A Cityless and Countryless World
An Outline of Practical Co-Operative Individualism
Henry Olerich
[A condensed and edited version of the book
originally published by Gilmore & Olerich, Holstein, Iowa, 1893 /
CHAPTER 13 - Money, or Medium of Exchange]
Before I shall be able to give you a clear under standing of our
money, or medium of exchange, I shall have to give you a description
of another public apartment in the big-house for this commercial
apartment, as we call it, is intimately connected with our monetary
system; in fact, it is so closely connected with it that you can not
understand our money system without a knowledge of the function of
this apartment.
The wall and partitions of this commercial apartment are all
furnished with fine book-shelves. The shelves are set off so closely
by vertical partitions that only one large blank book fits in each
division, which are numbered consecutively. Every man, woman and child
of the family is represented in this commercial apartment by one of
these time-books, in which each records the time of his or her labor
performed. On the back of each book is the owner's name, and a number
corresponding to the shelf-division. In this manner each individual
has his own book, and each book its own shelf-division.
This commercial apartment contains all the conveniences for
book-keeping, fine desks, counters, chairs of all kinds, writing
material and everything one may want to keep a neat, first-class
record.
[E]ach individual keeps his own record in his own book, of all the
labor he performs for the community; also the kind (the labor census
is compiled from this record) of labor, and the date when he performs
it. The record-books are large enough to contain the labor-record of a
person's whole lifetime. This labor-record, kept in this commercial
apartment, is the basis upon which we issue our money, or labor
checks, or medium of exchange, or whatever else you may call it. We
have seen that all wealth is produced by productive labor, and a
day's, or an hour's, or a minute's productive labor produces, in an
average, so much wealth; and the individual who performs the labor
should receive all the money or labor checks, which represent the
wealth he has produced. [W]e have no coin.
In business, when you say I want so many dollars, cents and mills for
an article, we say I want so many days, hours, minutes and seconds for
it. Of course, our working day, as I have told you several times
before, is, in an average, less than two hours, or less than one-fifth
as long as your day, which is generally more than ten hours.
[E]ach individual man, woman and child, keeps a time-book in the
commercial apartment; and at the close of each month each individual
closes his own book account of the labor he performed during that
month and makes a copy, a facsimile of it, on paper provided for that
purpose. This copy is at the close of each month sent to the mint
department of the Com. Here, in order to avoid error, the labor
records are carefully examined by expert accountants. If they are
found correct mathematically, the amount of money, or time bills, for
each individual, are issued and put in a kind of pocket-book, sealed
and addressed to the individual owner who receives the pocket-book in
his mail box. Thus we notice that each individual man, woman and
child, practically issue their own money; that is they can work as
much as they like during the month, and at the end of the month they
report to the minter or money stamper at the Com the amount of labor
performed. For their labor performed in the community they receive
labor checks, or money as you call it, on the negotiable wealth of the
community; and as all communities are highly reliable, every community
will take the labor checks of any other community. This enables a
person to buy in any community he desires. The laborer, in an average,
always produces the wealth before he receives his money for it. Hence
failure, under ordinary conditions, is impossible.
[T]he Com issues the money; every person who handles money for the
family or community remits it daily to the Com, where all the bills of
the families and community are paid. A family never remits the money
for the bill of goods it has purchased. When a family buys a bill of
goods for its store, etc., the selling community makes out a duplicate
bill, one of which the purchasing family sends to the Com as soon as
the goods are found satisfactory and the bill is correct. If the bill
is not correct, it is first corrected by the purchasing family. The
Com, immediately upon the arrival of the bill, remits the money to the
selling community. [T]he family buys what and where it pleases, but
that it daily remits all the money taken in to the Com, which pays all
the bills for the community and for all the families of the community.
Our money, or labor checks, or medium of ex change, or whatever else
you may wish to call it, consists of stamped paper bills of different
sizes, according as they represent days, hours, or minutes and
seconds.
