earth,” I interrupted.
“Exactly,” he laughed
“So, how does it work in everyday life?”
“As our production and distribution system is based on use and need, when I’m hungry, I go to the grocery outlet to pick up what I can use. When I need a pair of sandals, I go to the dry goods outlet and choose a pair which suits me.
“It is true that sometimes one must wait for some things to become available–for example, to get lessons on how to pilot a glider or instruction on parachute packing for sky-diving. In other words, goods and services which aren’t used on an everyday basis by lots of people may require a little patience before they can be obtained. It goes without saying that if these goods and services are to be available from our social stores, then we must have democratically decided to provide them in the first place. After all, we’re the ones who will be committing our labour-time to making the item or providing the service. We do that by measuring demand.”
“And how do you ‘measure demand’?” I asked. “Certainly, you don’t mean ‘the market’.”
“We are the market. We’re producing for ourselves.”
“Exactly my sentiments!” I said triumphantly.
“First of all, for things which we have already decided to put into circulation, we
measure demand by producing the inventory for such a good or service and registering
the speed at which that inventory is being depleted and adjusting production
accordingly.”
“And who does this registering?”
“Those who put their community time in by stocking the shelves. If there isn’t
enough to stock the shelves or provide a service properly, that information is communicated to the general and specific associations of producers.”
“And, what if some shelf never needs restocking?”
“If some part, some item or some service in the inventory is not used for a lengthy
period of time, then the service or good is put up for a generalized consumer vote to
determine whether we want to reduce production of it or even eliminate it from the
pool of required social production time. Whatever we take away from the social stores
translates into an immediate gain in free-time for us as producers.”
“I gather you don’t have maids and servants,” I smiled.
“Universal self-management is the rule of thumb around here,” he replied. “Of course,
the physically and/or mentally impaired are given the assistance which they need.”
“Health care is provided on the basis of need?” I half-asked.
“Bettina, this should go without saying,” he stated.
“Just checking,” I replied with a smile.
“Second, we measure requests for new goods and services electronically. A person
might say to herself, ‘We should really be providing parachute packing instruction on a regular basis. Having it done by a volunteer during free-time is just not meeting
demand. We’ve reached a point where demand is greater than this sort of haphazard
method can fulfill.’ So, that person will register a demand to get that service added to
the total expenditure of socially necessary labour time or, ‘snlt’ for short, associated
with the service industry. These consumer demands are then voted on by the associated producers on a weekly basis. In order for a demand to be added to the pool of already existing snlt, it must have attained at least a 51% yes vote.”
“What about people in the community who are not ‘producers’?” I asked. “How do
they get their demands met?”
“Everyone in the free association of New Earth is considered a producer.”
“Even in terms of voting on things which will increase socially necessary production
time?”
“Yes.”
“Doesn’t this cause a bit of chaos?”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, children can’t be responsible deciders of production and consumption.”
“We have found that children mostly take an interest in matters which directly concern
them. People are not required to participate in consumer voting. They generally don’t
spend a lot of time contemplating the adequacies of current levels of asparagus
production.”
“I see. But what about this 51%. It must be hard to get 51% if everyone is a ‘producer. Not everyone votes.”
“It’s 51% of those voting who decide consumer demand.
Of course, it’s not always
possible to satisfy these demands. In the final analysis the people who are at the point
of production have veto power.”
“Has anything been vetoed?”
“Yes. Just the other day, a demand for more diamond rings was rejected.”
“On what basis?”
“On the basis that it was frivolous for producers doing community mine work to
spend even more time risking their lives underground for this purpose. There was a
generalized consumer discussion and a consensus was reached that this would amount
to superfluous labour. It was also deemed environmentally destructive. Perhaps, the
issue will be raised again. That’s always possible,” he said as he noticed my frown.
“So, total freedom is not possible.”
“In a word, no. Individual freedom is organically tied to social necessity. If those people who want more diamonds to be produced than what society wants are really hot to trot, they’re free to get together and organize a diamond mining expedition , but they’re not free to require others to do that labour for them.”
“Yes, of course,” I replied. “That’s very reasonable.”
