Gerald Steen has asked if Pound was interested in demurrage money. The
answer is yes, though he used Gesell's term, "stamp scrip," of
"Schwundgeld." However, he never abandoned the Douglasite idea of a national
dividend, despite the fact that  both schemes addressed theperceived
problem of underconsumption.
    As the term "demurrage" implies, the idea i represents is the
Proudhonian one of attaching carrying charges to money so as to "level the
playing field" between money and goods. So far as I can recall neither
Douglas nor Proudhon/Gesell/Kitson/ et al addressed the question of
services--which have once again become a large sector of modern economies.
    I say "once again" because up to the 19th century services were the
largest sector of the economy after agricultural labour. Celebrators of the
new economy seldom--if ever--notice that with Molly Maids, telemarketing,
fast food chains, etc. we are returning to the brutally low-wage regime of
pre-industrial Europe in which the professional and merchant classes enjoyed
a leisure provided by an army of service workers. They no longer live
in--though the fast food workers do wear livery!


Leon Surette
English Dept.
University of Western Ontario
London, Ont.
N6A 3K7