Ian & Stuart's Australian Mac: Not for Sale/Another.not.for.sale (Australia).iso/hold me in your arms/Nexus/nexus.incoming/LETS

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Date: Mon, 25 Jul 1994 15:52:24 +1000 (EST)
From: [e-mail] (Dwayne)
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LETS: THE ECONOMIC SYSTEM OF GIVING
===================================

The Problem of Money
--------------------

  As Sholom Aleichem, Jewish fiction writer and humourist, once wrote:
  "Money is round and rolls away." The conventional dollar economy is in
  many ways a creation of the Industrial Revolution, and has never been
  properly re-interpreted in the light of the changing world-view of the
  Information Revolution. The flaws in the current economy are becoming
  more and more obvious.

  Money was invented to get around the biggest flaw of barter, the
  previous method of trade, which was that you couldn't always find
  someone who wanted what you had to offer in exchange for what you
  wanted from them. Money has solved that problem, but it has introduced
  new ones, principal among which is that it has become a limited
  resource in its own right. In a monetary economy, you no longer have
  to worry about having something worth trading; everyone takes cash.
  But if you don't have any money, no-one will trade with you.

  Thus we have the problems of social welfare (redistributing wealth so
  that poor people have some money to keep themselves alive), easy
  credit, fast-money entrepreneurs, credit squeezes, interest rates,
  inflation, and all the other problems that stem directly from the idea
  that money is a limited resource and we can charge more money for the
  use of it. We even have games like forex trading where people play
  with numbers for a while and then agree who has "made" money and who
  has "lost" it.

The Problem of Work
-------------------

  A related problem of modern industrialised societies is the definition
  of work, a subject which has often been addressed in the last decade
  or so (see Sleepers Wake by Barry Jones, for example) but to little
  avail. Work is currently defined as what one does to make money, and
  thus many things are considered work which are negative and
  destructive to the environment, society or the human soul. Conversely,
  many useful, positive and constructive things that people do are not
  classed as work because they do not earn money.

  A long-standing problem is that much of the labour that women do has
  traditionally been unpaid (housework, for example) and thus does not
  fall into the current definition of "work" and is not measured in the
  present economic system. This is sexist and unfair, but has proven
  highly resistant to change.

  Finally, as discussed in Sleepers Wake and elsewhere, the increasing
  mechanisation of industry is decreasing the amount of "work" available
  and making it harder for people to earn the money they need to live.
  But preventing mechanisation is no solution when doing so retains less
  efficient production methods and the most repetitive and
  soul-deadening jobs. The solution is to redefine work and it is my
  contention that in order to do that it may also prove necessary to
  redefine money.

LETS - The Additional Economy: Theory
-------------------------------------

  LETS provides a means by which people can continue trading, can
  continue working, without having to wait for the social lubricant of
  money. Everyone creates their own currency. They can continue trading
  as long as their word is good, thus allowing the local economy to keep
  moving even when hardly any cash is available.

  The general idea is that any person's interaction with society
  includes both production and consumption. Both of these roles are
  essential to the economic functioning of society; there must be people
  who consume more than they produce, or there would be no customers for
  those who produce more than they consume. It is no social stigma to be
  a net consumer; indeed, it is expected of a fairly large portion of
  society (the young and the old, as well as students and the sick).

  In a LETSystem, every member of the community agrees to offer goods
  and skills of their choice to the community in return for an agreement
  from the rest of the community to do the same for them. A few people
  perform the administrative functions of recording transactions,
  issuing statements and publishing a newsletter and a trade directory
  listing all the goods and skills on offer (and desired) within the
  community.

LETS in Practice: A Step-by-Step Example
----------------------------------------

  You are a new member of a local LETS group and you decide to buy a bag
  of apples from another member using LETS units. You negotiate a price
  with them (for example, ten units) and sign a notification slip to the
  LETS administration to authorise them to record the transaction. The
  recipient then drops the slip into the nearest LETS drop-box (or mails
  it to the administration).

  Now you are ten units in commitment to the community, and the other
  member has ten more units commitment from the community. You agree to
  assist other members of the community to the best of your ability to
  the value of ten units at some time in the future, and the community
  as a whole agrees to assist the other member to the same value.

  Later you will receive your statement which will list every
  transaction you have made since the last statement, just like a bank
  statement. If your records disagree with the statement you will be
  able to cross-check with the administration and the other party to the
  transaction.

Common Worries and Their Answers
--------------------------------

* WHAT ABOUT TAXATION AND SOCIAL SECURITY BENEFITS?

  It is every citizen's responsibility to fill out their tax returns
  correctly to the best of their knowledge, and to declare income to
  the department of social security when required. The LETS group as
  a whole has no legal obligation to report transactions to anyone,
  though the balance and turnover of any member will be public
  knowledge or available on request.

  The actual LETS units have no physical existence and no value in
  and of themselves, and in most groups will not be a freely
  exchangeable currency. They serve only as a method of recording a
  member's commitment to their community or vice versa. Therefore, I
  would not declare them as income, though if I used LETS units to
  purchase goods or services I might need to declare the dollar
  value of those goods or services as income. Ask your accountant
  for advice if unsure.

* WHAT IF SOMEONE SPENDS A LOT OF LETS UNITS, THEN RUNS OFF WITHOUT
  FULFILLING THEIR COMMITMENT?

  This does happen occasionally, but the inverse also tends to happen -
  people leave the group still in commitment to the community. In
  either case no individual is affected, only the group as a whole.
  The two tend to balance one another out over the long term. It is
  also unlikely that anyone will be able to spend a lot of units
  unless they are considered trustworthy by other members of the
  community.

* I REALLY WOULDN'T WANT TO SPEND ANY LETS UNITS UNTIL I HAD MADE SOME.

  Why not? The whole idea of the LETSystem is to get away from the idea
  of money as a limited resource, and get the local economy moving.
  When you spend LETS units, you are by definition helping someone
  else in the community earn units.

* WON'T I MAKE A LOSS IF I SELL STUFF FOR LETS UNITS?

  There's no point in making a transaction if you're going to make a
  loss on it. You are perfectly welcome to ask for a proportion of
  the price of an item in dollars. You will, after all, want to
  cover any overheads that you had to pay in dollars. Whenever you
  make any transaction in a LETSystem, you should be sure that it is
  something you don't mind doing in the first place. LETS units are
  not intended to be an incentive to do something you really don't
  want to do!

The Successes: Landsman, Maleny
-------------------------------

  LETS has been in existence for over ten years now and already the
  system is being used internationally. One single mother in the
  original Canadian LETSystem wrote to tell her story. She had been able
  to get all sorts of work done around the house during the recession
  there in return for cooking home-made frozen lasagna for the local
  community. The LETSystem enabled her to get many things done that she
  could otherwise never have afforded. It also allowed her to contribute
  her skills and feel a valued member of the community.

  Such luminaries as Bill Mollison support it as a working example of a
  "permaculture economy". There are dozens of active LETS groups in
  Australia, the most notable being Maleny in Queensland, where they
  have also opened a community credit union in conjunction with the
  LETSystem.

How You Can Get Involved
------------------------

  If you live in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne, you can join our LETS
  group:

    EAGLETS (Eastern Group LETS), P.O. Box 409, Canterbury VIC 3126


  If you live elsewhere in Australia and can't find your local LETS
  group, feel free to contact us and ask.

    _________________________________________________________________

  Copyright (c) April 1992 Andrew Pam.


++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Dwayne.

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