The moneyless society

It is no great revelation to claim that our society today and our individual lives, more than by any other factor, are shaped by money. This fact is so pervasive and all-encompassing that we do not even notice it. The usefulness of money is not questioned at all, just as one would not question whether the air we breathe is useful or not.
But is our monetary system really so devoid of alternatives? It cannot be that such a banal instrument as money has an unchallenged power over whether someone has enough to eat or not, whether someone works 5 hours a day or 12 hours, whether someone can study or not, whether someone can sleep well or cannot find peace because of worries about his financial situation. Almost every detail of our lives depends on money. How we live, what we do, how we dress, what we eat, where we live, how healthy we are, what we think, how we feel, what life partner we have, everything is determined, or at least influenced, by how much money we have. The worst part is that even our perceived selves, ourselves, indirectly depend on money. We can have an inner expansiveness, perceive ourselves, or we can feel constricted, alienated, far from ourselves, enslaved in a mechanism in which we work off the demands that money makes on us, squeezed into a wheelwork in which we neither do nor are what would actually correspond to our true self.

What is frightening about the situation is the fact that there is almost no attempt to at least try out whether there might be other systems that would work as well as the monetary model of society. Pretty much everything is being questioned these days. Whether there is a God, whether there really was an evolution, whether there is a climate change at all, whether it is even true that American astronauts were on the moon, whether there was a Holocaust, everything, really everything is doubted. But no one doubts the authority of money to regulate our lives. It is true that there are doubts as to whether the distribution of the money is fair. And pretty much everyone doubts whether they really have enough money, and whether they themselves are not shortchanged in the distribution of the money. But no one doubts that the money itself, in its mechanism, is justified. It is true that those who are monetarily below average think the state should take money away from the rich and redistribute it to the weaker income strata. And the rich think the other way around. In their opinion, taxes should be lowered and those who are asking for more money should try a little harder and they would be fine.

Whether the call for government redistribution of wealth is so sensible is not the issue here. The demand for absolute equality in terms of standard of living, wealth, etc. is nonsensical anyway. The advantages and disadvantages of life are not equally distributed. Neither health, nor intelligence, nor luck, nor any other human abilities are given to all in equal measure, and this is also good. How boring would be a world in which everything would be equally distributed! The question is not whether we should forcefully regulate purchasing power differently within the monetary system. The question is whether the monetary system in itself is the right system for humanity at its current stage of development.

But finding this out requires not only theoretical considerations, but first and foremost a determined attempt. There are countless attempts to change something within the money-related system. People are trying out alternative currencies, such as Bitcoin, etc. Billions of euros are spent to pay for the medical care of each individual in case of illness. Systems have been installed according to which every working person can expect a pension. But all of this might not be needed if we could get beyond the monetary system itself.

There is currently only one large-scale experiment in which a serious attempt is being made to develop and test a model of society without money. This is the Auroville project, an attempt to create an international, multicultural city of 50,000 inhabitants in southern India, which is trying to jettison a whole series of long-established patterns of behavior. Unesco and the Indian government are very determined to support this project. Unesco through regular resolutions calling on all nations to support the project, and the Indian government in particular by willingly issuing residence permits to the inhabitants of this city and allowing them to establish and live by their own laws and rules. Apart from this single attempt, there is currently no serious effort in sight to test whether there is any alternative to the monetary society.

Well noticed, the political systems like the socialism, communism etc., were or are, no money-less systems. Also in the communism in Russia and in the socialism in China there was always money. They just unified a large part of the salaries, nationalized the large economic enterprises and restricted or banned private enterprise. But life was regulated just as much by money as under capitalism.

If you talk to people about the moneyless society who have not thought about this topic before, you often encounter a complete lack of understanding of what the attempt to test such a form of society is supposed to be good for in the first place. Wir wollen hier vier Argumente in die Waagschale werfen:

