Moneyless society : Would it benefit society?

[MagnetMan]

I'm for a society that works for the benefit of all.

I'm not to sure if I'm in such a society though.

Globally the picture isn't looking to good.

Is this because it's early days for capitalism,

or is this because capitalism caused it.

 

Maybe capitalism is an intemediary stage for the next world order.

 

KiZzI :cup:

 

Me thinks you have your finger on the pulse of things as they are and of things to come, Kizzi.

 

Capitalist investement was a necessary means of internal exchange during the era of nation building. It got dangerous when it went into international competition with Communism, putting us all on the verge of a nuclear armageddon It has no place in this new era of globalization. There is not enough money on the planet to finance the huge engineering challenges that planet management demands. With most of the world chronically uneducated, unemployed, under-fed, under-housed, and suffering from epidemics of sickness primarely due to biosphere poisoning - it is plain to me that we need a radically new approach to our social and occupational contracts.

[Pyrotex]

This appears to have become the Star Trek replicator thread....Since future DRM presumably makes this impossible, only evil criminal despots will have access to such technology, and since future super-Psychiatry has eliminated evil criminal despots....

Super Psychiatry has been built into the duplicators and transporters! Any evil criminal despot who attempts to either duplicate or transport will find his clones and his transported self to have a new personality!!! Just full of the milk of human kindness, and love for all creatures big and small. Kinda like Peewee Herman. :friday:

[LunaWolfe]

People living in a society without money would have no motivation, and thus would just be sitting around all day and partying all night.

I think this is what our WASP/Capitalist society wants us to believe. That without money, everyone would be lazy. What I see is that people love to create things and do things.... even little kids like building and "helping" and being active. Can you actually see yourself being happy "sitting around all day"? Sure for a few days or even weeks, if you really hate the job you work at, but then you would get bored and start finding interesting things to do.

 

The trouble with our current society is that it distracts us from what we really enjoy doing (whether that is creative arts, research experiments or gardening) by telling us that we have to "make money" in order to simply survive. What would you really, really LOVE doing if you didn't HAVE to "work for a living?" I bet you'd find some kind of productive "play" to do!

[eric l]

People living in a society without money would have no motivation, and thus would just be sitting around all day and partying all night.

 

Can you please explain me how (small) societies like monastries work(ed) then ? Some of them were completely autonous, and no money was circulating in them.

 

The main failure of the capitalist system (succesful as it may be) is that it refuses to recognize any other incentive than money as thrustworthy !

 

But I admit that the need or desire for money is so widespread that, for larger communities or societies, I have no valid alternative.

[LunaWolfe]

There are 2 fundamental kinds of economies:

• scarcity
• abundance.

 

In a scarcity economy, things needed and desired by people are so scarce that not everyone who wants a particular thing can have it. In an abundance economy, things needed and desired by people are so abundant that everyone who wants a particular thing can have it.

 

Money, barter, whatever – some system of fair exchange – is useful in a scarcity economy – it provides a (usually) peaceful and (hopefully) orderly way to determine which people get scarce things. In an abundance economy, money is not useful – there’s no need to determine who gets a particular thing, when everybody gets it.

 

Thank you! This really makes sense!

[LunaWolfe]

The issue of Trust seems to be intrinsic to the discussion of a moneyless society. Small communities, tribes, monestaries, families can work without money because people know and trust each other and also, perhaps, have a sense of responsibility to each other.

 

To extend this amount of trust to larger groups would indeed be challenging. Fears of "laziness" and "greed" would likely arise. On the other side, being regulated by a large central agency (government or otherwise) is also rather scary.

 

In some tribal societies, I believe money (or other value markers) were used only with "outsiders"... people from other tribes. In other words, the small group was relatively self-suffiecient and supported all members but in trading surplus salmon for imported pinapples they relied on "money".

 

With our current level of technology, perhaps there are new options open to us that combine localized production, cooperation and sharing with global interaction and sharing.

 

It all starts with being able to Imagine it!

[Qfwfq]

Your quoting problem Luna was because, in excerpting Craig's post, you also removed the QUOTE tags.

 

In some tribal societies, I believe money (or other value markers) were used only with "outsiders"... people from other tribes. In other words, the small group was relatively self-suffiecient and supported all members but in trading surplus salmon for imported pinapples they relied on "money".

I'd say they used barter. Money usually exists when guaranteed by an authority recognized by both parties. Today's tribes might use money because they know the gov't of the country they are within.

