Freeconomy practitioner will walk from UK to India without touching money
Mark Boyle of Bristol is walking from Bristol, England to India without bringing or touching any money.
The BBC plans to follow Mr. Boyle's walk. LinkOn his 9,000-mile trek to Gandhi's birthplace, he will have to pick his way through war-ravaged Afghanistan.
Mr Boyle, 28, said: "I will be offering my skills to people. If I get food in return, it's a bonus"
He says he is part of the freeconomy movement - a group which began in the US and aims to bring about a moneyless society.
He said: "My interest started five or six years ago when I was studying economics.
"The more we accumulate wealth, the more it leads to a breakdown of community."
Mr Boyle aims to walk between 15 and 45 miles a day, with the goal of getting to Porbandar on India's west coast.
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This is noble, but what will happen when he meets someone whose skills are more valuable than his and he's rendered "meal-less" by the act?
Also, a dramatic act like this done by one person creates a false construct. Of course he'll get people who will feed him for free as an odd duck. It will be a novelty to some. But taken to a larger scale, I don't think something like this could ever work.
@1: Of course it could work, it has in the past. We haven't always had rock-solid American dollars you know (and we may not have them in the near future). There have been plenty of times in history where there was no stable currency, and people managed to exchange labor and goods just fine.
Admittedly, it restricted the scope and scale of such trading to a local level, but many people feel that's a good thing.
A year ago I met Adelino, a wonderful guy who had spent 3 years riding his bike around Europe and subsisting on donations and odd jobs. (He was aiming for 6 years, some sort of a world record apparently.) He didn't exactly abhor money, but never had much, and his journey was going well. Of course, he was also probably both the toughest motherfucker and the most trusting person I've ever met.
Good luck, Mark Boyle.
the life of a mendicant monk is nothing new. Neither is respectable hobo-ing. Of course he will make it.
I suggest he introduce himself as a monk.
It also did not involve anything resembling a middle class, meaning an upper class that owned everything and a lower class that worked for them.
Eliminate money, move to a subsistence economy, and that structure will return very quickly. (In my opinion, of course..)
@ #5 POSTED BY DCULBERSON , FEBRUARY 1, 2008 12:14 PM
Exactly. Basically the premise is based on a polarized "Rich vs. Poor" society with barely any acknowledgement of the middle levels of society that is neither poor or rich but knows how to survive and live.
Is there a writer's strike at the BBC as well? I guy walking to India seems like dull stuff.
But really, what's the difference between paper notes, coins, or even trading food--let's say papadums--as currency? Imagine Mr. Boyle gets a dozen papadums in payment for sweeping the steps of an ashram. He then trades three of those papadums for a mango. Would community break down faster if those were 12 rupees instead of papadums?
I really don't get it.
Of course, having a camera crew trailing you won't affect the way people treat you at all, will it?
doesn't seem to matter on Trailer Park Boys
@ #8 JAMESMASON
Of course, having a camera crew trailing you won't affect the way people treat you at all, will it?
Exactly. I'd admire this guy more if he simply did it and then—after a set amount of time—had friends/others brief media outlets on what he's doing.
Right now he's actually straight in the hands of those who "accumulate wealth" by having mass media aware of what he's doing and using his trek as some kind of semi-freak show.
But it is true that monks and hobos and others do this all the time. Perhaps the concept would be better served by seeking out people who have truly lived "freeconomy" lives as a necessity, bot because of a philosophical construct created by a university educated guy.
In holland a program called "Nu we er toch zijn" airs on the public broadcast. It's based on a similar principle. Without spending money, the presentor, one soundman and a camera man aim to visit different municipalities for a weekend and rate them according to their hospitality.
They try to find a means of transport, find places to eat and sleep, meet interesting locals and the mayor.
They even went to Curacao for a special episode and spent a few days there without spending any money.
But I guess, like this guy, and them, if you have a camera man with you. It's a LOT easier!
the life of a wandering monk is the ultimate philosophical construct. No one is born to it.
@#8 and @#10
Of course, it is one of the great paradoxes of being human that the people who really buckle down and just do the right thing, and don't self aggrandize, are almost always totally anonymous except to people who know them personally. While people who do little but run their mouths endlessly about the little they do are 'leaders'.
That's not to say that there aren't quite a few people who self advertise and also do a lot, but few of those people do as much as many others with humility would do with the same resources. But again, the humble don't gain access to those resources, because of their humility.
@5: I don't know what time you're thinking of, but it's not the case that moneyless societies were the cause of extreme rich/poor dichotomies. Of course, there have been a whole lot of extreme rich/poor dichotomies, but there have been a whole lot of moneyless societies, so it's inevitable that there will be a lot of overlap.
