I read a thread about this but noticed no alternatives were actually suggested, then the thread was locked. The best and main alternative to capitalism is RBE, Resource Based Economy. Basically everything is free and all work is voluntary.

What are the advantages? Well 95% of problems will go. The 40 hour work week will go.

What are the disadvantages? Billionaires will have less control over others.

How do we get there? Mostly by spreading awareness of RBE.

There are other ideas also:

Alternative economic systems:
- a Resource Based Economy (RBE)
- Contributionism (TUCS)
- an Open Economy
- a Freedom Economy

Movements:
- The Venus Project (TVP / RBE) - Jacque Fresco
- The Ubuntu Contribution System (TUCS)- Michael Tellinger
- The Free World Charter (open economy) - Colin R. Turner
- New Earth Nation (NEN) - Sacha Stone
- Intentional Community Sharing (ICS) - you
- The Mocica Project - mocica .org/en/Project
- Paradism - Rael
- The Valhalla Movement
- Copiosis
- The Zeitgeist Movement
- The Transition

We've got that already, it's called New start.

It will be a workers' paradise , to each according to his needs and gold will be used to make toilet seats. Guests in the barbed-wire work palaces will see the ballet and opera for free and sing songs in the snow as they dig canals at 50 degrees below zero..

I initially assumed this was some sort of parody post but it turns out there really is a movement called the Venus Project which advocates these 'ideas'.

It probably isn't entirely necessary to have no understanding of human nature and/or no knowledge of the last 200 years of history to believe this sort of tripe, but it'd certainly help.

We have already had a couple of quite large experiments along these lines. One was the USSR, & the other was Communist China. Remember those Get Rid of Money?

They had a very obvious result.

They both had to go back to capitalism, first in the farm sector after millions died of starvation, then industry, so useful production could return.

Are you an idiot, or just too young & lacking in a knowledge of history, to even dream such stupidity.

GROM,

If you haven't encountered it before, CH Douglas originated the social credit concept in the thirties.
As with our current examples, it does redistribution. Unlike ours, it does so to everybody, enabling a broad capacity to decline meaningless make-work or "churn", while still rewarding almost any endeavour that has merit (say medicine) or demand in preference to cheaply manufactured alternatives (you might prefer artisanal sausages or furniture).
By extending the credits (surplus or "eveners") to *everybody* it also took care of addressing whatever perceived thanks we owe the rich. They got their share of the common wealth too.

Rusty.

I see you are following the script. Reason by analogy, tick. Now progress the theories. Undone as yet!

Obviously never visited indigenous communities and seen what happens when no one works

Marijuana is not "churn" work , it's medical and organic with social-bonding against cop raids and communal benefits . Innovative shack architecture is a pleasant surprise amid the verdant gardens and gentle splash of trickling streams of plastic Visa.

For a start, you can have only ONE alternative in the English language; if you want more than one, you are looking at OPTIONS.

Is their an alternative to capitalism? Yes: poverty.

What exactly is, <a resourced based economy where everything is free.>

Do the resources, jump out of the countryside, into the local Woolworths and shops by themselves?
It seems we would need farmers and delivery vehicles.

Who would make our clothes, and how would the cotton be turned into materials?

How would resources be turned into antibiotics and medicines?

How would our homes be built and who would deliver the materials. Who would manufacture the nails etc?
Need I go on.

This is typical of utopian Leftwing hippie thinking. Sounds wonderful but doesn't work in
practice

It is already plainly obvious that automation reduces the number of workers required to do a task of a given size.
Try building a house without any power tools and then look at how easily a modern house is built, by so few. A century ago over 80% of males were employed in agriculture, now it is about 3%.

Also just as clearly, even though we have desirable new industries few are as immediately essential in the manner of food and housing.
Increasingly elaborate healthcare has absorbed a huge staff, but nothing compared to the mechanisation of agriculture.

So, sooner or later we have to make a decision: share dwindling jobs amongst an increasingly redundant workforce, distribute the results of production directly, or artificially distribute the purchasing power to buy those products. We could generate new industries while ignoring the objections of those who declare they are not *really* needed.
Or perhaps a very limited number of people can own all production and try to eat it all themselves as no one else can afford it.

