Life goes on as normal because the politicians have prepared us for it. They have explained to us that there must be no changes for the time being so that the daily processes in production and delivery are not disrupted. That’s why everyone goes to work as usual and in the evenings they only take away from the shops free of charge what they usually take with them. No more.

There is no plausible reason why life should not go on in the same way without money. Everyone can go on with his normal life as long as he want. Nothing would change when the money is gone. And since everything that happens in the economy is done by people, nothing in the economy would change too when the money is gone.

Some, whom I tell about this idea, say, how do you intend to make everyone able to drink champagne?

All those who are already prosperous today will not be better off materially. But it creates the opportunity to distribute the abundance fairly, which is not possible in a competitive economy.

This will make the people who are in need today better off. With this new economic order it will be possible to eliminate all misery in the world.

People who are prosperous today will get true freedom. Because they are no longer manipulated by money. You will buy the vegetables from the organic farmer and not the cheap vegetables from far away. You won’t have to commute far to earn a little more. And you’ll never have to fill out tax returns again.

Imagine you go to a party and you want everyone to bring something. Do you take your salad with you to exchange it for the tiramisu? No. Everyone prepares something delicious without the intention of exchanging it for something else. That is the essence of voluntariness.

Some who think about this new society also call it the gift economy. We get the raw materials and the energy from the earth and the sun and then give them away. In the gift economy, you don’t need a substitute currency.

Large and global companies will break up into smaller companies. The trend to save labor will be reversed and there will be job opportunities for many.

Small and medium-sized businesses will be increasingly run like real family businesses. The ownership structure is clear and simple and since there is no competitive pressure, the company management will be able to take care of the good working atmosphere even better. Your reward is recognition by your employees, the best reward.

It will be similar in agriculture. Since there is no competitive pressure and no incentive for management to get rich with money, the fields and stables will become smaller again. Over time, people’s mobility will decrease because you don’t have to travel far to earn a little more. This will free up large agricultural areas for food production that are now needed for the production of biofuels.

In today’s countries of origin of cheap agricultural products, regional agriculture will return, which has disappeared due to mass production. The natural equilibrium that has been broken by market competition will gradually be restored.

Civil society, made up of commons, will grow very rapidly as there is no longer any difference between paid and unpaid work. Everyone will find a job there according to their abilities and inclinations. A strong civil society will probably also devote itself to major tasks that are unthinkable today because the money is lacking. Areas of the earth that have become deserts through human activity could be reclaimed. That is much easier than the realization of existing plans to colonize the moon or Mars.

We think so because we are brought up that way. But what are we really like? Did we really try harder at school when we were promised money? Aren’t we often much more committed to our hobbies than to our job? Wikipedia – a platform that is supported by volunteers. Sometimes the money even slows you down or we haven’t already heard the sentence: “I’m not paid for that!”.

There are sociological studies of this that have shown that doing something voluntarily makes much better results than getting badly paid for it. You are even more creative than if you are paid well. When you do something voluntarily, it’s like preparing a gift for someone. In such a situation you automatically makes more effort. And then we will live in a gift economy.

A very common question is what happens to the unpleasant work. Today we are able to make most unpleasant tasks more pleasant, or to have them carried out by robots. But in our society you always find people who do this unpleasant work cheaper than if you were to use robots. Only when “voluntary work” is on an equal footing with “qualified work” will the substitution of unskilled work be dealt with.

Sharing and togetherness also makes unpleasant things more pleasant. In many neighborhoods, the fortnightly cleaning of the streets and front doors was celebrated almost like a residential area festival, where neighborly relationships are also cultivated.

If the garbage disposal is not left to the cheapest provider, the residential areas think about how to achieve that as little garbage as possible is generated and recyclable materials are separated and transported as well as possible and trouble-free.

In the current economic system, investments are paid for from the surplus of growth.

