Dear Penny,
They stopped making you.
No parade. No ceremony. Just a quiet acknowledgment that you cost more to produce than you’re worth. Which raises an awkward question we’ve been politely avoiding:
If the penny can go… why not the rest of you?
We’re told money is indispensable. Natural. Inevitable. But history keeps whispering otherwise. Money is a system we invented, not a law of nature. And like all inventions, it can be redesigned, replaced, or retired when it stops serving us.
Imagine this: instead of pricing everything, we focused on resources. Food, housing, energy, healthcare, education, transportation. We already know how to produce enough of these for everyone. Technology has made abundance possible. What’s holding us back isn’t capacity. It’s accounting.
Cue the objections.
First: “This is the only way it can work.”
Is it? We’ve traded shells, grain, labor, favors, time, and trust. Money is just one chapter in a very long book of human cooperation. Treating it like the final chapter is a failure of imagination.
Second: “People will hoard.”
People hoard when they’re afraid. No one hoards air. Why? Because there’s plenty. Scarcity breeds fear; abundance dissolves it. A resource-based economy doesn’t rely on moral perfection. It relies on meeting needs directly, so fear doesn’t run the show.
Third: “What would motivate people?”
This one always says more about the system than about humanity. The best work has never come from coercion. It comes from curiosity, passion, pride, and purpose. When people are free to do what they’re good at and love doing, they don’t need to be forced. They can’t wait to contribute.
Fourth: “The rich and powerful would never allow it.”
Here’s the secret: they don’t have to. Their power exists only because we keep playing the game. Money equals power only as long as we believe it does. Either we change the rules intentionally, or the system collapses under its own weight. History suggests it won’t be subtle.
Even science fiction has been trying to tell us something. In Star Trek, money quietly disappears. Not because humans became angels, but because they stopped organizing society around artificial scarcity. Sound familiar? AI was once sci-fi too.
So, dear Penny, maybe you’re not the smallest coin. Maybe you’re the canary.
And now, dear reader, your turn.
Does this sound too good to be true?
What scares you about making everything free?
What feels naïve… or dangerous… or impossible?
Tell us. Those fears are the real conversation.
Still spending our imagination wisely,
~ The Radical Left