We have bills of three sizes: One size representing days labor, one
representing hours, and one representing minutes and seconds.
Now let us see whether we can understand the circulation of our
labor-money. [E]very person, at the close of each month, sends his own
labor-record to the Com, the only place in the community where money
is issued, and money is never issued on anything else than these
individuals monthly labor-records. So that all the money that is ever
issued goes directly to the individual man, woman, or child, who
labored for it, who produced the negotiable wealth which the money
represents.
[T]he individual can buy where he wishes, in his own family store, in
his own community or out of it; he can also buy off another
individual, or off a family, or off any community. We will say, for
illustration, that Mary pays out one of her bills in any of the family
stores of her own community. The family storekeeper, at the close of
his day's business, remits the bill to the Com of his own community.
Here it was issued and paid to Mary for labor performed; and here it
is also canceled when it returns by stamping it on both sides, which
is a mark of redemption, after which it is filed away. This bill is
canceled because Mary drew the negotiable wealth which the bill
represents out of the community s storehouse. That is, she took her
actual wealth she produced by her labor. When she received the money
at the end of the month she took only the representative of her
wealth. [B]ills are canceled only at the Com, not at the big-houses.
Now let us go on further. Perhaps Mary paid out her bill in some
other community than her own. Then the bill is sent to the Com of that
community where the purchase was made by the family which sold Mary
the goods, but the Com of that community does not cancel our bills.
The Com of each community cancels only its own bills. The community
which gave Mary the commodities for her bill uses that bill the same
as it uses its own bills to buy of other communities; and these
communities to buy of still others; so the bill keeps on circulating
from one community to the other until it again reaches our community,
where it will be canceled, for we can not get the bill unless we
redeem it with wealth, and all bills redeemed, as we have seen, are
canceled at the Com. Hence we may receive the money of any other
community, and all other communities will accept our money.
Whenever the Com needs more money to purchase with, or to pay bills
of purchase with, than what it receives as remittances from its own
families, it sells the products of the community just like your
farmers sell their wheat, etc.; but the community, as a community, can
never issue money for the purpose of paying for the community s
purchases. Money can be issued only on the labor-records of the
individual.
They keep a book in the commercial department the same as the sound
ones, and send a monthly statement of how much money they wish and the
money is sent to them the same as to others; and they spend it just as
freely, too. We treat our cripples in every respect as equals, and
they do not feel any sense of inferiority and dependence as you make
your paupers feel. We let them manage their own affairs, draw their
money and hire all the assistance they need. [However], disabled
persons are very few with us. Disease and accident have been
minimized, and monstrosities (unnatural productions) are almost
unknown.
We have no credit system, and no interest. For in a world where every
one has all the money he wants, or can earn all he wants at any time
by an agreeable amount of manual labor, credit is unnecessary; and
interest is the result of monopoly, and as we have no monopoly, we can
have no interest. In our world, natural opportunity is equally open to
all individuals, all families and all communities. Every person can
work all he wants, and gets all he actually earns. Our money can be
gotten only by productive labor, or by voluntary gift; and you must
always keep in mind, too, that it is issued directly to the man, woman
and child who earned it by productive labor, or who has it voluntarily
given to him, as in the case of an infant or disabled person.
In contemplating a system of money, or medium of exchange, let us
always keep in mind that money, as such, is not wealth; but that its
only function, its only usefulness is to facilitate commerce and
trade. Now let us compare our money with your money. First, then, let
us enumerate the several features that a just and convenient medium of
exchange (money) must possess, and upon what basis such a system of
money must rest.
1. It must be made out of the cheapest, most convenient and durable
material.
2. It must afford the greatest security to the taker.
3. It must eliminate all credit from trade and commerce.
4. It must maintain the most unvarying uniformity in its purchasing
power.
5. It must least be obtainable by any other means than by productive
labor and by voluntary gift.
6. In volume, it must be always practically equal to the value of the
negotiable wealth which it represents, and must increase and diminish
in the same ratio as the wealth does.
