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A Labor-Backed Currency
Posted April 21st, 2008 by SEPDX
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If there is to be taxes, then the most fair is community service. Everyone would serve an equal period and be paid in local scrip. The scrip can then be paid to the county in lieu of community service. And, voila, you have just created a local labor-backed currency!
A small community could do this and within a few short years reach the highest standard of living on earth. Of course, the Money Masters will try put an end to it.
My suggestion for community service would be survival training.
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Another way that was tried...
Many of my ancestors were pioneers. Several of those were Mormons who settled initally in what would become Salt Lake City. Having read the diaries of many of my ancestors I noted that when they were asked to start a settlement they took only those who were willing to share in the work. Assignments were made according to abilities, knowledge and aspirations. Something that was tried in several communities that interests me to this day is the concept of giving one day in seven (sometimes one in ten) to the public works. This type of thing entailed such labors as digging drainage, disposal of debris, including human waste, constructing canals and other watercourses. While those with the most experience at such things usually were in charge, all able bodies were expected to work if they expected any of the fruits of civilization. The ultimate failure of such systems owed itself ultimately to jealousy and inequity that eventually permeated the system. It is, after all, the nature of most of the human race that when they get a little authority, they will use that authority to have dominion over others.
A modern version of this could be the concept of "profit sharing". Any thoughts??
How To Get People To Work?
I envision community service as meetings or training sessions for survival or defense. Citizens who do outstanding work would get medals or public recognition. Of course, this would all be decided by a democratic vote. The problem with construction projects is that there will be fighting over who controls them.
Why?
Why trade equal labor? If someone else's labor is worth more to me than your labor, why should you both receive the same amount of payment from me?
Everyone's Labor Is Not Equal
and can trade the scrip accordingly.
But, everyone will be paid equally for community service.
And...
Everyone pays the same amount of scrip to the county to avoid community service.
It's like a gold standard. But it's based on labor and not subject to global speculation.
...and who decides what the
...and who decides what the fair amount or quality of community service is to receive said, equal pay? Or am going to keep doing the work for all the slack asses?
"It is like a finger pointing away to the moon, don't concentrate on the finger or you will miss all the heavenly glory." - Bruce Lee
Aha, the rub comes out
Not all community service is created equal. And that's where the Animal Farm analogy below comes in...
And where's the enforcement of this compulsory community slavery, er, service?
In an ideal society...
...this would be the norm. Many communities have tried this right here in the good old USA. Most failed miserably. All did fail. It is interesting to note that the concept of donating labor to the City or County is almost non-existant today where many labor unions demand their members be piad regardless of who does the work. Municipalities are also fearful of litigation should a "volunteer" be injured or killed. There are many other reasons that can be given for the decline in voluntary "community service".
I still believe that in an ideal society this would be the norm.
Thank You
for your objective analysis. I'm so tired of the Hannity-esque name-calling. I'm not a troll or a fraud. I voted for Ron Paul in '88 and I will be a delegate.
I agree with Ron Paul 110%! (That extra 10% is what most libertarians fear to discuss or dream.)
Anti-market ideas like this ultimately break down.
I have some experience with this matter. I joined a local egalitarian script association where one unit was equal to one hour's work. Very quickly different rates of pay were rationalized since the doctor's training cost more than the babysitter's, etc.
Community Service!
JM
Man, where have you been? There's been Community Service for years and years, just ask anyone that's been in trouble with the law. That's what you get when you do something bad. Like, restitution for a crime.
I don't think I'd like to do any Community Service, nor jail time either!
I don't want to serve my community.
___________
Lisa C.
www.women4ronpaul.com
No Man Is An Island
If you don't want to live in a self-sufficient community of equals then you will become a slave to the global elite.
And just who is going to
And just who is going to enforce that "equality"? Your proposal bears more than a whiff of communism to me.
You are the global elite CedarMill.
You are a fake and a fraud.
___________
Lisa C.
www.women4ronpaul.com
ohhkay.
I disagree with CedarMill just as much as anyone else here. I think a free market approach (in which the profit motive is more of an incentive to get a job done properly and more efficiently than forced government labor) is a much stronger and practical way of getting things done.
However, I don't think that was neccessary.
Let's try to keep comments here constructive and informative; some people may be new democrat converts who are willing to open their minds to the concepts of free-markets and liberty... we certainly aren't in a position to alienate anyone.
HAWT! "It is like a finger
HAWT!
"It is like a finger pointing away to the moon, don't concentrate on the finger or you will miss all the heavenly glory." - Bruce Lee
You again?
OK, let's get this straight: You advocate the following:
1. People in a community are compelled do community service, an equal amount of time per person.
2. Assuming an equal time, and equal pay, each person gets paid the same amount of local currency (scrip) for their efforts.
3. The scrip can then be paid back to the community by those people in lieu of some amount of more community service.
First, if the amount of scrip paid back to the community in #3 is the same as what was paid out in #2--for example, for 40 hours one gets 400 scrip, and the payback of the 400 scrip is credit for 40 hours--then you have just devalued your local scrip by half, since the net result is 400 scrip for 80 hours and only 40 hours of work is actually done.
