FREECONOMY
(Posted 2011-02-17 15:38:42 by ArchPaladin)

I have recently come across Freeconomy [ http://justfortheloveofit.org/ ]
[justfortheloveofit.org], a site dedicated to the idea that people should
do what they can to live without the use of money.  I don't just mean debt
or credit cards here - I mean money in all its forms.

Their basic premise is that people can find sustenance by living closer to
the earth, sharing their skillsets and tools with each other, and generally
using small, close-knit communities to provide for their needs.  This can
range from offering a room and meal for a person for a night, to lending
your hammer to another person, to teaching someone else how to knit.

I've come across item- and skill-sharing sites before, although none of
them have done this for the purpose of trying to live without currency or
financial exchange of any kind.  Most other places that I've seen are
usually for the purpose of sharing information, or ensuring that items
don't end up in landfills, or some other community-promoting reason.  This
site lists all the same reasons, but adds on to it the idea that money
separates people from the true cost of the item or service they are buying,
and thus destroys the possibility for sustainable living because of the
presence of externalities.

Admittedly, the founder and main promoter of the site seems to believe that
money is evil, which I disagree with.  He also seems to admit that living
in the way he describes would make widespread division of labor and
specialization impossible, which I agree with, but haven't decided if that
is a positive or negative thing yet.  Overall there are a lot of general
questions I get from this entire idea of living without money that float
around in my head, and they seem to be worth wrestling with given the
nature of our materialistic society.

Knowing that I will be out of school soon and that new student loan
payments will shortly become due, I know that I could not live the kind of
lifestyle they are promoting (at least for 25 years - student loans are
discharged after 25 years of payments regardless of remaining balance). 
But it does raise questions of lifestyle and quality of life which American
society often answers with pat assumptions about the need for houses and
SUVs and large plasma TVs.  I never really thought a materialistic
lifestyle was sustainable, and its worth questioning how many steps to take
down that road before saying "that's enough".  I'm not sure there's an easy
answer to that question, and certainly there's not an answer that will fit
everyone.

Recently I have been coming back a lot to passages like Mat 6:25-33, or
Luke 6:35, or Mark 10:17-22.  These are some of many passages often
referenced by people who try to get other Christians to disengage from
materialism and hand over portions of their wealth to charitable causes. 
It can be easy to dismiss those advocates by saying that they are using
those passages to drum up money to sustain themselves and their efforts. 
It can be equally easy to dismiss those passages by stating that
stewardship of possessions doesn't necessarily equate to wholesale
donations.

But with a global view of humanity's needs, and with knowledge of the
realities of God's provision, I often find justification of _not_
downsizing rather hollow.

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