"I live without cash – and I manage just fine "

[cbr6fs]

As a tax payer i honestly can put my hand on my heart and say, i don't care a hoot.

If the guy can get by without money, good on him.

It's a damn site better than these low life's that haven't worked a day in their lives AND claim a living (sponging) off the state for them and their numerous offspring.
To be honest i can understand why this type of life would appeal to some one, more than someone working for a purposely low wage.

Surely if your THAT pissed off with the government and it's spending plans, you'd move rather than drag yourself and family through a minimum wage living.


For me i'm semi-retired and do help out other folks as much as i can, who in turn help me out sometimes if needed.
I have private medical insurance though and a private pension, so even though i've paid into various countries tax revenues (and still do) i've never claimed dole, or received any medical attention from any of the national health services.


Be interesting to see how this guy would get on in the states though with their famous health system.
Pretty sure health insurance companies wouldn't accept a dozen eggs a week as payment.

[Tengu]

Ive met too many anti materialists, they all seem to come from well heeled backgrounds for some reason.

[hermitical]

I know what you mean, plenty of trustafarians in Bristol. Not Mark though, small town boy from the West coast of Ireland

[Manacles]

Ive met too many anti materialists, they all seem to come from well heeled backgrounds for some reason.

I suspect that it is an anti-reaction to them growing up with abundance. One is unlikely to find someone brought up with nothing revelling in their lack of wealth.

[British Red]

Be interesting to see how this guy would get on in the states though with their famous health system.
Pretty sure health insurance companies wouldn't accept a dozen eggs a week as payment.

That, in a nutshell, is my point.

I'm all in favour of people opting out. Provided that they "opt out".

Bear in mind that in the States, if you own a property, and don't keep up the taxes on it, they take your property. Employment status is irrelevant.

If you can't afford health, dental, whatever insurance and are unemployed, beyond basic "medicare"...tough. You sell whatever you own to pay for treatment.

Now I have no problem with that system.

I do prefer our system though (however flawed) where those incapable of work or unable to find work, can still have their cancer treated.

Here is my problem. When people capable of working say " I don't need money or to pay tax"...but use all the advantages conveyed by the majority who do pay tax....they aren't playing fair. Its in effect "biting the hand that feeds you". If you want to live outside the tax regime...do so. Move to a country where there is no NHS, unemployment benefit etc. If you find you have an illness, either pay the thousands (or tens of thousands) it costs to treat it. Or die from it.

If you don't agree with paying tax to fund the NHS, bin collection, police, etc. Fine. Don't pay.

But don't use the services either. Move somehwere with no health services, no protection from crime etc. Somalia? Perhaps Rwanda. See how long you last without any form of tax funded infrastructure.

Of course if you want a tax funded infrastructure and all the benefit that it conveys, well, guess what, you should pay your share.

Red

[Flasheart]

Red for prime minister

[Randall]

He makes a good argument. It is a tough one. But something that always strikes me when I here that point of view is that it seems as though the people who work and pay taxes don't really want to do that. It's as if the money is the reward for them, and that they'd really rather just lie in in the morning.

I mean, if someone really enjoyed the job they were doing, whatever it may be, then why would they feel so aggrieved??



EDIT: What do you guys think about this essay: The Abolition of Work ?

(It's about a 10 minute read)

Interested to hear what you make of it, and whether or not it could work in this day and age..

http://deoxy.org/endwork.htm

[johnboy]

Red,

Whats your view on folk who work but don't earn enough (through circumstance or choice) to take them over the tax threshold???

they might pay certain taxes like 'road tax' if they run a car etc and 'might' make a NI contribution but if they pay no income tax then they dont contribute to policing, defense, the NHS, education etc etc....

Interested in your view on that....

Cheers

John

[Wayland]

.............................. .............................. .............................

[John Fenna]

Surely if your THAT pissed off with the government and it's spending plans, you'd move rather than drag yourself and family through a minimum wage living.

.

As far as I am concerned minimum wage living is fine - my needs/wants are limitted (the house is paid for, as is the van and my wifes car) my wife is semi-retired and we have no children). The work I do is stuff I love doing (sometimes is seems sinful to charge for it as it is such fun - teaching canoe skills and Bushcraft skills to enthusiastic clients) and includes work that I feel more interesting and rewarding than any office job I can think of - but is poorly paid (support work for folk with learning disability) and at about 3 stone overweight I am far from starving
I get a lot more job satisfaction trying to make peoples lives richer (and I guess that I "contribute to society" as well in the jobs I do) than I would if I was working in a job that just made a rich employer even richer. My magazine work and book writing pay poorly but I enjoy this through the intellectual challenge and the thrills of trying out new kit and passing on skills/information and details of places I have enjoyed walking or cycling.
I guess that goes for my craftwork as well. The work I do/have done on a totally volontary level is just fun for me which as a by-product might benefit others
For me low wages does not equate a limitted lifestyle - I have travelled the world and been paid for it and have more material goods and chattels that I can ever use to their fullest, a warm, safe, home, pleanty of foodd and friends and family that I care for and who care for me.
What more do I need?
Others may have/want more of everything, bigger faster cars/phonescomputers etc and they are welcome to that lifestyle - but it is not my choice