Glad to be here among people who wants to make a real change and end this monetary system that is enslaving Humanity and destroying our Earth, myself i am a supporter of The Venus Project but ofc i support all the Resource Based Economy but my worry is will we make it as the world is becoming more and more instabile with threats of nuclear wars and climate change.
We really need to wake up the people before its to late.

"Is their an alternative to capitalism? Yes: poverty."

ttbn, unfettered capitalism creates vast numbers of poverty stricken people. I prefer the mix of capitalism and socialism we have now. Its not perfect, but its better than any alternative that has been put up thus far. I recognize as vital the roll played in our society by the capitalists, the need for his entrepreneurial skills and the improvement crated by capitalistic competitiveness. At the same time it is necessary to have in place both controls that prevent capitalism from running to excess, and a social contract which takes into account the needs of society as a whole, not just the privileged few. Socialism through a democratically elected government allows for some redistribution of wealth to where it is most needed in society. Again, not always done perfectly, but not to do so at all would be infinately worse.

The best alternative would be pure communism. but unfortunately mankind is probably about a millennium away from reaching the necessary higher astral plane to make communism work.

The Amish church and Bruderhof at Inverell NSW have something similar and Kim Jong-Un pulls a crowd for peoples' volunteer nuke Hwasong-10 with range of 3200kms. North Koreans work for peanuts.

Paul1405, "The best alternative would be pure communism. but unfortunately mankind is probably about a millennium away from reaching the necessary higher astral plane to make communism work"

That would be the hypocritical NSW Greens 'Left Renewal' faction, as crazy as cut snakes. The Greens elite are very wealthy indeed and many will be enjoying golden handshakes for life from the taxpayer. What hypocrites they are!

"New left faction threatens to white ant the Greens

As a purist collective, for example, Left Renewal, refuses to provide a spokesperson to address questions from the media but communicates with journalists through unsourced responses on Facebook and Twitter.
..
Left Renewal has deep links to two of the NSW Greens' most senior elected figures in veteran senator Lee Rhiannon and upper-house state MP David Shoebridge and has already made a mockery of Di Natale's insistence that the Greens are not a factionalised party.

Faction founder Tom Raue, a self-described anarchist, works as an adviser in Mr Shoebridge's office while co-founder Brigitte Holly begins a job in Senator Rhiannon's office this month.

Rhiannon and Shoebridge have been at pains to point out they are not members of Left Renewal but are equally keen to defend its right to exist...

The irony in their solidarity with those who want to tip the system on its head is that both politicians have done well out of the capitalist status quo.

Rhiannon and Shoebridge, a former industrial relations barrister, both own $2 million-plus homes in Sydney's eastern suburbs, according to parliamentary records and real estate data, and Rhiannon in particular has lucrative public pension pots from state and federal parliaments.

Still, the pair have aligned themselves with the "eastern bloc" or "watermelon" faction (green on the outside, red in the middle) that dismisses environmentally-minded, middle class Greens like Di Natale as "tree tories".

Over the years, I have been rung up and chastised by people on the left of the Greens for referring in stories to factions in the party. Some of the same people have signed up to Left Renewal."

http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/new-left-faction-that-threatens-to-white-ant-the-greens-20170119-gtuowl.html

Paul,

It is so quaint and last century to believe that there is anything such as pure communism. The rest of the world has worked out that the flaw in "communism" is people. Maybe in a millennium there will only be robots who can submit to totalitarian rule.

Oh God, these lefties are incredible aren't they? Never a shred of truth or fact in anything they say.

Let's follow the march of capitalism generating their poverty through the world since the second world war.

First the 2 countries destroyed by their aggression. Germany & Japan with nothing left attracted capitalists with their low wages. Soon they were high wage countries, & the capitalists had to move on somewhere cheaper, but let's just glance at the other Germany first. East [communist] Germany was so rich & successful they had to build a wall to keep their people in.

So capitalists move on to cheaper wage countries. Taiwan was soon too expensive, then Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, now Cambodia. Any where capitalism has landed soon became too rich & wages so high it had to move on.

