Money - a blessing or a curse?

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Elder
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Re: Money - a blessing or a curse?

Post by Elder »

Sorry, double post by accident.
Last edited by Elder on July 8th, 2015, 7:13 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Londoner
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Re: Money - a blessing or a curse?

Post by Londoner »

Alias

On the whole, in the ancient world labourers like the ones who built the pyramids were slaves. In the feudal system, there were slaves and (as you say) serfs and others with degrees of freedom. As you say, there was also a class that were free and would have been paid wages, but we are wandering from the point. You wrote:
It becomes more valuable to produce nothing but own much, than to produce much and own nothing. It becomes vastly more valuable to own the building in which clothes are sewn than or the land on which rice is grown than to make the clothing and food.
I am pointing out that the same relationship can exist between the slave and the slave owner, or the peasant and his lord, without money being involved.
How does the modern sense of money differ from the medieval sense?
It had intrinsic worth; it was made of precious metal.
I doubt there is 'effectively more land' with today's population and desertification. Even so, technology just means you can take food from people farther away, so the hunger gets moved around, and you eat less fresh food. It's nothing at all to do with land ownership in the feudal system of a small but heavily populated continent.
What I wrote was that the peasant class was poor because there 'was because there was not enough productive land (under the technology of the period) but plenty of labour'. I then pointed out this changed when the plague reduced the supply of labour.

Europe was not densely populated, for example the population of the UK in 1350 had reached over 2 million. Over the last thousand plus years, it had only grown by about 1 million. That population was still subject to periodic famines. Around 1650 it began to grow rapidly. By 1812 it was 5 times the size, by 1920 it was 20 times the size. That means 5 times, and 20 times more food was needed. The UK was the same size, what had changed was the technology.
Ah, but the power is precisely in that limited use. The independent crofter fell into debt, because, if he couldn't grow enough extra food to sell, he couldn't pay his poll tax or buy seed, and the lord took his land in collateral. He became a sharecropper in exactly the same way poor whites in the post-Reconstruction south did.
You have been mislead by the term 'share-cropper' to think this is about the USA in relatively modern times. In the middle-ages, if a free peasant had a bad harvest during the winter they would have to consume their seed corn. In the next season, they would be given seed corn but have to pay for that by giving away a percentage of their crop and/or by working for the lender. But this made their situation even more precarious, tending to a progressive loss of independence. The point here concerning the OP is that a process of progressive indebtedness can take place without money being involved at all.
Isn't that what I said? The king, once well established, could redistribute land, but how he got that control over land in the first place was because enough duchies and counties were united under one ruler. The warlords pledged him their fealty. And their troops. One sword is very tiny recompense for a thousand hectares: you had to bring an army, which you had to horse, equip, provision and house. And pay.
No. One knight's fee is sufficient land to support one knight. That knight provides military service in person. If you are given land that would support more than a knight, then you have to supply more men. These men are the knight's tenants, working under the same system as the knight - in return for their sub-holdings, they also owe service, including military service. For both knight and tennant, the service is their rent.

What you need money for is to pay specialists like crossbowmen who were usually mercenaries. In that case, the King would raise a tax, but this was exceptional. If it was judged excessive or unnecessary the taxpayers could - and did - rebel.
Certainly, many of the debts and fees were paid in kind, especially by the peasants who didn't get much access to coin, and local systems of barter were common. But at the level of trade and commerce, church and state, the money relationship were not so very different from today.
If the majority of transactions were paid in goods and services - and not in money - that seems a significant difference to today - especially since this thread is about money!
And that wasn't my main problem with money, anyway. At that time, monetary wealth was certainly a factor in who controlled government, just as it is now. One problem that intensifies, the more roles money takes over: it's a lot easier to steal than land or gold or indigo; you can control armies entirely with money and its political clout, from the comfort of your corner office.
If we can now control armies from the office it is because we have better communications.
Me: There is nothing, certainly not the existence of money, to stop us regulating wages, profits, pollution or anything else.

