You are quite right in suggesting that many
people may not initially like the idea of not being able to give or
receive money within our cashless society. But our goal is to achieve
and maintain Egalitarianism, and unfortunately having free cash floating
around within the society (and particularly within businesses) allows
for bribery, black markets, and corruption, and therefore Egalitarianism
could not be maintained, and nor would we be able to stop the
reproduction of other social problems such as heroin addiction, stealing
money, gambling, and organised crime. As such the cashless society is
currently perceived by the AEM as a major condition to achieving
Egalitarianism and solving many social problems. We are still very open
to ideas however, but you will need to explain how having cash will not
end up in disaster. Also, while some people may grumble about it at
first, we can't think of any examples of when not being able to give or
receive gifts of money would cause some sort of tragedy, whereas
allowing cash to be freely available within the society causes many
tragedies. We already suspect that a cashless society is not yet
popular, just as we know that Egalitarianism isn’t yet popular, but this
will never be a reason for us to do what we know is doomed to fail, just
so that we will be more popular. Therefore, our job must be to change
people’s values and beliefs associated with many characteristics of our
contemporary capitalist culture, including cash. We hope that through
education and debate, people will start to realise that every policy we
put forward is possible and more rational that what we are doing now.
And if we fail to change peoples’ values and beliefs, our society is
doomed to reproduce the same problems over and over again.
People will still be
able to save/accumulate money for a rainy day or for when some expensive
emergency comes along (not that these reasons will be necessary within
the AEM’s Egalitarian society), just as people do now. Further, because
one’s savings go back to the state when one dies, the state has good
reason to encourage people to save, and some things people will still
need to save up for (eg. oversees holidays, elective surgery) because
services are usually non-returnable and they are therefore not rentable.
Also, one cannot
overspend in the AEM's Egalitarian society because one can only
overspend if one has credit available to one, and credit is not
available to anyone. Therefore, one can only spend what one has, and no
more. And in a few days time, one’s bank account will be replenished
with more money to spend. You might suggest that people may spend all
they have on the first day of the week on something (eg. alcohol,
dating, clothes), and therefore have no money left for food and rent,
but this is not a problem either. We already deduct such expenses from
your wage before you receive it, which means that all of the money that
is deposited in your bank account is savings and can be squandered each
week (if you are silly enough to do this), and you will never need to
worry about going without food, shelter, and other essential things (eg.
healthcare, transport). However, after saying all this, perhaps you are
right. Perhaps time will tell that some people do need a loan for
something important, and if it is important, the state providing loans
is not out of the question, as it doesn’t appear to affect the
maintenance of Egalitarianism. We have no problem with people being
economically disadvantaged for some time and to some extent, if they are
paying back a loan. Temporary economic disadvantages will already occur
within the AEM’s Egalitarian society when for example, one is paying off
a fine, one has an expensive hobby, one chooses to work less hours, or
when one starts a family. Also, if you read our ‘The
Installation of the AEM's Egalitarian Constitution will be
Relatively Painless for Everybody’ web page, you will also see
that when we first begin to install the AEM’s Egalitarian constitution,
many people who were paying off loans when capitalism ended can choose
to continue paying off their loans to state in order to own that asset.