• In principle, the questioning of every form of behavior or society is always appropriate. Not to question a way of living together like that of financial individualization is already almost criminal. As long as we do not question the monetary structuring of our society, we neither know whether there is something better, nor which components of the system are good and which are bad, which could perhaps be changed, exchanged, omitted, or whether possible new components should be added. A questioning of the system which regulates our life, which is responsible for a gigantic economic upswing and wealth on the one hand and for frightening poverty and need on the other hand, cannot be reprehensible. To dismiss the attempt as a crank is not justified. At least there is no attempt to force someone to live in a non-monetary system. It is simply an experiment to see if you can replace the regularity and mechanism of money with other mechanisms and what the effects are.
• A moneyless society, in which the provision of the individual is not structured in monetary terms, in which his motivation to work and the range of his possibilities is not regulated by money, would result in a gigantic leap in efficiency. Just imagine, there would be no tax office, no tax laws, no one would have to keep accounts to prove anything to any authorities, there would be no property crimes with the resulting penal system, there would be no advertising, no one would try to push a product, which actually has no sense, into the market, there would be no efforts to fuel consumption, consumption would no longer be a status symbol. No one would have to work towards a posh car anymore, because it would not be proof of what a great guy you are anyway. The manufacturers of consumer goods would no longer build wear points into their products so that they would break down on their own after a while, etc., etc. If we take a close look at all the things that would be eliminated in a moneyless society, we would surely come up with well over 50% of the economic output that would be free to master the real tasks of our time, such as preserving our environment.
• The monetary system is the real driving force in the destruction of our habitat. More and more and more money, more and more and more profit, more and more and more economic performance, more and more and more possessions, where does that lead us? Our life is not worth living if we have three bathrooms instead of one, if our car has 3000 cc instead of 1500 cc, if we buy a new iPhone every 6 months, and if at the same time more and more animal species become extinct, if we can’t see a blue sky anymore because of smog, if our rivers are dead sewers, if there are hardly any green spaces left because of the streets, and if we try to listen to the chirping of the birds, but only airplane engines roar in the sky. In our current system, both politics and business are trying by all means to increase global economic output. According to the World Bank’s World Economic Report, global economic output doubles every 11 to 20 years anyway. If we double our global economic output on average every 15 years, then in 165 years we will have 4000 times as much economic output on this planet. We will certainly not reach that point in time. Our environment tips over much earlier. But the fact that in politics not even the Green parties are abandoning the prayerful demands for investment to stimulate the economy is quite frightening. It should have become clear to every politician by now, even to the Greens, that the attempt to achieve a better quality of life through more economic output and consumption can no longer work at the societal level. Our global, money-oriented economic and social system will collapse in 100 years at the latest anyway, when our environment is ruined, most resources are exhausted and there is simply no more absorption capacity for “even more”. A rethink before the foreseeable collapse would make sense, but unfortunately, in all likelihood, it will only begin after the collapse.
• In today’s society, on a societal level, possessions or wealth is the big goal to achieve. On the very individual level it is unfortunately also the case that the actual urge for self-experience is not lived out via the direct path, i.e. via the actual experience of our self, but via indirect proofs of existence. You identify yourself by your possessions, by what you have created, by your reputation. Only when you have the feeling that you are envied, you start to feel good, because then you can probably deduce with certainty that you actually exist. This universal mechanism of running after money all your life because you actually “exist” only through money and possessions means, in most cases, that you actually miss your own life. Some miss it because they succumb to the delusion that they are “something” because they have made it to “something” and overlook themselves in the process. The others miss their lives just as much because they fail to make it to “something” and succumb to the delusion their lives are qualitatively inferior because they have a below-average account balance.

The monetary system with monetary life goals is therefore not only responsible for the destruction of our environment, but also for the fact that we are simply passing by life because we are running after something that has no actual value.

Although we would have enough material to theoretically question and condemn the money-based system of our society, we must of course admit that the power of money also has many good sides. But instead of theoretically weighing up whether our current system is good or bad, it is much more interesting to simply try out whether there are alternatives and what they look like.

And so the Niveau élevé brand supports the attempt to set up a moneyless micro-society of 50,000 people. Whether this attempt will really be successful cannot be estimated at all. But you can’t really lose in the process. The objection that the experiment comes much too early, that mankind is not yet ready for such an experiment, is complete nonsense. If in several thousand years of cultural history we have not managed to be able to peacefully try out alternative social paths, when should we be able to do so? When humanity has wiped itself out? When our environment is destroyed? It is not too early for this experiment. Maybe it is already too late! But certainly not too soon.