A: Except the profit motive and the fact that those who have garnered most of the nation's wealth also own the nation's law-makers - or at least have them by the short and curly debts.
That is a matter of political choice. If we prefered communism then we could have a different power structure. We can take money away from the rich and give it to the poor. The existence of money doesn't stop us.
It does matter what form wealth and power take, and who wields them and by what means. Wealth doesn't create power; it confers power. It takes power away from the freeman and gives it to the lord; it takes power away from the citizen and gives it to the lobbyist.
It might or it might not.

Lobbyists only exist under certain types of government. Not all societies have the notion of a citizen. Your society uses money and I understand there are some specific things about your own society you dislike, but I think you are mistaken in linking them to money and thus to make generalisations about all societies that use money.

I have pointed to feudal society as an example of a society where the use of money was very limited, but people still made war, robbed each other, got into debt, oppressed each other etc. I could have pointed to North Korea, another society in which money in the sense of capitalism and bankers plays little part; but this has not empowered the North Korean citizen!

By contrast, those countries which are judged happiest, those with the most generous welfare systems, those where standards of living are more equal, where crime is low, all use money.

There is no correlation, let alone causation, between the use of money and the nature of a society.
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Re: Money - a blessing or a curse?

Post by Lagayscienza »

I don't think it's money per se that is the problem. It's the unfair distribution of wealth that is the problem. And that is a moral problem that will only be fixed when people elect governments who will fix it. But whatever system of government you choose or however one might choose to redress maldistribution a medium of exchange and a store of value will still be necessary. Even communist countries (not many of them left) have had to have money.

We are increasingly moving towards a cashless economy where money exists as computerised records. I use a card for most purchases and I hardly ever see cash these days. But we still need banks to keep records of everyone's store of value and to facilitate transactions and it costs money to employ people to do that work. I just can't see how a sophisticated economy could work without money, or at least virtual money, and a banking system. Maybe I'm just too old to think outside the box but I can't see any alternative.
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Re: Money - a blessing or a curse?

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Lagayscienza wrote: Maybe I'm just too old to think outside the box but I can't see any alternative.
It is very hard to see outside the box when we have been in it all our lives!

Have you read the "Proposal for a new social contract" thread?

onlinephilosophyclub.com/forums/viewtop ... amp;t=7667

It might help you to peek outside a bit. :)

The OP was followed by several intelligent posts that seriously considered a possible world outside.

Here is an example of how it might come about:

goodreads.com/author_blog_posts/8677130 ... et-meeting
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Re: Money - a blessing or a curse?

Post by Londoner »

Elder wrote:
Have you read the "Proposal for a new social contract" thread?

onlinephilosophyclub.com/forums/viewtop ... amp;t=7667
You are referring to the first post on that thread, posted by 'Alias' quoting 'Zatamon'?

If so, I would comment that I think its notion of 'capitalism' is rather vague. As understood by Marx, it is a description of an economic stage in which capital as a factor of production is dominant. I don't think it is helpful to anthropomorphise this by relating it to human emotions, like 'greed'. As I have been saying elsewhere in this thread, 'greed' and other unfortunate humans tendencies have existed long before capitalism, so I don't see why altering the economic system again would change that.

Second, it is suggested that individual governments can meet our basic human needs without trade. 'Production in this economy presupposes that the sector is self contained, the nation has all the resources required to implement this system; no foreign trade is required.' I do not think this would be true for many nations or communities, but even if it was it would be very wasteful. Different places have different resources, they have relative advantages. Sometimes products are produced better in a small number of locations where you can employ economies of scale. If we now enough to meet human needs it is only because we trade.

Further, the contracts says: The government would stay the sole ‘owner’ of all natural resources that are common birthright of all citizens. Among these are primarily land, air, water, space, forests, wildlife, mineral deposits, communication frequency bands' and later 'The value of natural resources in terms of public service provided for its use will have to be calculated by the economic planners of the government, based on scarcity of resources versus public benefit of service provided for it. It has to be dynamic, with strict guidelines protecting it from abuse.'

