Anything Can Be Currency In A World Without Tax

I touched on this a little in the first post. Essentially, what makes something the currency, is that we're taxed in it. It's very simple to understand if you look at things from the ground up, however, since we've all been born into a world where everything is measured in one currency it's hard for us to imagine how things could be otherwise.

The Farmer and the Woodcutter

If we imagine a more "primitive" era, perhaps a few thousand years ago, where there is no sophisticated system of money, things are quite different.

Let's say we have a farmer with some farmland and a woodcutter with some woodland. Naturally the woodcutter might want to trade some of his wood for some of the farmer's milk. To make this trade they could straight up barter these two things. However, they'd also both be free to use anything else as an intermediary. They could use metals, coined or otherwise. They could also use other commodities: salt; grain; tobacco - anything they were both happy to accept as trade.

So the woodcutter could perhaps give the farmer one bag of salt for two pails of milk.

Even if the farmer already has enough salt for himself he might still be happy to accept this trade, as he knows he can then trade this salt with other people, for something else he needs.

So the salt acts as a currency as well as a useful commodity.

(Both the firewood and the milk could also be used as currency. However, the wood, unlike the salt is cumbersome to transport, and the milk would quickly go off. So salt, being easier to store, carry and divvy up is the more natural choice.)

The Lord of the Manor

Even if the farmer and the woodcutter do have to pay some kind of tax in this less sophisticated world (let's say there's a local warlord or lord of the manor wanting tribute), they still have a degree of freedom in how they pay.

The woodcutter gives the lord of the manor some of his wood.

The farmer gives the lord of the manor some of his milk.

Let's say there's a third person, a peasant with less to give. They might pay the lord of the manor in their time. That is, they might pay their tax by doing a day's work on the lord of the manor's estate.

So, anything can be a currency (providing both sides are willing to accept it), and though it may be unfair that they have to pay these taxes in the first place, at least they can be paid in a currency more fitting to the individual and their circumstances.

Money, Money, Money

Once you have a set currency however, this flexibility disappears.

Let's imagine there's now a local mint, that mints copper coins, and that all taxes need to be paid in this specific currency.

Let's return to our original example. The woodcutter wants to buy some of the farmer's milk. He has some copper coins, but he knows he needs to pay this year's tax with these coins - so he's reluctant to let go of them. He goes to the farmer, and as before, he offers his firewood, or some salt, or some other commodity as payment.

However ..the farmer also needs copper coins to pay his tax. So he's reluctant to accept these other items.

"I'm sorry, I need payment in coins."

So now we have a situation where the farmer has worked really hard and has a surplus of milk. The woodcutter has worked really hard and has a surplus of wood. Yet because they need copper coins, and these are somewhat more scarce, they can't exchange their work and goods as fluidly.

Of course, they may still end up trading if they really need to. The woodcutter may relent and say, "Okay, I'll give you some copper coins for your milk." Or the farmer might relent and say, "Well, I do need firewood, so I'll exchange some milk for firewood, and forgo the coins."

However, these decisions may come with downsides..

Debt, Debt, Debt

Let's say it is the woodcutter who relents. Let's say he had 10 copper coins, but he gives 2 in exchange for the milk, and because of this he now doesn't have enough coins to pay his tax.

What does he do?

Well, he does what people always have to do when they need ready money. He borrows it.

So now he's in debt, and of course, he has to pay back this debt ..in copper coins too. No doubt with interest.

Conclusion

You can see how being locked into one specific currency, by the need to pay tax in it, creates a bit of a bind. In many ways, the more "primitive" people had more freedom and a more truer form of capitalism.

Likewise you can see how going back to a standard, gold or otherwise, isn't necessarily going to solve anything for regular people. At least with copper it was abundant enough to be fairly readily available to normal people, whereas gold, as I've mentioned before, is way worse as a currency in that regard.

I'm not sure what the solution is. It would be good if there were ways to have more freedom. Not necessarily a better currency, but more currencies maybe. Again though, I actually prefer fiat currency to currencies fixed to a commodity - I think people should be careful what they wish for when it comes to that.

Also, a crypto currency that worked more like copper (or cigarettes, as per the last post) would be interesting - as opposed to Bitcoin, that works like gold. If that's even possible.

Anyway, I'll leave it there.

Gold Standards Don't Work: Part II - Goldilocks Knows

This is a little follow up to that first post.

Here I want to talk about how cigarettes are used as currency in prisons, and why they make a good currency.

(Most of my knowledge about what happens in prisons comes from episodes of Porridge, so forgive me if this lacks realism. I'm more interested in the general principles though.)

Cigarettes make a good currency as they're something that everyone wants - a huge proportion of people smoke, so even if a particular individual doesn't smoke, he/she knows they can trade them with people that do.

And likewise, they make a good currency as they're not so important as to be precious. That is, though people want them, they don't want them badly enough that they're unwilling to trade them for other goods they want, say a magazine or a book.

