One law, and one law only, appeared on the ‘Fraternity’ political party platform, and therefore, once elected, the party was able to assign considerable resources to its enactment as well as to its enforcement.

No one had imagined that the small party would win the elections. Commentators had attributed the victory to two main factors. First – the targeted campaign, which, due to its simplicity, had managed to penetrate the minds of many, like a nail. Second, it was the momentum: the many have had more than enough of the never-ending parade of brawl and defamation between the two leading parties, ‘Liberty’ and ‘Equality’ – who, for centuries, had failed to come up with even one pinch of either liberty or equality.

And this is the formulation of the Constitutional Amendment – The Abolition of Money: No institution nor individual, including the government, a bank, or a private corporation, shall issue any means of trade, whether analogue or digital, for the purpose of exchanging goods and services between civilians.

On the first day of the law’s enactment, majority of civilians – among them yours truly – had locked themselves within the safety of their homes, for fear of riots. Others, members of the ‘Liberty’ and ‘Equality’ parties, set out to demonstrate, furious. They were joined by other civilians – mainly those of white collar, who dedicated years for acquiring proper education, that would guarantee a regular job with fixed income, or those who gained seniority. The police allowed the demonstrations to go uninterrupted, as the president had long ago made clear: freedom of speech shall not be harmed. You are free to do as you please, he said, only without money.

Nevertheless, civilians who attempted to break ATM’s, believing the cold cash would somehow be of service to them, or those who tried to loot grocery stores and such, were arrested by the cops. The president had repeatedly warned and alerted on the media channels: The economy remains free, and law and order stand firm and valid; the chaos we are currently witnessing is no more than unavoidable pains of labor. You are free to do as you please, he kept saying, only without money.

Few, especially the formerly newly rich, who habitually checked their bank balance, and could only find a zeroized zero, as round as planet earth – jumped off the rooftops.

Banknotes from all countries and all periods began to be traded in the black market, but the police made it to everyone – including the distributers of digital currencies, who roamed the streets, possessed with Messianic madness, preaching about the new cryptographic social order that will redeem humanity.

Enforcement of the Amendment of Abolition of Money was a top priority for the ‘Fraternity’ party, since, as was already mentioned, it was its sole, single, one and only promise prior to the elections. For the president, there was nothing more important than keeping his promises to his Excellency the Voter. Although money isn’t the root of all evil, said the president, it is most definitely a fertile soil for its growth. He just kept on saying again and again: you are free to do as you please, only without money.

On the second day, domestic food and water supply had yet to run out, and most people still remained within the safety of their residence and watched the news. Some were afraid to take to the streets; but even those who weren’t afraid what-so-ever, still preferred not to go outside. And I’m not only referring to various workers of the economic system, who, overnight, became as redundant as an uncovered cheque – bankers, accountants, credit companies, brokers, analysts, financial advisors, investment advisors, mortgage advisors, scalpers, changers, wage calculators, government officials in charge of pensions, the tax authority, and employees of insurance companies, as well as advertisers of these companies and such, supermarket cashiers, and the company that manufactures the cash registers, Brinks drivers, casinos and lottery corporations, all enterprises who directly or indirectly occupied themselves with money, for all of their clerks, managers, guards, counsels, technicians, operators, and the secretaries, the cleaners, as well as professors of economics, and the print houses that printed the textbooks, the lumberjacks who lumberjacked the wood used for their paper, and reporters of the finance section, I’m not only talking about them, but also the farmers, the teachers, the doctors, the drivers, the shoemakers, the bakers, the therapists, the singers, the painters, the pilots, the poets, the dancers, in the absence of any monetary incentive, none of them was simply able to find good-enough reason to scratch themselves off the couch.

Most landlords awaited to see where the wind blows before evicting their tenants, but others didn’t linger. Amongst the evacuees, those who were wise enough to have been born to parents who own property, went back to living with them, until the storm calms. Yet quite a few individuals and/or families who were evicted, found themselves on the streets, next to a pile of furniture, while their former residence had remained as empty as outer space.

Simultaneously, pantries began to empty, and the people came knocking on supermarket doors, demanding food. The owners of the grocery stores remained the legal holders of the stock. The employees of those very shops, who, in the past, had unloaded the crates, arranged the shelves, washed the floors, scanned the barcodes – were left in the mercy of the owners, depending on their good will in order not to starve to death.

