March 22 - 4 of Wands

The four of wands, represented by Josiah Warren (Boston USA, 1798 to 1874) a sun and moon look down on a square, enclosed garden with statues on it. A ring around the garden is inscribed with "First American Anarchist, True Civilization 1865, Equitable Commerce 1852." Below the garden is Warren's portrait, under an arc of clouds it says "Individualist anarchist colonies. Utopia, Ohio, USA (reorganized 1847) Modern Times, Long Island NY. Principles: The Sovereignty of the individual, private property and a market economy, cost (labor) the limit of price. Beneath this is an unusual piece of currency labeled "Labor note." Below this, 1827, opened the first time store, Cincinnati, a 3 year experiment in alternative economics.

(Counting down I guess) A card representing harmony and relaxation.

It's obvious that financial capitalism and the wage labor system don't adequately capture "value," the majority of money is put into purely abstract and pointless shit and the people who do the most work are usually the least able to take any time off...

There's a temptation to say, if only we could get the variables right, it would work in all cases. Prosperity and harmony for all and world peace. Whether that's perfectly calibrating wage or price to precise time worked, or something as subjective as "effort" or "skill"...

I love to consider alternative economic arrangements but feel like "solving" the problem of value is a bit of a crank charybdis, in the sense that you can put infinite thought into it... but does it matter when currency itself is already the "false coin" of concrete needs, experiences, resources, skills etc sold back to us incomplete? Can a system like that ever reach a harmonious equilibrium? or is it always something that will end up being gamed...