In some societies, the lack of money caused most goods to lose their "hoarding value", resulting in a pseudo-gift economy. After all, if I have 100 potatoes, I can only eat about 20 of them before they rot. Since I can't sell the other 80 and immortalize their value, I might as well share them with some other people. Increased sharing leads to a more economically equal society, since it's difficult for anyone to hoard wealth, and it's difficult to be completely impoverished when other people have an incentive to share.
Moneyless societies meant that people who were "rich" couldn't as easily stay rich, since their wealth was based on perishable material objects as opposed to abstract currency or property ownership, which is eternal. Of course, that doesn't mean the societies were inherently egalitarian - wealth is only one way to become the boss. Accumulation of religious or violent power is another, and that served as a substitute for money in some hierarchical moneyless societies.
Yankadian: it's an unshakable belief of most capitalists that money is simply a way of facilitating trade and storing value. However, there are lots of non-heterodox economists who have written about Why Money Changes Everything.
lots focus more or less on the ability to easily accumulate/hoard...
#14
potlatch
Robin:
I fail to see the difference between money and hoarding grain, cattle, precious stones or metals, land, spices, slaves, wives, what have you.
I do remember Marvin Harris writing on phenomenon of the Big Man in pre-state societies. They hoard to produce big feasts and strengthen allegiances, so in this manner there is at least sharing involved, although hardly altruistic.
I think there is an unshakable belief in some distant golden age when all was good and right with mankind. I very much doubt it ever existed.
I just can't picture how a modern society could be moneyless. I know that is my observer bias - being an American means being inundated from birth by messages about money.
Every example I've seen is for primitive exchanges involving shelter, food, water, or the like. So I ask, in all earnestness: How would a modern society function without money? I don't mean "sweep floors for food," I mean - how would you get heating fuel, internet access, gasoline for your car, hell, the car itself.. So many of what we consider "essential goods and services" just seem impossible to me without the intermediary of currency.
How would medical research be "funded?" Art?
Again, this is due to my bias, but it really seems like an intellectual exercise that couldn't actually work in any meaningful way beyond the most primitive of societies. Meaning: mud and thatch housing, small scale agriculture, no industry to speak of. Everything made by hand from materials readily accessible in the nearby environment. At that point, a small family unit is pretty much self sustaining anyway.
'Course, I'm not going to say that's a bad way to live - it's probably better in many ways than how I live.
When I was a hippy kid in the late sixties, my uncle and his friends traveled throughout Africa playing chess in order to rummage up odd jobs in exchange for food/shelter. They had a blast most of the time (except for the malaria part), but it doesn't seem to me to be any different whether you accept money or go straight to bartering work as long as you're at subsistence amounts. It really is the "money begets money" part that sucks. The rich get richer, etc. This guy doesn't seem to be making any point about that at all.
Sounds like an awesome trip, and a good real-world check for non-monetary economics.
Just wondering if this guy has heard about hospitality exchange networks - the basic idea is you give a spot for a traveler at your place, and when on the road yourself others host you, for free, based on just wanting to meet people (=the necessary freeconomics connection!). I've been involved with a couple of these for the past two years and after going round the globe I can absolutely vouch for the kindness of the world - even as a solo female traveler you are not instantly molested.
(Disclaimer: I voluntarily produce some code for one of the smaller networks)
VINCENT
What do you mean, walk the earth?
JULES
You know, like Caine in "KUNG FU." Just walk from town to town, meet people, get in adventures.
VINCENT
No Jules, you're gonna be like those pieces of shit out there who beg for change. They walk around like a bunch of fuckin' zombies, they sleep in garbage bins, they eat what I throw away, and dogs piss on 'em. They got a word for 'em, they're called bums. And without a job, residence, or legal tender, that's what you're gonna be -- a fuckin' bum!
#5: Eliminate money, move to a subsistence economy, and that structure will return very quickly. (In my opinion, of course..)
Yeah. Never mind the corpses, they'll rot eventually.
Yankadian:
I'm not an economist, but as I understand it the main problems with using currencies to assign value to things is that the central banks who produce our money mainly do so with debt - ie they print more cash than they have in reserve, and hence interest is added.
This means that the value of your $10 or £ or € is constantly falling, with every new banknote being a kind of loan with interest attached. Therefore the economy has to be constantly growing just to keep standing still.
Hence we are left with the myth of perpetual growth and the need for a country to either exploit another country's resources to grow (or stand still), or force their own workers to work ever harder. Not because it will make us happier or richer, but because we have to pay the interest on the currency.
The animated film Money as Debt about the subject is on Google Video, and Freedom to Fascism is also supposed to be good on the subject with relation to the Federal Reserve.
