Farmer Runs for Mayor of Nelson, NZ, on Moneyless Society Platform
A NZ farmer and former aircraft engineer, Richard Osmaston, is running for mayor of Nelson, with a view to implement a resource-based economy. To put his non-money where his mouth is, he will reject the $160 000 salary, if elected.
“We are heading over a cliff – socially, financially, every way you can think of. So far, all anyone has done is address the symptoms, and there are so many now that everyone’s exhausted fighting them.”
http://http://www.stuff.co.nz/nelson-mail/news/8685259/New-candidate-keen-on-moneyless-future
Posted on October 8, 2013, in Economics & Finance, Free Shop, Law & Government, New Zealand. Bookmark the permalink. 6 Comments.
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He’s a good bloke Richard Osmaston. He will have my vote, simply because he has new ideas that endear community involvement, and caring all round.
Went to visit the current Mayor recently. His ears and eyes were totally shut! Sitting there in his handmade suit.
Be good to see Richard at the helm, and I hope he wears his gumboots to council meetings.
He obviously has the brains for the job – aircraft engineer will give him the nouse about how things go together, and farming will give him the nouse to care for living things.
Good on you Richard. Stand tall, and go strong with your beliefs!
God bless your heart.
I have done a lot of mental gymnastics to try to figure out how a moneyless society could work, and I’m quite convinced it can’t work.
But its good to see clever people getting into politics rather than the useless parasitic professional politicians and lawyers.
Maybe money-less politics, that might work, it would certainly discourage the parasites.
I think – a very simplictic example would be like this:
If you are a mechanic, and a lawyer wants you to service his car, and it takes the mechanic 2 hours to fix and service the car, then the mechanic now has a 2 hour credit with the lawyer.
The credits for service can be swapped around within the community.
Or…if you have chooks, and you are the community egg supplier, and you wanted fresh home grown veges for dinner tonight, then you could take your eggs to the vege grower, and swap them.
Im not exactly sure about how Richards plan is exactly, this is just after a basic chat around the community.
The ONLY problem with the idea, is that a lawyer may think his time is more valuable than the mechanics, or say a mechanic may think his time is more valuable than the artist who panited his signage – so ego would be the only barrier.
But personally, I think all peoples time should be valued the same, as we are all born equal. And I reckon a lawyer with no car, would be where a lawyers ego would do him harm. And if the mechanic didn’t have any signage, then nobody would know he had a workshop.
The simplest answer I can give to this is “how many eggs is a fair exchange fr a kilogram of brocolli?”
In attempting to answer this question you will realize that both the seller and buyer should be free to determine the price. any other way would be unfair and inefficient.
Its interesting that you mention lawyers, as they have been engaged in price fixing for a very long time and the need for lawyers is artificially created to the greater extent.
There is nothing currently stopping people from engaging in hour for hour services with each other, but just like products, some skills are more scarce and therefore valuable that other skills.
These hour-for-hour labour exchange programs are generally only successful when currency is effectively non existent in the economy and is a really a crude market clearing mechanism, a desperate attempt to get people to at least trade so the economy doesn’t completely break down.
What would be your incentive to improve your skills if if the value you received from working did not increase? What would be anyone’s incentive? There would be no incentive and that is a recipe for economic stagnation.
Maybe rather than a moneyless economy people should try to gain a greater understanding of what money is (it has five properties) and how it is currently created and controlled to create all the problems we are experiencing.
Perhaps our friend Richards could look into ‘the miracle of Worgl’ a small Austrian town booming in the middle of the great depression.
There wouldn’t be a seller and a buyer – everyone would be traders, with all trades open to negotiation.
Im going to check out ‘the miracle of Worgl via google so I can see what you mean.
Well everyone would be a buyer and a seller, and then the rice f all things quits soon drops to a nominal profit. no-one is making massive profits, but everything is very low cost and monopolies disappear, very few people are extremely poor, very few are extremely wealthy. but do look into it more.