This theme is indeed worthy of a text. Now we are entering territories where normal and civilised people will shake their heads in arrogant confidence as if the heady concepts here are introduced with the intention of provoking laughter. But no, we are completely serious about the matters that follow. In the new society money is going to be an integrated part of the brilliance of pleasure. On Earth people believe that the dynamic created by the so-called free market is a natural economy but, of course, no such thing as a natural economy exists. The economy is man-made and can thus be shaped and modelled as we wish. The world is a world of habits, as the American thinker Charles Sander Pierce rightly pointed out. Some habits are superficial and easy to change, others are more embedded and appear as nature. According to Pierce, even natural laws are habits established very early in the history of the universe. The law of gravity is, for example, a very well established habit. As the new society is being put together in outer space, our evolutionary struggle will leave behind some of the hopeless habits found on Earth. The unstylish, unaesthetic and paranoid cultures around money which characterise what has been described as late-capitalism will, for sure, become hopeless monsters which are not going to succeed in the new society in outer space.

The freedom of currency
Power always lies with those who issue money - we know that. The free economy of the new community will imply the freedom of currency. People in the space community can freely issue their own currencies. As we know from our experiences on Earth, standardised money acts as a distorting power against the fabric of society. Money transforms fidelity into infidelity, love into hate, hate into love, virtue into vice, vice into virtue, servant into master, master into servant, idiocy into intelligence, and intelligence into idiocy. Standardised money, as the only existing and active concept of value on Earth, confounds and confuses all things in the most unstylish way. But money can be glorious. Money can be sensual. Multiple currencies can be specific objects amplifying the mysteries of social value. As with the money system launched by one of the groups in the space community engaged in the production of spices and herbs, each piece of money has a name, a personality and a history which makes it significant. Without a central bank and a standardised money system it is the natural preoccupation of the groups and individuals in the new community to create systems of money able to represent value and wealth as well as being a way to express beauty.

Of course, the free economy is going to be an unstable economy because there is no abstract value system in place to make sure that she who is rich today will be even richer tomorrow and he who is poor today will be even poorer tomorrow. As with passions, the free economy will be unstable and fluctuating. At some time most people take pleasure from changing from one currency to another as much as they do from changing from the bergamot pear to the butter pear. He who is poor today can become fairly rich tomorrow, she who scrapes by today might just have enough tomorrow, he who is comfortable today might be fairly poor tomorrow. This instability is going to make the pleasures of issuing money even more intense and will, of course, not ruin any lives because no one in the new community is basing their whole existence on money. You cannot trust money, you cannot build a society on belief in money. Only when this is generally accepted can money be glorious. When we last counted there were 71 active currencies in the community and 32 inactive currencies. The latter were of interest to collectors of coins. The active currencies work in various ways; some currencies are very closely related to practical value, others very closely related to aesthetic value. This occurs without any one currency relating exclusively to the practical or exclusively to the aesthetic at any one time.

An example of this is the groups preoccupied with the growing of small melons who issue their own system of coins made from coloured melon seeds. When selling their adorable fruits they accept all kinds of currency, but they insist on giving change in their own seed-coins. Normally one good melon has the value of 54 coloured seeds, and one overripe melon has the value of 57 coloured seeds because the kids love overripe melons. A special attraction around the buying of melons has developed not only because of the taste and feel of melons, but also because of the currency of the melon growers. The seeds are very beautiful and of great value to many. It is quite common that people string the colourful seeds and make the most fantastic necklaces or bracelets. Thus, there is no cause to worry when you need some small change. If you were hit by a sudden appetite for biscuits when out and about, you have your jewellery made of colourful melon seeds with which to pay a biscuit-making group with.

The line of exchange between the various currencies is, of course, complex and the success of exchange is totally dependent on the specific people involved in the transaction. If one of the biscuit-making groups don't like the coloured seed-coins and don't think they are of much value, it can be a source of problems. But then again, there are probably going to be several biscuit-making groups in the space community. Probably, some other group will happily receive the melon seed-coins as payment. Whether groups of mediators in currency conflicts will be needed is still a question. Such groups might be instrumental in making the conflicts more interesting and intense. These mediator groups could be based at the bourse. Maybe currency critics could be useful as well.

Glorious money practices
Money isn't just money, it is culture. On the whole, a society always produces more than is necessary for its survival; it has a surplus at its disposal. It is precisely the use the society makes of this surplus that determines it. On Earth the culture around standard money is based on a combination of ceremonious respect and casual tightfistedness arising from the more or less fictitious threat of scarcity. Therefore it is common sense in this scarcity-based economy to use the surplus created for accumulation. In the space community the surplus of wealth created is not saved for the future, it is invested in the present. The immediate expenditure of any surplus is the generator of brilliance in the new society. The surplus created will be transformed into outbursts of human life; reggae parties, melon festivals, syncopated rhythms, the sound of language, sparkling, shining, colours in all directions. And of course in times with much surplus, many currencies in different forms and shapes will emerge everywhere adding to the cultural life in the community. To spend and give beautiful money away is a sign of glory and the currency in which it is given will gain a radiance of glory. In other words there is going to be a constant give and take, a continuous flow in all directions. The exchange of gifts is a communicative act characterised by intimacy, not the abstraction we are familiar with from the standardised money relations which are so dominant in social life on Earth. We need to give away, spend or lose beautiful things, and in the new community we know that what has been lost will come back tenfold in social brilliance. So the way any currency in the space community will gain value is by being lost, gloriously.

The bourse
The bourse houses the market place of social life in the community; the only speculation unfolding at this exchange is speculation relating to the proliferation of social desires. Here the planning of the social gatherings of the following days are negotiated; work, pleasure and the movement of groups between the various space communities (which in time will have evolved across the universe) are organised. The compositions of at least 800 groups relating to work, meals, love affairs, travels, currencies and other things are negotiated every day at the bourse. These sessions of negotiation and bartering involve debates between ten, twenty, and sometimes a hundred individuals. There are at least 20,000 intrigues to unravel every hour at the bourse and it is open 17 hours every day. Moreover all sorts of competitions take place here, among them competitions in generosity between groups that issue currencies. Life at the bourse is arranged in such a way that it is possible to follow and contribute to about 30 intrigues at any one time. The children also take part in the competitions and in the intrigues relating to the planning of social gatherings in the community. The conflicts which arise every day at the bourse between individuals, between groups, and between individuals and groups make up the most stimulating game, the most complicated and lively intrigues you can imagine.

Charles Fourier, Karl Marx, Louis Trente, Jakob Jakobsen, et. al. (1808 - )