02 April 2010
By: Viktor Persson
Today labour is 8 hours of daily action used to produce things and services. These things and services are not produced because they are actually needed in this reality, or because people like them. Well, I don’t speak for all here. As I know there are products people genuinly need, and like that are produced. But much of what is avaivable in the system for purchase has the sole purpose of being purchased.
Things being made to self-destroy in a set time so the consumer will be forced to buy new things. Commercials created through investigating how the human mind works and how the product or service should be presented or designed to awaken a desire in the hope to be customer.
There is no common sense in the labour system. I have worked mostly in carpenting industries. We did doors. We did hundred of doors a day. And I wondered. But why isn’t there ever enough? How come this entire system is built upon spending more, producing more, consuming more. All the time. Production most go faster. Things most be standing out more. Labour force are kicked to bring in machines to get the labour cheaper and get more profit.
In a equal money system. Profit would be no more. And for the first time people would be able to stop and get out of their survival mode and ask themselves what it is they are doing. And if what they are producing is really, actually required in the world.
For example, the carpenting job. Where hundreds of doors are made every-day. Is there really a need to produce as much doors? Aren’t we now all the time trying to convince people to buy new things, to continue consuming. To get the latest. To follow fashion trends and replace the old with the new. And when this stops. And people realize that the house they have, the inner design they have is sufficient and does not need to be changed. Will it be needed to mass-produce as we are mass-producing?
In a equal money system. People could stop what they are doing. And consider doing something meaningful with their time instead of automated labour. Only done to make the salary come in. Because right now the salary is dependent upon things and services being sold. So all people are forced to produce and make what they produce attractive to consumption. In that. The practicality of a product get’s diminished. Because it’s not anymore about practicality. It’s about getting the product to be consumed. And getting as much back as possible. Producing at the minutest expense possible. To be able to get profit. To keep expanding the buissness. And produce more goods and services to be consumed.
Where does this lead our society? It leads towards a complete disaster. Because the actual worth of a product is not it’s practical purpose. But how cheap it is to make, and how much it can be sold for. And there is no consideration for the consequences of making the product.
For example furniture. In my carpenting school my teacher explains to me how you must work all the time and never stand still. Always produce because time is money. But what is the consequence for this. Forests get’s cut down, nature and animals is affected. People loose the enjoyment of being able to stroll in the woods. And all these are real things getting wasted. To be able to bring in money.
Carpenting would change drastically in a equal money system. Carpenters would no longer run around trying to make as much as possible, at the lowest cost possible. Furnitures would be built for their practicality, for their need. For the enjoyment of building them. And this entire craze of interior design would stop. Interior design becoming instead, interior practicality. How to practically create your home. Not following the latest trends.
And there would no longer be this massive amount of products avaivable. People would either have to learn carpenting themselves or take care of what they have. Not anymore running around buying all the latest things. Because there wouldn’t be any.
I don’t believe the carpenting buissness would fall together when a equal money system get’s implemented. Because it’s a profession many have learned themselves because they enjoy it. Though they have never been able to fully express themselves within their profession because they have been limited by money. And always fighting against time to get their furniture to be produced and consumed.