If we look at the social structure of our human epoch, we can divide it very roughly into two categories. Into the epoch in which the power of the strongest rules, or simply “power”, and into the second epoch, which replaces the first, in which money regulates most of the processes of society. Let’s take a look at the emergence of money, or the transition from one structure of civilization to the next:

Money was created more or less simultaneously in many places in the world. The prerequisite for this was sufficient economic specialization and diversification. A fine example of the origin of money is ancient Egypt between 2000 and 1500 BC. The temples also had social and economic functions in Egypt at that time. One of them was that you could store your grain in them. One handed over a standardized jar of grain and received a small round metal plate as a sign of possession of this jar. If you wanted to pick up your jug again, you returned the metal token and received a jug of grain in return. Since the size of the jugs was standardized, it didn’t matter if you got your own or another jug.

At the moment when a sufficient number of small metal discs were in the possession of the craftsmen and farmers, it was a great economic relief to replace barter trade by money trade. A farmer who had his crop only in a certain season, could previously exchange clothes, shoes, tools, only at this time of year for his grain. Weavers, shoemakers, craftsmen, could also exchange their products for grain only at this time of year. With the metal tokens, one was suddenly unbound in time. Likewise, previously it was only possible to make a direct exchange from one commodity to another. A farmer could trade a horse only for something owned by someone who just needed a horse. But if this commodity was not useful for the farmer, the trade did not take place. Now, if the farmer got metal tokens for a horse, he could get any commodity at the market for the metal tokens, regardless. Since the value of the metal token was clearly defined, namely a standardized jug of grain, fixed prices were immediately established for each item and the value of the new currency was always stable. Money was born. It filled a gap in trade that made it possible to exchange any commodity for an intermediate medium, which then perfectly compensated for temporal and commodity inequalities. The economic advantage was enormous and a gigantic economic boom was the result.

In Egypt, the money then disappeared again, around 1100 B.C., when the so-called “sea storm” began. This was a period in which pirate nations ravaged the coasts of the Mediterranean and plundered everything that could be reached from the coast. The high economic diversification and wealth of the society collapsed and the economic system reverted to the stage where the individual struggled only for his own survival. Barter replaced money again. Around 500 B.C., however, the situation stabilized again and money returned.

At the same time, the son of the legendary rich Persian king Croesus introduced money in Mesopotamia. And at exactly the same time, Solon, the great Greek reformer in Athens “invented” money and created the silver currency for the city-state. It is significant that Solon was also the one who introduced “thimocracy” in Athens, that political system which gives money the greatest freedom of action. In democracy, where everyone has equal political and social rights, money rules unrestricted because there are no privileges except having a lot of money.

Money was also introduced in other areas at more or less the same time. For example, a certain rare shell was used as currency in China, and the cacao bean was used by the Mayans in Central America.
With the introduction of money, very slowly, step by step, the system of power was abolished. While at first the position of power within a society structured entirely according to power was the only element determining private living standards and influence within society, there was now a second element. Whoever had a lot of money could buy influence and power and was ultimately superior to the “only powerful”.

In a democracy, where political power is distributed equally among the individual citizens, money no longer has any limits to its determining character. In a monarchy or aristocracy, position and money had to share influence. Ultimately, money gained the upper hand and replaced the political system of dictatorships, in whatever form. A nice example of the competition between position and wealth is the anecdote from the English Garden in Munich. There was a rutted track for riders and carriages which was a circular track through the spacious park. There was a strict rule that if King Ludwig’s carriage was on this road, this carriage could not be overtaken. Xaver Krenkel, a master baker from Landshut, who had earned a lot of money in Munich with horse trading and had won the horse race of the Oktoberfest 14 times with his horses, had lent larger amounts of money to King Ludwig, who was chronically broke anyway with his architectural ambitions. One day Xaver Krenkel’s carriage overtook the king’s at high speed, and when the king’s riding marshal tried to confront Xaver, the latter shouted to the king “Wer ko, der ko!” (Who can, that can!). (Who can, who can!).

Since its emergence, the monetary form of society has gradually replaced the form of society structured by power. This did not always take place peacefully. Thus, the American Civil War was fundamentally a war between the old system of power represented by the Southern states and the monetary economic and social system in the Northern states. The Southern states based their economic system in large part on slaves, that is, on the structure of power; the North on paid labor, that is, on the monetary system. The latter proved to be much more efficient. A worker who was sick or died could be replaced immediately without any loss. If a slave fell ill or died, this represented a bitter loss for the owner. If the amount of labor fluctuated, the entrepreneur with paid workers could reduce or expand it more easily than an owner of slaves. Ultimately, the cost of labor performed was also lower for paid workers than for slaves. The motivation to work when forced by the whip, compared to a perceived freedom with the desire for money, was disproportionately lower. Innovation in inventing technical innovations that could be sold was also much greater in the monetary system than in the old system. Thus, the monetarily structured North very soon gained economic superiority over the southern United States, and military victory was a logical consequence.

