Re: a follow up

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: I liked the first article better as well. The one on money didn't quite have it all together. I just included it because I liked the concept. It operated from the perspective that some of the most immutable things to us are not as unchangable as we would think. I hear this often when talkingabout this stuff with people. They haven't yet realized that changing many things is as simple as doing it because they are still so entrenched in the paradigm of their own culture. I'm not saying this as an insult, but it is noticable. For example, we often think that having a job and working until we retire is the "way it is" but in many places this is unheard of. People either work for themselves at a subsistence level, or work until they die. We also assume that all things must proceed through the government, but this is also untrue. : And here I come to what I like best about these articles. I don't expect them to work on a global scale. The world is corrupt as a whole and someone will always be tempted to seize more than their share or control a supply and thereby control people. But in a small group of people with similar values it can work. For example, I have certain skills. I offer those skills for free to anyone else who has a particular token. The token is obtained by agreement to perform your skills to anyone else who has a token. We've just created new money that works in this society and doesn't involve a commune or anything like that. : Say someone that we know can fix cars. So they get a token. And someone else makes clothes. They get one. And someone else does yard maintenance, so they get one. Then anytime someone needs those things they can present the token and get the service or product. This is basically what churches do anyway where they help each other out. Here we've just added a medium of exchange so it can extend beyond our immediate circle. : The best part is, many of us have multiple skills. So we have multiple things to offer. Is it radical? Yes. Does it leave us open to be cheated? Yes. But as Christians we are called to these acts of charity anyway. The early church held all of their possesions in common so that no one was in need. And the best way to help someone is to teach them to help themselves. So when you help someone give them the token and point out a skill that they can offer in return. It is so utterly simple to do, and everyone from young to old, sick and well, has some skill they can offer. Thinking this way fills me with hope because it is so easy and doable. : Now I should point out that the tokens are not exchanged in the process. You keep it because the exchange takes place only in goods and services. I give you my product for free because I know it will come back to me when I ask someone else with a token for theirs. Get it? The more people who get invloved the easier it will be to encompass a wide range of skills and goods. It has to start small with just a few people, but it can grow. : I should also point out that it requires the full participation of those involved. If people don't actually deliver it won't go anywhere. : : First article was a nice take on some very important ideas. I've heard a lot of the ideas before, but that article really argued them out logically and pulled in some hard evidence and reasoning for them. It is good thing to hear those ideas in a way that is scientific, as that may cause more people to take them seriously. : : (Wow, that was a badly written sentence. But moving along...) : : The second article? Interesting from an acedmic point of view, but it was written in '96, and I think it is out of date because of the impact the Internet has had on the economy. The Internet changed everything in the financial world. It made people look more to a global economy. It made business look more to global outreach, and tried to get people to ignore their local community and buy from this global economy. Even in your local systems, you see this. The small shop owners are being shut down by the large corporations. Chain restaurants and Borders bookstores are the norm anymore. Even in Boulder, Colorado which used to fight all of this. I think the Vons would be apalled at how many of the local shops on Pearl Street have shut down and been replaced. Narayan's? Its a freakin' nightclub. But I digress and most of you won't catch the references, so move along I shall. : : The real point of all this is that the second article thought things may go the other way. It didn't draw any strong conclusions from this premise, but it did look to this premise as a start for finding a solution. Except that I think that premise is wrong. : : I would like that premise to be true. So our next question is what can we do to make it true? : : The answer to that questions ties right back to one of the main points if the first article. As a society, we have to stop making growth and money a priority. We have to look at things with a different value system. This is a hard change to make. I'd love to hear ideas on how to accomplish it. : : I know we can make small steps. We can choose not to shop at large chains. We can make our personal choices based on the 'new priorities'. We can teach our children, and even our friends, to do the same. We can use the internet solely as an information and communication tool, and not for commerce. : : And how will this help? It will help us make decisions based on our local communities and personal priorities, not on money. It may teach other around us the same. Even if we can't stop the growth of the economy and the corporate world, we can recognize flawed priorities in the world and change them for ourselves. : : And if people say we are silly because these habits won't change the economy, we can agree with them and explain that we do it to change our priorites not the world. : : Given a few generations, as children grow up with different priorities, this just might change the world anyway. : : With Love, : : Bob

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