7. It must not admit of being monopolized so as to make the drawing
of interest possible.
8. It must be least liable of being counterfeited.
9. It must give the person who possesses a large quantity of it, no
advantage or special privileges over him who has less of it.
10. The money must be such that the payee (the person to whom money
is to be paid) may accept or refuse the money, instead of the actual
wealth which the money represents.
11. It must, in its circulation, preserve a financial equilibrium
with other parts of the world, and in proper quantities must naturally
return to its place of redemption.
12. It must be most directly issued to the individual man, woman, and
child who performs the productive labor which produced the wealth
which the money represents.
Of course we all understand, when we think for a moment, that any
system of money that possesses the features of justice and convenience
in the highest degree is the most perfect. Let us then begin the
examination.
1. As to material, our money or medium of exchange, is made out of
paper which costs comparatively nothing, which is very convenient
commercially, and which is sufficiently durable; while you make your
money largely out of metals, the production of which costs you an
immense amount of comparatively unproductive labor, and furthermore
coin is very bunglesome to handle. Thus most of your money is costly
and lacks convenience.
2. As to security, our money is always secured and backed by the
immense negotiable wealth of a strong, peaceable community, and in an
average we never have more money in circulation than there is actual
negotiable wealth on hand to redeem it with, while your national
security is often very uncertain. Thousands of people lost by taking
Confederate money during the American Civil War; and if the South had
been victorious, the greenback would have been worthless.
3. [W]e have entirely eliminated all credit from our financial world.
No individual, family, or community buys on credit; all have plenty of
money to buy with, while the volume of your money is often so small
and so monopolized that perhaps most of your business is transacted on
time, which involves a great deal of uncertainty and injustice. In the
first place, the business man under your credit system is not certain
of his pay; he must always be on the look-out not to sell to poor
payers, and in the second place the annual losses which the business
man sustains by failure to pay, must be taxed to the goods he annually
sells and must therefore be paid by those who do pay. In this manner a
person who pays must indirectly pay for the goods the delinquent fails
to pay for directly.
4. As to uniformity of purchasing power, our money is nearly perfect.
The basis of its issue is a day's productive labor, which, under free
competition, in an average, produces nearly the same quantity of
negotiable wealth at all times, taking it all over the world, while
the purchasing power of your dollar is very fluctuating. For instance,
the discovery of a rich gold mine makes the gold dollar worth less,
because it can be obtained with less labor. If silver would now be
discovered as plentifully as lead, and if you had free and unlimited
coinage of silver, a silver dollar of the present weight and fineness
would have but little purchasing power; first, because a laborer could
obtain many of them from the rich mine with a day's labor, and
secondly, because laborers would be attracted to the mine, and from
agriculture and other productive industries, which would produce a
scarcity of commodities and raise them in price.
Let us take another example that will clearly show the great varying
purchasing power of your dollar. In making this examination, we want
to keep in mind that the only material wealth after which we are in
pursuit is food, clothing, shelter, luxuries, and the instruments of
their production and distribution; that all material wealth is
produced either directly or in directly by the application of labor to
land; that is, the crude material must be yielded by the earth. All
debts must ultimately be paid with material wealth, and money, or the
dollar, serves only as a medium to facilitate the exchange of material
wealth. Where there is no material wealth the dollar becomes useless.
You do not work for the dollar, as most of your people seem to think,
nor can a dollar add one iota to your physical comforts and happiness.
It is the material wealth which the dollar represents which gives the
comfort and happiness. If all the money in [the] world would be
annihilated none of the world s aggregate physical comforts and
happiness, other than an experience of inconvenience of making
exchanges, would be diminished. There would be, after the destruction
of all the money, just as much food, clothing, shelter and luxuries as
there was with all the money in the world.
The only inconvenience, as a whole, that you would experience from
the destruction of your money, would be, that you would find it more
inconvenient to make your exchanges of commodities; and to obviate
this inconvenience is the only function and use of money.