Second, if the amount of scrip paid back to the community in #3 is less than what was paid out in #2--for example, for 40 hours one gets 400 scrip, but the payback of the 400 scrip is credit for only 20 hours, then you have created perpetual slavery.
Third, if the amount of scrip paid back to the community in #3 is more than what was paid out in #2--for example, for 40 hours one gets 400 scrip, but the payback of the 400 scrip is credit for 60 hours, then neventually the work level becomes entropic and nothing gets done.
It should be noted that in real-world examples, the first case is how corporate records are kept, the second case is how the Federal Reserve scams the Treasury, and the third case is how the welfare state operates.
All arise from forced complusion.
The solution is simple: no forced complusion, and no scrip shuffling. Government in the mix is also the problem.
Read the examples of barter proxy here (http://muddythoughts.blog...) to see how a private system can really work.
Your Scenarios Don't Apply
1. Citizens are charged a monthly tax of 10 Credits.
2. Citizens earn Credits by performing Community Service or trading for them.
3. One hour of Community Service = 10 Credits.
4. No more than 10,000 Credits x the number of members will be issued.
If you have no "community rules" you have no community. I believe in Ron Paul's message of decentralization. Not all communities have to be Randian utopias where everyone worships a Dollar backed by yellow metal. Let me have my community and you can have yours. And we shall see who wants to move where.
Well, let's see
You have a fixed head tax. That's better than an income tax, but it's still a tax.
You never mentioned trading credits in the original. Methinks you are adjusting on the fly.
You still don't allow for what happens when all the community service is finished. Then what? Or does the required community service never end ala slavery?
Sorry, but this is still a bad idea.
Barter Proxies
1) They're a great idea.
2) The Liberty Dollar - silver and gold - is not a barter proxy.
3) The best barter proxy is one that is enforceable...preferably by a local, democratic government.
4) I'm advocating the most reliable barter proxy.
WRONG on everything but #1
2) It sure is, provided that people accept it. Ditto baseball cards, comic books, guns and ammo, water, food, smokes, or anything else that people accept as having value.
3) See also contract law. It doesn't need to be issued or regulated or MANDATED by a local government any beyond dispute arbitration.
4) No, you're advocating a government proxy by MANDATE and COMPULSION and calling it reliable.
I should also point out
that if you don't advocate equal pay for equal time then you're getting into either Animal Farm country, and tehn it really gets wacky.
But if you do advocate the saem pay for different work (i.e., programming the community ISP vs. digging an irrigtion ditch), then you get pay envy and nothing gets done right, either.
Lots of problems with this idea.
There are lots of problems
because they are not mine. They exist in your imagination.
10 Credits = 1 Hour of COMMUNITY SERVICE
You are perfectly free to charge 10 or 100 or no credits for YOUR OWN labor.
Ah, but what's community service?
And there's the rub. Different activities in community service have different value.
People will not do compulsory service for a forced credit, especially when they can do the same thing and make a profit. It's called capitalism triumphing over slavery.
The Federal Reserve Note already is
since the debts against which they are issued are paid in INCOME TAXES derived from LABOR, the fed note ALREADY IS a "labor backed currency."
The difference
is that the income tax is not distributed equally and the revenues go to a government far removed from the people.
Local currency keeps money circulating locally which results in higher incomes and a lower cost of living.
"The viability of the colonists to get power to issue their own money permanently out of the hands of King George III and the international bankers was the prime reason for the revolutionary war."
-Ben Franklin
http://www.webofdebt.com/...
Not at all
"Local currency keeps money circulating locally which results in higher incomes and a lower cost of living."
For that to be true, all the money would have to be kept local, in the mom-and-pop businesses that are local, and out of the corporate chain monoliths, including the banks, stores, and gas stations. Taint gonna happen.
Sure,you can have a local currecny circulating, but it only has value if people think it does. Ditto the FRN "dollar" at the international level.
Now if you did a pure local income tax that collected a percentage of whatever and then redistributed it in fine socialist fashion, then you're getting closer to what you're advocating.
But socialism is not the path to liberty, or for the R3VOLution, either.
"Taint Gonna Happen"
Community service is not an income tax.
Nope. It's a head tax or excise tax.
It's also a draft, and slavery.
Haha Laughable. Your so
Haha Laughable. Your so called "community service" is labor is it not? Well I usually get paid for my labor. But since I won't be getting payed, you call it "community service"??? It is a in fact a 100% income tax. Oh yeah, and it's forced labor and there's no self ownership until you've done you're due to the community. You can't just wrap it up in a flag and call it "community service" and change the meaning. Well I suppose you can, but not here. Finally, what are you going to do to those that refuse to do "community service"? And what gives you the moral high ground to persecute those people?
"It is like a finger pointing away to the moon, don't concentrate on the finger or you will miss all the heavenly glory." - Bruce Lee
It Would Be Voluntary
like HOA dues.
HAHAHA!
Sure, "voluntary" like the income tax?
That's naive.
If it's truly voluntary nothing will get done for community service, period!
HOA dues are not voluntary.
People have lost their homes for not paying them.
___________
Lisa C.
www.women4ronpaul.com
Well then what's the
Well then what's the incentive?
"It is like a finger pointing away to the moon, don't concentrate on the finger or you will miss all the heavenly glory." - Bruce Lee