Some of the owners had kept the entirety of food supply for themselves and their families, in case judgement day arrives. It was impossible to tell when should supply run out, since, as already mentioned, the farmers lacked good-enough reason to go out to the fields.

Other shop owners, opportunists, checked to see just how far they can get, how much they could receive in return for their wares: a nice sweater, a piece of jewelry, a blowjob. Men and women alike did what had to be done in order to provide for themselves and their families.

The landlords too enjoyed similar status to that of the owners of grocery stores. Tenants lined-up to run errands for them, or give them a massage, bestowed upon them objects that the owner – like a raven – had coveted, handed them surplus of food or toilet paper (even though their supply was meager to begin with), and most of all offered their bodies, in every position, at every hour, according to the owner’s most hidden and latent desires.

Once the entirety of the owner’s physical urges was satisfied, and they still possessed excess food or assets at their disposal, they were offered diverse entertainment options in return for the use of their property, for the sake of pure amusement: flutists fluted for them, dancers danced for them, and those who didn’t possess any talent, any talent what-so-ever, put on a monkey costume, or that of an armadillo with tiny golden bells, and pranced at the corner of the room, to the echoing sound of the owner’s rolling laughter.

Rubbish was piling up in the streets and no one was there to collect it. Public transport was shut down, due to chauffeurs’ refusal to drive civilians unpaid. Private vehicles were also hardly seen on the roads, as petrol was frugally kept for the worst of times. TV channels, internet websites – all operated on a limited basis. The only ones who showed up for work – in order to continue and report strictly the essential – were those who were promised tangible return for their labor, in form of food, shelter, or benefits, much like the cops.

Demonstrators marched unto the president’s house. Without ammunition, though, they didn’t stand a chance against the Fraternity Guard. And the president? The president only kept saying again and again and again: you are free to do as you please, only without money.

Now, regarding crime rates. It was too early to tell how those would be influenced by that very same fallacious law. There had been some reports of incidents of armed robbery; but it was a relatively rare phenomena, in any case much lesser than the government’s predicaments. Indeed, it is by no means far-fetched to think that even in state of absolute chaos, most normative law-abiding civilians would rather exhaust all possible possibilities before choosing to take extreme measures, either for moral reasoning, either by power of most primal, most selfish common sense. The robbers, therefore, who were usually caught with a bag full of canned food, were swiftly arrested, thanks to great policing forces – as there was almost no need for traffic police, undercover agents, and fraud investigators.

As far as drugs are concerned – there too contradicting data was collected. On the one hand, there were those who sunk into idleness, anesthetizing their minds, even in the cost of starving to death. On the other hand, for many, who were preoccupied with chasing food or shelter, the need for altering one’s state of consciousness was cast aside. Moreover, in many cases, the substances were simply not to be found, for purely logistic reasons.

Domestic violence, murders and raping still occurred, but those as well gained second priority, in favor of more basic components of that very infamous hierarchy of needs.

Surprisingly, it was the mob bosses who experienced great relief. They no longer had good reason to continue the circle of whacking; they simply retired. Conversely, owners of banks and large food corporations had conspired and founded a lobby to combat the law. They hired jurists with the assets and food in their disposal; but the president was determined and would not relent. You are free to do as you please, he told them, only without money.

Once legal efforts failed, the bankers hired a group of mercenaries, to assassinate the president. But the government had always possessed greater food reserves and wider shelters to offer to the cops; all assassination attempts were thwarted by heavy security forces protecting the president. There’s no greater political power than the power of the people, said the president; you are free to do as you please, he repeated, only without money.

For some, the law played in their favor. First, all debt was immediately annulled, including mortgages. The news reported of generous landlords who, in lack of good-enough reason to maintain custody of their former investment properties, handed them to the lessees; but they were a minority. Office buildings, previously used by companies who dealt with finance, as well as some government buildings and former banks, were converted to housing for those who lost their homes. One could easily think of at least one or two acquaintances who supported the law, since in the end of the day, despite the uncertainty and anxiety, still preferred not having to show up at the office on Monday morning.

