Chapter 14. Which option?.

Anonymous currency is a fact embedded in most civilizations, especially in the Western civilization and the cultures which have been colonized by it. Any proposal of a change of civilization has, with respect to currency, three options:

First. Immediate and total demonetization -with the subsequent suppression of productive specialization and with the almost total self-sufficiency, combined with a bartering of goods and services.

Second. The modification of the monetary system (substitution of the present anonymous and uninformative currency through a personalized and informative one, thereby demythicizing currency and reducing the area of responsible monetization to the exchange of measurable goods and services).

Third. The consideration that currency is not a key subject, and therefore it must be left as it is.

The monetization of all the cultures on the planet has been, and still is, an aim of mercantilism which, by this means can constantly enlarge and control the markets, which would give them the power over newcomers. In face of this we must find ways to respect those cultures which do not want to become mercantilized, and at the same time, we must cast light on the works of the existing markets and point out liabilities to avoid their omnipresent power within their cultures of origin and in their intercultural relations. Let us consider three possible options.

First. Immediate demonetization. It can be total or partial -that is, of some activities or of some cultures. Since monetization comes from the appearance of market, and this is the result of private property (whether communal, collective or individual), demonetization implies the existence of human communities with communal property. These communities, as long as they share all their properties, do not compel their members to carry out mercantile exchanges, at least inside them.

Demonetization needs not only the destruction of the still existing communal cultures, but demands the creation of new communal cultures, by will or by force (!), in the individualistic cultures where they no longer exist.

Another inevitable consequence of demonetization is the suppression of productive specialization in as many levels as possible, in order to reintroduce the reciprocal gift or bartering with as little confliction as possible (within each community or between neighbouring communities). Obviously, the division of work outside the communal life compels us to exchange among strangers, that is to the monetized market, sooner or later. It is argued, that overcoming the division of work -manual and intellectual- helps self-management and self-provisioning, which are the basis of an emotionally balanced life, socially liberated from social fictions and, therefore, more equalitarian.

Now, perhaps, we should separate demercantilization and demonetization. In mercantilized and monetized cultures, some goods and services may be demercantilized, but society cannot be demonetized because everybody, in his lifetime, needs to purchase some given goods to live. As we have suggested in other chapters, we may suggest the demercantilization of a number of professions and services (for example, judicial, political, informative, educational...). But if these activities are no longer part of the market, it they are free of cost, it does not mean that they don't need currency both to be exercised (buildings, materials...) and to live of them the professionals work on them. The same thing could be said of natural resources, such as land, subsoil and water. It may be suggested to demercantilize them and to put them under communal property to avoid speculation and destruction, but this does not mean that for their controlled, non-speculative use (such as rents, concessions or green taxes) it will not be useful, and above all necessary, to have a monetary system.

Therefore, the first option of demonetization appears not to be feasible in very complex societies and markets, the way most of them are today. On the contrary, it would certainly be possible to take some activities or some resources off the trading system which, out of the market dynamics, could better fulfill its role.

The extent of what can be taken off the trading system or not is mainly cultural. It depends on what every society values and the interest the different agents have to carry out a given productive trade function or a communal-liberal function. Some present-day cultures (that are fairly communal) have kept food out of the trading system. Any member of the community may take what he/she needs. On the other hand they have brought into the trading system other goods or services.

For the time being, it is difficult to think that, in the West, food may be taken off the trading system. A good example is the food production in socialist countries which has been kept out of the trading system. Without the lure of a monetary profit, nobody produces surpluses for sale, and the lack of food grows alarmingly. On the other hand, in the West it is accepted that some public, sanitary or cultural activities may better fulfill their function if they are free and out of the trading system. It is also necessary to consider the need to ensure a vital minimum to every person; a vital communal salary to grant food and other basic items to all members of society. Survival is now also being considered in the West as a fact which can be taken off the trading system, which can and must be obtained irrespective of one's productive contribution to the market. This path is the one which has been started by granting a pension to all those persons who, because of their physical condition (illness, invalidity or old age), cannot survive through their own work in the market (In the following chapter we shall talk about the possibilities of the West to take the path of going back to a communal, off-the-trade, system).

Second. Rationalization of the monetary system. In the markets which use monetary instruments made of metal coins or of bank notes, of cheques or of electronic accounts, whether they are legal o real, dirty or black, the rules of the market game must be again outlined and a new monetary system must be tailored to avoid as much as possible the problems of historic monetization: objectifying persons and their less material activities; free power of money; domestic and foreign trade imbalances; making the myth of money as the highest prestige...

This option offers a possibility to (re)discover currency as an instrument to improve human relations in certain aspects (exclusively for trade activities) and in complex situations (multi-ethnic societies, with an individualistic basis, with many sales-purchases and with many market agents). It is also a means to stop the damages of the present currency in other aspects (roles, professions and resources today «prostituted») and situations (communal cultures which will not, and need not, join the domestic or foreign trading system).

Third. Currency is not a key item. This is how it has been considered in official history up until now (both in the system's and in that of the system's critics). Therefore, no special step needs be taken. It will live if it must and it will die if it must.

The free exchange of consciences, the apocalypsis of Western civilization, or the coming of a communist society -when socialism will not be betrayed- will determine the destiny of currency. Let us discuss the following three positions:

For some, the most important thing in life are transcendental values, the mutation of spirit. If this does not change, all instrumental or political changes are only a repression of human wickedness, but not its anihiliation. If everybody was good then currency would be of no use. And while we attempt it, no control step will ever change egotism, and may even develop it with greater malevolence. And, besides, how can we expect an 'instrumental' change of something so vile as currency to be a means to help something so noble as the 'new man's' conscience?

For others, days are numbered for the West. Its path has no way out. It is a giant with clay feet. Sooner or later it will fall and the other cultures and nature will welcome this fact. Why should we attempt changes from inside the Western system? It is all rotten. No imperialism lasts one thousand years!

Still for a third group, the knowledge (historically determined) of the coming of a communist society has caused us to consider that currency was an invention of capitalism and that it will die with it.

The loathing of currency has been consciously impelled both by moralists and by apocalyptics and revolutionaries. For centuries people have been told that money is 'dangerous', the 'bait of sin'. 'Entrust it to us, the priests, bankers and politicans, and we will manage it well.' 'Money does not make people happy, they say, and it may even be an obstacle!'.