 

The main failure of the capitalist system (succesful as it may be) is that it refuses to recognize any other incentive than money as thrustworthy!

Er... not quite...

But I admit that the need or desire for money is so widespread that, for larger communities or societies, I have no valid alternative.

The desire is that of wealth.

 

Today people are so accustomed to using the word money as a replacement for the word wealth that it's easy to forget what money is.

[eric l]

Today people are so accustomed to using the word money as a replacement for the word wealth that it's easy to forget what money is.

 

I'll be the first to agree that "wealth" is a wider notion than "money", and it is because we use the latter word, that we also mix up the notions of value, price and cost. Still "ready money" (coins, banknotes or a credit card) are needed in the current society. I can do some things, as a volunteer, for free, only because I have some money in the bank and do not have to worry how to pay for my next meal. And "wealth" does not give you credit (like it did till the 19th century) unless you have a credit card to show for it.

 

For the other point, about our capitalist society not recognizing other incentives, I can take my own situation as an example. I started to do what I do now (teaching computer skills on a volunteer basis) from a motive that you may call either pride or vanity : I wanted to prove that at the age of 57 (then) I was not completely worhtless, and that I could do it at least as well as the salaried teacher we had at the time. Still, I do not get the same respect from society as my salaried counterparts, and my pupils only have a fair chance if there is a test to do rather than a certificate or diploma to show. Still, my pride (or vanity) and my love for the job are too great to let me quit. And I'm quite sure that there are hundreds of people wh can tell you similar stories.

[Qfwfq]

Well, since you didn't fully get my point Eric, this time I take the bother to fish out my first reply to this thread, which obviously got buried no sooner than I had posted it. What you call ready money is just simply much handier.

 

I wouldn't say that

I can do some things, as a volunteer, for free, only because I have some money in the bank and do not have to worry how to pay for my next meal.

goes against my point, it is just an example of gift rather than trade. You could do the same things in exchange for flour, sugar, butter and eggs. You make a gift only if you can afford to, this even goes for a barter society.

 

And "wealth" does not give you credit (like it did till the 19th century) unless you have a credit card to show for it.

Not that my point was obtaining credit, but there is such a thing as mortgage as well as credit card. Anyway, owning property is wealth. We've become accustomed to measuring it in units of currency, but it's wealth rather than money and you can have it in a barter society. Ownership of land and housing came a smite before minted currency.

 

What you follow with, about

our capitalist society not recognizing other incentives

actually has a lot more to do with mentality than with capitalism, which BTW has always been around... not only long before Marx coined the word but before currency too. Property is capital, so is a stock of gold and precious stones. Anyway the lesser respect you talk of is not an essentially capitalist logic (according to which who pays can demand, who recieves a gift cannot), it is the mentality that cheap implies worthless. Try having a high fee for everybody but granting a few acquaintances a heavy discount, with a wink and a nod, see if they won't be more on their knees. Now, even without a discount, a higher price implies more requested, at that point capitalist logic gets the respect to follow suite.

[eric l]

What I meant is that "wealth" also includes things like "skills" and "knowledge" and "health"... Up to the last century it would also include "birth" - which was enough to assure credit. Most of those things can not be turned into money by mortgages or things like that.

Skill and knowledge can be sold, or rather "lend out" (because you do not loose them in the process, as you would loose the ownership of a property you sell). In current society they are priced (?) or valued (?) according to their scarcity; this may have been the case in older societies as well, but I am not sure that it is the best garantee for progress.

[Peacemaker]

Good question Kizzy, a pity that none of the answers you have received so far has made any sense whatsoever. In order to answer this question with any degree of rationality, you have to think laterally. In a sensible moneyless society you would not have pensioners freezing to death because they can't afford their heating bills. You would not have brand new hospitals 'mothballed' because there aren't enough funds in the present budget to staff and equip them. You would not have the current ludicrous situation of 'civilised' societies wasting vast quantities of food whilst famine and malnutrition are endemic in the rest of the world. These are just a few of the potential benefits of a moneyless society. Please try searching for my moneyless society thread, which you will find is a lot more open minded about this subject than this one so far.

 

Best regards,

 

Peacemaker.

[Peacemaker]

Its not only *what* you want, but also *when* you might want it. If I'm building a business, I may need lots of goods and labor long before I have a product for people to start trading with. How do I get the goods and the labor when I don't have anything to give them. Investment and growth demand the liquidity that money provides, and the ability to create a banking system that provides capital when none exists by charging interest greases the wheels even more.