Gradually, the monetarily structured society gained the upper hand over all societies structured through power, with a single exception: North Korea. Here, society is still structured through power. But here, too, it is clear that the
system is in no way competitive with its neighboring states. So it is only a matter of time before the monetary system conquers the country here as well, bringing democracy in tow.
The fact that we can identify two clearly definable social systems in human civilization, which establish themselves “automatically”, so to speak, depending on the degree of economic development, raises the question of whether there are really only these two social systems, or whether, with further economic development, a third system might not emerge. Presumably, the blueprint for this already exists, worked out in all its details, just as the blueprint for the monetary structure of a society with sufficient economic diversification always existed long before money existed. And presumably the “third” system will establish itself just as independently as the “second” social system established itself, provided there is still a society by that time.

However, there is a big difference between the time of the first paradigm shift of civilization and the presumably sometime coming time of the second paradigm shift. In the course of evolution, the human species becomes more and more conscious, more and more free in thinking. You can’t really say it’s becoming more sensible, but certainly more intelligent. Or let’s say, more intelligence is established on this planet and let’s leave it undecided whether this is a merit of the people or whether the intelligence is increased by the technical achievements, first of all by the computers. It can also be observed that “knowledge” is increasing exponentially. The total amount of knowledge is increasing faster and faster. One would almost like to think that this is a chain reaction which, as in the case of nuclear fusion, could suddenly reach a whole new dimension of speed in the increase from a critical mass.

Against the background of this development, it could be that the manifestation of the “third social system” does not take place by itself and unconsciously, as was the case with the first two, but consciously. Whereas in the change from the power system to the monetary system man was only an extra, only a spectator and beneficiary of an economic structure that was balanced in itself, it would be conceivable that in the next system man could possibly be actively involved in what orientation a new system might have. Perhaps, with the enormous economic diversification and the gigantic level of knowledge that we have attained today, there are several possibilities of systems that could all replace the “second system” in the same way. In this case, it would be of enormous importance to consciously accompany and steer the process of finding and establishing a new system. Once an alternative to the second system of civilization has been established and replaces the first because it is much more practical and efficient, it may not be so easy to establish another system that would be equally efficient, but at the same time perhaps much kinder, loftier and wiser.

So it is high time to deal with the topic of the moneyless society. Considering the incalculable consequences of an unconscious system change and the almost infinite possibilities and improvements of a conscious transition to a new form of society, we have no time to lose. We have to deal with the issue now.

Auroville already defined and proclaimed the moneyless society as one of the facets of the new form of society when it was founded in 1968. In its concrete structuring, this aspect was not elaborated then, nor until today, but it was always clearly envisaged as a goal. In the course of 50 years of struggle for a better form of society, not much has really been achieved in this respect at first. While the land on which the project takes place has been purchased centrally and is available to any Aurovillean or Auroville project in a non-money form. No one pays anything for Auroville land, it cannot be bought or sold or rented and leased. Land was thus the “first moneyless commodity” in Auroville society. About 5 years ago, a second commodity was added: electricity. The team and the group of companies around Niveau élevé bought 6 wind turbines and started to produce the electricity for Auroville not only “green”, but also to distribute it free of charge in Auroville. Every private household, every social institution such as schools, community kitchens, cultural institutes, etc., and also every commercial institution, such as workshops, factories, offices, will no longer have to pay anything for the electricity they consume.

The big fear, of course, was that a “hidden demand,” or suppressed demand, could end the experiment very quickly. Of Auroville’s population of just over 2000, only about 10 to 15% are equipped with air conditioning, and the South Indian summer is not exactly pleasant without it. Skeptics within Auroville therefore argued that free electricity would lead to an enormous increase in consumption due to new installations of air-conditioning systems on the one hand, and on the other hand that an unconscious and wasteful use of the “commodity energy” would be the result. To estimate the exact impact of the switch to free electricity, hundreds of intermediate meters were installed in Auroville and sophisticated “monitoring” was introduced using software developed in-house. The key question was: will the natural increase in annual consumption be accelerated by removing the monetary aspect of electricity or not? Of the approximately 1000 connections that have now been receiving free electricity for a few years, clear data is available for about 400 over the last few years and the conditions for the respective connections had not changed during the experiment. The evaluation of the consumption of these connections provided a sensational result: there was an annual growth of consumption of 12% in the recorded connections before the introduction of cashless electricity. This was due to new installations of air conditioners, washing machines, etc. However, after the introduction of cashless delivery of electricity, the annual growth of consumption did not jump, as expected, but reduced to 7%.

