How They Virtually Stopped Using Money In About Half of Spain 1936-9
We're not taught about this in either capitalist or Marxist nations, because capitalists and Marxists oppose what these wonderful money-abolishing Spaniards did, and fear us being inspired by them
In an earlier Substack post titled “Why Abolish the Use of Money?” I presented the many reasons why doing that is a wonderful and practical idea. Today I am sharing words by the author of the book shown above about how peasants in about half of Spain in 1936-9, as part of the egalitarian revolution there led by people who called themselves anarchists, did in fact abolish the use of money to a very great extent. [Note: the CNT-FAI referred to below was the anarchist organization that, in Barcelona, Spain in 1936, rose up and defeated the military force of the fascist general Franco who aimed at overthrowing the liberal ‘democratic’ government of Spain. The anarchists then went to other parts of Spain to make an egalitarian revolution. I wrote about this here.]
Burnett Bollotten writes:
“Although no hard and fast rules were observed in establishing libertarian communism, the procedure was more or less the same everywhere. A CNT-FAI committee was set up in each locality where the new regime was instituted. This committee not only exercised legislative and executive powers, but also administered justice. One of its first acts was to abolish private trade and to collectivize the soil of the rich, and often that of the poor, as well as farm buildings, machinery, livestock, and transport. Except in rare cases, barbers, bakers, carpenters, sandalmakers, doctors, dentists, teachers, blacksmiths, and tailors also came under the collective system. Stocks of food and clothing and other necessities were concentrated in a communal depot under the control of the local committee, and the church, if not rendered useless by fire, was converted into a storehouse, dining hall, café, workshop, school, garage, or barracks. In many communities money for internal use was abolished because the Anarchists believed that “money and power are diabolical philters that turn a man into a wolf, into a rabid enemy, instead of into a brother.” 21 “Here in Fraga [a small town in Aragon], you can throw bank notes into the street,” ran an article in a libertarian paper, “and no one will take any notice. Rockefeller, if you were to come to Fraga with your entire bank account you would not be able to buy a cup of coffee. Money, your God and your servant, has been abolished here, and the people are happy.” 22”
— The Spanish Civil War: Revolution and Counterrevolution by Burnett Bolloten
“[W]here money was suppressed, wages were paid in coupons, the scale being determined by the size of the family. “The characteristic of the majority of the CNT collectives,” wrote a foreign observer, “is the family wage. Wages are paid according to the needs of the members and not according to the labor performed by each worker.””
— The Spanish Civil War: Revolution and Counterrevolution by Burnett Bolloten
“Every family and every person living alone has received a card. This is punched daily at the place of work; hence no one can avoid working, [for] on the basis of these cards coupons are distributed. But the great flaw in the system is that owing to the lack of any other measure of value, it has once again been necessary to have recourse to money in order to put a value on the labor performed. Everyone—the worker, the businessman, the doctor—receives coupons to the value of five pesetas for each working day. One part of the coupon bears the inscription “bread,” of which every coupon will purchase a kilo; another part represents a certain sum of money. However, these coupons cannot be regarded as banknotes, as they can be exchanged only for consumer goods, and this in a limited degree. Even if the amount of these coupons were larger, it would not be possible to acquire means of production and become a capitalist, were it only on the most modest scale, for they can be used solely for the purchase of consumer goods. All the means of production belong to the community. The community is represented by the committee. . . . All the money of Alcora, about 100,000 pesetas, is in its hands. The committee exchanges the products of the community for other goods that are lacking, but what it cannot secure by exchange it purchases. Money, however, is retained only as a makeshift and will be valid as long as other communities have not followed Alcora’s example. The committee is the paterfamilias. It owns everything; it directs everything; it attends to everything. Every special desire must be submitted to it for consideration; it alone has the final say. One may object that the members of the committee are in danger of becoming bureaucrats or even dictators. That possibility has not escaped the attention of the villagers. They have seen to it that the committee shall be renewed at short intervals so that each inhabitant will serve on it for a certain length of time. All this has something touching in its naïveté. It would be a mistake to criticize it too harshly and to see in it more than an attempt on the part of the peasants to establish libertarian communism. Above all, one should not forget that the agricultural laborers and even the small tradesmen of such a community have had until now an extremely low standard of living. . . . Before the Revolution a piece of meat was a luxury, and only a few intellectuals had needs that went beyond the bare necessities of life. 25”
— The Spanish Civil War: Revolution and Counterrevolution by Burnett Bolloten
To me, the great lesson of the Spanish Revolution is this. Ordinary people want an egalitarian world, a world in which people live as equals, share the fruits of their labor on the basis of “From each according to reasonable ability, to each according to need or reasonable desire with scarce things equitably rationed according to need” [which is NOT the same as buying and selling things with money!] and in which people work as equals democratically for shared goals and not with some people being employers and others “the hired help” paid wages (as I discuss here) in exchange for doing what they are told.
Look around you. Where is there a government today that is actually trying to make the world be the way most ordinary people want it to be? There isn’t one. But we should not let this fact make us wrongly believe that we who want an egalitarian world are few and they who want class inequality are many. No! It is the exact opposite. We the have-nots need to start acting like the vast majority that we truly are, instead of feeling hopeless about the possibility of egalitarian revolution because we wrongly think hardly anybody else shares our desire for it. To make this happen we need to LEARN that we are in fact the vast majority. The link in the next paragraph is about how to make that happen.
If you want to help build the egalitarian revolutionary movement to make the world be the way most want it to be, please do this.
Here are more books, articles and a wonderful video film documentary that bring to life an inspiring egalitarian revolution that our rulers don't want us to know about:
Documentary film about the Spanish Revolution
Murray Bookchin, To Remember Spain: The Anarchist and Syndicalist Revolution of 1936 (You can find this online by searching for the author and title.)
Agustin Guillamon, The Friends of Durruti Group: 1937-1939 (You can find this online by searching for the author and title.)
Peter Kropotkin, The Conquest of Bread (This book was very widely read by Spanish workers and peasants in the decades leading up to the revolution. You can find it online by searching for the author and title.)
George Orwell, Homage to Catalonia (You can find this online by searching for the author and title.)
Sam Dolgoff, ed., The Anarchist Collectives (You can find this online by searching for the author and title.)
Collectives in the Spanish Revolution, by Gaston Leval, Freedom Press, London 1975
The egalitarians out-produced the prior capitalist economy: "Which Creates a Higher Standard of Living: Capitalism or Egalitarianism?"
"Lessons for Today from the Spanish Revolution 1936-9"
Anarchism and the Spanish Revolution 1936-9
An eyewitness account: “A LOCAL ASSEMBLY MEETING: SPAIN, AROUND 1937”
"INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTION THE EGALITARIAN WAY: HOW SPANISH EGALITARIANS DID IT 1936-9"
Thanks John. When people have suffered enough they may wake up to a better way of living based on egalitarian principles. Until then we love in hope .