By all accounts Owen succeeded in improving the lives of the workers at the New Lanark Mill while increasing productivity and improving the machinery. Not just tried. Owen had already improved the machinery to produce cotton thread of a quality never seen before while working for others in Manchester. He had taken over the management of the New Lanark Mill in 1800 and it lasted until it was closed in 1968. The example of Owen was followed to a greater or lesser extent by many of the more enlightened Cotton Kings. New Lanark Mill is now one of only 27 UNESCO World Cultural Heritage Sites in Britain. Owen was well-known for his charm, friendliness and sincerity, even when arguing with his political opposites. He was also one of the active promoters of the Co-operative movement, organising the first Co-operative Congress in Manchester in 1831, among many other reforming actions in education, pacifism and socialism during his long life. Owen's concluding address at the Congress included: “They will show to the world that the working classes are not only able, but are fully determined to follow the advice of Mr (now Sir Robert) Peel and ‘TAKE THE MANAGEMENT OF THEIR AFFAIRS INTO THEIR OWN HANDS’.” When Salford and Manchester reformers took advantage of radical reforms in the law to become borough councils, Salford took "Integrity and Industry" as the motto of the council. Both city councils took elements from Robert Peel's arms for their own coats of arms, like the Bees. Peel repealed the Corn Laws which had kept the working class in terrible poverty because of the 50% tax on food. Many of these reformers were in the cotton trade like Owen. It was a lesser reform of the financial system than Owen had hoped for but the effects were felt down the ages as the working class became able to enjoy a real life and not just scrabble for the next loaf of bread.
Fascinating. I've been studying the history of money and currency recently and had no idea this had been tried, although it seems a logical idea and somewhat fits with the philosophical ideas being explored by Marx and Engels at the time regarding the distribution of wealth in society.
What a surprise! This appears to be Robert Owen, the father of Robert Dale Owen who made a remarkable career and amongst various other things is the author of "Footfalls on the boundary of another world". Even going back in history, it's a small world after all!
This is really interesting. I was thinking that scammers could just take a long time to make something, while people who worked efficiently could create superior items that people desire more. So, this form of money does not take into consideration that people, buying things, place value on things differently and are willing to exchange more of their own money, for items they desire more, regardless of how long it takes to make the item. It figures, though, that he thought the amount of time put into an item was most valuable, to him, because he was paying the workers for their time.
I suppose that's where the idea of the hive comes into to play and sandardization. In the beginning there could be a variety of the products competing with one another then narrow them down to a healthy median in the time it took to make and quality/utility of it's function.
Demand for particular services could be modified by their quality, though payment would stay the same that person would not get the custom that a higher quality or faster worker would.
Steve the Cat Couch Well done, Ithaca! We have a Time Exchange here in Long Beach, CA that is going strong too. It’s all electronic, no fancy “money” but it absolutely IS a workable system.
Would love to see more paper "money" in that collection of yours...how about the earliest British note? Or perhaps the first European banknote? Did the Chinese come up with the first in the world?
Well thats the biggest problem isnt it? Trying to figure out what keeps the time value something for those who should follow it? Why give up your time to make more time? Why not get something out of it? Or even want anything at all in the first place. It all depends on the person if they want to spend their time doing what they want while not giving anyone the time of day to help them but then society can take care of that issue quickly and not give this person who wants to be greedy with their time so we only helps those who help the community and eventually people will just slowly come together for the greater good because we cant do any of this alone , unless by some miracle already have what you could ever ask for? Then retire.
Alternatives like this, or crypto will never supersede state backed currencies, for one reason. The nation that dominates the primary trade route of physical goods determines the most important currency... For the past 500 years that trade route has been the sea. Two thirds of oil travels by sea. 90% of ALL trade travels by sea. So the nation that dominates shipping lanes and maritime choke points will be considered the reserve currency. That is the US Dollar. Before the US Dollar it was Pound Sterling, before Pound Sterling it was the Spanish Dollar
During the periods of the dominance of the Spanish dollar and pound sterling, what dominated was the gold or silver value of the coins, not the fiat value. This was also true during the Gold Standard period of the US dollar, except that issuing Silver Certificates or Federal Reserve Notes based on the metal was so much more convenient. And before the Spanish/Austrian dollar, there was the florin, etc., all theoretically based on old Roman coins in size and purity. The dominant or reserve currency is based on which currencies have the largest values in circulation outside their home countries. Actual value, not nominal value, or the Zimbabwe dollar would be the world's reserve currency, or more seriously the Chinese Yuan/Renimbi, which does not circulate much outside of the PRC.
@@nameunavailable1330 Fascism? I think Gesell's Wörgl money is an area of applied mathematics and totally decoupled from the political spectrum. (Or are you using the word fascism as a synonym in your vernacular to mean bad/good?) If anything, politically it seems a lot more left wing. Have you read any of Gesell's work?
Yeah, but it's totally untaxable, which isn't a bad thing in and of itself, unless you're the government, lol. Even if it were in addition to regular pay most governments would want their cut, so I was thinking of how one would make a similar system work in the modern era. At first I thought that it might work if the goods purchased with them were worth more than the money used, but the services gained would be worth something. I think the best you could do with modern tax laws is to have the issuer pay the taxes on behalf of the recipient.
Given the date of 1832, it seems that the notes were issued in a time when spelling wasn't entirely standardized and there was not yet a national education system. Dictionaries were only about a 150 year old invention at most by this time, there were scores of different sources of them and they were almost entirely purely matters of opinion and invention. Even by the start of the 1800's, not all words had set universal spellings, particularly around the use of certain letters such as "o" and "ou". Likely the dual spelling, with "Labor" on one face and "Labour" on the other, was deliberately chosen to make it broadly obvious to the workers what the word was regardless of how they learned to spell it. For accessibility, etc etc.
Yeah and in modern times you get a job and sit on your butt all day behind a computer and earn twice the income a month as a guy who does actual manual labor so our current system is just as flawed as this system was
Really not true for most manual labor jobs. The only ones sitting on their asses & making many times more money than manual laborers do are their bosses...
Good video. Very knowledgeable! Although you talk very clearly, you talk a bit too fast. The video is so jam packed with knowledge it's hard to keep up. It would also be good to see you face in the beginning of the video. I find that in the video format a bodiless voice is harder to accept than in the radio format.
Name Unavailable U.S. values are capitalistically-based, but we too are extremely socialist. 1800’s England is a testament to what first-world society is like without socialist reforms, like worker’s unions and unemployment/disability welfare. Don’t accuse people of being unaware of what socialism is when you yourself don’t recognize it all around you.
clarity, mumble mumble mumble, clarity, clarity, mumble mumble, mumble. SPEAK UP MAN!! Even with volume turned up I still couldn't hear a lot of what you said!