[British Red]

Johnboy,

I think I made myself clear on those who don't earn enough by circumstance...if you are unable to work, or unable to find work (but are trying), you can have my tax contributions and welcome. Thats the whole point.

If you pay NI, even if you don't pass the income tax threshold, you are paying in on the NHS...so ...fair play.

If you take payment in "food instead of money", or proclaim that "the world does not need money and tax" - whilst reaping all the benefits of the tax that others pay, indeed whilst enjoying a life that would be impossible without the safety and security that other people pay for, then you are at best a scavenger, at worst a parasite.

Screaming "what a bad system" - whilst being protected by the very system you decry is naive and hypocritical in equal measures

Red

[johnboy]

Hi Red,

Thanks for that I'm clear on the following point. If folk are earning ( through choice or circumstance) below the lower tax threshold but are working they are not 'freeloading' on the rest of tax paying society in the UK.

Cheers


John

[Randall]

What a bunch of codswallop.

[British Red]

Hell yes, if you are sick or whatever johnboy, thats why we pay NI.

My beef is with people who trumpet " we don't need money" whilst enjoying the safety and security paid for with other peoples money.

Like I said - go do it in Somalia and show us how its done. Or even on an uninhabited island - that would have some credibility.

Naffing about protected by the police, forces and NHS paid for by others is just living as a parasite on other peoples contributions

[cbr6fs]

Red,

That's the whole point of society, it's unfortunate but some pay, others don't, some pay lots, others not so much.
I am happy with the fact that my UK NI contributions fund a health service that although is far from as good as it could be or was, still treats those in a less fortunate state.

Don't get me wrong, it's not like i was born with a silver spoon in my mouth, i'm semi-retired at 42 because i didn't buy new cars, widescreen TV's, the latest games console, borrow money or use credit cards.
Mates take the **** now because i have time to do the things i love.
These were the same mates that were taking out £10k car loans, paying back nearly £20k after 5 years then selling their cars to me for £500, they still buy £500 TV's on their credit cards and end up paying back £1500.

So everything i have i have earned (with a few lucky breaks thrown in), STILL i'm happy to contribute so blokes like that can enjoy their life.
I'm sure one day some how somewhere he will also contribute something to society that isn't monetary based.

That's society, it's the same reason i'm no longer allowed guns, because some deranged psychopath carried out one of the most despicable acts of mass murder in our times.
1 sicko spoils it for hundreds if not thousands of honest decent shooting enthusiasts.
It's the same with knives, speed limits and speed cameras, why cannabis and even hard drugs are illegal, and even in our bushcrafting one person out of a hundred can camp and leave a mess and ruin it for the rest of us.

That's the price to pay for living in society though.


What really gets me though are these doley's that have no job, have had no job in years, yet still continue to breed and have even more kids.
I had one on another forum complaining because the council wouldn't give him a bigger house to put his 5 kids (yep 5) even though he is 26 and has not worked a honest day in his life.
These are the drains on society, we are sponsoring these jerks to have kids and the only thing their Dad is teaching them is how to sponge off society and steal cars.


So in comparison to these "sponges" this guy is an absolute angel in my book.


John,
I apologise, i understood that it was a political statement you were making, that's why it seemed to me a bit like cutting off your nose to spite your face.

[British Red]

I suspect we broadly agree - in principle if not execution.

I guess my point is , if this guy really want to experience a society "without money" - why did he not choose to conduct his experiment in just such a society?

I very much suspect because he knew that his experiment would have failed - and that he could not have fallen back on the contibutions others have made to assure his survival.

Lets, for a moment, imagine the world he espouses. A world without money. Could he turn up at a "tribe" who all contributed some of what they grew, or made, or hunted and say "I would like you to protect me, oh and give me a home, and give me work, from which I wont pay towards you tribes safety and security. Oh, and I would like to point out how stupid your tribe is whilst I do that".

Reckon they would take him in?

Anyway, as I said, when he does it without relying on the safety and security other pay for, I'll read his thoughts after, say, a decade.

The money he despises takes care of sick children, handicapped adults, the elderly and the disadvantaged. Whilst he dodges paying in anything - he is basically saying "I don't care if poor kids on dialysis die. Why should I have to contribute to their upkeep?"