We said we shouldn’t change our behavior. This is why just as many products are produced as in the time when there was money. But these products are then available for free. For example, when a company needs a new machine, it orders it from the supplier just as it did before. When it is finished, it will be delivered and installed. Simply because the employees worked without getting any money. And so it continues throughout the economy. Growth no longer matters because the investments are free.

To do this, we must first ask why there are luxury goods. People don’t have the natural need to drive through the city in a 500 hp SUV. SUVs were developed because there is a branch of science in today’s economy that is concerned with creating new needs. This is a typical process in the market economy in order to be able to increase growth. Nobody asked whether these vehicles are compatible with climate change and resource conservation, the only important thing was to awaken a new need in order to generate growth.

If there is no money and consequently no profit can be made, one does not make an effort to awaken needs that are naturally not there. Who laboriously paves a road that leads to nowhere? I think that after a transition period, nobody will have the need for scarce luxury goods anymore, also because the social hierarchy is disappearing. In a society in which fraternal togetherness can develop freely, there is no need to have to stand out with external appearances. And this transition period will be so exciting and exciting that one can safely neglect the transition problem with luxury goods.

Our leisure behavior will change in two ways. Since the social ranking disappears because there is no “rich and poor” but solidarity with one another, we will also place less emphasis on external appearances. Instead of going to the shopping center, we deal with our hobbies. And nobody will push us to make new purchases through advertising.

The market regulates even without money. Of course there is still demand and supply. The only difference is that it is no longer necessary to arouse unnecessary needs because there is no longer any growth. The regulation that is now carried out by the free market with all its disadvantages such as overproduction or the creation of artificial bottlenecks is taken over by today’s communication options. Some economists say that money is a market communication tool, a very outdated view.  It’s a bit like writing letters in the age of email. There are much better means of communication today. What is now being striven for with Industry 4.0 in order to make large competing companies more competitive will then be used for general communication with one another and to ensure the prosperity of all people. You no longer have to look for the cheapest provider, but rather the providers that consumers choose.

The abolition of money does not affect private property. Therefore there will be no really disadvantaged people, nobody has to be afraid of it. There will be no expropriations as there is with socialism.

Since property cannot be made profitable anymore, property is not harmful because it cannot increase inequality.

Property, rather, is increasingly used for a functional purpose. Owners of large areas of land or many rental properties remain the owners of these properties. But they are no longer an item of value, as there is no income from them. However, rental agreements must be continued.

For their own use, owners will only use as much land or living space as they need. Property also requires careful handling of it.

The paradigm shift changes the relationship to property on both sides. Tenants or users regard the use as a gift and will take part in maintaining it.

Since we give each other gifts in this form of society, we will also treat property differently and no longer exclude it from general use.

The financially better off and also the banks have invested their money in companies and real estate. Since there are no expropriations, this property will not be touched. So nobody would really be disadvantaged.

Will there still be technical progress?

The technical progress happened in the market economy, but it is mainly due to our knowledge and our innate creativity and drive. Today competition is often counterproductive because cheap production is prevented by patents. In addition, a lot more attention must be paid to marketing than to real innovation.

Especially now with the development of the Covid-19 vaccine, it is becoming clear how harmful competition is. Development would be much faster and much more could be produced if the competing companies worked together. But property rights have to be protected, as investors could potentially lose money.

Our motivation and curiosity will not go away just because there is no money. The pace of development, which is increasing exponentially today, will perhaps approach a straight line again. We will continue to have ideas and it will be much easier to find like-minded people to make the idea a reality. It is likely that fewer ideas will disappear in drawers because there are no financial support for the realisation. Everyone works together on problems, there is no longer any competition.

Perhaps the speed of development for new products will slow down a little when there is no longer any competition. But the ever faster development in recent years has also led to the lifespan of products being artificially shortened. One speaks of planned obsolescence. The result is that more and more waste is generated and supplies are depleted. Who does not mourn the good old washing machine that was no worse than the newest, but lasted for 20 years. We wouldn’t mind if we use our cell phone for maybe three years and not throw it away every year because a new one is being advertised.

