Social money

Life Without Money - Building Fair and Sustainable Economies is a book written from a scientific perspective on the possibilities, potential and benefits of Moneyless societies. It is written by a collective of authors who all look into this question from a different perspective.

The gift economy is the oldest existing form of exchange between people. It is based on giving without expecting anything in return. It is the way of life, the air we breath and edible food we used to find. It is circulating by nature, think of what we give back simply by breathing or pooing. Plants grow from that.

Is there a place in the world where you can live without money? Yes, in fact there are many. One of these places is Twin Oaks, an eco-village and intentional community in North America. Most members of this community do not touch or deal with money at all. Twin Oaks has been around since the late 1960's.

I recently bumped into basicincome.co, an attempt to create a basic income through a cryptocurrency. Currently there is a crowdfunding campaign to raise money to accelerate the project. Here are some questions I asked its creator Johan Nygren.

There's a good case to be made for a global basic income. An unconditional basic income for all means that every citizen would get a fixed amount of money, every month or every week. This would alleviate poverty and even that would already create so much prosperity that it's worth striving for.

Social money is a concept of money under direct (as opposed to parliamentary) democratic control by people. Other terms are also complementary money. It's a currency that exists on a local level. The idea is to keep money under control of people and thus taking care of local economic development.

Bartering is a simple and cheap exchange of goods and services between people. Bartering is also recommended if you want to live without money or if you want to save money. Bartering is also a fantastic way to get new stuff and it can be a good alternative to the monetary economy.