“If children, students, the sick or others feel they have a need for something to be
added to the social stores, they can make their case by registering demand and, if they
wish, publically argue for it.”
“I’m not sure about this aspect. Elaborate please.”
“Well for example about two years ago some teens decided they needed more
places to socialize away from adults. A lot of the adults thought it was a non-issue.
‘Teens,’ they said, ‘could just go to the forest or the beach to socialize away from the
prying eyes of their adult mentors.’ The issue came to head when these teens began
staging ‘information’ parties at local gyms about their needs for architecturally tasteful space and putting their case forward for the construction of buildings during consumer votes debate times. The need was registered and did seem to an overwhelming majority of our association to warrant the effort. Frankly, we couldn’t quite understand why we hadn’t thought of it before. But then, that’s why grassroots democracy is so important to maintain. Imagination must be allowed to flow–it’s the wellspring of revolution. Ten buildings were constructed. This seems to have satisfied demand.”
"You have no credit system, then." I observed. “And nobody cheats?”
"No, nobody cheats. The Terrans are still at a stage where they use labour time vouchers. That prevents cheating as well as providing a tangible way of tying desire to communal necessity. They count how many hours they put in and take out of their social stores.
They believe this system gives them more flexibility–one can work more or less hours as one sees fit to supply one’s needs. Although, as you know, the Terrans are also beginning to re-introduce credits/money in order to buy Bioneering commodities.”
“How do they get these credits?” I asked.
“Corporations from the Satellite Cities are employing them for short periods of time and as ususal with this kind of relation, what they get for their labour in credits is less than what their employers get in credits for the product of their labour which their employers own and sell. It’s quite unlike their system of vouchers where what the producer puts in, in terms of hours is essentially what the producer gets out in terms of the hours of community labour embodied in the products and services he or she takes from the social stores .”
“Deductions would have to be made for maintenance of the places where the products are made, right? I mean, there’s transport too, education and health care too.” I observed.
“Yes, of course. And making these calculations and then folding them into the hours calculation of the products and services available in the social stores adds to the work of the society.” Don L. said.
“I think your rejection of credits is wise. That system leads to slavery. Still, I like the Terran system of putting community hours in and taking products and services out of the social stores of equivalent hours of labour. No exploitation there. Anyway, how about that question of cheating in the New Earth system?”
“Cheating? What could be gained by hoarding shoes, vegetables or lessons in parachute packing?" he said grinning.
“Well,” I said, “It’s obvious--power. Power can be based on scarcity. I mean the control of something that’s needed and made dearer through hoarding.”
“Right,” he replied seriously. “But you see, our society is too transparent. If someone
were to hoard vast amounts of something which was useful, that fact would become
apparent to all of us in the community. “Try to think of it this way. Say there were some people who were willing to
become slaves because they were so destitute they felt the best way to provide
for their families would be to sell themselves ‘wholesale’, so to speak to some other
person–a familial sacrifice, if you will. Well, sooner or later others would find out and
the whole scheme would be declared wrong and the slaves would be freed. The same
goes for us. If we all saw that something as immature as hoarding corn or beer was taking place, the person doing it would be ostracized and ultimately, if they refused to change their ways, barred from our community and thus barred from enjoying the wealth which the community produces. Such narrow egoism is not be catered to.”
“And if they tried to sell whatever it was, well, that would be impossible,” I chimed in. “Nobody would have anything to use to buy anything. Even labour-vouchers don’t exist in NE society.”
“Correct,” he acknowledged.
“Couldn’t happen in Terran society either. They have their hours recorded on what are known as producer cards; but producer cards can’t be used to buy stuff from individuals. I mean nobody can transfer hours recorded on producer cards to any other individual, can they?” I wondered.
“That’s all true,” he said. “But as I said, the biggest drawback to the Terran system is the communal time that goes in to keeping track of all those hours.
It’s considered to be superfluous amongst New Earthlings. That’s why we stick with the generalized twelve hours of snlt per week and free access to goods and services.” ************ from a piece of speculative fiction which I wrote.
Regards, Mike B)
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