[T]he majority of people, when they consider the financial question,
believe that the purchasing of commodities is the whole of a
commercial transaction; but this is only half of it and the last half,
too. Let us illustrate: A farmer, before he can pay his mortgage, his
taxes, or his notes, must buy his money to pay them with. The
mortgagee, the tax collector and the banker do not deal in commodities
wheat, pork, wool, cotton, etc. The first half of the transaction is
to purchase the money with commodities, and after you have purchased
the money, you can pay the mortgage, taxes, notes, etc., with that
money, which is the second half of the transaction.
[T]here are fluctuations of prices caused partly by natural and
partly by monopolistic supply and demand; but of these I am not here
speaking. I am here simply endeavoring to illustrate the evils and
injustice of the varying purchasing power of your dollar. The
injustice consists in the fact, as we have seen in the case of a
Wisconsin farmer, that he purchased his farm on the basis of $2.50
wheat and other farm products, and that he had to pay for it largely
with 80 or 90 cent wheat.
[P]eople will say that this Wisconsin farmer was not a wise and
prudent man for buying that farm on time when he had nothing to pay
for it. I fully agree with them; for, as I claim, no system of money
is good which does not eliminate all credit. It is this unwiseness
which I am here endeavoring to show, but these [same] people who
condemn this Wisconsin farmer have helped to make still worse
contracts. …The capitalists who hold the money made money scarce,
so that they could receive a large quantity of commodities for a
dollar of it. Thus you see that capitalists are not only robbing the
masses by charging interest, but also by increasing the purchasing
power of the dollar. You see, he holds the dollar; the poor man has no
dollars.
[I]n a few cases the varying purchasing power of the dollar gives an
advantage to the laborer instead of the capitalist. But this advantage
to the laborer is as unjust as if the advantage were to the
capitalist; and the injustice of this advantage, whether to the
capitalist or to the laborer, is what we are here considering.
These are all truths, but they lie so deeply hidden that the masses
of people do not yet see them. Our medium of exchange does not possess
this grave injustice; the unit of value is based on a day's productive
labor, which varies very little, if any, and all share an equal part
in this slight variation.
5. As already stated, cooperative individualists issue money only
directly to the individual on his monthly labor- record, that is, if
the individual is able-bodied and old enough to work; if he is
disabled or a child, he receives money in a similar manner on a
gift-record, instead of a labor-record. No person can get a penny by
profit, interest, etc., because the goods are sold by the community at
cost, and nobody pays interest, because everybody has, or can earn all
the money he wants. You see there is no room for a speculator and
schemer in our world, even if a person were disposed to be one.
[Elsehwere, the] system is just the reverse. A gold miner in a rich
mine may take out $200 worth of gold with one day's labor; and he has
produced comparatively nothing, if the gold is coined into money; for
paper is even more suitable as a medium of exchange, if issued on the
right basis, than gold. A merchant under your system may grow rich on
profit by doing nothing. A money lender may receive a thousand dollars
a day as interest by living an idle life. He may be growing richer by
the interest he receives, so that his posterity, for generations yet
unborn, can live an idle life by living from the labor of others. You
have also seen that a capitalist may grow rich by changing the
purchasing power of the dollar in his favor. This money system, then,
is very defective, because it is largely obtained without productive
labor. The persons who perform nearly all the productive labor have,
as a rule, very little of it, while many schemers, or unproductive
laborers or idlers, have, as a rule, an abundance of it.
6. We issue money once a month for labor performed, and that this
money is issued only at the Com; that the money is issued directly to
the individual, who can make his purchases wherever he likes, and that
all money taken in by the families for commodities sold is daily
remitted to the Com, where the communities own money is canceled when
taken in; and that the money from other communities, for which we have
given wealth, is used by the Com to pay bills with. Each community,
then, has always a quantity of money in circulation equal to the
salable wealth on hand. It the wealth increases the volume of money
increases, for money is issued on productive labor, which produces
wealth. If the wealth diminishes the volume of money diminishes, for
as soon as the wealth is given to the producer for the money, the
money is canceled.