Now compare USSR & China. Communism soon had them unable to feed themselves, & millions starved. They had to go back to a capitalist system of farming, & soon were food exporters. Then came a capitalist industrial system in China, & they were soon developing highly paid industries & millionaires galore. Russia is still only halfway there, but at least they no longer have to queue for a loaf of bread.

They can't name a single place the wages are lower since the capitalists arrived & started hiring, but persist with these myths.

leoj, your rehash on a regular basis of that out dated, unsourced, unsubstantiated "news" article is typical of your green paranoia. Why don't you get over it, and concentrate on your rabid right adulation of Wacko Hanson instead. You should be busy now, white shoes and all, propagandising for One Nation in the up coming Queensland election.

That booted former Senator, and now One Nation wombat of a candidate in the Queensland election Malcolm Roberts kept an accused rapist as a personal adviser for five months, unbelievable. Is that the sort of thing you agree with leoj?

Shadow, what is so quaint is your ability to make wrong predictions. Just a few I can recall;

1. The Tories would win the British election in a landslide. They now have to rely on some lunatic Irish to keep in government.

2. An arrest was imminent in the 'Beat Up' Bolt fiasco. Still waiting months later.

3, Barnyard Joyce had nothing to worry about when it came to the High Court and his citizenship. You are truly a legal eagle when its comes to the law.

Shadow the law of averages would say you should get it right sometime, but you defy such law, and get it wrong all the time. How do you do it?

Four decades ago Sydney had the highest house cost, averaging $28,000 while today it exceeds $850,000. So while earnings have gone up, by almost tenfold, house prices have gone up by more than thirtyfold in that same period of time.

However , the smart money is on tents in Martin Place Sydney with low mortgage and no painting or roofing maintenance

Oh what a silly thread!

Qatar is a resource based economy - their economy is largely dependent on the export of resources. Indeed Australia's economy has historically been resource based. ButI that's not what GROM, AGron (who I suspect is GROM larping as someone else to make it look like he has more support than he does), Venus Project and Zeitgeist Movement etc mean. AIUI what they want is a resource ALLOCATION based economy, using some mechanism other than money to allocate resources.

In general that's a bad idea IMO, as it's likely to end up as too inefficient and bureaucratic, and a lot of the perceived benefits are based on a misunderstanding of how the economy works at present. But we must be careful to distinguish between current conditions and post scarcity conditions. Once we reach the post scarcity age, the economy will change considerably. However getting rid of money would still be a bad idea, as there would be labour shortages in many occupations, and there would still be shortages of things for which there is limited supply and high demand, such as Harbourside land.

As for capitalism and socialism, the both have to be more precisely defined before criticism of them becomes meaningful. Though I think it's safe to say pure communism is as undesirable as it's unworkable, and I'm quite surprised to see Paul claiming otherwise, even if the brand of communism he regards as pure is one that doesn't involve totalitarianism.

Aidan, do not be surprised, that at some future date, way in the future. in an unrecognizable by today's standards, idealistic world "communism" could be the norm. In a world, not necessarily of this planet, where mankind has reached a state of Nirvana. a place where all of mans needs are met in entirety. In such an flawless world based on love and kindness, there would be no requirement for grubby money as a means of exchange.
I don't think Stalinist Russia or Maoists China quite reached the necessary higher astral plane to achieve Nirvana. In fact, I think they were miserably short of the mark, however I envisage such could be the case, by the year, say 4027 AD, possibly on the planet Mars. My first paragraph is more like what I support. please take note of that, and don't be so surprised.
In the meantime we will just have to make do with what we've got, warts and all. Agree?

They almost got rid of money when Britain joined USSR in forced labour.
"In December 1941 the British government conscripted women into the the Land Army. The Land Girls did a wide range of jobs, including milking cows, lambing, managing poultry, ploughing, gathering crops, digging ditches, catching rats and carrying out farm maintenance work. Some 6,000 women worked in the Timber Corps, chopping down trees and running sawmills. , Land Girls earned £1/17 for a minimum of 50 hours work a week, £1/1 or less after deductions had been made for lodgings and food. In 1944 £2/17..