So while using some kind of numerical system to assign values to items and work makes sense, this doesn't have to be through central currencies - there are lots of successful community exchanges, like the Talents system from the South Africa New Economics Network - they even have a shop and exchange rates with other systems around the world.
I'll wait until the Singularity for a moneyless society, thanks. :) My favorite Iain M Banks quote: "Money is a sign of poverty."
Thanks, Nicol. I'll check the movies out. I wasn't really thinking about the gold standard, which also has disadvantages, not to take anything away from Ron Paul.
@ Maurik, #11:
"But I guess, like this guy, and them, if you have a camera man with you. It's a LOT easier!"
It does, but that's not really different than what monks and hobos have. Monks are a camera, direct to a god, and people feel the need to perform well while under scrutiny. Hobos have that mythical, hidden set of scratched-in codes that rate a home's hospitality and offerings. It might not be as awe-inspiring as a direct link to a god, but it carries a lot of anonymous social pressure, which would work on a lot of people. Both have all the physical cues and uniforms that tell others to cooperate, just like this guy and your dutch people have the camera.
I find it sad that people have to advertise like that. This kind of action, without advertisement and ubiquitous, would bring back something that I miss very much in daily life. But I'm odd, I suppose, and I very much doubt that it would last more than a day or two without those advertisements and the implied threat they carry. Then again, maybe a sustained set of short-lived actions would carve a place for some longer-term ones?
" ... and I couldn't pay for my visas. Trip cancelled. The End." /sarcasm
Seriously. They're probably buying a whole lot of co-operation and other things besides in advance of this stunt. I can't imagine a BBC camera crew trekking Afghanistan without security, for example.
But it sure sounds like fun. And, since this fellow is investigating the concept of labor exchange (money IS labor exchange - though it makes it indirect for everyone) then I wonder if the BBC can pay him in free lawn mowing at his home for life, instead of cash?
I too aspire to this living off the land and by the kindness of strangers, but not in this way. This is another excuse for a reality series aka attention whoring.
After reading this headline I thought, gee, I wish I could do this. Then I realised that I'm a woman and how my offer of 'services' would likely be interpreted.
W00t.
Moneyless societies have a lot of infant mortality. It is not really all that normal, historically speaking, to reach adulthood. All this hippie nonsense fails to recognize the basic fact that the only reason we have the opportunity to whine about The Man is that He created and protects us.
To all that want to live without money - good luck and have fun.
Hell - I don't mind actual communism if all the participants volunteered and may leave in reasonable situations ... and if their kids get to know some world outside and decide for themselves.
I'm for "bloodthirsty capitalism" - free society where enterpretuers are free to hire for "evil money" anyone who voluntarily agrees as much as commies are free to try their utopia. On thier own ground and without violence, ofcourse.
Our economy functioned properly until we were taken off the gold standard
All this talk of hoarding is a throwback to the zero-sum days of humanity past, and an appeal to the emotion of envy. Furthermore, it is the anonymity of money and it's movement that "destroys community" or rather, allows people of more different background and belief to benefit one another over longer distances. Blah, blah, blah, I Pencil, blah blah blah.
And really? No growth? My new TV and it's meager price tag disagree. So do the improvements to quality of life, like surviving birth and birthing.
"Freeconomy movement"? What a load of piss. "The more we accumulate wealth, the more it leads to a breakdown of community." Nonsense.
The fact that we have a system where we can earn money directly leads to advances in the community. There is no limit to "money". Therefore "accumulating wealth" cannot be harmful, in and of itself, to anyone. I can wake up tomorrow with an idea for a book or a movie or an invention or a business or a marketing process or any of a number of things that have VALUE for other people. They are able to quickly and efficiently acquire that value by trading money for it.
If I had to accept barter for every single transaction, i would quickly run out of things/services I would need or even want from these other people. I also would only be able to deal with people on a relatively local level. This would make me think about whether I even want to take the risk to put all the work into creating the new product/service/invention/process to begin with, since the risk of not being fairly compensated for my time, effort, and the value of my output is a lot higher (in many cases) than the possible reward. Therefore, I do nothing (or a lot less that I would have done) and so does everyone else. Progress comes to a virtual standstill. Business are not started, jobs are not created, value is not exchanged. Innovation is STIFLED. The breakdown of the GLOBAL community would be massive.
Now, how would we solve these "problems". One word. Money.
This guy is a dope and the freeconomy movement is a joke.
Time for an update on this story. Apparently, he turned around before even getting more than a few miles into France.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/bristol/somerset/7270401.stm
It's not really surprising that an inability to speak the local language turned out to be an obstacle ... it's kind of amusing it happened in the very first city he arrived in after leaving the UK.