Big Think

Denys Artasevych on January 19, 2008, 7:26 PM

What exactly do you mena by money?

The paper curency in and off itself has no value. It is simply a catalyst for trade its worth something because we all agree to trade it for other things we consider valuble. And we can use any number of things to replace paper money but it would still be the same thing serving the same function, trade.

There are only 2 alternatives to some form of curency. One is a complete cessation of trade in which case we would not need money for trading because all individuals and families would produce themselves whatever they need. The second is barter which is trading comodities and services for other comodities. The problem with both of these is they are inefficient and lead to very significantly lower standards of living that we have today. The first because if we all produced everything we needed ourselves we would neeed to have countlees amounts of skills and not be able to prefor any of them with any degree of efficiency and quality. And it also leves little room for advancement because all time is spent surviving. Bartering is ineficient because even though it alows trade, the trade is rather limited i can trade you a service of say runing electricity trough your house, for your service of say building a roof on my house, but this trade can only comence if thers an electrician and a roofer both need the serice of the other at that time.

So what would be your alternative to money?
And is it really the paper curency that u dislike or something more general like human greed?

Alicia D on January 20, 2008, 9:47 PM

we don’t NEED money; but the human race requires some kind of control over possessions because humans are selfish.

Sometimes, I wish everyone would just listen to John Lennon and sack the whole possession idea, though…

Edward C on January 21, 2008, 8:26 PM

Money is not the problem here, in large cities the Barter System would not work efficiently.

The problem is the belief that Money is a measure of Power, when there are much more appropriate measures of power such as Wisdom, Health, Strength, Youthfullness, Happiness, Vitality, Discipline, etc…

Brett Tucker on January 22, 2008, 10:22 PM

You are spot on Skeptic44, I can offer nothing more to this response.

Josh Friedman on January 24, 2008, 4:21 PM

Skeptic-

You’ve overlooked a third HUGE possibility, one that has never occurred (though I think communism was supposed to get there, it just never did). That third possibility is state controlled production. If the state produced nearly everything, according to the demand of the people, there would be no need for money. You would just get what you want. There are many questions that come with this method – perhaps a topic for another discussion. Instead I’ll make some points against money.

First, money replaces the meaning of our daily tasks. Many people don’t do jobs because the job is fulfilling, they do it for money. The goal changes from completing a task to achieving wealth. Currency is empty, it’s only a means to and end. No wonder people are so unhappy, people spend their lives working toward an empty goal!

Second, do you know the upkeep that money (capitalism) puts on the US economy? If we abolished money today, nearly 1/3 of all US jobs would disappear. From finance, to insurance, to banking, accounting, monetary law, sales, retail, and more, all gone. I’d be out of a job since I work IT for a financial company. Think about what that means, that America as whole could reduce its work load by 1/3 and still produce the same amount of raw goods and services that we do now. What a waste! There has to be a better way.

Denys Artasevych on January 24, 2008, 7:04 PM

A state controled production woruld still requre some for of curence. Having come frome an ex soviet nationi can tell you that absolutley everything in the soviet union was state produced (other then certain minor things for private use). Curency was still a nessesity and will remain so no matter what level of communism a society reaches.

Here is why. First even though everything is state producedthe state needs to destribute it. This of course can be done by sending in some for of social worker to every family twice a month and give them everything they need. However this is incredibly in efficient and doen not allow the family to chose the products they prefer. The other alternative is to open stores and provide each family with say tikets to go get whatever they need/want, and they can use these tikets to get some things vs the others. What would these tikets be, money.

And yes many people are overlly concerned with acheiving wealth. Wealth has nothing to do with meney, that 600 dollars in only valuble because it can buy a big skreen tv. So again i think the criticism here is not towars the monetery system but the capitalist obsession with material things. Which is a serious concern.

The banking and monetery systems are extremly important is in a capital trading system like america to help deal with ressesions and infaltions that the economy faces. Even in a communist system it is usefull for the same reason.

Edward C on January 24, 2008, 7:37 PM

Does it really matter how ‘easy’ the Economic system is?

If we spent less time working, what would most people do with more leisure time?

Ask yourself this – are you making the most of your leisure time at the moment?

Josh Friedman on January 25, 2008, 9:42 AM

Skeptic -

I still don’t see the need of money or vouchers or whatever. All you need is distributions centers. People order what they want, and get it. Why does there need to be money or vouchers? Money is a function of scarcity. It is a way to give one person an advantage over another when it comes to choosing who gets a certain scarce product or resource. If the state’s function is to increase/decrease production based on demand, this should not be necessary because the government will work to eliminate scarcity.

Nameless – a good point. Compared to Europe, Americans do work more. I think Americans would welcome some leisure time, but I think there’s a point at which people would work even if they didn’t have to just because they want something to do. This is just another argument against those who says that with out money nothing would get done

Denys Artasevych on January 25, 2008, 9:55 PM

Absurdist.
If i can order what i want what is to stop me from ordering 5 cars, 20 tv sets etc. The fact is that resourses will always be limited at least to some extent. A communist system only promices to distribute equaly it cant eliminate scarecity. So there will need to be limint on how much a family can order, by either a system of points or as you said vouchers yet again that is money.

John Hammonds on January 27, 2008, 1:45 PM

Of course we need money. It’s a system designed to exchange one’s goods and services (work) for other goods and services. We need some system like that to keep track of these things. Whether it’s vouchers, currency, et cetera. The barter system just doesn’t work well.