Ownership of natural resources in itself is meaningless; it only has meaning when those resources are converted into other things and the means by which we do the conversion have to be paid for. In other words, water is free; provision of drinking water, flood prevention, removal of sewage etc. are not.

Even in a world without money, a choice to to do one thing with those resources has a cost - the cost is that you cannot do something else. And since everyone does not live in identical circumstances or want the same things, any choice will be good for some people but not for others. As I suggested in an earlier post, those economic planners would not just be doing economic calculations; before they can start to plan they will first have to decide on the relative values of different lifestyles.

I would add that experience has shown that the requirements that a system should be dynamic - but also have strict guidelines - have often been found to be contradictory.

The post concludes:
As Will Durant wrote in “The Lessons of History (chapter X. - Government and History) -- “If our economy of freedom fails to distribute wealth as ably as it has created it, the road to dictatorship will be open to any man who can persuasively promise security to all; and a martial government, under whatever charming phrases, will engulf the democratic world”
It seems to me that those economic planners are just such dictators; the only difference is that we are assured they are nice, wise, public spirited etc.

Philosophy is long familiar with the ideal of a philosopher king, a benevolent dictator who will govern rationally. Somebody who can counter the effects of malign human impulses, like greed, because they are free of them themselves. But philosophy has equally long been aware of an unfortunate problem with this idea, which I'm sure I need not spell out.
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Re: Money - a blessing or a curse?

Post by Elder »

PS. If the OP of the proposal is too long, I have posted a summary at the current end of the thread.
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Re: Money - a blessing or a curse?

Post by Elder »

Londoner wrote:
Elder wrote:
Have you read the "Proposal for a new social contract" thread?

onlinephilosophyclub.com/forums/viewtop ... amp;t=7667
You are referring to the first post on that thread, posted by 'Alias' quoting 'Zatamon'?
Yes, and after you have read all the posts that follow, answering many questions, I am willing to discuss it with you on that thread (not here).
Last edited by Elder on July 8th, 2015, 9:11 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Money - a blessing or a curse?

Post by Lagayscienza »

Cheers, Elder. I read the the above links and it seems to me that the crux of the matter is the last line of the blog article:
Elder wrote:If the community wants equal sharing, that is what the community shall have.
I don't think people want equal sharing. Certainly Americans don't seem to want that. People in my own country and most Europeans are more amenable to fairer distribution and this happens through progressive taxation. And I think a lot more of that needs to be done in this respect. But try convincing an electorate of that. Humans have two sides - the selfish and the altruistic, the competitive and the cooperative (see E.O.Wilson) - and I don't think we can change this by fiat. All we can do is manage it.

Whichever way we may decide to manage it we are still going to need a medium of exchange and a store of value - a currency - so that both basic necessities and luxuries can be distributed efficiently. As I've said, I don't think the problem is money per se but the two-sided nature of those who invented it and, unfortunately, I can't see that changing anytime soon.

-- Updated July 9th, 2015, 12:13 am to add the following --

PLease edit out "of that" in my second paragraph.
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Re: Money - a blessing or a curse?

Post by Elder »

Lagayscienza wrote:Cheers, Elder. I read the the above links and it seems to me that the crux of the matter is the last line of the blog article:
Elder wrote:If the community wants equal sharing, that is what the community shall have.
I don't think people want equal sharing.
It appears, Lagayscienza, that you have read the second blog about the cabinet meeting, but not the first one with the proposal.

The proposal does NOT suggest equal sharing. It is proposing a compromise. :)
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Re: Money - a blessing or a curse?

Post by Lagayscienza »

No, I read both, Elder. I am preparing a more detailed response that will reflect this.
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Re: Money - a blessing or a curse?