The reasons for this development probably lie in various areas. On the one hand, the topic of “money-free electricity” was of course heavily discussed in Auroville and thus a high degree of awareness was achieved with regard to electricity consumption. Someone who, before the changeover, might have felt that it was his right to run an air conditioner, but at the same time to provide sufficient fresh air through an open window, because he was paying for the electricity, now suddenly found himself in a moral dilemma. Because now he no longer pays for the electricity. The justification for excessive consumption is therefore eliminated and he is directly confronted with his conscience. Another reason for the significant decline in consumption growth is certainly the fact that the “electricity producer”, the company Varuna, from the group of companies around Niveau élevé, does not have a great interest in ensuring that as much as possible is consumed, like a usual producer. Now, all of a sudden, the interest situation is turning around. The producer who gives away his goods for free has an interest in ensuring that as little as possible is consumed. So Varuna has been quite strategic in investigating all possible loss points, pushing to replace old and inefficient equipment, repairing line damage, and conducting several hundred so-called “energy audits” over the past few years. An “energy audit” refers to a visit by the electricity producer’s electrical engineer, who examines and advises a household or business on possible optimizations in the efficiency of electricity consumption.

There may be other reasons for the change in consumption growth. The bottom line is that the reversal of the producer’s interest quite naturally leads to less consumption. The major danger cited by skeptics of the moneyless society, namely excessive private and commercial consumption, thus does not seem to be the decisive problem, at least in this case.

Presumably, however, a much bigger problem lurks in a completely different corner. The power of money includes a natural mechanism of limitation and regulation. Anything within the money cycle that does not lead to an increase in money is immediately punished by the money withdrawing from the process, or the people handling the process. Thus, a natural selection is made. Anyone who is able to use money “wisely” in the sense of increasing it is rewarded by having a lot of money flowing to them and having great opportunities available to them. Anyone who does not have this ability, who does not increase money in his actions, will be punished by money shunning him. With this mechanism, money ensures that it constantly multiplies and expands its power. In a moneyless society, this mechanism no longer applies. The natural limitation due to the withdrawal of purchasing power in the case of behavior that does not result in an increase in money is eliminated. Thus, the available resources are also available to people who have no experience or skill in using these resources. Inefficient handling and a meltdown of existing funds are the inevitable consequence.

At the time of Auroville’s beginnings, an experiment took place in Switzerland which had at its core the attempt of a non-monetary interaction within a small group of Auroville supporters. A team of a handful of people, who together quite successfully earned money in various projects for the construction of the Matrimandir, decided to remove the usual rules of commitment to the money and to be able to decide completely freely, each for himself, on the use of the common funds. Until that time, their work was determined by the “owner” of the small company, in which the team earned money for Auroville with various activities. As of now, the company’s assets were now available to each individual without limit and without accountability. The result was disastrous. Within two months, the company was bankrupt.

Two of the employees, full of verve, tried to drive a Mercedes from Munich to Tehran to sell it there. This was quite a lucrative business back then. An endless caravan of used and new vehicles, filled with televisions and other consumer goods, made the pilgrimage via the Balkan route to Persia at that time, where the cars and their contents could be immediately flogged off at twice the purchase price. Thousands of vehicles were brought to Persia like this every year. The two enthusiastic drivers had the best of intentions, but their enthusiasm was a bit too much. They drove day and night without sleeping, fell asleep while driving and drove the used Mercedes, which had been bought for expensive money in Germany, over a cliff into the abyss in Greece. Thank God the two were unhurt, but the Mercedes was wrecked. Not enough of an evil, however, the car with carne had been imported into the Mediterranean country, and non-export threatened a duty of 300% of the appraised value. Now a used engine had to be imported to Greece, the car repaired and transported back to Munich. In the end, the damage amounted to about twice the money invested.