In Australia Womens Land Army pay was at minimum wage of one pound/10 a week. .
In 1934, the Basic Wage £3 /5 ..
1940 male factory wage 4 pounds/15 ."

Mary people posting on this argument forget that we live in a successful mixed economy.

We have adequate federally based regulation that allows Limited Liability Companies to be created and function. Those companies often attempt to sell products that are useless to society but the customers largely decide by their purchases what products the supply side of the economy produces.

A explanation I read many decades ago left an impression on me.
The explanation was that; If the manufacturers are directed by nominated quotas, as they were in the early days of Stalin, then if the quota for a nail factory is by numbers the factory produces shoe tacks and pins and if by weight; rail spikes.

The only improvement to capitalism that I can suggest is that every company should be required to accumulate a sinking fund from profits which could be only drawn on at the direction of a regulator in a dire imminent collapse situation.

re.." where mankind has reached a state of Nirvana. a place where all of mans needs are met in entirety" and a few other similar comments.

What economic system is likely to get us to that point? Only one that we know of..capitalism. So, laughingly, capitalism will be destroyed once it has achieved everything that man has ever dreamed of achieving. That is possible but for the next millennia or three, let's remember to support the only system capable of delivering this Utopia.

On the other hand, can all man's 'needs' ever be met?

Ask someone from 10000BC when he'd consider all his needs met. Full stomach, shelter, heating... all achieved but the needs expanded as the needs are met.

The life and lifestyle of the average 2017 western citizen would be considered nirvana to the 17th century Sun King, but do we feel our needs are met?

The reason we have economic systems is that we have currently limited resources to fulfil unlimited 'needs'. As the resources expand so do the needs.

Yes, its possible to fantasise about humans who have evolved to the point where material wants are no longer craved and 'higher' pursuits are 'pursued'. But such a creature will no longer be human because that's not how we've evolved to act.

The internet offered to solve all our needs for knowledge. Yet 25% or so of it is used to distribute porn. That's the higher pursuits that will eventuate if all other wants are met.

Such a peoples have a name..they are called the Eloi:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eloi

Matt. 27:46-49 About the ninth hour Yeshua cried out in a loud voice, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?"--which means, "My G-d, my G-d, why have you forsaken me?"

Hi Get Rid of Money,
I won't argue that there are some good ideas amongst the websites you shared, because their was. But many of these ideas are ill conceived none the less, and most are dangerous in that they require one group of people imposing their world view on others.

I support Paul1405's position here.
"...unfettered capitalism creates vast numbers of poverty stricken people. I prefer the mix of capitalism and socialism we have now. Its not perfect, but its better than any alternative that has been put up thus far."

I believe we can refine it further.
Create Socialism 'Base Level' Jobs that pay double the current unemployment benefit for full-time work doing things to help the government save money or be more efficient; therefore utilizing the untapped 5% pool of workers that Capitalism requires to prevent wage inflation; removing the 'I can't get a job' excuse; and create a culture of employment within the ranks of the unemployed.

We have Socialist 'Base Level' Education (Public Schools)
We have Socialist 'Base Level' Healthcare (Public Hospitals)

The Pro's and Con's with Capitalism are that two people can apply for one job.
Whilst Capitalism selects the best qualified applicant for the position (a positive aspect) another person remains unemployed (a negative aspect).
All you have to do is identify the problems and refine the system as I've alluded too many times before.

Create Socialist Base Level Jobs, steer this labour force in the direction of National Infrastructure (cost of which doubles every 10 years) which will create more job and businesses in the private sector; and plenty of opportunities for lower cost training earned via 'Training Credits' which are given as part of participation.

It's a Win - Win scenario.
The person without a job need not be unemployed.
The current system is unfair and inefficient.
Why pay someone to manage someone else who you pay to do nothing?

- 'The job you have when you don't have a job' -

Problem Solved.

The Arab world is an example of that . Everyone is willing to join their choice of local armed units . Oil profits for US weapons can easily be paid into militia bank accounts for wages and give lifetime employment . This can then spread across North Africa and Pakistan .
City building and demolition cycles offer permanent career paths.