Imagining a world without money and without borders

On By jimmytstIn Equality, Philosophy

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“All great truths begin as blasphemies.” George Bernard Shaw, Annajanska (1919)

Indeed, all great truths begin as blasphemies. It reminds me of Mahatma Gandhi’s quote that says “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” I also noted the context of the quote shared by Occupy Canada, which is about imagining a world without money. It is entirely possible because the indigenous societies such as the bushmen, the aborigines and the Native American Indians, I believe, are able to live peacefully and harmoniously with one another and the environment without money. I suppose they live by the principle of mutual sharing of resources and they take from the environment only what they need and not more than what the environment provides or is able to replace its supply of resources. It is a sustainable lifestyle in which they preserve the earth for future generations indefinitely.

My take on the modern monetary system is that money is probably a tool invented and used by patriarchal societies because it serves their purpose of attaching arbitrary values on things for trading and for acquiring wealth. It is ultimately about power and control. The patriarchal mindset does not favour equality, hence it opposes the idea of a world without money because it is too attached to maintaining and achieving status quo. Money, like religion, have been worshipped by people, but both are ultimately a hindrance to living a fulfilled life and building authentic relationships. When people do away with religion, they will commune with God or highest self directly by intuition without all those rituals, rules and regulations.

Similarly, when people do away with money, they will be able to cultivate genuine relationships with one another through sharing of resources and using the resources responsibly. The earth belongs to each organism – plant, animal and human being. No one owns anything exclusively. The earth’s resources are meant to be shared by the inhabitants, without borders, without complex economic structures, without conditions. Are people mature enough to live a life of sharing resources with brothers and sisters and using the resources wisely? I hope more and more will come to that place. The dependence on religion and money keeps people immature. May more and more people come to a place of maturity and live with one another with equality and mutual respect and dignity in a non-monetary-based and non-religion-based world.

The earth’s resources are meant to be shared by the inhabitants, without borders, without complex economic structures, without conditions.

Meanwhile, here’s sharing below some excerpts from an interesting article “Capitalist Patriarchy and the Negation of Matriarchy” by Claudia von Werlhof on finding a deep alternative to capitalist patriarchy.

The “Deep” Alternative

What Has to be Recognized

The alternative to capitalist patriarchy has to be a “deep” one, or it will fail. First of all, the “roots” of this war system will have to be recognized at all levels of society, individual life, history, and the globe. This will occur like a huge transdisciplinary research-project of and for the people. Out of this experience, the alternative will be a systematically non-capitalist and non-patriarchal one. It will be based on the remains of the “second culture” of matriarchy and of the gift-paradigm within patriarchal society, because they offer a body of concrete experiences people have been familiar with ever since humankind began on earth. Even though they have been underestimated, hidden and made invisible to most of us, they can be made conscious again, and this is happening already in many parts of the world (see Bennholdt-Thomsen, von Werlhof and Faraclas 2001)

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What Has to be Done

What is needed is a re-version of a perverted parasitic society and (wo)mankind. The patriarchal “mother-father” as a “cyborg,” which is the alchemical materi- alization of a metaphysical fiction has to fade away as soon as possible. We can accomplish this in a number of ways, mainly:

  • de-constructing patriarchal institutions, policies, economies, technologies, and ideologies;
  • making visible matriarchy as the second culture and the gift paradigm and recognizing their importance in every day life;
  • giving up the metaphysical Gnostic worldview, including the belief in patri- archal religions and the patriarchal philosophy of idealism-materialism;
  • re-gaining a matriarchal spirituality that leads again to a recognition of the interconnectedness of all life;
  • not defining technology/progress any longer as having to produce a substitute for life, women, and nature in general;
  • not defining economy any longer as having to produce a “value” and a profit;
  • recognizing that the paradise which is supposed to be invented, is already here: It is the earth as the only planet in the known universe that is full of life and the only one on which human beings can survive;
  • taking action to save the earth from further human destruction;
  • liberating ourselves from the idea that “material” [physical] life on earth is unimportant, sinful, humble, and something that has to be overcome;
  • liberating ourselves from the delusion and the hubris that there can ever be a substitute for life and nature on earth;
  • learning the lessons of nature again, recognizing that the destruction of nature for the purpose of its transformation does not lead to a better world, but to its destruction;
  • giving up war, believing in violence, and seeking to rule over others; learning instead to live in commonality and organizing around egalitarian principles;
  • taking seriously what we are doing in and to the world, and accepting our responsibility for the maintenance of life on the planet;
  • learning to rehabilitate and love life, including our own, and the life of the earth;
  • seeking creative ways for the maintenance and culture of life on the earth; acting in favour of and not in contradiction to them;
  • giving up “masculation” (Vaughan 1997), “egotism” as the search for competitive “identity,” and identifying instead with gift-giving and the traditions of men and women in matriarchal cultures;
  • learning that women can teach us a lot;
  • giving up belief in patriarchy and joining with others in order to stop it; listening instead to the joyful song of mother earth. We need to be able to perceive an alternative to capitalist patriarchy and see that this alternative is already in the making. Soon we will not be able to understand how or believe that men and women supported and even admired such a destructive delusion for such a long time!

Related websites:

Redressing the issue of inequality

Zeitgeist: Addendum

Dismantling illegitimate structures of authority, hierarchy and domination