At the moment, an unimaginable amount of money is being printed around the world to support the economy, which in the wake of the Corona crisis cannot sell as much as in good times.

In such situations, however, there is always the risk of inflation. Inflation is associated with chaos. We must not wait for something like this to happen, we can prevent it with targeted currency devaluation.

Currency devaluations have occurred several times in history. Most recently in Germany after World War II and when the GDR’s money disappeared. So this is nothing new. What is new is that there is no substitute currency. The money is really gone then.

Almost all countries in the world are in debt. It goes without saying that all citizens of these countries are therefore indebted, whether we want to admit it or not. The average European debt per person averages € 27,000, although there are big differences. That is as much as the average amount of savings of at least half of all residents. This fact can probably be generalized for all industrialized nations. Should the banks demand their money back, all citizens would have to pay. In the non-industrialized nations, people’s financial conditions are likely to be even worse.

Most people save money not for their own sake but to make provisions for the future. In a voluntary society you don’t have to make provisions for the future, as you are naturally provided for until the end of your life. Similar to the social network in the solidarity community. You don’t have to pay 100,000 euros for an surgical intervention because everyone contributes to it. In the voluntary society this affects all areas of life. So it doesn’t matter if the savings are gone. How often have people already lost their savings without having any advantage. As a result of market-induced currency crises, or worse, when savings are taken by war.

In the gift-economy you no longer need savings because we care for one another. Our great-grandchildren will laugh at our efforts to put money aside for rainy days.

With the abolition of money, we are creating the conditions for something to change. There are many concepts for this development, such as degrowth, post-growth, donut economy, commonism, and others that are concerned about what scientists are predicting. Namely, that there will be a collapse if we continue to do business as we have for the past 50 years.

But as long as there is money and the market economy as it is today, there must be growth, because growth is the law of the market economy.

About a quarter of our society would be ready to accept alternative ways of life. That is the percentage of those who would vote for green parties too. So if a quarter of society began to relive concepts of degrowth and consume less, the remaining 75% would have to consume even more in order to generate the growth demanded by economists.

But if we abolish money, a situation would be reached in which everyone can freely decide whether to continue consuming or not.

Now, when we think about whether it would work, we have to assume that we will think differently and act differently. It is clear that we are afraid of such a situation. Today we live in cages. The amount of money we have is the bars. We are constantly trying or forced to spend our money to the limit. It’s like an animal that wants to go outside and can’t. We stick our arms through the bars as far as we can by taking out loans.

Most of the cages are small, but there are also large cages for rich people. But even the cages of the richest people are not infinitely large, since they cannot freely dispose of all money, because most of it is invested in the economy.

When the money is gone, these bars disappear and we are suddenly free. We do not know today how we will act then. Even if we were to do an experiment with a limited group of people who live in a community where there is no money, we are not really free because these people know that there are still cages and that the time of this freedom is limited.

We can only try to imagine how animals behave when suddenly given their freedom. They will first carefully explore what freedom is.

After just a few days, we will change our behavior when we notice that we have received everything for free. Much earlier than the fact that we don’t earn anything because the salary or wages are usually not expected until the end of the month anyway.

It will start with the fact that we don’t look at the prices. We will take the fruits and vegetables from regional organic cultivation that we had previously left because they were too expensive for us.

It is a great adventure for all of humanity. A departure into a new dimension of society, comparable to a Mars mission. Or a mission to fend off a large meteorite that is approaching Earth. Such a meteorite could also be thought of as the danger of collapse, which we are moving towards if we do not stop economic growth.

We humans are not inherently bad. We are raised to greed and envy.

Greed and envy are among the most negative human traits. Greed is to be able to buy as much as possible and envy is to want what the neighbour has. These two characteristics are the cornerstone of the market economy, and without them it would not work. The system will therefore do everything in its power to promote these two properties. Greed and envy are the oil in the gears of the market.