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Lagayscienza wrote:No, I read both, Elder.
Including the posts following the OP -- answering many of the questions you may have?
Lagayscienza wrote:I am preparing a more detailed response that will reflect this.
Can you respond to the proposal thread on that thread, Lagayscienza, -- I was hoping to concentrate only on the nature of money on this one: advantages and disadvantages and which outweighs the other.

Interestingly, nobody so far answered this question, taking BOTH into consideration.

Is it possible, that maintaining the monetary system, as I explained in my blog, costs so much in resources that it negates all the advantages it provides?

Could it be the classic case of throwing the baby out with the bath water?
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Re: Money - a blessing or a curse?

Post by Lagayscienza »

OK, I've said what I wanted to say about money. My thoughts are that we'd need it, or something like it, for the foreseeable future even if something like your proposal for a "new social contract" and a "two tiered economy" could be adopted.

I'll deal with the "new social contract and two tiered economy" idea (for which I have some sympathy) on the other thread.

I'll just pick out the main areas of difficulty I see. I don't generally write long posts because I type slowly (I don't see well anymore and I no longer have secretaries) so my response may take sometime. I'll try to get it done and posted today.

Cheers
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Re: Money - a blessing or a curse?

Post by Alias »

There is no correlation, let alone causation, between the use of money and the nature of a society.
Well, all right then.

-- Updated July 8th, 2015, 10:10 am to add the following --

Just thought I'd mention this in passing. globalresearch.ca/the-new-water-barons- ... er/5383274

-- Updated July 8th, 2015, 10:12 am to add the following --

from the article:
It’s a strange New World Order in which multibillionaires and elitist banks can own aquifers and lakes, but ordinary citizens cannot even collect rainwater and snow runoff in their own backyards and private lands.
Those who can induce you to believe absurdities can induce you to commit atrocities. - Voltaire
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Re: Money - a blessing or a curse?

Post by Elder »

Londoner wrote:There is no correlation, let alone causation, between the use of money and the nature of a society.
...other than a society that is based on money, especially electronic money, is based on unavoidable fraud and theft.

in addition to wasting most of its resources in order to maintain this system (see my blog linked to from the OP.)
Once I read a UN report that calculated the % of resources and man-hours spent on non-productive activities. It was estimating up to 90%.

This non-productive work fell in three categories:

Money-related activities/resources:

planning, printing, distributing, destroying, banking, guarding, handling, speculating, trading, exchanging, collecting, reporting, insuring, taxing, investigating, prosecuting, etc., etc., etc.

Fighting over distribution:

Wars, revolutions, armies, armament industries, police, crowd control, courts, lawyers, monetary/financial/tax legislation, oversight, lobbyists, security industry/personnel, bailouts/grants/subsidies, prisons, prison guards and industry, etc., etc., etc.

Profit-related activities:

Producing in slave-economies and shipping long distance to rich economies, fossil fuel industries and related cleanup activities, man-made global warming and environmental cost, ill-health, hazardous waste disposal, hanging on to obsolete technologies, killing off innovation, etc., etc., etc. All this waste is due to our inability to do simple arithmetic.

We waste 90% of our resources in order to control our consumption with the monetary system, without which we could spend these resources multiplying our production capacity ten-fold, producing plenty for all conceivable needs (except for the pathological kind). Without this waste no control (and money) would be required. The expression: "Penny-wise and pound-foolish" comes to mind.
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Re: Money - a blessing or a curse?

Post by Londoner »

All this waste is due to our inability to do simple arithmetic.
I would say it was because the world is not reducible to simple arithmetic.

Only if you simplify the world, in particular you ignore the diverse situations, needs, beliefs and feelings of actual people, can you design a mathematical utopia.

In real life, I will not necessary value the things that you value. There is no arithmetic that will confirm you are right and I am wrong, so we must either put up with all that inefficient diversity or we will find you need even more armies, policemen, prisons etc. than we do now.
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