The Money Free movement is a political movement that advocates for a resource-based economy, where all work is voluntary. The movement has political parties in
New Zealand
New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...
and the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
and is aligned with work of the American-based
Jacque Fresco
Jacque Fresco (March 13, 1916 – May 18, 2017) was an American futurist and self-described social engineer. Self-taught, he worked in a variety of positions related to industrial design.
Fresco wrote and lectured his views on susta ...
, who is the founder of
The Venus Project
The Venus Project is a 501(c) nonprofit organization founded by architect and social engineer Jacque Fresco. Fresco, along with his partner Roxanne Meadows, founded this project with a socioeconomic model to develop a resource-based economy for ...
.
The movement has fielded candidates in several elections across at least two countries, but has not won any positions.
Political activities in New Zealand
As of 2023, Money Free Party NZ is led by Richard Osmaston, who founded the party. Osmaston previously ran for mayor of Nelson in 2013 before founding the party in 2014.
Elections
The party was unable to get enough verified members (500) to register for the 2014 general election. It stood five electorate candidates, but none were successful.
Party members stood for multiple mayoralties in the 2016 local elections, such as Richard Osmaston in
Nelson
Nelson may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* ''Nelson'' (1918 film), a historical film directed by Maurice Elvey
* ''Nelson'' (1926 film), a historical film directed by Walter Summers
* ''Nelson'' (opera), an opera by Lennox Berkeley to a lib ...
, Gordon Marshall in Porirua, and
Ted Howard Ted, Teddy, or Theodore Howard may refer to:
* Ted Howard (author) (born 1950), US social entrepreneur and author
* Ted Howard (conservationist), New Zealand conservationist and local politician
* Ted Howard (politician) (1868–1939), New Zeala ...
in
Kaikōura
Kaikōura (; ) is a town on the east coast of the South Island of New Zealand, located on New Zealand State Highway 1, State Highway 1, north of Christchurch. The town has an estimated permanent resident population of as of . Kaikōura is th ...
. Osmaston also stood for the Moutere / Waimea seat in Tasman District Council in the same year.
In the 2017 general election the party stood four candidates in electorates, winning 293 votes. The party's best result was from Scott Andrew in
Palmerston North
Palmerston North (; , colloquially known as Palmerston or Palmy) is a city in the North Island of New Zealand and the seat of the Manawatū-Whanganui region. Located in the eastern Manawatū Plains, the city is near the north bank of the Manaw ...
, who received 142 votes (0.41%, 5th of 5 candidates).
Osmaston stood for mayor of
Grey District
Grey District is a Districts of New Zealand, district in the West Coast, New Zealand, West Coast Region of New Zealand that covers Greymouth, Runanga, New Zealand, Runanga, Blackball, New Zealand, Blackball, Cobden, New Zealand, Cobden, and settl ...
in 2019, receiving 302 votes compared to the winner's 2,709.
The party ran two candidates in the
2020 New Zealand general election
The 2020 New Zealand general election was held on Saturday 17 October 2020 to determine the composition of the 53rd New Zealand Parliament. Voters elected 120 members to the New Zealand House of Representatives, House of Representatives, 72 fro ...
: Richard Osmaston in
West Coast-Tasman
West Coast-Tasman is a New Zealand parliamentary electorate, currently held by Maureen Pugh of the New Zealand National Party as of the 2023 general election. West Coast-Tasman is the largest general electorate in the entire country, with an a ...
, and Prince Bhavik in Kaikōura. Neither was successful. During the 2022 local elections, Osmaston ran for six different mayoralties, winning none. Osmaston also stood as a candidate in the 2022 Hamilton West by-election, but was again unsuccessful. The party fielded two candidates in the 2023 general election.
Political activities in the United Kingdom
Money Free Party-UK (MFP-UK) was a registered political party in the UK. It is led by Jodian Rodgers.