Another small group around a musician from the team wanted to make a relatively good but unknown Swiss jazz group known and earn money with it. The German jazz musician Wolfgang Dauner, who is very famous in Switzerland, had a full Volkshaus audience at his last performance in Zurich and Life was broadcast on Swiss television. The strategy of the again enthusiastic participants in our experiment had now the glorious idea to organize an “improvising session” between Wolfgang Dauner and the unknown Swiss group in the Volkshaus. But they simply lacked the experience for this undertaking. The result was even more disastrous than the Mercedes outing. Wolfgang Dauner was hired for a lot of money and the Volkshaus was rented for the concert evening. But only 4 visitors came. The announcement of the concert appeared in the Zurich newspapers the day after the concert. To make matters worse, the dedicated organisers had lost the rolls of tickets. However, at that time, the entertainment tax for concerts was regulated by the issue and return of tickets. So now that the unused tickets could not be returned, as much entertainment tax had to be paid as if the house had been sold out. Furthermore, the team was confronted with a lot of advertisements because posters for the concert had been stuck on trams, etc., etc.

The result of the experiment with the “commitment-free handling of money” was that the small company, which had previously flourished quite well, went bankrupt within a very short time, the owner lost all his money and the team scattered in all directions. The decisive defect in the unregulated handling of money had not been excessive private consumption, but the economic incapacity and lack of experience of individuals who suddenly had resources at their disposal that exceeded their capacity to handle them. In a moneyless society, the greatest danger is therefore unlikely to come from the corner of selfishness and irresponsibility. Those citizens who lie on their lazy skin and enjoy all the amenities of community assets are probably not the main problem. It is the fact that the natural force of regulating activities through the automatic limiting mechanism of money is falling away, which will lead to economic futility and chaos unless this mechanism can be replaced by a new force.
But what force could this be that would allow economic order and meaningfulness to flow into the actions of an entire society without resorting to new limitations, such as a bureaucracy with strict rules? Nothing is gained by introducing a bureaucracy to manage community resources wisely. Freedom from limitation and from the individualised allocation of purchasing power is, after all, the real achievement of the moneyless society. Nothing is gained by a bureaucracy taking over regulation. The opposite, the reduction or abolition of bureaucracy, would be one of the important advances in the new form of society.

Ultimately, this question will be the core question of the success or failure of the experiment of moneylessness: What will be the overriding and ordering force that can replace the regulatory mechanism of money. This force certainly already exists. The law of money also existed in its approach and concept long before there was economic diversification and money. Only the concept of money could not manifest itself without a diversified economy. In the same way, the new power or the new principle can probably only manifest itself when the basis, the breeding ground for it is present. How this new principle will look in its details is probably not easy to guess. Before the introduction of money in the Neolithic Age, it would also have been impossible to imagine the mechanism of money. And even at the time of the introduction of money, it was hardly possible to imagine all the forms that money would take: Hedge funds, ETFs, derivatives… Nevertheless, it is clear that the basis of money, simple economic diversification, is changing a lot, and that with the basis, money, its power and effect, is also changing. Globalisation, for example, brings new elements into play. Thus, a quantum leap in the structuring of the economy and society can certainly be expected when the economic situation has moved far enough away from its original constellation, which at the time led to the introduction of money. It is questionable whether an analysis of the changes in the economy over the last two and a half thousand years, with regard to the changed forms of the game of money, could give an outlook on where the train is heading. The goal is not to refine the mechanism of money, but to completely replace money with something entirely new.

Let’s go back to one of the most important intellectual greats known to history: Lao Tzu. Around 600 BC, precisely at the time when money began to manifest itself all over the world, he outlined his ideal form of society in a few words. In the stanzas of the 31st section of the Tao De Ching, he described an order of society based on the recognition of the underlying power of the Tao:

The Tao is infinite, consequently impossible to define.
Although inconspicuous in its indefiniteness,
the whole world cannot grasp it, nothing is higher.

If the leaders could understand,
all life on this earth would follow.
Heaven and earth would be reunited,
Harmony would permeate everything like sweet dew
People would no longer have to be governed by laws.

At that time, shortly before the manifestation of the monetary form of society, Lao Tzu proposed a society based on the recognition of the underlying force of everything, the Tao. Clearly, the civilisation of the time was not yet ready for such an organisation. Plagued by famine and the struggle for existence, economic efficiency, survival, was paramount. Today we have an affluent society in large parts of our civilisation. The starting position is completely different.

