Moneyless society : Would it benefit society?

[CraigD]

Originally Posted by Kizzi

What are the pro's and con's of a society based on Money compared to a society not based on money?

KiZzI

That’s a very serious question, one that some pretty clever people think human society may need to come to grips within the next few decades.

The literature on the subject, fictional and nonfictional, mainstream and fringe, is vast. If I may try to condense its conclusions into a few hundred words, here they are:

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.

Human society has had, probably since its prehistory, and continues to have, predominantly a scarcity economy – too many people, not enough things.

Technological progress tends to reduce scarcity. What only a few wealthy people could afford when it was made by hand by a few skilled artisans, can be had by practically everyone when it made by an efficient, automated factory. Jewelry, books, and computers are all examples of this tendency.

Members of a class of people, “the wealthy”, tend to be aware of the importance of scarcity in preserving the comfort and enjoyment of their lives relative to “the poor”. People in this class tend to try to prevent things from becoming too abundant. Due to the influence their wealth give them, they are frequently successful. The restricted production of crops, energy, and consumer electronics are examples of this tendency.

IMHO, an abundance economy in which everyone has what they need and desire is to be preferred to a scarcity economy, in which they do not.

To change our current society from having a scarcity economy to having an abundance economy, however, is not a simple matter of choosing not to have money. In a scarcity economy, money is needed. Eliminating it by law, etc. won’t work – out of practical need, people will seek to and succeed in finding replacements for any kind of money that is banned. The failure of pure socialist governments in many nations is an example of this.

To change from a scarcity to an abundance economy, I believe scarcity itself must be reduced nearly to the point of being eliminated. 2 main obstacles to this exist:

• Technical challenges – some scarce but useful things (such as solar cells and hydrogen fuel cells) are hard to make in large quantities
• The will of the wealthy – as described above, wealthy people directly oppose reducing the scarcity of many things.

A couple of common objection to the viability of an abundance economy are:

• If people can get everything they need and want without spending money, they will have no incentive to work, nothing will get done or manufactured, and there will be scarcities
• If the amount of a thing a person wants is not limited by the amount of money they have, many people will take extravagant quantities of things (eg: hundreds of cars, thousands of guitars and stereos), and there will be scarcities.

The common answers to these 2 objections are:

• Many people work because they enjoy it, not because it is necessary. Although, in an abundance economy, the percentage of people who work will likely be smaller than in a scarcity economy, sufficiently efficient and advance technology (automation) will allow them to produce more than is needed by the total population;
• Most people are not extravagant, and will not take more than they need. Those who do will need to be prevented from doing so – that is, even an abundance society must police itself.

There are many other objections and rebuttals to this subject, but, IMHO, the pros for an abundance economy outweigh the cons.

[Kizzi]

A couple of years ago I used to attend Socialist Workers Party meetings. My memory is a bit hazy but I think they said 10% of the people own 90% of the wealth!!!!! Is this a good thing?

KiZzI

[alxian]

i'd rather say they control 90% of the wealth.

the scarcity that CraigD is talking about is created and controlled by that top 10%

as long as they don't engage in battles with the other 10% and don't pinch resources too strongly in their pursuit of more power then the rest of us are fine.

[Kizzi]

I think one of the slogans of the Socialist Workers Party was/is "People before Profit".
This implies capitalism is "Profit before People".
Surely "People before Profit" is better than "Profit before People".
Afterall it is the people who are making the profit.

KiZzI

[Kizzi]

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

[infamous]

Originally Posted by Kizzi

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

KiZzI

Social developement has it's own evolutionary process just like living organisms. Capitalism or Socialism, for that matter, which ever form presently exists will eventually change. The history books are full of proof in support of this statement.

[Kizzi]

It's interesting to see what happens to New Orleans.....it looks like it's been totally destroyed apart from the skyscrapers. It's interesting because this is what it takes to build a city in the poorest area of the globe or in New Orleans. The people are in a similar situation! Somehow this relates to society because all being equal everybody would have a nice city to live in!

KiZzI

[alxian]

capitalism is "person for profit"

people be damned.

[infamous]

Originally Posted by alxian

capitalism is the person for profit

people be damned.

If, "capitalism is the person", then you say; "people be damned", sounds like a contradiction in terms to me. I believe if you'll think about it, the "people" in a capitalistic system have the same opportunity as the "person" to earn the profit if they will use some initiative.

[Qfwfq]

A couple of remarks about what has been said.

No money doesn't really mean no resources. You could start organizing a productive activity in a barter society Buffy, provided you have the necessary resources including anything tradeable for the labour. Incentive isn't necessarily in greenbacks. Jewels for the girls and whiskey can be and have often been incentivating. So can rice and flour. Money is simply easier to manage because it is standard.

Use of money is really just a straightforward evolution from barter.

Before symbolic cash, quite a recent thing which greatly enhances problems such as inflation, money was in coins of precious or semiprecious metals and the value was the actual value of the metal. No more no less.

Before actually minted coins the metals were used in whatever form and had to be evaluated at each deal, not only weighed but judged for purity. The old habit of biting gold coins comes from this. Obviously it was handy for merchants to use silver and gold as universal goods for barter, eventually came the brilliant idea of coins.

Even minting coins takes a recognized and trusted authority, it was at first but simply a standardization of quantities of metal, along with the sovereign's garantee. Just a step to further simplify barter.

This didn't happen uniformly across the known world. When minted coins were already circulating across Europe and Middle East, Scandinavians didn't yet have it and didn't consider it a guarantee, so they considered gold and silver coins exactly as bits of these metals. When offered coins by European traders they weighed them. When then trading them in their lands these coins would even be split as necessary instead of traded for lesser coins. Just like any bit of gold or silver used for trade.

If instead the question meant "without barter" it could only mean substisence economy, whether agricultural or hunter-gatherer or both.

If it meant "without resources" well, Aki, sorry, but people sure wouldn't be having much of a party!