The basis upon which [other societies] issue and redeem money is
entirely different. You may have a scarcity of money and an abundance
of commodities, or you may have an abundance of money and a scarcity
of commodities. A rich gold mine tends to increase the volume of
money, and tends to decrease the quantity of commodities. The more you
monopolize money, the more it conduces to the interest of the wealthy
the higher the interest will be and the more the stored- up dollar of
the capitalist increases in purchasing power. The volume of
cooperative individualist money, which is based on a day's productive
labor, is always practically equal to the quantity of negotiable
wealth. Money, based on a day's productive labor, where opportunity
for labor is always open to all, can never be scarce. With you things
are vastly different. All your institutions are partly warped by your
unjust medium of exchange.
7. Our money can not be monopolized so that it draws interest.
Other societies use money for many purposes where we use no money at
all. For example, we do not buy and sell land. The individual in our
society needs no money for the construction of his dwelling. Our
dwellings are erected by the collective labor of the members of the
community. A cooperative individualist needs no money for his tools,
his machinery, his implements, his garden, orchard, park, boulevards,
motor-lines, rail road, light and fuel; all this is furnished
collectively by the members of the community, because we found that by
co-operation it can be done with much less labor than it can be done
by single-handed effort. Above the public wear and tear and
improvements, all the labor that a community needs expend is for the
purpose of keeping its store-houses well filled. Thus you see that a
members of our society, on account of his co-operate production, never
needs a large sum of money at once. Our individual buys his meals, his
clothes, his private luxuries, the furniture for his private
apartment, his railroad ticket, etc., etc.; but all this requires no
large investment at any one time.
In other societies, the individual buys land. He builds a large
factory, he erects his own dwelling, he constructs a railroad, runs a
store, builds a ship, keeps a dairy, etc. Under these conditions the
individual needs a large sum of money at a time. [N]atural
opportunities are not open to all. Thousands of industrious men and
women are forced idlers, and millions of them have no fair opportunity
to labor. Thus an opportunity is offered to monopolize money, to
compel him who needs it pay interest, and every cent of interest that
the payee receives gives him additional opportunity to collect more
and higher interest, while it makes the payer more and more dependent;
for interest is money for which the taker gives nothing and the payer
receives nothing. All these evils are so conspicuous and so
destructive of human welfare, and yet only a few people see them
clearly; and it will, no doubt, be a long time before the masses of
the people here on earth will become thoroughly informed on them.
8. As to counterfeiting, in a community or world in which a
sufficient quantity of money can easily be obtained by an agreeable,
healthful amount of productive labor, money is not liable to be
counterfeited. There are causes for counterfeiting, and whenever these
causes are removed counterfeiting ceases. By making the conditions of
earning money easy and pleasant to all, we have removed the causes.
In a social and financial world where so many industrious persons are
prevented to labor, where so many are pinched by poverty, where the
dollar is the highest aim of nearly all, where productive labor is
looked upon with contempt by your best society, where money offers
special privileges to the possessor of it, where want and the fear of
want are wrecking countless constitutions, and where the poor have to
work the treadmill of toil from early youth until feeble old age,
money is liable to be counterfeited by some, who endeavor by this
means to escape these disagreeable burdens. It is no use to deny it;
we all become dishonest, as you call it, if we are only pinched
severely enough by poverty and want. This is the reason why such
societies have so much counterfeit money.
9. The next feature of a just and convenient medium of exchange is,
that it must give the person who possesses a large quantity of it, no
advantage, or special privileges over him who has a less quantity of
it.
We, as individuals, use it only to purchase our private personal
needs. The family and community use it for purchasing articles for
public use, both family and community. Thus an individual, as we have
seen, never needs a great amount of it at any one time. All of us have
an equal share in the public property, and are all served with like
courtesy under similar conditions. All can work as much as they like,
and all receive equal pay for a day's productive labor; and this labor
yields more wealth than any one can spend without willful waste.