The real basis of the market economy is competitive thinking. Since it is contrary to the willingness to help, the today system will naturally strictly combat the willingness to help, even if officially the contrary is claimed. It is euphemistically called competition. But in competition it is deadly to help competitors. This thought continues into our everyday life. We see that there is something to be done and we could easily do it, but we tell ourselves that others are paid for it.

In order to live in the system of the market economy, one has to accept these facts. Unfortunately, this leads to the fact that we think that people are naturally so predisposed. But it is not like that. Our good qualities lie dormant within us, ready to develop when the conditions are more favorable.

Society today cannot function without these qualities. They are the oil in the gears of the market and the market will do everything to keep it that way. As long as the money exists.

We don’t have to imagine society on a voluntary basis like the battle at the cold buffet or Black Friday, where you get something (almost) free of charge for a limited time.

This new society doesn’t stop. It’s more like a relaxed all inclusive vacation. You know that everything will be free tomorrow too.

Or we can just imagine a happy party. That’s how our life should be. A party to which everyone brings something and everyone can take everything. Every day.

Most of the people I tell about the abolition of money say, “For God’s sake! Humanity is far from ready! “

I then ask, what are we not ready for?

The most important thing at money disappearing is that nothing should change at all in the beginning. On the day the money disappears, everyone has to do exactly what they did the day before. Getting up early, going to work or school, and running the usual errands after work. Since you usually get your salary or wages at the end of the month, you first notice something when the cash registers in the supermarket are not occupied.

It is therefore important that nothing changes so that the existing supply chains are not disrupted. The supply chain from the raw material supplier to the factory, from the factory to the wholesaler, and from the wholesaler to the retailer, to put it very trivially. And this chain will continue to function even without money because every employee in this chain does his or her job. Just like the employees of the power company, waterworks, sewage plant, drivers of trains, buses, taxis and trucks, medical staff, police officers, teachers, postal workers, etc. Road construction work continues, new machines are installed, and research continues. And each of the billions of employees goes to the shops in the evening and gets what they need to live.

Nothing changes, only that no money flows back.

Why can we be sure that everyone, with exceptions, will participate? Very easily. Everyone knows what depends on it. Everyone knows that if this transition doesn’t work out, society will collapse. Just as we ensure on a small scale that our family functions, we will also ensure that the supply of society is not endangered. As disciplined as we have been protecting ourselves and others by wearing face masks for a year, we will protect ourselves and others from the collapse of society.

Politicians are called upon to prepare us for this transition. Our entire political landscape thereby gets a real common task. In order for it to work, everyone must be motivated to continue doing everything as before, so that the supply flows are not disrupted and contracts are adhered to. To do this, all politicians have to pull together and it is completely irrelevant whether you have right, left, green, conservative, liberal or socialist views. And the politicians must also encourage us to take this step towards freedom.

Democracy is the feeling of freedom, thanks economy is real freedom.

We don’t actually go out of the house every morning because we are driven by the idea of making money. We go out of the house because we’re used to it. It is more normal that we get money for it without thinking about it all the time. Contact with our colleagues is part of our social environment.

Humans are guided by habits. We will naturally continue to do our daily duties to feed and provide for ourselves and others. This is innate self-protection. The behavior of all people on earth during Covid-19 lockdown is proof that we have the necessary discipline. There is no longer any reason to doubt it.

Most people don’t even lie on the sofa in our free time; we are constantly busy consuming. We drive around in cars and motorcycles, surf the Internet, order goods, try them out and do sports. Why shouldn’t we work then to make a living?

An average of 25 hours a week would be sufficient to cater for all people around the world, but today we work 40 hours and more per week.

In the course of time, behavior towards work will change. We have the opportunity to do what we are best suited for, because money no longer determines the career choice.

If the financial and advertising industries are no longer needed, nothing will change in the branches of industry that are responsible for supplying the population. Agriculture, textile companies, food companies continue to work as usual. And just as the bank employees previously got what they need , after the money has disappeared they would be supplied with what they need. Money disappearing does not mean that there are more people who need the goods. There will be just as many goods as there were before, and just as many people.

