In January 2018, a bunch of artists and cultural staff based mostly in Brussels—together with us, Tiziana Penna and Anna Rispoli—dedicated to residing from the identical checking account. All revenue we obtain by way of wages, unemployment, and different advantages is wired into this shared account. From there, we don’t withdraw the identical quantity we wired in, however no matter quantity every one among us feels we have to stay our life, together with cash for mortgage funds, lease, utilities, childcare, month-to-month financial savings, groceries, and garments, but additionally for holidays, hobbies, going out, and all of the pointless consumerism one is drawn to. The initiative is named the Common Wallet, and thru it our group desires to develop extra radical types of solidarity, kinship, belief, in addition to an intensive questioning of and experimenting with completely different attainable relationships to cash.
There are at the moment seven members within the Common Wallet—and three youngsters related to it—however this quantity fluctuates. Some of the members are single, some have companions. Some personal an house, others don’t. While we’re all within the arts and tradition or nonprofit area, we work in several disciplines, and we function in Belgium in addition to overseas. So far, every newcomer knew a member who was a part of the challenge earlier than becoming a member of. However, there aren’t any particular choice standards. Anyone who hears in regards to the challenge and needs to completely interact with its ideas may very well be a part of it, no matter their month-to-month revenue. The challenge goals at partaking with the unknown, and a various membership fosters learnings for everybody concerned within the experiment. With this in thoughts, we’re actively occupied with methods to diversify the membership by way of parts like earnings and life-style.
As members, we don’t negotiate our particular person life with one another. Instead, there’s a collective strategy to the money stream, with everybody taking duty for the entire. There isn’t any invasive curiosity round what the opposite members do or don’t spend their cash on. The intention is to maneuver away from a tradition of management and policing in the direction of a tradition of radical belief. There is just one rule: to decide to open and sincere communication, even when it will get uncomfortable. Whatever goes unsuitable should be solved by the group. A couple of instruments assist us out: a weekly breakfast to make the group “real” and replace one another on our expertise inside the challenge, irregular longer conferences used for in-depth conversations, a Telegram chat to debate sensible or pressing issues referring to the frequent account, a month-to-month secretary (rotating position) to maintain monitor of the overall ins and outs and to maintain the remainder of the group up to date on attainable money stream bottlenecks, and an summary of anticipated revenue and common bills over the month.
In this dialog, we focus on the values on the coronary heart of the initiative, how redistribution provides members a way of safety, the significance of respecting all members’ particular person wants, and extra.
The intention is to maneuver away from a tradition of management and policing in the direction of a tradition of radical belief.
Anna Rispoli: With the Common Wallet being a challenge based mostly on redistribution and solidarity, one of many concrete needs is to harmonize the oscillation of revenue and end result typical of the humanities sector. Some of us get a month-to-month mounted wage, others profit from unemployment protection after they don’t work, others are freelancers getting paid in huge chunks solely occasionally. So everyone wiring their month-to-month earnings into the identical account is a solution to guarantee a minimal and steady revenue for everyone.
Another objective is to relativize the stress of precarity by commonizing it. The Common Wallet is an try to unlearn the individualistic relationship we’ve with cash, a perspective that makes us really feel alone in entrance of our personal economical failures or successes. If cash was a lover, we’d be searching for a polyamorous relationship, through which cash can be solely one of many many parts setting the worth of issues.
Tiziana Penna: I joined the Common Wallet a yr after its creation, and it took me some time to shift from the individualistic logic you describe to a polyamorous one. The dedication is easy: wire your whole month-to-month revenue into the frequent checking account, interact with one another from a spot of radical belief, and be clear. But what it actually means to interact with easy values like these takes time to completely perceive.
The alternative ways we react to cash will be regarded as muscular tissues. Many folks usually really feel responsible or insecure round cash, these reactions can occur on autopilot. When it involves sharing cash, or having gratitude and belief round cash, this usually requires a extra aware effort of muscular tissues that aren’t used as often. When surrounded by different folks doing the identical train it turns into a transformational course of in collective intelligence—
Anna: And these muscular tissues change into sturdy while you prepare them!
One of the ideas that we declare is non-reciprocity—that’s, to not search for a match between what you pay in and what you withdraw from the joint account. Even should you don’t put some huge cash within the account, you don’t have to compensate for it by giving one thing else, like time or companies. That’s perhaps the strongest resistance to the capitalist blackmail, the place the poor find yourself serving the wealthy. In reality, we begin from the precept that wealth just isn’t essentially meritocratic and it’s solely partially linked to your dedication or your sensible abilities. We acknowledge the privileges which might be based mostly on social variations.
Sometimes, having a well-paid job within the artwork world is a consequence of a collection of privileges, like race, gender, having studied, with the ability to say no to poorly paid jobs, having a supportive household, et cetera. Once this turns into clear, sharing revenue with folks you belief is probably the most pure factor to do on this planet.