All change, please!
In this episode, we explore what changes might happen in a transition to a more sustainable responsibility-based world.
After the previous post, various people asked what a post-possessionist or ‘no-money’ economy would actually look like - how people would experience it in practice. And also how they/we might experience a transition from the current possessionist economics to a responsibility-based one - kind of like what happens when a train rolls into the end-of-the-line station, gets ready to turn around and go back onto another route, and the train-conductor yells ‘Passengers all change please!'“. That kind of thing, anyway.
A great challenge, then! I set down to write a nice fictional scenario around which to build those human stories - and then belatedly realised that I’d already written all that I’d need for this, many years ago, in my 2011 sort-of-novel Yabbies. So yeah, let’s answer the question by taking a wander over there…
In case you were wondering, yabbies are a species of freshwater crayfish - cherax destructor - that are indigenous to Australia, the south-east in particular. It looks a bit like this:
But why ‘Yabbies’ as the book-title? Well, in one part of the novel, one of the characters catches a yabby in a net:
Yabbies. Funny little things. Some people eat them, but I’d rather let them be. All in their own little world at the bottom of the dam.
The other character replies:
A bit like us, ain’t they? Can’t see a thing for all the mud in the water, see? Bits and pieces drift down, in any old order, all out of sequence. An’ we have to make sense of them as best we can. Story of my life, really.
Anyway, back to the story here…
The Yabbies story is set mostly in Australia, whilst the part of the story that’s relevant for here takes place about five years from now. In the transition-scenario - which actually is plausible, by the way - the entire global economics collapses overnight, with most electronics and more also put out of action worldwide at the same time. And for Australia they’re already reeling from a devastating nationwide corruption-scandal, making the already-cataclysmic challenges even harder to resolve. Hence, in this fictional Australia, the shift to a responsibility-based model - referred to there as ‘sustainable law’ - “came about almost by accident, as the last available option for a government facing an unprecedented crisis”.
(In the story, there’s a brief exchange on that night between two cabinet-ministers about this concept of ‘sustainable law’. One comments:
But what’s the point, if it’s just some daft utopian thing?
The other replies:
It’s not utopian. Not really. It’s just different. And it’s the only thing we know of that actually works when you’re right up against the wall - y’know, like right now, in fact? So yeah, sure, up until yesterday, it made no darn sense to most people, it was just a fun thing for academics to play with. But as of tonight, though? - well, it’s probably the only thing that does make sense any more. He knew how disruptive it would be - he used to say you could only bring it in if there was some major calamity, and every other choice was worse. But right now, every other choice is worse, a lot worse. So what have we got to lose?
I honestly believe that that’s how this change most likely to happen…)
So, here’s our first of three short pieces, each describing one (fictional) person’s experiences on the morning after that transition to a responsibility-based ‘no-money’ economics at a fully national scale. The narrator in this one works at a building-materials supplier on a mid-size industrial-estate:
I turn up at work at the usual time, more out of habit than anything else. Not that much surprised at who else has turned up: Malarkey is nowhere to be seen, of course – always was a timewasting little twit – and Minge isn’t here but has sent a note that she needs time to calm her kids, but otherwise it’s pretty much full-house. All standing outside the locked door, looking bloody silly, on a day when probably everyone else in the whole bloody country is taking the day off.
But we’re not the only ones: all round the yard there’s people standing outside their works front doors, wondering why the heck they’re there too. Habit’s a powerful thing.
Mr James comes up in his fancy Range Rover, looking a lot more hassled than usual, and kind of surprised that we’re here too. But he doesn’t just grunt and open the door, like he’s done every day for the past decade; he gets out and kind of cringes, like he’s as lost as we are but half expecting us to lay into him. Odd, really. No-one says a bloody word for a while, till Hanneko breaks the ice.
“Need to get started, Mr James. Gangers’ll be here soon.”
That odd cringe again. “I can’t pay you, you know.”
“No-one can – not today. But we’ve got a job to do, Mr James. Our customers’ll want us to be open – otherwise they can’t do their jobs neither. Then nobody’s house gets built. So we gotta be here, ha’n’t we?”
“Yeah.” He kind of breathes a sigh of relief, like surprise that we aren’t going to lay into him or something. “Yeah. Yeah. Right. Thanks. Sorry. Sorry to keep you waiting.”
And he fumbles in his pocket, pulls out his keys, unlocks the door, pushes it open. And for once steps aside to let us go first.