With you money makes money, as you call it. The rich man receives
interest for which he gives nothing, and the poor man pays interest
for which he receives nothing. With us, nothing but productive labor
produces wealth, and on that wealth money is issued.
In your societies a person who has the most money can buy the best
seat in the theater, the finest pew in church. He can often buy to a
certain extent his election to go to Congress or to the Legislature,
put a corner on wheat so as to create fictitious prices. The rich man
is honored; his word is law, and if not, he not infrequently buys
enough votes to make it a law. His employes, in order to keep their
position, are often compelled to vote according to his dictates and
his interests. By monopolistically clogging natural opportunity he is
enabled to collect profit, interest, rent and taxes. He manipulates,
as we have seen, the varying purchasing power of the dollar in his
favor. He wears the best clothes; eats the tenderest meat; lives in a
fine residence; goes to entertainments; makes pleasure excursions, and
does countless other agreeable things.
While, on the other hand, the poor man is compelled to toil early and
late, live in a small, ill-ventilated, poorly-heated, screenless house
or hovel, wear coarse clothes, eat the tough meat and small potatoes;
by his toilsome labor his step has become slow and clumsy, his form is
bent, his head droops, his shoulders stooped; his brow is careworn; he
has little or no time for amusements, education, ethical culture and
personal cleanliness. All his vitality is expended in acquiring the
mere material subsistence. He sits down on an uncomfortable chair. He
has little furniture, a bare floor, small, curtainless windows, a poor
bed, a sooty stove, and not infrequently an unclean dooryard.
[T]he rich man has the advantage everywhere. He, by some roundabout
means, which the poor and often less-enlightened person does not
understand, charms away the products of the poor man's labor; and the
more the rich monopolize the land, the medium of exchange and other
necessary means of production, the better his charm works.
[T]he rich pay scarcely any taxes. This tax question seems to be
regarded by the mass of the people in nearly the same light as the war
question. The praise and honor of victory is generally bestowed on the
general, who is generally at a safe distance, while the private
soldier, who does the actual fighting, is scarcely ever thought of.
Just so it is with the tax question. The one who really pays the taxes
rarely ever receives credit for it.
[R]ich men, the same as the robber, are, as a rule, not engaged in
actual productive labor, and can, therefore, not really pay taxes. As
a rule, they have acquired their millions by appropriating, in a
roundabout way, the wealth of the actual producer, and on this wealth,
so appropriated from the products of the laborer, he, instead of the
actual producer, pays a certain amount of this appropriated (not
earned) wealth into the treasury as taxes.
If each person actually produced all, or an equivalent of what he
consumed, then the consumer would ultimately pay all cost of goods,
including taxes; but this is not the case. Cooperative individualists
have two classes of persons who consume and do not produce, namely,
infants and disabled persons; other societies have four classes,
namely, infants, disabled persons, idlers, and unproductive and
destructive laborers. We can easily see that all those who do not
actually earn or produce wealth cannot pay anything without they
receive it in some way from the actual producer. Hence we see that the
productive laborer the actual producer has produced all the wealth and
must, therefore, ultimately pay all cost, taxes included.
Some people in your society grow rich in dollars without labor by
buying a lot, keep it for a few years, and then sell it for a thousand
or ten thousand times as much as they paid for it. You may grow rich
by a patent and a copyright; but no matter how you grow rich without
labor it is always by profit, interest, rent, taxes, gift, or the
varying purchasing power of your dollar.
Every person who buys from a merchant pays part of the merchant's
taxes. The price on his goods must be such that after paying all
expenses fuel, oil, damage of goods, insurance, interest, taxes, etc.
he must have some left for his labor, or else he cannot continue
business and live. Now, if there were no taxes to be paid this
merchant could reduce the price of his goods and still have as much
left for his labor as when he paid taxes; and if he, under these
conditions, would not reduce the price, others, by means of
competition, would. Thus, you see that every person, even the poorest,
who purchases at his store pays part of the taxes on the merchant's
goods and on his lot and store building that is, if the purchasers
produce what they consume; if not, the actual producer pays it, for an
infant, a disabled person, a pauper and a social parasite have only
that which they have received from the actual producer. The hand of
productive labor pays for all, and that hand, as a rule, belongs to
the poor man.