In Indian mythology of the same era we also find approaches that propose a similar code of conduct. However, this does not refer to a whole society, but only to each individual. The ancient sages spoke of an “inner guide”, the size of a thumb, who dwells in our chest and who must be followed. Modern philosophers like Sri Aurobindo speak of the same phenomenon. We all have within us a very fine intuition which infallibly shows us what is the “right” thing to do at any given moment. The prerequisite is that we completely switch off our own ideas and preferences and actually open ourselves, quite honestly and unadorned, to the suggestion of intuition.

If we put Lao Tzu’s and the Indian mystics’ view into a modern context, perhaps we could say there is an underlying all-encompassing “reason”. If we were able to open ourselves to this reason, to give it the opportunity to manifest itself in our society, to live out our individual abilities and longings within this reason and not within a self-made logic, mental acrobatics or even ego-related ruthlessness, then it would be conceivable that a mechanism of regulation would develop on the basis of this intuitive reason, an automatism, which could possibly replace the regulating power of money. We do not know what this mechanism would look like in detail. But that there would be concrete forms and mechanisms, or even automatisms of the reason underlying everything would be probable. Money is also the concrete manifestation of an abstract principle. Perhaps there are many such abstract principles, one of which, the monetary principle, has manifested itself in our case. An underlying, considerate reason is also an abstract principle that presumably has the potential for a very concrete manifestation. This manifestation of intuitive, gnostic reason, would perhaps be a basis for a new form of society that would be much more efficient, much gentler and more considerate, but at the same time perhaps much more powerful than what we know so far. Yet the force described is not mental logic. Marx and Lenin and many other political thinkers failed with mentally logical concepts. Mental logic could not even stand up to the force of money, i.e. capitalism.

The interesting thing about a new form of society based on intuitive knowledge and intuitive reason is not the elimination of the negative side effects of the money structure. The goal is not a hippy culture where we all love each other with flowers in our hair and don’t hurt each other. No, the removal of the negative effects of the monetary structure is the less important part of the revolution. More important is what could manifest on the positive side. The introduction of money has also brought great achievements. What fantastic forms of manifestation of an underlying intuitive knowledge of what is “right” could arise, we cannot guess at all. The simple turning inwards and the simple question: “Right” or “Wrong”, if generally successful, would probably result in unimaginable developments and manifestations on a collective level. And these would not only be visible and important in the material. The inclusion of mystical realms, unrecognised levels of consciousness, possibly completely new psychological structures, would be the far more important fruits of such a society.
Where the journey of our civilisation is going is still uncertain. That our economy, our technology and the structures of money (which currently control all our lives) are changing is clear. It is also clear that the change is accelerating exponentially. A leap into a completely new system therefore becomes more likely with each passing day. Already we have lost control of the money. The “markets” regulate themselves, money unfolds its structures without our conscious intervention. The question now is whether we should passively wait until a new form of society eventually manifests itself to replace the current monetary one, or whether we should initiate attempts to find forms to replace the structuring of society by money. Perhaps there are many ways to develop a more efficient form of society and we could choose for ourselves which form of post-monetary society we would like to implement.

The only large-scale experiment in developing alternatives to the monetarily structured society currently taking place in Auroville aims at a micro-society with 50,000 inhabitants. Money-free electricity is only a small step, which was supported by the group of companies around the Niveau élevé brand with the provision of six wind turbines. The next planned step is free water for all Auroville residents. With the severe water scarcity in South India, this step is linked to the construction of the ecological seawater desalination plant, which is supported by Niveau élevé. Another logical step would be a fully ecological, electric-based transport in Auroville, which should also be free of charge. Maintenance costs, especially electricity, are already free in Auroville. All three areas: Electricity, water, transport, are relatively easy to implement. It is difficult to sell them to third parties, to get excessively rich from them or to waste them on a large scale without attracting attention. It is more difficult with the other areas, such as food. But here, too, considerations and trials are already underway. Ultimately, each sector of the moneyless economy makes it easier for the next. With free electricity, water and transport, food can be produced and distributed in the Auroville-owned farms rather without money than if food had been the first area of the experiment.
Where the journey will lead and how long it will take until concrete results are foreseeable is completely open. But one thing is clear: the worst option would be not to try the moneyless society at all. So let’s hope that something beautiful manifests itself and be happy that we are allowed to take part in this exciting journey of discovery.