The Nightmare Economy: Vennies

Aug 17, 2010 by phinharper    4 Comments    Posted under: Span That World

If you went to V-Camp 2010 you will already be well aware of the term “Vennies” if you did not let me give you some background before I rush into this “essay”. Vennies were an artificial currency that we used on V-Camp 2010. Every person on camp at some point had Vennies in their pockets and could use them to buy tea room type stuff at “The Cemetary Cafe”, fast food type stuff at “Club Joker” and t-shirts from “The Awesome Job Centre”. Vennies were also used for a few other gimmicks throughout the week - one of the visiting bands was so interested in the idea that they also sold CDs for vennies!

But what was the point in all this? If there was a point did it get through? Will we see Vennies in the future? What did we learn from it all? This post is written from my perspective and I would greatly appreciate comments below sharing your experiences.

The dawn of Currency

I was there at the start. I’m partially responsible for the whole palavar. It was a quiet V-Camp planning meeting in the sleepy little town of London. Joel White was running a mini workshop on “Vtopia” the imaginary state that we used as a narrative for the program of the entire camp. In the workshop we were thinking about all the things states and countries have in the real world; Anthems, Coats of Arms, Flags, Passports, governence systems etc. We had broken off into small groups to do role plays about our Vtopia. To cut a story short Fabian Gibertoni (one of the Venturers) sugested that our role play should involve money that he called Vennies….so it did. The idea went down like a storm and in the break when Magico went outside with the Venturers to play some games I found Joel and Lloyd so we could have a brief chat about whether Vennies could actually work on camp. We deemed that they could and so it began. Originally there were all sorts of wacky schemes about plastic coins or even Wooden Nickles but in the end we opted for some rather sexy untearable notes.

The Ecconomy Game

At the next planning meeting we added an extra party to the discussions: Woodcraft Folk’s carbon experts. The idea was that by putting all our heads together we could dream up a way of running the ecconomy that would teach some vauble lessons about two things:

• The volatile beast of a poorly regulated Ecconomic Market
• Carbon emissions for comparable consumables

And meanwhile we would be able to level the playing field by stopping Venturers from wealthier families (and DFs/Adults with their own incomes) being able to buy a more luxurious V-Camp than their less well off fellow campers. We hit on a model that worked for everybody where at the start of the week Vtopia prices would be based roughly on the Sterling cost of providing that particular product. But then we would rapidly inflate the economy layering in chaotic crashes, hikes and rumours that would build to a deeply unsatisfactory economic mess on the evening before the wide game. The Wide game would then carry some hard hitting lessons about the savage nature of: unsustainable agriculture, energy production and the world ruled by financial markets. The Wide Game would be a large reset switch so the day after all prices would become linked to a carbon ecconomy designed in partnership with the University of De Montfort (stuff costs more the more carbon has been emitted to produce it) for the rest of the camp we would maintain this steady regulated market with the added twist that every village would be given 3,000 Vennies to distribute how its Venturers chose. Sounds Brilliant no? Well here’s what happened:

Day One

Everyone arrives and gets 80 vennies each. Teas cost 1 or 2 vennies, cake costs 2, a beef burger costs 5. It all looks pretty cheap most people don’t think twice about splashing out. Vtopia is an apparent utopia for Venturers.

Day Two

Prices remain as before but there is talk of T-Shirts being introduced into the market. Some Woodies are not happy that Club Joker are serving meat and processed food but the club is none the less doing roaring trade and Cemetary Cafe relies heavily on fresh cakes from The Baking Centre to attract custom. That evening we begin to spread rumous about the mini economy being in for some rough weather.

Day Three

All prices double across camp and some rise faster still. T-Shirts are introduced into the market at 20 Vennies but rise incredibly fast to 80 vennies however there are a range of discouts that knock 5 vennies of the price each such as having a well stamped Vtopia Passport or being a man buying a t-shirt for a woman. By evening a tea costs 5 vennies and above. All the t-shirts have been sold. Rumous have made their way back to us. The most popular is that a Venturer stole all our reserves of Vennies and “flooded the market” by giving them away which causes the central team to hike prices to ensure not all stocks are diminished. Another rumour is that one cafe is beating the other so is raising its prices to squeeze the other out of the market. Leaders and Venturers have started to complain about the inequality of the situation particularly in relation to the t-shirts (which there are only enough of for half the camp to have bought one).

Day Four

The Wide Game! The wide game does not revolve around Vennies but is set in the future so some of the wandering characters carry huge wodges of cash  with the backstory that steady inflation has made a single Vennie near to worthless. An auctioneer tries to sell 2010 basics as 2075 luxuries for apparently huge prices. The Wide Game culminates in a video which emphasises the instability and inequality of our current economic model. The point is not laboured but some have begun to realise the the whole Vtopia narrative is deliberately flawed – the Venturer Camp committee are a great example of youth involvement in planning but were clearly not elected and some start to question by what choice they ended up as a citizen in this state of Vtopia. Camp coordinator Magico launches surgeries every morning to allow Venturers to air concerns and complaints but this offer is not taken up by many.