That makes his "pronouncements" on society repugnant to me. Much the same as the takers you refer to.

Red

[John Fenna]

John,
I apologise, i understood that it was a political statement you were making, that's why it seemed to me a bit like cutting off your nose to spite your face.

It is a statement I am making - but one that I am comfortable enough to make
I have to agree with you about the Dole spongers - I class them with the politicians who cheat on their expences as bigger parasites that the freeloader in the original post
These are the folk that I have no desire to earn money for!

[hermitical]

The money he despises takes care of sick children, handicapped adults, the elderly and the disadvantaged.

Is this the same money that is being cut from these services as we speak, the same money that is being syphoned off into the profits of the Conservatives donors and chosen providers, the money that is being denied to the sick and disabled through incompetent (at best) or malicious use of ATOS. Is this the money that Monsanto is earning by making millions slaves to their seeds across the world. Though profit can and does drive innovation it also encourages greed and ignorance, wilful or not, of the real cost of these actions to others and the planet.

I truly hope that within a few centuries we will have moved on from being slaves to both the powers that be and yes money, I hope there will be a revelation that we can work together as a planet and use technology to create an egalitarian society where each person is free to live and explore life in whatever way they want so long as no harm is done to others. I also believe that in such a circumstance people will show the best of themselves and want to work for the betterment of all.

Either that or those that pursue profit above all else will have damaged the world to the point where human civilisation is thrown back to the dark ages or beyond.

I may have watched too much Star Trek

[sandbender]

"...I may have watched too much Star Trek..."

Possibly. I was raised on Star Trek, I watched the movie last year, stepped out of the cinema into smoggy and noisy Budapest street and thought "this isn't the future I was promised".

As far as taxes are concerned, some folks don't want to fund military adventurism overseas, over-inquisitive intelligence gathering measures, free further education and prescriptions in Scotland, a third bridge over the Forth or a high speed rail link.

However there isn't a mechanism by which one can opt out of paying for those things you are unhappy with other than to pay no taxes at all, which means that you also do not fund the...

"...care of sick children, handicapped adults, the elderly and the disadvantaged..."

...and to do so while deriving some benefit from the taxes paid by others is hypocritical.

Edited to add:

I think that both free further education and free prescriptions are worth paying taxes for, although I'd perhaps tweak the definition of further education a little.

[blacktimberwolf]

I truly hope that within a few centuries we will have moved on from being slaves to both the powers that be and yes money,

I think in a few hundred years, money will no longer have any value or meaning, clean water, food & space will be the new currencies.....As for the powers that be, surely those who are better armed & able to hold onto the dwindlig recources will dictate their law. Slavery looks like it going to continue.
To change the future we have to change the present but since that would involve a complete & radical change in our lives & many uncomfortable sacrifices, no one is prepared to even start...We all know where we're headin' but instead of 'slamming on the brakes', we're accelerating.

Sorry, not sure this has any relevance to the thread.

[xylaria]

I think in a few hundred years, money will no longer have any value or meaning, clean water, food & space will be the new currencies.....As for the powers that be, surely those who are better armed & able to hold onto the dwindlig recources will dictate their law. Slavery looks like it going to continue.
To change the future we have to change the present but since that would involve a complete & radical change in our lives & many uncomfortable sacrifices, no one is prepared to even start...We all know where we're headin' but instead of 'slamming on the brakes', we're accelerating.

Sorry, not sure this has any relevance to the thread.

I think it is relavent to the thread.
Changing to simplier life that uses less resources is a survival stratgy, that doesnt envolve the better armed dicating their law. The way we were heading money isn't going to mean much in a few years not centeries. The globe has become better educated to been lied to by their various governments.

Quite a few people here have opted to live simplier lives, it is healthier, and in some ways it provides a more secure future both indivilually and as a society. None of us need flat screen TVs, new cars, new clothes. We know we need basically shelter, food, water and warmeth, everything past that is personal choice of comfort. I fasinated that there are people both here and in the states that have dropped so far out of the system, [living 100% off grid, and no handouts] that they dont exist on paper.

[Adze]

I class them with the politicians who cheat on their expences as bigger parasites that the freeloader in the original post

I'd go with that - in terms of doing least harm he's way, way down the scale compared with some. Quite possibly the rise of the supermarkets should be considered as most to blame for the degredation of our society and culture.

[Toddy]

.........but they only exist in peace because the country they live in is secure.
How much peace would they have from bands of marauders ? and does anyone really want to live in a land where we have fortresses on every hilltop again ?

