Why Not Measurement In Place Of Money?

W.H. Orser

1996

Published in:

Technocracy Digest, 2nd quarter 1996, No. 320

OKANAGAN REVIEW, Okanagan Falls, B. C., January 11, 1996

A NEW APPROACH

ALL THE HUFF and gruff of getting the Premier of this Province to step down was an exercise in futility, one that attacks only the surface symptoms and leaves the source of the infection untouched.

While certain politicians may be social deficits (even social cancers) in their own right, their eradication would not alter the primary ills of society.

Furthermore, it is a matter of record that, when one social deficit is eradicated, there is always another ready to take his/her place.

Behind all these antisocial acts and attitudes is an ancient economic system which penetrates and corrupts nearly everything within the society. It is this system that must be indicted and banished forever from this Continent.

The people of North America must take action, not merely because it is desirable, or expedient, but also because it is a matter of survival.

Technocracy, which advocates an entirely new approach to today's problems, points out that: the monetary system causes the individual to seek advantage for himself at the expense of others in society, and in opposition to the general welfare.

The present money-based system generates antisocial behavior and attitudes among individuals and groups; it creates class distinction and class hatred; it supports social tensions and internal strife.

In North America, the monetary system compels people to live under conditions of poverty, although the goods and services are available -- or could be produced to satisfy all their needs.

Money is the cause of 95% of crime.

Money is a world-wide carrier of communicable diseases. Money encourages waste, creates excessive demands for raw materials, and provides the motive for environmental pollution, as well as aggressive wars off this Continent,

The use of money as a vehicle of distribution is ludicrous as well as being extremely dangerous.

However, there is an alternative. Technocracy asks why not ``measurement'' instead of ``money''?

Money is an expression of value, stated in terms of price, (which is why our monetary structure is referred to as a ``price system'').

Price depends on scarcity. For thousands of years past, mankind has lived under conditions of natural scarcity, and still does in most parts of the world.

Only in North America has technology advanced to the stage where scarcity has to be imposed artificially in order to maintain the Price System.

The only alternative to the use of evaluation as a means of distribution, is the utilization of the concept of measurement.

Technocracy's ``Energy Certificate'' is the only instrument of distribution which can be used in this Continent's emerging era of abundance -- the progress of which is being speeded up by automation.

Technocracy's Energy Certificate provides the accounting means whereby each individual North American can express his individual preference as to what he/she wants of the products which North America is capable of producing.

That's its function -- to record the demand for goods and services, thereby determining the amount to be produced.

By applying one specific technological measuring device, production and consumption can be balanced, and the first specification for social harmony is immediately achievable.

The scientist, who pointed this out, proposed simple measurement of the total amount of energy used by the North American Continent in a given period -- a measurement of the energy cost of physical production and services.

These measurements would then become the basis for regulation of all Continental production and distribution as, what we are faced with is a physical problem -- not a political one.

If science and engineering can put people on another planet, it should be a small job to balance production with distribution.

Technocracy asks you to study ``Energy Accounting'' and free literature is available from

-- W.H. ORSER
Box 456, Okanagan Falls,
BC V0H 1R0
(Phone 497-8950)