Day Five

The Carbon Economy is launched. In village circles there is a workshop called “re-building the future” run by The Awesome Job Centre and TREE. It’s focus is the Venturer Committee elections but also is the time when each village’s venturers must distribute 3,000 Vennies to last for the rest of the week between all villagers in a manner of its choice. All DFs are away at DF workshop and adults are discouraged from interfering while the Venturers make their decision. Most villages choose to distribute the weath equally fresh with the ideas of justice from the day before but not all! One village splits the money evenly between DFs and Venturers but gives nothing at all to adults. Another village gives Adults Nothing, Venturers a lot and DFs half of what the Venturers recieve. That evening some adults and DFs storm the stage of the news with placards and chants demanding a fair deal.

Day Six

A stable day when even the hard done by adults find they still have enough Vennies between them to participate in the new carbon economy. The Club Joker team are not too happy about having nearly all their prices raised because they are so carbon intensive but it does little to damage their popularity particularly among the dub-step crew.

Day Seven (last day)

The last day and money is casually abolished. The Baking centre bakes a giant V-Camp out of 70 smaller cakes and gives it away for free. The Cafe switches to casual donations. That evening a film is show in the news interviewing a selection of people on camp asking what they think about money in general and The Vennies (below).

My Thoughts

From my perspective it was a facinating game, like a subtle wide game that went on for the whole camp. People were challenged, confused, educated and baffled all while eating a lot of what was effectively free cake! A few things stuck out for me.

It was great how fast people forgot that they were essentially being given a load of free stuff. The cost to the camp of running the Vennies game was by some estimates £10,000 once you add up all the food and merchandise as well as the cost of the physical money. Normally all these costs would be covered by Woodies spending sterling but not in Vtopia. Very soon people were quite protective of “their” vennies and were trying to get more through gambling, petty theft and choosing cheaper products. When the prices rose some people would curb their spending saying to one another “five Vennies for cake – that’s ridiculous” yet really everything was still 100% free not to mention additional to the very healthy portions of breakfast, lunch and dinner that were served in villages.

The T-Shirts were interesting. There were deliberately few of them the notion being that the lucky half would value their t-shirt more if they knew not everyone had got one. Few people got angry that they had to pay around 60 vennies but a lot of people got angry when they learnt their friend had got an identical t-shirt for just 20 only hours before. It was not the feeling of having spent a lot on somthing that pissed people off but the feeling of having speant more than someone else and the knowledge that that someone now had comparatively more left to spend on cake.

Closing early was interesting. When I helped co-ordinate The Tillyards Coffee House at Global Village we opened at 8am and stayed open as long as the central organisers would let us (usually midnight). Partly because it was loads of fun but also becuase we were working with real money and knew we had to break even if not make a hefty profit. In Vtopia that need to make money was removed. Without the need to make a return or even keep track of finances there was an omnipresent temptation for cafes to open late or shut up early no matter how big their team was. Club Joker in particular opened later and later as the week went on and some nights when both cafe’s had shut early we found ourselves with few places to go.

The clinching moment for me was when the Venturers had to determine the manner of the cash “reinjection” after the wide game. I was half expecting the distribution to be the same as on day one in that everybody got the same regardless of role or age but was thrilled when two villages swung more money towards the Venturers than the older villagers. This was partly interesting because it showed that even with heavy messages of equality in an environment like Woodcraft Folk the temptation of monetary gain is still too much for some to resist. Interesting but not surprising given what we’d learnt in the Wide game about the easily corruptable human nature. For me what was far more interesting was the reaction of the short changed adults. Some who lost out were disgruntled in a slightly tonge in cheek manner “demanding” a fair share with a twinkle in the eye but others were genuinely put out by the decision that was out of their control. But hold on…the t-shirts have all sold out by now so all we are talking about is access to additional cake and burgers on top of the 3 meals and day and unlimited tea and coffee available at villages and in The Awesome Job Centre. It was interesting how upset and essentially jealous of the Venturers a lot of people became over such a small luxury. Lets remember that most people still had dosh remaining from before the reinjection so it wasn’t even that adults weren’t able to buy anything…..just less than the Venturers. Would the same feelings have been present if it was decided centrally to give Venturers more dosh? If we had given adults more would they have taken justice into their own hands? I suspect not.

Overall my lessons were simple. Money is a perfectly good way of structuring the buying and selling of stuff but it all falls apart when we quickly realise other people have more of it than us. Jeallously fules the ecconomy and we re-evaluate worth untill we strive simply for more money. We forget what we need and even what we would like and instead focus near to purely on money.  My favorate day for Vennnies was when they lost all worth as the well regulated market began to give out products for nothing. We did not abuse the new system but rather continued to “buy” a reasonable amount as we had done all week.

In terms of the implication I suspect the game was too subtle for some, even by the end of the week many had not clocked that some of the pre-wide game flaws were engineered so that we would be able to re-build better after the Wide Game. That said even a game you don’t notice does give you a chance to think about how much value you really place on low carbon products and how easy it is to be corrupted or jealous of the financial fortunes of others by cash. You end up feeling hard done by when in reality V-Camp 2010 had £10,000 pumped back to participants compared to 2008 when you had to spend on top of the camp fee to appreciate the cafes & get the merchandise.

Interesting no?

As I said at the start I would love to hear your experiences of Vennies.