This is how society grows, evolves, develops. From family to tribe to clan to kingdoms to nations, and at every step of the way people try to make provision for those who cannot manage to support themselves, try to improve living conditions for everybody.
From the clean running water and decent sewerage systems of the Victorians, to the housing, and financial support of the disable, single parents, the elderly of the present; society is trying.

Oi! Sandbender..........when did you last try to cross the Forth ? it's a nightmare half the time, the sooner that new bridge is built the better, and similarly the A9 north. Inverness is a major city and it's main access is still a dual carriage way for much of it's length.

That's the biggest difference, and the greatest improvement, and the best hope for the future........easy access to resources, easy communication, and easy available information freely available.
On the other hand, control the easy access to communication and information.......

cheers,
Toddy

[southey]

This is to me one of the biggest problems of development of rural routes,

Solstice services, Amesbury,



and you'll see carbon copies all over the country,

[Andy BB]

Is this the same money that is being cut from these services as we speak, the same money that is being syphoned off into the profits of the Conservatives donors and chosen providers, the money that is being denied to the sick and disabled through incompetent (at best) or malicious use of ATOS. Is this the money that Monsanto is earning by making millions slaves to their seeds across the world. Though profit can and does drive innovation it also encourages greed and ignorance, wilful or not, of the real cost of these actions to others and the planet.

I truly hope that within a few centuries we will have moved on from being slaves to both the powers that be and yes money, I hope there will be a revelation that we can work together as a planet and use technology to create an egalitarian society where each person is free to live and explore life in whatever way they want so long as no harm is done to others. I also believe that in such a circumstance people will show the best of themselves and want to work for the betterment of all.

Either that or those that pursue profit above all else will have damaged the world to the point where human civilisation is thrown back to the dark ages or beyond.

I may have watched too much Star Trek

Funny no-one complained when the taxes paid on the profits from the banks and their employees funded social security/NHS etc for decades!

Capitalism may not be the answer, but having worked on 6 continents and dozens of countries in the last 30-odd years, its better than the alternatives!

[hermitical]

who knows what alternatives will be open to us in the future

[Randall]

..Reminds me of something George Carlin said - "I think people should be allowed to do anything they want. We haven't tried that for a while. Maybe this time it'll work"

To be fair he was a comedian, and a rather cycnical one at that. But it does seem increasingly likely that sooner or later this will be the case, so it would be wise to prepare for it.

[hermitical]

the late great George Carlin...

[cbr6fs]

I think all this break down of society stuff is absolute rubbish.

First off everyone CAN do what this guy is doing.
In reality though the vast vast vast majority of us choose to work for a living to bring home money to provide financial and physical security (house) to our families.

So for me i'm happy to pay into NI contributions to help out this guy if he needs it, he has sacrificed settling down, starting a family and the usual "wants" in modern day life to pursue the lifestyle he wants, so good on him.

It's hardly like society is going to crack and crumble because a few people read his story and decide to try it for themselves is it.

So all this health service crumbling, being invaded stuff is taking unlikely things to the absolute extremes, as is often the way on the internet.



hermitical,

The system we have is far from perfect, but capitalism if thought through works well.
Our problems are not with capitalism it's with huge corporations being able to get THAT big the are swaying governments.

For most of us usual folk it works well.
For me at 42 i now have money for nicer things in life, this is because i have worked hard my entire adult life and have looked after my money.
It's easy for lazy youths, students etc to look at my life and criticise, thing is though i chose to work for a living when i left school at 15 rather than attend further education, i then started at the bottom and slogged my way up.
Sure i've had some lucky breaks, but anyone could if they wanted to have financial security enough to retire at 50 if they really wanted to.

If i stepped into say a communist society i would be made to work full time again and have many of my things taken by the state.
How is that fair, that i end up working next to a lazy guy who is out spending his money on drink every night?

Way i see it is, i chose to work and have financial security at 42.
This guy chose not to work and has nothing.

What happens if this guy gets seriously ill?
I'm not talking about the expense to the health system, as i say don't care about that, i'm talking about if the worst happens and this guy is bed ridden for weeks or months.
How does he then earn his keep, food, warmth etc?

What happens if his caravan gets destroyed in a storm?
again with no financial security it's not like he can go out and buy a replacement is it.

So we all make choices, some spend their money before they have it, others like to have a nest egg, others like this guy live life day to day.
It really boils down to the choices we make in life and living with the consequences of those choices.

Society isn't going to break down because of this guy, and everyone could live life like this guy if they wanted, the fact that they don't means that most of us prefer more security.

[Andy BB]

Society isn't going to break down because of this guy, and everyone could live life like this guy if they wanted, the fact that they don't means that most of us prefer more security.

If everyone lived like this guy, no-one would be able to live like this guy - including him!