The big difference is that there is no longer any difference between “paid” and “unpaid” work. You can look for any activity that you enjoy. When global companies fall apart, many employees are required.

Perhaps people who are no longer needed in the advertising or financial sector go to the food industry and help out there. Or in the social or educational system. Why not? When you only have to work three days a week? Or they set up shared apartments for older people. Starting something new doesn’t cost anything. And so it goes on and on, in a more humane direction.

For fifty years, experts from various disciplines at the Club of Rome have warned that the earth is threatened if the economy continues to grow. There have been almost 30 UN climate conferences since 1995. However, growth has not slowed down as a result, but has even increased threefold since then. And with growth, of course, the consumption of natural resources and the production of greenhouse gases have continued to increase. The diagram of the Federal Environment Agency shows that politics has no influence on this.

In the meantime, the forests are burning, the poles and glaciers are melting, the seas are polluted with plastic and biodiversity is shrinking dramatically. But politicians shout the “alarm” when growth slows. The “invisible hand of the market” always finds a way to further increase growth. Cosmetic changes in today’s social and economic system will not change that. The market always finds a gap until the last fish and the last tree are sold.

We have to take the tool from the invisible hand, and that is money.

The countries of the global south are often heavily indebted. This contributes to poverty and inequality in these countries. Global over-indebtedness reached an unprecedented high in 2021. That is why these countries are forced to have their natural wealth plundered.

The abolition of money leads to the repayment of debts and relieves these countries of their burden.

You can make a lot of money manufacturing and trading weapons. War is the best way to be able to produce new weapons. Many influential people earn money from it and are therefore not interested in wars stopping. Only when money is abolished one can no longer make a profit from weapons production.

The time you spend with your children or look after your relatives is worthless today. But when you sit at the computer, you make a lot of money. Isn’t it much more important to take care of your family instead of getting paid? Only when money is abolished will care work be equivalent to today’s paid work.

Because you have to pay for shelter, health care and food, money represents a barrier that is insurmountable for people who have no income. 

Even if there was a global basic income, there would still be homeless people if they had to spend their financial support on other important things.

When there is no more money, everyone has access to everything they need to live.

Economists are gamblers. They even openly admit that if they try to manipulate the market they don’t know what is going to happen.

Their stake is currently almost two trillion euros. It is an unimaginable amount, almost half of the gross domestic product of Germany. Their stakes are not theirs, they play with the money that we all have to earn again later.

The better or worse of billions of people depends on this game of chance. That will only stop when there is no more money.

The global economy needs growth. Growth comes through consumption and so that we consume more and more, the economy is busy constantly awakening new needs. Unrestrained consumption determines people’s leisure time in the global north. This leads to the fact that we know each other less and less and we know what is really important to us. For example the earth to which we belong, with its biodiversity. Scientists say that in the last 50 years more than 70% of all plant and animal species have irretrievably disappeared from our planet.

When we get rid of the money, we will focus again on what is really important.

It would be natural for us to support regional companies. But we mainly buy products that come from far away because their production was cheap there due to market competition. We don’t buy vegetables from organic farmers in the area, but from places where labor is cheaper. Clothing comes from Asia, where people are exploited. In the countries of the global south, established agricultural structures are being destroyed and the creation of monocultures which reduces the diversity of species, just so that the countries of the global north can be supplied with cheap products. The reason for this is mostly national debt. We know this is not right, but as long as money drives our habits, that won’t change.

Today’s philosophers and thinkers see the dawn of a new age, that of the planetary age. For the first time, humanity is able to free itself from gravity, to view our planet from the outside and to sense its fragility. In addition, thanks to technical and scientific progress, we would be able to enable everyone on earth to live a life without need. There has not been something like that before. Humanity is on the threshold of the 3rd millennium and we are ready for a big step towards a new quality of coexistence.

