[P2P-F] article : "rule of money" - say "no" and do it differently...

Sun Mar 27 13:59:52 CEST 2011

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/mar/26/protest-rule-of-money

link found via Frank, on gift economy list
http://lists.gifteconomy.org/listinfo.cgi/gifteconomy-gifteconomy.org

-----------------

Today's march is a challenge to the rule of moneyHow do we escape a system
that's tearing up the world? We say 'no', and do things differently

   - John Holloway <http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/john-holloway>
   - The Guardian <http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian>, Saturday 26 March
   2011
   - Article history<http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/mar/26/protest-rule-of-money#history-link-box>
   -

[image: pile of coins]Things do not and cannot get better because behind
political power stands another, greater power – the power of capital.
Photograph: Laurence Dutton/Getty Images

These are days of rage. Rage in the Arab
world<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/arab-and-middle-east-protests>,
of course, but also on the streets of
Athens<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/greece>
, Dublin <http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/ireland>,
Rome<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/italy>
, Paris <http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/france>,
Madrid<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/spain>,
and now a loud clamourous rage on the streets of
London<http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/mar/14/anti-cuts-campaigners-26-march>
.

An age of crisis is an age of frustrated hopes, frustrated life. We want to
go to university but it is too expensive. We need good healthcare, but we
cannot pay for it. We need homes, and we can see homes standing empty, but
they are not for us. Or, for the millions of people who are starving: we
want to eat, we can see that there is plenty of food for everyone, but
something stands between us and the food – money, or the lack of it.

And so we rage. We rage all the more because we do not know what to do with
our rage, and how to use our rage to make the world a different place.

We rage against the government. But we know there is no answer there.
Representative democracy holds our rage entrapped: like a rat in a maze, we
run from one party to another but there is no exit. Things do not and cannot
get better because behind political power stands another, greater power –
the power of capital; the power of money.

And so we rage against the rule of money. Not against money itself,
necessarily, because in the present society we need money to live. We rage
rather against the rule of money, against a society in which money
dominates. Money is a great bulldozer tearing up the world. It is an
insidious force penetrating ever more aspects of our lives. Money holds
society together, but it does so in a way that tears it apart.

At one stage it seemed we had pushed the rule of money back, at least in
areas like health and education. It was never really so, and for a long time
we have seen the progressive re-imposition of the rule of money as the prime
criterion for every decision. Now money has emerged in all its arrogance.
That is what makes us so angry – the government has proclaimed openly "Money
is king, bow low to the king!"

Rage, then, rage against the rule of money! As long as money rules,
injustice and violence prevail – money is the breach between the starving
and the food, the gap between the homeless and the houses. As long as money
rules we are trapped in a dynamic that nobody controls and that is visibly
destroying the possibility of human existence.

Money seems all powerful, yet it is not. It is merely a form of social
cohesion, and depends on our compliance. Say no, then. Do something else, do
things in a different way. Refuse and create.

In fact we spend a lot of our lives creating spaces we protect from the
assault of money. We create no-go areas, we put up signs that say: "Here the
people rule! Here, in our relation with our children and our friends, in our
schools, in our hospitals there is a different dynamic at work. Money stay
out!" We have many different names for these moments or spaces: love or
friendship or trust.

Cracks in the rule of money are everywhere. They can be seen not just in the
love of children or friends but in the revolts and experiments where people
are saying, "No, we shall not accept the rule of money, we shall do things
in a different way". So many refusals and creations, so many dignities –
sometimes big, sometimes small, always contradictory. Occupations, social
centres, community gardens, alternative radio stations, free software,
rebellions, and seminars that concentrate on the only scientific question
remaining to us, namely how we can stop our headlong rush towards
self-destruction.

The only hope of creating a radically different world is through the
creation, expansion, multiplication and confluence of these cracks. Refuse
and create. Push back the rule of money.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: frank
Date: Sun, Mar 27, 2011 at 1:34 PM
Subject: [GiftEconomy] Great powerful little article
To: gifteconomy at gifteconomy.org,

Gets to the heart of it. The issue. And the why and how to act. Link
from demonetize:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/mar/26/protest-rule-of-money

:)frank

--
 It's a revolution. But it's the sort of revolution that no one will
notice. It might get a little shadier, or brighter. Buildings might
function better. You might have less money to earn because your food
is all around you and you don't have any energy costs.  and more
people will be fed, as more land and resources, kept scarce for the
dollar, for the  abundance called glut,  will be shared.
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