Friday, November 16, 2012

Chapter 2.5 – The transition

Excerpt from the book »Gradido – Natural Economy of Life«

“Now I have one more important question: How did you manage the transition? How did you create your Joytopia? Was their any opposition? Was the transition possible without violence?”

“You remember that most of the nations were democracies shortly before the transition. That was a very good thing since in a democracy you can change everything if you have a majority. Do you remember that peaceful changes have been accomplished even in dictatorships on your planet? I’m thinking of India or the reunification of Germany. It’s much easier to make changes in democracies.

It started with some people on Freegaia from the most different classes of society who exposed the causes of the old problems and looked for new ways. First of all, they found many different solutions but gradually the really sustainable solutions emerged. The new social networks created on the internet proved to be extremely favourable. All the necessary software was available at no cost through the open-source movement and Creative Commons made it possible for content to circulate freely.

Portals for online petitions that could reach millions of people at once were created. New political parties developed methods of grassroots democracy with the help of the internet. Protection of nature and the environment were already public issues. Free energy was gradually starting to be discussed. More and more initiatives and organisations were campaigning for peace, social justice, a basic income and a new monetary system. A global change was imminent.

Although the Natural Economy of Life combined many of the single elements right from the start, its advocates had a hard time at the beginning and were often not understood. People don’t like having something foisted on them and they wanted to find the solution themselves. And that’s fine. But now the ground was prepared and the Natural Economy of Life no longer seemed much different from other progressive concepts. Besides, it isn’t something laid down but is a developing research project which everyone is invited to contribute to.

The gradido social network was developed open source. The Gradido Academy was created as a free research network to simulate the Natural Economy of Life and to test and further develop the gradido, the living money, as we called it. Thanks to the decentral structure, communities, associations and organisations were able to communicate with each other. This was how the gradido network was able to spread.

Information on the subject was published under a Creative Commons license. It was allowed to be freely copied and circulated. That was really simple on the internet: you just needed to send the link to your friends. They, in turn, sent it to their friends and so on. In this way it was possible to reach a very large number of people all over the world very quickly.

The research results were collated and the model further refined. An increasing number of people pronounced themselves in favour of it. Online petitions were organised worldwide and these finally led to referendums. The result was phenomenal: the large majority of the population decided in favour of the new model of the natural economy of life.”

“Was there opposition, too?“

“Yes! The banks, which had helped to create the government debt, were against it at the beginning. Some people had fears concerning their property. Others believed that if there was a basic income not enough goods would be produced. Here the superiority of the active basic income, which guarantees unconditional participation, was shown: basic income is not handed out to all and sundry but is tied to an active contribution to the common good.

Informing people worldwide then brought about the turnaround: even members of banks started to speak out in favour of the Natural Economy of Life. So the initial opposition disappeared in the course of time.”

“Did everything go smoothly after the successful referendum?“

“Of course there were difficulties at the beginning but they were nothing compared to problems of the old time.”

“Dear Very, good friend! Thank you so much for this information! I still have one final question before I go back: Where exactly is Freegaia located?”

“A moment ago it was still on another planet but now it is deep in your heart. Good luck!”

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