that are contrary to the deep nature of the monetary system. But the will of people can do nothing, in the long run, in the face of circumstance and, sooner or later, Mony, born to rule, regains his rights. To dominate Mony and tame currency are illusions and even nonsense. How can Mony, as a belief, be dominated by people who believe in it without even knowing it? How can currency be used otherwise, "correctly", when it's the currency that, by virtue of its origins and properties, controls the way it is used and also allows perverse and criminal uses? People do not master currency, let alone Mony, whose existence they do not know about; they are the ones in their power and will be so until they recognize it and understand the reasons for it.
Philippe Landeux
May 27, 2011
WHAT IS CIVISM?
A reader typed these words into the search engine: "What's the definition of the concept of civism in the broad sense? This blog is indeed dedicated to Civism. Most articles refer to it directly or indirectly. But the essential part is probably confused in this mass of information. It therefore seemed useful to me to briefly outline the main points.
The word "Civism" doesn't refer to the ordinary definition of civism although it doesn't exclude it. It's the name of a political-economic theory in which the words City, Citizen, Citizenship, but also Equality, Duties, Rights are redefined and come back over and over again, which explains this. This theory is the most revolutionary ever conceived. As a social project, it seems similar to others at first glance. However, it doesn't take long to realize that everything in it is radically new, and not just another version of the same thing. Which is both its strength and its weakness.
There's no revolution without revolution. However, revolutions are rare because people are rarely revolutionary. Even the most daring are often unaware of their underlying conformism; they want change without fundamentally changing anything. Most people are slaves to their stereotypes and preconceived ideas, while a revolution involves new and unexpected ideas. Novelty and surprise are certainly not guarantees of truth and accuracy! Suspicion is required. But when it's used less to sort by honesty and common sense than to reject everything out of fear and habit, it becomes a coward's pretext. Unfortunately, courage, whether physical or intellectual, is not the most widespread virtue.
Civism in three points:
The goal of Civism is Equality - and there is no other possible and conceivable equality than that of Citizens in Duties and Rights. It would be just as correct to say Justice. But Justice is a broader concept; it goes beyond the framework of Society, which is by definition the subject of a political theory (from polis, the city, in Greek) and the field of a Revolution. It's therefore preferable to speak of Equality, a term that both circumscribes the Revolution to society and indicates the type of social relations desired. The same reasons prescribe to speak of Citizens instead of comrades, an insipid term from a revolutionary point of view.
Equality is the fundamental Principle of the social order. Without it, there's no Society, no Citizens, no Duties, no Rights, no Democracy other than through abuse of language. Equality is the condition for social harmony, just as inequality is the breeding ground for tyranny. Aspiring to Equality is the defining feature of any truly revolutionary movement. To truly establish it, is the dream Civism aims to realize.
But why Equality? Because there's no Right without Duty that generates it; because an action is a Duty only to others; because there is no Duty without reciprocity; because individuals fulfilling the same Duty towards each other generate and guarantee each other the same Rights. No one generates his own Rights, except indirectly. There are Rights only in the context of a Society. Natural rights are a philosophical construction, a view of the mind. Before being conventions, Rights are the consequences of the union - called political association - between individuals, which is aroused by the instinct of self-preservation. Outside the Society, no power recognizes or guarantees any Rights. Within it, individuals are Citizens because they fulfill towards the City, i.e. all their fellow Citizens, the Duties that confer the Citizenship to which the Rights of the Citizen are attached. The Duties and Rights of the Citizen, of all Citizens, are defined by an at least tacit social Contract.
Equality isn't universal. It's not decreed, it's deserved like any right. It doesn't apply to all individuals but only to Citizens. One is not born a Citizen, one becomes one through his or her actions.
Originally, the first and often only Duty of the Citizen was to defend his fellow Citizens to ensure their Safety and enjoy their protection in return.
Security is the first Right of the Citizen; it exists, as a Right, only within the context of a Society.
In a general and simplified way, the ordinary Duty of the Citizen is to participate in the life of the City, according to what it considers to be participation. In return, the Citizen's basic Right is to enjoy the benefits of his City, which are the result of all the Citizens' Duties combined. In other words, the Duty to Participate in the life of the City confers Citizenship, which gives the right to enjoy the benefits of the City.
Many of these benefits are in the form of products and services available on the (national) market. Access to the market is therefore, today, a component of the Right to enjoy the Benefits of the City and Citizenship. A Citizen has the right to access the market by virtue of being a Citizen. To exercise this Right, he only needs to have a means of certifying his Citizenship to merchants: the civic Card.
The civic Card is the evolution of the credit card. It's based on the same technology and used in the same way, with the difference that it is used to verify Citizenship and not to manipulate credits.
Citizenship is not quantifiable. Either you are a Citizen or you're not. Consequently, the Right of access it confers is in theory indefinite and unlimited. However, its natural limits are the desires of the Citizen, the exercise by his fellow Citizens of this same Right, the nature of things (existing and available products) and, if necessary, the law.
