Time/Bank workshop: What is the good of wage?
An intensive workshop on alternative currency theory and practice
Saturday 17 September 2011, 13:00 hours
Presented by Stroom Den Haag
Location: NAiM Bureau Europa,
Avenue Céramique 226, Maastricht (NL)
Directions to NAiM click here
A wage is the foundation of capitalist relations of production. It is
the measuring stick by which the productive capacities of the worker are
given value. Does the regime of wage as a predominant system through
which value is distributed to a labor-force adequately measure your
investment in the field of labor, however? How can a system that was
developed for the productivity cycles of a factory and agricultural
economy compensate for immaterial production? Do you feel subjected to
an exhausting life of increasingly undervalued labor? Have you grown
frustrated with the unregulated wage protocols of the service sectors?
Join us in Maastricht for an intensive afternoon discussion on
Time/Bank's and other
alternative currency models that are being developed today for the needs
and desires of the service sectors and beyond!
PROGRAM
Imagining the Future(s) of Wage
Jaromil Rojo of DYNDY
DYNDY is an information hub focused on the development of Pattern
Languages for Alternative and Complementary Money Systems. Jaromil Rojo
will discuss strategic organizational models that could inform and
empower grassroots communities through tools to overcome scarcity. The
focus of the presentation will be on crowdfunding schemes and credit
circuits, as well p2p and crypto currency platforms. These systems will
be addressed as imagined technologies of the future that could further
current developments in community driven and Commons centered
sustainability models.
Time Banks and the Labor Theory of Value
Presented by Noah Brehmer of Time/Bank Stroom Den Haag
The vision of time as a monetary representation of labor emerged in the
19th century. Pierre Joseph Proudhon, Karl Rodbertus, John Gray, Josiah
Warren and others were key protagonists behind these revolutionary
narratives. Envisioning social-utopian realities where all would have an
equal share in the means and ends of production, they organized
currency systems that were morally bound to a labor theory of value. A
labor theory of value holds that when labor or its product is sold, in
exchange, it ought to receive goods or services embodying the amount of
labor necessary to produce an article of exactly similar and equal
quantity. The equivalency of wage envisioned by these 19th century
political figures fell decisively short of any commensurable
manifestation however. Noah Brehmer will present research on the labor
theory of value and its historical shortcomings. Following this brief
historical illustration of precedents in alternative currency models a
speculative blueprint will be drawn for time banking movements of the
21st century.
The measure of all things? Art, precarious labor and the wage relation
Presented by Joost de Bloois of Amsterdam University
Over the past decade, the notion of ‘precarity' has served as a rallying
cry for political and cultural activism alike. As the structural
uncertainty of livelihood, ‘precarity' has come to signify the
socio-economic, as well as existential, condition for large segments of
society under global, neo-liberal capitalism. Today, ‘precarious' work
does not just entail physical labor: it is precisely within so-called
‘immaterial labor' (care work, emotional labor, creative industries, the
cultural sector at large) that we encounter ‘precarity' as a common
denominator. One crucial aspect of this type of precarious work (as
theorized by a.o. André Gorz or Franco Berardi) is that it is not just
structurally underpaid, but that, by its very nature, it is largely in
excess of any traditional financial measuring stick. Today's living
labor generates a different type of surplus value than it did for
traditional Marxism (cf. Diedrich Diederichsen): if product and producer
merge, if living labor becomes ‘bio-political', than surplus value
becomes immeasurable. Contemporary struggles against ‘precarity',
whether these are political or cultural, should therefore not just be
defensive of existing rights, but also look for alternative models for
the wage relation.
More about Time/Bank Den Haag click here.
- Saturday 17 Sep '11 1 pm
- NAiM Bureau Europa, Avenue Céramique 226, Maastricht
- Entrance: free