A cityless and countryless world : $b An outline of practical cooperative individualismOlerich, Henry
Science
A cityless and countryless world : $b An outline of practical cooperative individualism
Olerich, Henry
Cooperation; Social problems -- Miscellanea
“Figure 4 represents a bill of six days’ value (called six days),”
said Mr. Midith as he outlined a Marsian labor bill. “Besides the
ornamental stamp which the bill contains, it bears the date of its
issue, the number of the community which issued it, the country, or
grand division, in which the community is located, its number, and its
representative value of six days’ labor. We have bills of three sizes:
One size representing _days’_ labor, one representing _hours_, and one
representing minutes and seconds.
“Now let us see whether we can understand the circulation of our
labor-money. We have seen that every person, at the close of each
month, sends his own labor-record to the ‘Com,’ the only place in
the community where money is issued, and money is _never_ issued on
anything else than these individuals’ monthly labor-records. So that
all the money that is ever issued goes directly to the individual man,
woman, or child, who labored for it, who produced the negotiable wealth
which the money represents.
“Now let us follow a bill in its circulation. We have seen that the
individual can buy where he wishes, in his own family store, in his
own community or out of it; he can also buy of another individual, or
of a family, or of any community. We will say, for illustration, that
Mary pays out one of her bills in any of the family stores of her own
community. The family storekeeper, at the close of his day’s business,
remits the bill to the ‘Com’ of his own community. Here it was issued
and paid to Mary for labor performed; and here it is also canceled when
it returns by stamping it on both sides, which is a mark of redemption,
after which it is filed away. This bill is canceled because Mary drew
the negotiable wealth which the bill represents out of the community’s
storehouse. That is, she took her actual wealth she produced by her
labor. When she received the money at the end of the month she took
only the _representative_ of her wealth. Bear in mind that bills are
canceled only at the ‘Com,’ not at the ‘big-houses.’
“Now let us go on further. Perhaps Mary paid out her bill in some other
community than her own. Then the bill is sent to the ‘Com’ of that
community where the purchase was made by the family which sold Mary the
goods, but the ‘Com’ of that community does not cancel _our_ bills. The
‘Com’ of each community cancels only its _own_ bills. The community
which gave Mary the commodities for her bill uses that bill the same
as it uses its _own_ bills to buy of other communities; and these
communities to buy of still others; so the bill keeps on circulating
from one community to the other until it again reaches _our_ community,
where it will be canceled, for we can not get the bill unless we redeem
it with wealth, and all bills redeemed, as we have seen, are canceled
at the ‘Com.’ Hence we may receive the money of any other community,
and all other communities will accept our money.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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