They're also small, fungible and portable. So larger things can divide into them. A magazine might be worth two cigarettes, a book maybe three.

So, unlike gold, ironically, they fall into that goldilocks zone. Wanted enough to be valuable, but not so valuable that people are unwilling to let go of them for other things.

An Example

Say someone in prison has a framed photo of their family (something that has high personal value), or they have a gold watch or necklace (something that has high physical value), they're going to be highly unwilling to let these items go. They're too precious.

Plus, as they're so valuable they can only be traded for other very valuable things. You can't really trade a gold watch for a magazine. (Technically you could perhaps break a watch or necklace down into its component pieces; but it wouldn't be very practical, and by breaking it the whole would lose value.)

Conversely, if someone has ten cigarettes, it's quite different. Sure, they'd much rather smoke all ten. However, giving away two or three for some other item they desire isn't a huge personal sacrifice either. After all, they're just cigarettes.

Societal Prison

I think it's worth thinking about this. Not only as it gives a good example of what makes a good currency, but also because we could be heading into similar territory. As digitisation and state power grows we could find ourselves more like prisoners within it. I'm being a little melodramatic here, of course. Though saying that, I do feel increasingly like Norman Stanley Fletcher these days.

(If I'm not too lazy I'll be posting a follow up to this later, titled Anything Can Be Currency In A World Without Tax.)

Cloud Five

Yesterday's post about bands and gigs got me sent down the rabbit hole of my own musical past. Digging through the old songs and SoundCloud accounts.

Finding the various passwords and email addresses for each one was a pain in the a*se. I managed to get back into them all in the end though. The views for each were few and unimpressive. Thoroughly lost deep in the internet jungle.

1) The earliest going back was The Roseberries account.

https://soundcloud.com/the-roseberries

The earliest tracks were uploaded there eleven years ago, though they actually date from even earlier ..circa 2006 if I remember rightly. Even the two more recently uploaded ones originally date from 2013-ish.

2) Next we have Freckled Monkey.

https://soundcloud.com/freckled-monkey

You may notice that the URL of this blog is freckledmonkey. It was clearly a moniker I was going under at some point, before this blog morphed into its current form. The name was largely incidental really, and this particular SoundCloud account was mainly a place to upload some of the more experimental electronic music I was making at the time. Binaural beats an all.

3) The Tudahs.

https://soundcloud.com/the-tudahs

This band is more recent, though it ended around seven years ago. So like everything else it's firmly in the rear view mirror.

4) p9nd_apple.

https://soundcloud.com/user-292048615-200398677

This one has some overlap with the Freckled Monkey endeavour. More electronic. All instrumentals. I set up a parallel YouTube channel for this one - billing the music as 'royalty free'. Thinking that perhaps they could serve a use to people needing backing music. I pretty much consider everything on this list royalty free really. It's beyond money ( - though obviously there was once a time when I dreamed of 'making it' 😁 ).

The name again was incidental, though I was thinking about the earth, the waters and the natural landscape. So there are connotations of that.

5) Solo Acoustic.

https://soundcloud.com/user-804123342

Finally, we have this account for what's mainly acoustic guitar music. Some of this is more recent, though even here most of it dates back a few years. Perhaps there will be more, perhaps not. Who knows?

Vanned on the Run

Two posts today. This second one follows on from the mention of ULEZ in that last post.

We often now hear musicians claiming Brexit has made it more difficult to travel around Europe doing gigs. I'm not sure to what extent this is true, but I don't doubt there could be some genuine issues and costs. Likewise I don't doubt it's all been somewhat exaggerated by people seeking to make an issue out of it.

What I find truly both comic and tragic though is that none of these musicians see the real restrictions on the horizon. Forget about doing gigs in Europe, it might soon be impossible to do gigs in the next town. Even aside from fears about Agenda 2030 and 15 minute cities, the ULEZ plans alone present a significant threat to music. Gone will be the days when a band of young lads could somehow fetch enough money together to get a cheap van, and hitch their amplifiers to venues up and down the country.

In many ways guitar music is on the rocks as it is. With digitisation and the internet making the physical effort of dragging amplifiers to practice rooms not quite as needed. As I mentioned in relation to AI a few posts ago (see how nicely I tie all these themes together), technology now means one man can do what it once took many. Arranging rehearsals and enlisting a bass player and drummer is very hard and expensive. Even if it's with friends the personal politics is tricky. It's much, much easier to open up some software and get down to making music on your laptop. Your opinion is king. You don't have to persuade other humans to play it your way, or adopt your ideas and vision.

Conversely however, it's much less fun doing things alone, and the thrill of live music - real and analogue in the physical world - holds huge appeal. Even here though, software is an easier and more portable option. Why lug a drum kit when you can just programme the beats?