Thus, the believe that the rich man pays most of the taxes is as much
an illusion as the belief in the divine right of kings, the right to
hold slaves, the remission of sins by fasting, etc., formerly was, and
still is to a large degree. The fact is, that no one but a producer
can pay, and, as a rule, producers are not rich. Therefore, nearly all
the taxes, as well as all other costs, are ultimately paid by the
comparatively poor persons.
If every person receives exactly what he earns, or produces, or an
equivalent of that, there can be no advantages or disadvantages to any
one, and a person as a section hand could, under the same conditions,
lay up as much as a gardener, merchant or banker. But there is not a
single case on record in the existing industrial and financial world
where a section hand, as such, who has a family of three or four
children, has ever acquired [very much] property. Why should not your
social and industrial conditions be such that a section hand can
acquire wealth as easily, rapidly and abundantly as a banker? Is his
labor less useful and less productive?
[I]f all were bankers, there could be no section hands; and we can
not do without section hands, therefore, some must be section hands
and must be always poor as such, while others may be bankers. The
secret is only those who have [adequate cash] can own a house; only
those who own [cash] have the privilege of owning and working a garden
spot; only those who have [sufficient cash] can own any thing of a
store; only those who have [a large amount of cash] can be
manufacturers of any considerable extent; and only those who have
[even more cash] can engage in national banking. These are all
financial privileges and advantages.
The owner of the house is able to collect exorbitant rent because
there are too many who are unable to buy or build houses, and too few
who own houses. In this case, gardening is more profitable than
working on the section because only those who have [the cash] can
engage in it, and there are not enough people who have [sufficient
cash], and so on, with the other business.
[O]nly those who have an equal amount of wealth have an equal
financial opportunity. All who have more have an advantage, while all
those who have less have a corresponding disadvantage.
What cooperative individualists contend for and what justice demands
is, that all persons shall have an equal opportunity in getting
[necessary amounts of cash]. To [us], it appears much wiser, more just
and less ridiculous, to have a people make and obey a law and custom
which would vest all persons with certain advantages and special
privileges who are born with a wart on the end of their nose, claiming
that such a law and custom is just on the ground that all persons in
their pre-natal state have an equal opportunity to compete for the
possession of the wart. In this case probability would be the factor
of success, while with your money system thousands of children are by
their parental assistance born with the advantages, while millions of
others are born with the corresponding disadvantages; and while the
disadvantaged poor person is trying to acquire funds, the advantaged
rich persons, who are already in possession of the cash, are by some
roundabout way charming it away from the disadvantaged almost as fast
as they can earn it, so that the poor can gain only little or nothing.
From this unjust advantage and disadvantage two great evils are
produced, which cause your world to reek with poverty, crime, cruelty,
dissipation, disease, and premature death.
The first one of these great evils is that the advantaged class have
the power to clog up natural opportunity by monopolizing land, money,
tools, means of transportation, etc., so that the advantaged class are
forced to accept the wages which the advantaged class offer, or the
disadvantaged must starve, rob, steal, or sell themselves in some
form. Hence, under these conditions, no person in can ever hope to
secure himself against want and the fear of want. They may come at any
time in spite of all his industry and providence.
The second one of these great evils is, that too many, as soon as
they have saved a little wealth, are continually pressing into those
occupations in which, by the aid of monopolistic privileges, wealth is
made to produce wealth. This, then, tends to crowd too many persons
into those occupations which require more or less capital to run them;
such as farming, manufacturing, mercantile pursuits, banking,
commerce, speculation, etc. And as measured by the highest ideal,
social and economic standard, it also tends to create a vast army of
not only useless, but positively injurious, persons and occupations;
such as middlemen, the gambler, the speculator, the insurance agent,
the traveling salesman, the priest, the lawyer, the option dealer, the
rumseller, the confidence man, the courtesan, the scheming politician,
etc.
