Three Cheers for the State - RAH RAH RAH

[Tyler Durden]

Thomas Shaddack wrote...

"This is enforceable only with purely money-based economy. But there are
activities that are done for non-monetary profit: knowledge, experience,
fun. Or plain barter. I remove a virus from your computer, you later drop by 
to repair my TV; barter, no paper trail. Help me and I will help you when 
you'll need. Instead of shelving out money for expensive courseware, drop by 
and I'll explain you how TCP/IP works. Then do the same for me with SQL 
couple weeks later. Skills and knowledge are a kind of capital as well - the 
kind of ownership no IRS can audit you for."

This is actually done systematically done in parts of the US. It's referred 
to by various names, including a "time bank". Basically, anyone in the 
community contributes X hours of their skill, which is counted purely as 
time in hours. They can then "withdraw" an equivalent number of hours from 
the bank in terms of the goods and services of the other bank memebers.

Strangely, in some parts of the country the system has so proliferated some 
communities that they have issued "money" that can be spent in local shops. 
This money is "backed" by X hours in the time bank. There're some people who 
actually collect these time bank tokens.

Now for some reason, there was a lot of talk about these time banks back in 
the mid 90s, but now I rarely hear about them. I wonder if the potential 
loss of tax revenue was a factor.

Hum...it'd be interesting to look at securing one of those local time banks 
with financial cryptography.

-TD








>From: Thomas Shaddack <shaddack at ns.arachne.cz>
>To: "R. A. Hettinga" <rah at shipwright.com>
>CC: Patrick Chkoreff <patrick at fexl.com>,   dgcchat  
><dgcchat at lists.goldmoney.com>, <cypherpunks at lne.com>
>Subject: Re: Three Cheers for the State - RAH RAH RAH
>Date: Tue, 22 Apr 2003 22:16:05 +0200 (CEST)
>
>On Tue, 22 Apr 2003, R. A. Hettinga wrote:
> > >- Opposing any war is treason.
> >
> > Well, if you're the de facto property of one nation-state or another,
> > that's exactly true. Find me someone who isn't, these days.
>
>I refuse to be a property. Whoever handles me as such, gets open
>disrespect and either my open refusal to obey, or, in compliance with
>Czech national tradition, a hidden refusal to obey[1]. Unique concept of
>sabotage by obedience.
>
>[1] Refer to "The Good Soldier Schweik", local national hero.
><http://my.core.com/~zenny/index.html>
>See also http://www.rferl.org/newsline/1999/07/5-NOT/not-090799.html for
>the international politics applications.
>
> > Isn't it already? Certainly I think that *nothing* should be done
> > without profit, that nothing really *is* done without profit to
> > somebody, no matter what its governmental designation, and that *all*
> > economic activity should be taxed if any of it is, and it *will* be,
> > directly in cash, or indirectly in regulation, since we're all the
> > "property" of one nation state or another, whether we say we "own
> > ourselves" or not.  So, maybe you're right.
>
>This is enforceable only with purely money-based economy. But there are
>activities that are done for non-monetary profit: knowledge, experience,
>fun. Or plain barter. I remove a virus from your computer, you later drop
>by to repair my TV; barter, no paper trail. Help me and I will help you
>when you'll need. Instead of shelving out money for expensive courseware,
>drop by and I'll explain you how TCP/IP works. Then do the same for me
>with SQL couple weeks later. Skills and knowledge are a kind of capital
>as well - the kind of ownership no IRS can audit you for.
>
>Tax this. Regulate this. Good luck.


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