It was a registered party in Great Britain from September 2013 until November 2016, when it was statutorily deregistered. In March 2017 the
UK Electoral Commission
In the United Kingdom, the Electoral Commission is the national election commission, created in 2001 as a result of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000. It is an independent agency that regulates party and election fina ...
approved its re-registration. It was again deregistered in 2021.
In a 2017 interview, Rodgers advocated putting all resources into
common ownership
Common ownership refers to holding the assets of an organization, enterprise, or community indivisibly rather than in the names of the individual members or groups of members as common property. Forms of common ownership exist in every economi ...
, automating as much labour as possible, and having no leaders.
Elections
Nick Tapping ran in the
2015 Poole Borough Council election
The 2015 Poole Borough Council election took place on 7 May 2015 to elect members of Poole Borough Council in England. This was on the same day as other local elections and the Parliamentary General Election.
Election result summary
...
Bristol West
Bristol West was a borough constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom since 2015 by Thangam Debbonaire of the Labour Party. It mostly covered the central and western parts of Bristol.
Following t ...
seat in the
2017 elections
Africa
*2017 Somali presidential election 8 February 2017
*2017 Gambian parliamentary election 6 April 2017
*2017 Algerian legislative election 4 May 2017
*2017 Lesotho general election 3 June 2017
*2017 Republic of the Congo parliamentary electi ...
. Rodgers came last of five candidates with 101 votes, losing his deposit with just 0.1% of the vote.
Egalitarianism
Egalitarianism (; also equalitarianism) is a school of thought within political philosophy that builds on the concept of social equality, prioritizing it for all people. Egalitarian doctrines are generally characterized by the idea that all hum ...
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Free Money Day
Free Money Day is a global social experiment held annually on September 15, the anniversary of the Lehman Brothers' 2008 filing for bankruptcy. Participants hand out money to strangers, asking them to pass half onto someone else. Money is excha ...
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Freedom of association
Freedom of association encompasses both an individual's right to join or leave groups voluntarily, the right of the group to take collective action to pursue the interests of its members, and the right of an association to accept or decline membe ...
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Non-monetary economy
A moneyless economy or nonmonetary economy is a system for allocation of goods and services without payment of money. The simplest example is the Family economics, family household. Other examples include Barter, barter economies, Gift economy, gi ...
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Open-access
Open access (OA) is a set of principles and a range of practices through which nominally copyrightable publications are delivered to readers free of access charges or other barriers. With open access strictly defined (according to the 2001 de ...
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Post-scarcity economy
Post-scarcity is a theoretical economic situation in which most goods can be produced in great abundance with minimal human labor, so that they become available to all very cheaply or even freely.
Post-scarcity does not mean that scarcity ha ...
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Refusal of work
Refusal of work is behavior in which a person refuses regular employment."Refusal of work means quite simply: I don't want to go to work because I prefer to sleep. But this laziness is the source of intelligence, of technology, of progress. Autono ...
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Subsistence economy
A subsistence economy is an economy directed to basic subsistence (the provision of food, clothing and shelter) rather than to the market.
Definition
"Subsistence" is understood as supporting oneself and family at a minimum level. Basic subsiste ...
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Technological fix
A technological fix, technical fix, technological shortcut or (techno-)solutionism is an attempt to use engineering or technology to solve a problem (often created by earlier technological interventions).
Some references define technological f ...
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The Venus Project
The Venus Project is a 501(c) nonprofit organization founded by architect and social engineer Jacque Fresco. Fresco, along with his partner Roxanne Meadows, founded this project with a socioeconomic model to develop a resource-based economy for ...
*
The Zeitgeist Movement
The Zeitgeist Movement is an activist movement established in the United States in 2008 by Peter Joseph. The group is critical of market capitalism, describing it as structurally corrupt and wasteful of resources. The group dismisses historic ...
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Universal basic income
Universal basic income (UBI) is a social welfare proposal in which all citizens of a given population regularly receive a minimum income in the form of an unconditional transfer payment, i.e., without a means test or need to perform Work (hu ...