"Thus, occupations and professions, which require capital, offer
a premium on comparatively unproductive and destructive labor or on
idleness; and they impose a fine on productive labor the fine that the
laborer is being robbed by the capitalist. All thoughtful persons know
that all human beings must subsist on the material products of the
actual producer, and that the day s labor of the actual producer, in
order to produce sufficient for all producer and non-producer to live
on, must be lengthened in proportion as the number of idlers,
unproductive and. destructive laborers increase, and also in
proportion as they become consumers or as they destroy and waste
wealth.
10. The tenth feature of a just and convenient system of money is,
the money must be such that the payee may accept or take the money
instead of the actual wealth which the money represents.
[T]he only source by which an individual receives and can receive
money, unless given to him, is on his labor record. Whenever the
individual wants money he labors to get a labor record, on which money
is issued only. This he can do or not as he wishes, so that he is free
as an individual to accept the community s money or not; for he is
free to leave the community at any time and begin to work for himself
single-handedly, as you largely do; for there is plenty of first-class
land unoccupied, of which he can cultivate as much as he pleases with
out paying for it. The individual may or may not accept the money of
any other individual or community. So may one community, as a
commercial body, accept or refuse the money of any other community. Of
course we are always glad to receive the money of all other
communities; but there is no compulsion about it. All who handle money
judge for themselves whether it is legal tender or not. There is no
fiat about our money. Hence our money possesses the tenth feature in a
high degree.
Your national government, a body of politicians, control the
manufacture, circulation and redemption of money. The individual has
to accept that kind of money which Congress makes legal tender. By
this fiat thousands of people are robbed on account of the varying
purchasing power of the dollar.
11. The eleventh feature of a just and convenient system of money is,
that it must, in its circulation, preserve a financial equilibrium
with other parts of the world, and in proportionate quantities must
naturally return to its place of redemption.
[I]n our system, an almost perfect financial equilibrium is
established and preserved.
[I]n a large country like that of the United States, there is but one
place where money is issued and redeemed. From this one center it must
reach the masses of the people. On the whole earth only from a few
centers money is issued and redeemed. This enables the capitalists to
monopolize the money, as the money is passing from this central
fountain of issue to the masses, and the facility of redemption is
equally bunglesome.
12. The twelfth feature of a just and convenient system of money is,
it must be most directly issued to the individual man, woman and child
who performs the productive labor which produced the wealth which the
money represents.
[Under current conditions outside of cooperative individualism], the
man, or at least the husband, in general takes in all the money the
whole family produce by their united labor. Under such an arrangement,
whenever the wife or child wants any money, they are obliged to ask
the man for it. This tends to make beggars and slaves of the wife and
child, and a tyrant of the man. Here the poor man is probably as much
of a monopolist over his family as a capitalist is over him. There
are, however, a few exceptions to this rule. A few of your husbands
give their wife and children free access to their money. But it is
generally expressed by you that the husband, the man, supports the
wife and children, even if the wife labors twelve or fourteen hours a
day, cooking, washing, darning, nursing, keeping house, etc. All such
labor as the wife performs is, as a rule, considered worth little or
nothing by the men; because the man has so shaped his financial system
that the woman cannot take in any of the money she earns by her
domestic labor. Such is your financial system on this point, the
justice and convenience of which I shall leave to any candid,
intelligent person to judge for himself. But ages ago our ancestors
were just as cruel, unjust, unthoughtful, and in considerate on the
financial problem as you are at present, and, no doubt, just as soon
as you learn that your world will be happier by using a more just and
convenient system of money, which will measure up to all of the
foregoing features, all financial slavery will disappear from your
world; and all your efforts in that direction will then be crowned
with justice, success and universal happiness.
CONTENTS
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