The shelves at the grocery stores were starting to empty. Even before all essential goods ran out, the social activists had founded the aid delegations. On the streets, the delegations were unofficially titled ‘The Freebies’.

At first, the Freebies worked to find ad-hock solutions. They recruited grocery or shelter for those who lost their homes or remained penniless, collected garbage, managed the water infrastructure. Quickly enough, the Freebies phenomena had accelerated, and Freebies were founded for planning of long-term solutions. Civilians of all population strata, from doctors and engineers to street cleaners, joined the ranks of a Freebie or founded new Freebies. The Freebies manned the fields, the schools, and the hospitals, developed trainings in various themes. They taught the citizens how to defecate without using toilet paper, to handle their own waste, to grow food.

Everyone wanted to help the Freebies; they recruited petrol of oil tycoons and allocated it to bus drivers’ Freebies; empty office buildings were donated by corporations who went bankrupt (only to the extent in which this concept still had any meaning) and were went to the possession of the homeless.

It took me about a month to join one of the Freebies. I didn’t do it because I was concerned for supply or housing – before the law of abolition of money, on top of the spacious house I own, I was the owner of a neighborhood grocery store; therefore, the economy of my family was safe and secure.

In all honesty, I was just… bored.

On Television there was only the news, which kept repeating itself. My wife was constantly pushing me to get off the couch and make something of myself; but I didn’t know what to do. My whole life, one question and one question only had reigned over my mind: what can I do in order to make more money? That question had haunted my days and my nights, to it I dedicated more hours in my life than to any other thought. Suddenly, I was required to only ask myself what I want to do.

I remembered that in my childhood, I liked to go once a week to the educational farm and help with harvest – therefore I joined one of the agricultural Freebies. Together with me were Wall-Street refugees, homeless people, teenagers. Some felt a need to shoulder the burden for themselves and for society, some came for self-realization or something like that, but many arrived for the exact same reason I did – boredom.

Naturally, the Freebies used their resources carefully. The crop harvested in the fields was packed and distributed in a manner that doesn’t create waste, so it won’t be necessary to collect it afterwards. Abandoned roads were drilled open, and fruit trees were planted in their place. The trees hatched the asphalt and, in their tops, nested the sparrows. Only a few main roads were kept, through which the Public Transport Freebie drove passengers for a shift at a Freebie, for meeting their families or for a stroll outdoors. At this point, non-essential necessities, such as exquisite food, new cloths, or advanced technologies, weren’t occupying the Freebies, for obvious reasons.

One of the research Freebies has reported that so far, approximately every third civilian had already joined some Freebie – each according to their will and heart-desire. Some contributed one hour per day, some two, and for some, well, you had to force them to put down their pitchfork and take a break.

The Freebies established no prior conditions for using their product, and so, any alien consideration was eradicated – each person chose in which Freebie to operate only according to what they truly liked doing. Those who’s thirst was saturated while watering plants, watered them. Those who used to strain your muscles at the gym, carried boxes. And those who had no damn clue as to what they liked – in many cases it’s an acquired taste – well they tried their luck in different Freebies, until finding a craft that fed their soul.

All members of the Freebies offered their skills; they even trained the bored landlords, who didn’t know how to do anything besides depositing cheques.

Artist Freebies filled the streets – painters, musicians, poets, actors – and their melodies replaced the sawing sound of car engines. The streets gave birth to new forms of art. The artists, who’s empty stomachs left space for the art to go inside, couldn’t find a good-enough-reason to commercialize their art. And the hungrier they were, so their art satisfied. The famous artists had locked themselves within the safety of their homes, for fear of damaging their property, whereas the anonymous artists, the hungry ones, played the songs of the famous ones, which were written in their days of hunger.

And love, people made love; on the streets, at sea, with neighbors.

Naturally, friendships were made within the Freebies. A homeless volunteer had met a lonely, bored building owner, and he offered her to live in one of his apartments; youngsters formed study groups for philosophical and literary texts; couples found each other and married.

As time passed, more and more civilians, of all population strata, joined the ranks of the Freebies; and honestly, hand on heart, and even though the Freebies offered food, culture, education, infrastructure, transport, medicine, without asking anything in return, you tell me, what do you say, wouldn’t you’ve joined?

