Free Money Day!!

How awesome does that sound?? Seriously, free money!! Who wouldn't want to be a part of that? After all, it does sound a hell of a lot like this...

Actually, if you're participating, then you're giving away money, and capitalism teaches us that that's bad, but it's not, really. It might seem silly but, once you think about it, this is actually a very lovely idea designed primarily to get people to take a few moments out of their day to connect with at least one other person. That's quite sweet.

I came across this when Stephen Fry tweeted about it. Isn't he a babe? It seemed intriguing - who wouldn't click on a link entitled "Free Money Day"?

The plan is that, all over the world, on September 15th, people will stop people in the street and offer them two pieces of money (i.e., two coins) and tell them to give one of them to someone else, some other random stranger. It does not have to be a lot of money - two 20p pieces, or something - because the point is not to give away monetary wealth. Instead, this is intended to inspire conversation, which is the point of the exercise, but it also gets people thinking about the nature of giving and sharing as well as attitude towards money.

It is organised by the Post Growth Institute and the point is to get people to think about what money means and to learn to appreciate the non-monetary things that people give, like smiles and conversations and friendship. There is no political or religious undertone and, although there is some agenda in the rethinking of trade and commerce, there is no really outspoken idea.

It is purely a voluntary venture. This means that anyone participating will be giving away their own money, but it also means that no one is pressured into doing anything. A lot of people seem to be willing to participate, judging by the response on Twitter, and the website makes everything perfectly clear to anyone with any queries. It explains that the general idea is to get people to think about the economy and its effectiveness in society.

 The philosophy of the concept and the progress of the event itself can be found at http://www.freemoneyday.org/ as well at on it's FaceBook and YouTube channels. It is quite an interesting social experiment, if nothing else, and I, for one, am interested to see how it goes.