Fez – foreman to the last – hits the light-switches, and the place comes to life. Funny that – it’s like it really did come to life, almost. Mr James is still in charge, and we need him to do that part of the job – though I’ll bet he’s happy to see the end of hassling builders for their unpaid bills. But it’s our place now as much as his. Or we’re its people, or something. Going to be weird trying to get my head around all that.
A quick check round: the alarm’s still quiet, so no looters or anything like that, thank god. Power’s still on so the power-workers must be at their jobs too – didn’t think of that before. Computer works but the network’s down, of course, so it’s pretty useless. Oh well, back to paper for the while.
Big roller doors going up in the warehouse bay. We’re still here. Paton’s Building Supplies is open for business, folks.
What’s notable here is how much the job doesn’t change - or rather, that, yes, there are changes, but at first only small, subtle and quite hard to see…
In the next story-piece, the narrator works as a designer in a commercial-graphics firm. The building-supplies worker didn’t see many changes; by contrast, the designer sees a lot of change coming his way. For he and his friends, most of those changes they’ll likely experience as a real improvement; yet for the ‘money-men’ around them, their current world is more likely to vanish into irrelevance. It wouldn’t leave them stranded out on the street, though: just in need of a less destructive form of work.
No more moody faked up pictures of faked up crap food in crap restaurants. No more exciting catalogues of rip-off house-sales. No more pseudo sales-pitches. My god. What are we going to do with our lives now? Might actually get the chance to do something worthwhile for once? Even have some fun?
Ad-agency guys’ll go berserk: no fat commissions from stupid clients being sold space they can’t use for crap stuff they don’t need to sell and that no-one wants. Jesus, they won’t know what to do with themselves. Have to jerk each other off, I guess. They haven’t got anything else that’s left.
No more bloody advertising jingles – christ, Minzy’ll be happy about that. No more crap “as seen on TV” line-ups. No more slick garbage for the banks and the insurance brokers – they’re gone. Good bloody riddance to ‘em.
Computer’s still working: don’t have to go all the way back to pencils and paint, then. Though may do that anyway: too bloody long since I’ve handled a brush.
Going to take some time to get used to this. But yeah, I think I’m going to like getting used to this…
And then we have this guy…
We only get to hear his side of the story, of course:
That prime-minister chap, whatever his name is, you mean he’s serious about this? Really? No money and all that?
Oh. He is? I see. Huh.
Well, I suppose that’s good. I was starting to worry a bit about what this mess was doing to my pension fund.
Shouldn’t make much difference to me, though, should it? After all, I’m retired now. I don’t need to work any more. And I’m not changing that for anyone.
Yes, this is my car. And yes, I do believe just exactly what that bumper-sticker says. Work is for people who can’t play golf. That’s how I got to be where I am. You meet all the right people at golf.
No, of course I don’t have anything to do with those people! That’s why we have gates on this community, to keep that filth out. Lucky to get what we give them, if you ask me. As for the others, well, there’s a good reason they’re called the undeserving poor, you know. Disgusting. A complete waste of our tax-money.
How should I know? I have an accountant for that. And I tell you, he’s not doing his job properly if have to pay any tax, is he?
Oh for heaven’s sake! How pathetic. What kind of petty do-gooder planet do you come from? It’s only the little people who pay taxes, surely?
Well, you can believe that if you want. I’m not going to. I don’t see any reason why I should.
You’re joking! You must be. Really? Oh, how stupid! Well, if they’re going to be that ridiculous, I’m going to stay right here and work on my golf average and call that my work. Why shouldn’t I? I told you, I’m retired now.
I’m forty-two. Why?
That’s quite enough of that attitude, thank you. Good day.
Interestingly, of the three examples here, he’s the one whose lifestyle is most likely to see the most changes - and literally life-changing, too…
More on that in the next episode, though: this one’s long enough already!
Overall, there are almost a dozen of these ‘transition-stories’ in Yabbies - along with a lot more, of course, exploring all manner of different issues around this same overall theme.
The book’s been around for quite a while now, in print format at least: if you want the full details, it’s Tom Graves, ‘Yabbies - Fragments: possession, passion and purpose’, Tetradian Books, 2011; ISBN 978-1-906681-32-6; available from any bookseller and all that. And as of this week, it’s now also available in ebook formats (PDF, EPUB, Kindle) from Leanpub, at https://leanpub.com/tg-yabbies .