Mony isn't an instrument; it' s a tyrant. Its reign is one of artifice and instability, arbitrariness and inequality, strength (wealth) and anarchy (individualism).
Mony is "the belief that the notion of market value is necessary to exchange". Mony, in the strict sense, is therefore not currency, even if it can, in the broad sense, refer to anything related to it.
The notion of market value arises from the practice of barter - an essential individualistic mode of exchange in a context of artisanal production - and is perpetuated by the currency that allows indirect barter. As a standard of original value, currency now embodies the right to access the market and most of the rights that pass through it. In fact, it's used less to access the market than to keep most people in the embarrassment and dependence of those who pay them; it is less a means of exchange than an ideal means of exploitation and oppression.
Mony and currency, its extension, are fundamentally unequal and therefore anti-social. Both result from the barter under which individuals, needing to own what they trade, are forced to produce for themselves. Instead of performing a Duty, they activate themselves out of desire or necessity. Instead of having their Rights guaranteed by the City, it's their responsibility to protect them. Instead of being Citizens, they're just individuals. Instead of focusing exclusively or at least primarily on the human being, this system is obsessed with the so-called value of things. Thus, bartering and its logic make Society implode by stripping each of its parameters of any social dimension.
Moreover, Mony - the notion of (market) value - implies differences in value between objects, between products, between productions, between producers, which inevitably results in differences in prices, wages, income and, ultimately, in inequality in "rights". Mony is antisocial from a simple dialectical point of view.
In addition to Mony, there is currency, which operates according to two principles: 1) that of communicating vessels, inherited from bartering, and 2) that of attraction, inherent in the notion of value. Without going into all the details, currency materializes the "rights" that everyone needs, and circulates since it must be exchanged, so that it condemns people to a permanent latent war in order to obtain them by all means at the expense of others. But this circulation according to the interplay of values and power relations inevitably leads to the formation of clots, i.e. points where monetary units, and therefore "rights", are concentrated. As earning money, earning more, always more or not losing more is an obligation, individuals who have much more than others hold the latter in their dependence and have power, which allows them to dictate prices and conditions, easily increase their capital and further extend their power.
Thus, not only is Equality impossible under Mony, but it's in the nature of the monetary system that inequalities are inexorably increasing. It is therefore useless to feel sorry for it and to denounce this or that if you support Mony yourself. It is not the consequences of Mony that must be fought (in vain), nor even the individuals who profit from this unequal, arbitrary and shaky order of things; it is Mony himself that must be destroyed. It is less a question of being against Mony than for Equality.
CONCLUSION
What is Civism? It is a collection of mostly revolutionary Principles and concepts (set out in the Patricians' Manifesto), a new approach to political and economic problems, a redefinition of all terms with a social significance - such as Duties, Rights, Citizenship, Nationality, Democracy, etc. - and a new approach to political and economic problems. -A paradigm shift and a clear vision of the Society, known as the City. It is based on two reflections: the first on Mony, a term specific to Civism, the second on Equality, as no one has ever seen before. It is based on a proposal, that of a civic Card, both a means of exchange and a vehicle for the Principles of the social order. This Card makes it possible on the one hand to establish and maintain Equality, on the other hand to eliminate Mony (and currency with it) and, as a result, to understand what it is - since we only truly know what we lose after we have lost it.
Everything is political, Mony like the rest. Mony and currency, which, by their nature and functions, are at the center of "society", are political problems par excellence: they must be considered in the light of the Principles of the social order. To make them strictly economic issues and the preserve of experts is to tear the heart and lungs out of the social body and entrust the health of the moribund to charlatans.
The notion of market value (Mony) is justified only by itself and by a fait accompli; it's totally foreign and contrary to the Principles of Social Order. Its appearance is certainly inevitable in a context of artisanal production, but it's no longer necessary in a context of industrial production. It is then aberrant and anachronistic. Continued violation of the Principles can only be explained by habit, persistent bias and ignorance of the Principles themselves.
The basic Principles are: 1) Citizens are equal in Duties and Rights, 2) An individual is a Citizen when he participates in the life of the City, according to what it considers to be participation, 3) Citizenship confers the same Rights on all Citizens, including the one to freely access the market.
Without freedom for all Citizens to access the market, Equality has no reality. A real Equality is actually not Equality per se. Equality in Rights is not equality in all things (egalitarianism) which, in addition to being a view of the mind, implies a deprivation of liberty and a tyrannical power.
There is no middle ground. Less inequality is not equality. Equality is or is not. Mony is or is not. Whoever does not adhere to Civism endorses capitalism. Who is not revolutionary is willingly, unwillingly, a counterrevolutionary.
The utopia isn't to attack Mony to change the "world", but to believe that we can change the "world" without attacking
Mony.
Philippe Landeux
December 05, 2011
FROM THE SAME AUTHOR
Mony ou l’Égalité : il faut choisir (La révolution nécessaire, laquelle ? Éditions Golias, June 2009)