Even if you're prepared to go to all that extra effort to get that realness, to get that human touch and interaction, what if you just can't afford it? If businesses and families are struggling to cover the cost of maintaining a vehicle what chance does a scruffy young band have?

This is just another one of those things that the people bringing in all this watermelon red tape will have never even considered.

Rule by Question Time Audience

I've covered this topic before: the citizens' assembly. 😡

Today we had an article in the FT about Rory Stewart, and his plans on how to fix politics. They basically read like a blueprint on how to destroy Britain. He wants parliament reduced to a 100 MPs, more powerful local mayors ..and citizens' assemblies.

I can't stress enough how much I hate the idea of citizens' assemblies. My dislike for them comes from the fact that they're simply undemocratic. My hate for them stems from the fact that the people pushing them clearly understand what they're doing.

And what they're doing is trying to create the illusion of public support, for whatever policies they themselves want to implement.

I call it "Rule by Question Time Audience"

(The British public, having their say)

For those outside the UK, Question Time is a political debate show, where the public get to question a panel of politicians and public figures. The audience is meant to be representative of the British public (with a local bias, as it moves to a different town or city each week). However, representative doesn't just mean random joe public turning up. The reality is the audience is somewhat curated, in order to be representative. That means making sure all the chosen minority groups are represented. Climate activists, LGBTQ+, religious minorities and so forth.

It likewise means certain groups will be excluded. For instance, today is the anniversary of 9/11, and it doesn't matter how many people have questions about the official line on that political event, that will not be raised as a topic.

There's also, of course, another natural bias that the BBC can't entirely help. That is, that most normal people aren't massively engaged in politics enough to want to go to such an event. So it's always likely that the audience will be made up of people that are heavily invested in politics, or a particular political cause. Hence why so many outright political activists often end up in the audience, usually under the guise that they're just a "concerned mum," or a fed up 'NHS worker,' or whatever.

It can be annoying watching Question Time when you understand all this. At the same time though, it is just a TV show, and the producers are at least trying to engage the public. Even if there were no biases at all on the part of the BBC, it would still be difficult to ensure the audience wasn't biased or hijacked by other groups with an axe to grind.

So I am actually sympathetic to the BBC, they are the state broadcaster after all.

However..

When it comes to the actual political process itself I have no tolerance for this type of public curation.

In democratic countries we have fair, 'one person, one vote' elections, where we elect our representatives. Who then go and make decisions on our behalf. If we think they're doing a bad job we vote them out. Again, most normal people don't want to be politicians. They have jobs and families and other things to be getting on with. They don't have the time to be sat in assemblies discussing every latest issue. If they want to be politicians they are free to stand in elections and become one.

With "Rule by Question Time Audience" though what we'll have is "random" people (that aren't actually random, as they'll be filtered to be "representative") making judgements on topics, and then the actual politicians will say, "Well, we must do this, as it's what the public want."

And any politician that doesn't go along with the Citizens' Assembly decision or advice will be decried by the media as "un-democratic," or as going against the wishes of "the public" for doing so.

It won't matter what the actual public think. It won't matter that the politician has been specifically invested with decision making power by that actual voting public. The narrative or fig leaf provided by the curated proxy for the public will be all consuming.

This is what the people want!

We got a bunch of random political activists and simpletons into a room. We bamboozled them with all the "fair and accurate information" they needed, and they have decided, "Yes, we do want these ULEZ schemes."

The people have spoken.

A-Ideas and the Golden Age of Fantasy

I'm trying to post on here more frequently, but I've been a little bit snarky on Twitter recently, so I'm wondering if it's a good idea. A little too much opinion, a little too little thought.

I've been thinking about AI today. I'm always quick to pour scepticism on notions that AI will ever be intelligent in the consciousness sense, however, as a tool, used by humans, I agree it has incredible potential. I'm now wondering what the actuality of this potential will be over the next few years.

My main thinking has been in regard film - both the realistic and the anime variety. If you have a good idea for a movie, realising that end vision normally requires a lot of money and the backing of a studio. (That is, the help of other people.) Will AI allow people to bypass this though?

We've seen how YouTube and the internet in general has allowed individuals to compete with the mainstream in the realms of newsprint and simpler film and audio content. Likewise in the production of music. Does AI now mean the same for grander film projects?

People tend to focus on this notion that AI will just auto-generate content going forward. That humans can just sit back and let the AI entertain us all. However, I'm much more interested in the idea that "humans with good ideas" will be liberated by AI. Ideas are king, and I don't think AI alone will produce anything that isn't just derivative of human work. If an individual human has a good idea though, AI may help that one human realise their vision. They can just bypass all the other humans they would normally need to enlist, and crack on and realise their masterpiece.

Much like how a drum machine helps a musician with a vision forgo the need to enlist a human drummer.

One person, with some software, will make the equivalent of Star Wars from their bedroom.