About 50 years ago we reached a level at which more was being produced than was consumed. If everything would be distributed fairly, then all people would be adequately supplied with means of need. At that time, the Club of Rome’s “Limits for Growth” appeared and the first scientists worried about whether the market economy could continue like this.

The basic law of the market economy is called growth. Growth requires more and more consumption and more consumption leads to depletion of the earth’s supplies, more waste and CO2. This waste of resources is bringing us closer and closer to collapse. The growth in the global north is disproportionately high whilst the global south is increasingly disadvantaged as a result. The growth must therefore be stopped as soon as possible.

Because this law has worked so well for the past 250 years, nobody wants to do anything against it. Politicians and governments firmly believe in it as a law of nature and worship it like a god. Demands to politicians and governments will therefore not change today’s society.

One possibility of change would be a revolution according to Karl Marx. Karl Marx wanted to abolish the oppression of the working population and, by nationalizing capital, prevent the creation of profit that the capitalist appropriates and accumulates. But that’s not as easy today as it was 100 years ago.

At Marx there were still people who represented the economy. The October Revolution in Russia was successful because there were capitalists who could be expropriated. Today we have a global economy that is extraordinarily diverse. The global economy consists of billions of jobbers who do everything to keep their jobs, millions of start-ups who do everything to repay their loans and of millions of companies who do everything to ensure a minimum growth, because otherwise they are to be swallowed by the giants.

This global economy cannot be expropriated. There is also nobody who would do that, because many people are not doing bad enough for that. Today we need a different plan than a revolution.

We give these things an artificial value, buy them and so they belong to us and we do what we want with them. This in turn gives us the right to bottle the water and sell it at high prices. And when we get tired of things, we just throw them away. Disposal is regulated by law.

It is nonsensical to rate things with work, it’s like trying to rate an apple by loudness. 

Because things have value, politics influence us to consume far too many of these things just to keep the gross national product growing. This consumption ultimately leads to the melting of the polar ice caps, pollution of the oceans with microplastics and a cruel decrease in biodiversity.

But actually it contradicts all natural laws. The iron from which the sheet metal of the car is made is a gift from the earth. The grain that has grown in the field is harvested, ground and baked into bread. According to the law of the conservation of mass, it did not multiply. The same amount of electrical energy that our coffee machine consumes has also come from the earth free of charge with natural gas or taken from the wind or sunlight for free. The material or the energy have not increased in “quantity”, that is not possible at all. The amount of everything has stayed the same, it has only been changed by human labour.

The treasures of the earth are free, so they cannot be bought and therefore they do not belong to us. They are part of the natural cycle. We can take what we need to live, but no more.

We could easily restore a reasonable world order by separating work from things, and then all things are free again.

If things don’t cost anything, then of course the work can’t cost anything either. The work will then just be done. This also eliminates the paradox that the work that is done inside your own apartment or garden is free and the work outside must be paid for. Or the paradox that the work you spend on caring for relatives or raising children is worthless in contrast to the working hours you spend at your desk.

Just as we keep our apartment clean today, take away the rubbish and take care of food and clothing for our relatives, we later ensure that the city is clean and that the production of goods and daily supplies are assured. We do this because we feel responsible for it and not because we are paid for one and not for the other.

What are the advantages of the new social order? 

Since we are no longer encouraged to consume through advertising, much less is consumed. This conserves our natural resources and generates less CO2. If we are given everything for free, we perceive it as a gift from nature and we will want to protect nature much better. 

Care work is the same as previously paid work. We can now voluntarily do anything we dreamed of. Starting with the support of our relatives and the care of our children, artistic activities, even up to large projects like the reforestation of the rainforests, as we do not have to pay attention to the financial aspects. 

The health care and retirement provision of all people on earth is assured and since we do not have to work for recreational consumption as we do today, the work is probably done three days a week. With secure old-age provision, the world population will shrink significantly within one or two generations.

So nothing stands in the way of a new social order without money.