During the first few months, food was scarce, but it seemed like people needed less nourishment than before – the place of the physical feed was taken by the spiritual feed.

The Freebie markets operated in stores, or on sheets at the boardwalk. Besides food and hygiene products, a variety of secondhand artifacts were given, as well as art pieces, and heart to heart conversations, massages, and lectures. Cooks turned the modest crop into royal feasts and gave it for grabs; some of the steamy pots were of master chefs, some of experienced grandmothers. Tailors and sowers measured, cut, and weaved old cloths into luxury robes, as an alchemist turning lead into gold.

So, as I said, all goods and services were freely given to whoever asked for them, with no prior conditions. Some took more, some took less. Although each person was allowed to join each Freebie or enjoy its product unconditionally, an unwritten rule was quickly shaped amongst the Freebies; it was socially unacceptable to be the owner of a property where another person resides, and to demand something in return for the right to use it.

It seemed that the root of the economic problem wasn’t money after all, but ownership of land. Honestly? Before the law of abolition of money, I was an enthusiastic supporter of ‘Liberty’ party. However, working in the fields taught me, that perhaps this party wasn’t offering liberty after all? That perhaps the land doesn’t belong to us, but we belong to it?

As stated above, in the case of the lonely, bored building owner, ownership wasn’t a cause to refuse a certain so and so to join one of the Freebies, nor to prevent him from its product. The only implication was those frequent dirty looks, sent to him by his Freebie companions – whisperings, at times – and the fact that oftentimes, other members of the Freebie preferred not to hang out with him. Same goes for civilians who abused the open markets, collecting excessive amounts of product into their laps. Peer pressure motivated many to let go of their vacant property and restrain one’s greed.

You might think: no way everyone just agreed to give out free stuff to people they don’t know. And you’re right. Not everyone’s built for it. I’m somewhat ashamed to admit it, but my only son is a classic example of such a person. I have only myself to blame for it; ever since he spoke his first word (light), I taught him one thing and one thing only: you must make money.

Well, it worked. At the time of legislation, my son was a sophomore in the School of Economics. Once the faculty closed its gates, he was terribly frustrated; even when I tried to share with him my insights from working at the Freebie, he vehemently refused to do anything for a person who is doing nothing in return. It unfair and uneconomic, shouted him and many alike.

And so came to be, alongside the Freebies, The Sharies. The Sharies functioned as some sort of unions, organizations of family members, friends, and acquaintances, who only exchanged goods and services withing their inner circle; such an arrangement suited those amongst us who’ve yet to realize we are all one big family. Members of a Sharie resided in different places and were occupied with various crafts; they offered the fruit of their labor only to members from the same Sharie.

My son and his companions then founded a brewery – and only members of their Sharie got to enjoy its product. An average Sharie had around ten-thousand members, a number big enough in order to form an autarkic economic microcosms. Thus, my son and his companions knew for a fact that other members of their Sharie weren’t idling; perhaps they did a tiny bit more, perhaps a tiny bit less, in any case they did something, and that knowing put my son’s mind to rest, even though it wasn’t possible to measure who exactly did what, by some random abstract numeric index.

A year after the legislation, two out of three civilians were members of at least one Freebie. A significant portion of the other third belonged to some Sharie. Thanks to the immense manpower invested in a small number of domains, there had been created unprecedented abundance of food, culture, public transport.

New technologies were developed as well, but those technologies always served the human-beings who created them instead of vice versa.

Hence, even if each and every one of the third of civilians, who, for one whole year, hasn’t dedicated even one lousy minute to some Freebie, would have done their best to eat as much as possible, to spend as much as possible, to litter as much as possible, it still wouldn’t have been enough to harm the welfare of the remaining two thirds of civilians, who haven’t sowed one seed and haven’t carried one box, unless they chose to do it in an absolutely freely.

Who would have believed, besides perhaps the president, that thus shall unfold the future? Then again, is it truly that unbelievable, is such a world only reserved for fairy tales?

Many Freebies of philosophy and religion had preoccupied themselves with these questions and such. For example, the sole objective of one entire research Freebie was to determine – whether there are, evidently, some principles in the nature of a person, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it, except the pleasure of seeing it, or whether that very person intends only his own gain, and he is, in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was not part of his intention.