 

Without money, we just wouldn't be civilized!

 

Capitalistically,

Buffy

Hi Buffy,

Unfortunately, what you say here is currently true. But it doesn't have to be. all it takes is a change of perception.

 

Best regards,

 

Peacemaker. ;-)

[Buffy]

all it takes is a change of perception.

And that's the question! What are the obstacles to changing the perception? How do we make it happen?

 

Details, :confused:

Buffy

[Peacemaker]

And that's the question! What are the obstacles to changing the perception? How do we make it happen?

 

Details, :)

Buffy

'And that's the question! What are the obstacles to changing the perception? How do we make it happen?'

Hi Buffy, good question.

To answer this you have to ask yourself. what are the obstacles to changing MY perception? Think what you have in your life now that you can't have in the world I foresee. Make a list. I guarantee you that everything on that list which you think is good for you and that YOU think would be great for mankind, that involves Love and trust and joy and fun and goodness and sharing will be kept alive and well. Everything that involves the darker sides of our characters will, by general agreement, disappear. As I have said before, it is an evolution in the way we think, from me to we.

 

Best regards, as always,

Peacemaker.

[Buffy]

Everything that involves the darker sides of our characters will, by general agreement, disappear. As I have said before, it is an evolution in the way we think, from me to we.

They will? How?

 

Why are you unwilling to devise and think about this list yourself? Why do you think that "general agreement" is all that's needed to get rid of desires from our "darker sides"? What's different now than at any time before in human history when people have led movements to change people's perceptions of those desires?

 

Only the little people concern themselves with details,

Buffy

[Peacemaker]

How large is say, the united states yearly budget? I know it is so large that if spent properly could end poverty, homelessness, poor education, bla bla...

 

I wonder how well that system would go over? You work at your job, you get your electronic card or device that records your hours, then you take it down to the national money despenser, your wage, which is decided and controlled by government matters, multiplied by the hours recorded gives you the funds you rightly deserve and then you send them whereever..

Yah how poorly is this thought out, I know.. I digress

Hi there, It is certainly a progression from where we are now, but why hog the middle ground? In a moneyless socety, you wouldn't have the many problems which would still be endemic in such a society. In other words, people will still rob, and steal, and defraud, and mis-count, and invent new scams to 'get rich quick', or have enough money to make others envious. These are 'deadly' sins my friend, Let's go the whole hog and evolve away from them.

As soon as possible.

Best regards,

Peacemaker.

[Peacemaker]

They will? How?

 

Why are you unwilling to devise and think about this list yourself? Why do you think that "general agreement" is all that's needed to get rid of desires from our "darker sides"? What's different now than at any time before in human history when people have led movements to change people's perceptions of those desires?

 

Only the little people concern themselves with details,

Buffy

Hi Buffy,

You seem to think I have made no such list, you're wrong. I have spent the last five years and nine months thinking of little more than lists, and scenarios.

I know what is good for me, and what is bad for me.

I have merely extrapolated that to the rest of humanity.

It won't be my call when it happens, but I feel that guidelines such as these are adequate for the task in hand, and far better than the ones we currently abide by.

I have merely come up with the framework, mankind will fill in the rest, hopefully within the spirit of the laws I have suggested.

As to 'general agreement', it's what we all live by now. We all generally obey the laws of whatever society we live within. That means we don't all assault each other in the streets, or enter other people's property to steal their goods. Even though we are sometimes sorely tempted. People generally tend to obey laws that they can immediately see the sense of. That is the general agreement I speak of.

 

As to ridding us of 'desires from the darker sides', what are you trying to tell me Buffy?

What do you want to do in my world that you feel would not be tolerated?

 

So long as whatever you do does not involve any violence toward another human being, or cause any harm or distress whatsoever to that person, and is done with mutual consent, respect and love, why not?

So long as it doesn't involve vandalism, or sabotage, and so long as whatever you doesn't involve any threat to our race or our environment why not?

 

Make your own lists, they will be just as valid as any of mine, so long as you stay within the guidelines.

 

As to your last line - 'Only the little people concern themselves with details,

Buffy'. It is unworthy of an intelligent woman. I don't mean that as an insult Buffy, merely as an observation.

 

Best regards,

Peacemaker