Another issue is the value of this money. Like many people are saying, what defines the value, and that’s my problem as well. Uses of the stock market, high profit margins, and interest rates are purely inflation. The value of the currency is directly inflated at those points. This leaves very open gaps, as especially seen in the US, for people to use the stock markets to manipulate the value of currency in such a way as to inflated their value at the cost of the economy.

I think we need a more static vaue of money. People realized this long ago when we had to impliment minimum wages. The value of money should be based on labor and the production of goods in the economy, not on the trading of stocks and interest rates. When someone says economy, this is what I think: industry, agriculutre, utilities, and service industry.

We’re entering an age where labor can be fully automated, which I stand for. We can produce goods at almost no cost, which idealy would stimulate consumerism and help the ecnomy, if there weren’t those that take advantage of it so much.

If we used this natural deflation in the currency to fund something like education, or industry shift into new power sources, I think we’d be much better off.

Also, I saw something point out that your time should be spent working and you waste your “leisure time.” I have to say that’s rather Malthusian and people have freedom of choice. Negative reinforcement rarely works in people, and just because they don’t follow your goals, doesn’t make them wrong.

Eric Zewiey on January 27, 2008, 10:53 PM

Humans were lead to believe they needed money to exist a long long time ago. It is not true. Money is a tool used to enslave the earthlings. only from money can we create inequalities and the beings controlling this earth know just how to decieve the human mind.

Denys Artasevych on January 29, 2008, 2:47 AM

azurealoft
Gold my good friend also only has symbolic worth. Think into it, gold is valuble because it is rare and most people fing it beautifull. But we can not build cars or ships out of it not use it for any purpouse other the decoration so its worth same as money is derived entirely from us saying that we are wiling to use it for trade (and decoration). We can go further still into this argument and says the only reason a car is valuble is because we need to move around, if we did not need to move or if we did no exist the care would have absolutley no value. So nothing has inherent value other then ourselves, beings which are able to instill value upon other things.

Josh Friedman on January 29, 2008, 9:49 AM

Skeptic-

I think you are a bit too grounded in our current form of economy.

You ask – What’s to stop people from ordering 5 cars and 20 TVs?

I ask – What is the motivation for a person to order 5 cars and 20 TV’s?

The US culture of waste, excess, and aggregation of material wealth is a PRODUCT of money and of capitalism. When the goal is to obtain as much material wealth as possible, people will do so. If anyone can have a TV or a car, for no cost, what purpose would there be in having 20? What is there to prove? There is no symbol of achievement there. No status symbol.

You need to understand that you cannot describe a money-less system in terms of a money based system.

The obvious problem here is that we don’t know how a large scale money-less system will turn out, it’s never been done. All we know is how a money based system works. I can’t say that it will work, since I do not know, I’m just saying that I don’t think the arguments against it (in this case) are valid since they assume people will behave the same way in both systems.

Denys Artasevych on January 29, 2008, 12:43 PM

Absurdist

I see your point, the fact that i assumed people would want 20 cars was a big flaw in my argument because i belive you are right and if everyone can have one thers no need to have 20.

However i belive the argument still stands, because resourses are still limited and one cant have everything he/she wants. If resourses were not in any way limited (which is imposible because our wants always increase as prosperity increases , thats human nature capitalism aside) then the entire purpous of an economy expires and then true we dont need money.

We are very far from a point of absolute abundence and as i pointed out i dont think it even exists. So a way of distributing scarse resourses, products, or services is nessisary.

Another point. I am not a big fan of the US materialistic culture, but yet again it is built on something very fundamental, greed. The British were the fisrst to have something resembling a capitalist system, but greed palyed and ensentical role in political/economic systems in past centuries. As i mentioned in previous posts we relly to mcuh on our various instincts. In this cas we as individuals can rarely see the greater good, we work to ensure prosperity for us and ours. But tend to disreguard society as a whole. Capitaliam works because it is built on this very principle, work for yourself trade and everyone ends up better off. This is true of an open capitalist market, however even though everyone is more prosperous then they were before it tends to lead to class cleavage (Marx warned against this) which means some people become significantly better of while others become only slightly better off.

thats why i think the market needs to function as it does and be left alone. But rather we should put more emphesis on redistribution of aquired wealth.

One more thing money itself has nothing to do with the cultural obsession with materialism, there is to much emphasis on it in the media and thers to much competition that is something that i hope the US can grow out of but the curency has nothing to do with it.

Ray Wallman on January 30, 2008, 1:04 PM

All of you are tyrants. All you want to do is control peoples lives in the illusion that there are limited natural resources. There is no such thing as a natural material recourse. The only real natural resource is human ingenuity.

Once one material recourse becomes scarce with high demand. The price will go up and if the price goes up high enough entrepreneurs, scientists, engineers and venture capitalists will put their money, their energy and their resources toward replacing that material and provide better means to supply the goods and services that people demand.

Just research the Julian Simon/Paul Erlich wager. Paul Erlich, author of The Population Bomb, said that population growth and worldwide demand of resources was “not sustainable” in the 1960s and that we’d all be in hell by 1980. Julian Simon, author of The Ultimate Resource, on the other hand, thought that when ever a material becomes scarce human ingenuity always finds a cheaper more efficient replacement.

Quit reading Marx and Engels and start reading some SCIENCE!