Money - a blessing or a curse?

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Alias
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Re: Money - a blessing or a curse?

Post by Alias »

Lagayscienza wrote:Elder, is there any other convenient way to store value and exchange goods and services that does not have the downsides of money? I'm not sure there is. If anyone has any such alternative I'd love to hear about it.
I know the question wasn't addressed to me, but it's kind of a pet subject - so, if I may....

Barter groups and co-operatives do it with a credit system of their own devising. The ones I've known pegged the value of their goods and services to the external currency, but the exchanges and credits were valid only within the group. So, at least in theory, even if the national economy suffered an IMF evisceration - restructuring - the barter currency would retain its value in its own limited economic context. Armies bases on foreign soil do it with scrip. The Zeitgeist movement runs its entire economy by computer (I don't know the details, but it's probably explained on their web site http://thezeitgeistmovement.com/) Since we already do so much of our trading electronically, I don't see any problem with that. The future societies of science fiction all do it that way.

These are various forms of currency without the added burden of a mint, banks or other financial institutions. Financial institutions do nothing but handle money: they take value out of the system (occupy buildings, use electricity, buy people's time) without putting any value in. The same is true of loans, shares, bonds, insurance and capital in all forms: since they take a profit in real value for merely shuffling money around, supporting them (in the regal style to which they so readily become accustomed) requires the economy to keep growing, whether it can or not.

While a nation has the resources (gold, wheat, oil, water, bulldozable rain forest) to underwrite the currency it issues, it can sustain growth. If the resources are used up, or taken away by an invader, or monopolized by private owners, the state has no base to support its currency. Once money is cut loose from material resources, the state begins counting its wealth in GDP. First it counts hard-to-evaluate items like technology and information; then it starts including ephemera such as military ordnance, mortgage interest and the salaries of people who clean up oil spills. Soon, it can turn entirely to fantasy: the currency and its value become arbitrary, subject to change without anyone's intention or control - and of course, intensely vulnerable to misrepresentation and theft.

No defunct state ever issued currency. At the time of issue, all currencies did represent actual wealth in the form of purchasing power. The key word is represent: money is symbolic, or potential, purchasing power. Now, a banknote from the Austro-Hungarian empire can buy as much as a Monopoly dollar, but it was once as real as the Euro is today ... and the Euro, also, can be gone tomorrow. Literally. So if you're keeping some under your mattress and thinking it's the same as the goods it can buy, you might want to diversify some into chocolate or silk or charcoal.

Another - perhaps more viable - approach was discussed in the Proposal for a new Social Contract thread.
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Re: Money - a blessing or a curse?

Post by Lagayscienza »

Cheers, Alias. Thanks for your response.

It strikes me that whether we use money as we know it or some sort of virtual money we would still need money of some sort for a complex society to function. The bits of paper we call money are intrinsically worth almost zero. But because it represents the value of goods and services these goods and services can be exchanged much more efficiently than if we had to match up barter partners. For example, if we didn't have money and just bartered for everything then if I was a wheat grower and wanted to swap some of it for some dental work I'd need to find a dentist who needs wheat. I think that would be a very inefficient way for an economy to operate.

And how would capital formation and investment work?

I quite like the idea of a new social contract but the profit motive in humans is a very powerful driver of production that is facilitated by money and I can't see that an advanced economy could work without some symbolic representation of value.

But I'm no economist and maybe I'm missing something.
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Re: Money - a blessing or a curse?

Post by Alias »

Lagayscienza wrote: It strikes me that whether we use money as we know it or some sort of virtual money we would still need money of some sort for a complex society to function. The bits of paper we call money are intrinsically worth almost zero. But because it represents the value of goods and services these goods and services can be exchanged much more efficiently than if we had to match up barter partners.
Yes - if you have a reliable standard for evaluating those things. If a monetary value is assigned to everything that a society does, and the assigning is done by those who control the [intrinsically worthless] money, the entire value system, as well as the functions of the society are adversely affected. All values are distorted.

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. The services on which people depend every day (teaching, healing, cleaning, rescuing) become undervalued, and eventually done only through organized charity, while the disservices (blowing stuff up, wiping out species, poisoning rivers, stripping off the ozone) are rewarded. And that's just within the legal limits. You end up with the absurdity of an insurance form that puts a precise dollar value on each of your limbs and relatives.
For example, if we didn't have money and just bartered for everything then if I was a wheat grower and wanted to swap some of it for some dental work I'd need to find a dentist who needs wheat. I think that would be a very inefficient way for an economy to operate.
What dentist doesn't need wheat? Besides, that's not a barter system , that's a single trade. In the system, you have so many credits and the dentist has so many credits - provided only that you've put so much value, in the form of goods and/or services into the system - and you exchange your credits for whatever you want at the moment. It works like money, only without carrying the bankers, etc.
And how would capital formation and investment work?
It wouldn't that's one of the big advantages. Because capital is the Grandmother of all Frauds in the civilized world (Guess what the Grandfather is).
I quite like the idea of a new social contract
The model proposed in that thread is just one possible transitional form, or compromise. It would accommodate both a decent allocation of land, resources, energy and labour and the greed we so automatically attribute to all our fellow humans.
but the profit motive in humans is a very powerful driver of production that is facilitated by money and I can't see that an advanced economy could work without some symbolic representation of value.
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Re: Money - a blessing or a curse?

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Lagayscienza wrote:Elder, is there any other convenient way to store value and exchange goods and services that does not have the downsides of money? I'm not sure there is. If anyone has any such alternative I'd love to hear about it.
Lagayscienza, I am responding to your question, as 'Elder', because, at the moment my regular password isn’t working and I remembered an old account I created, and never used, 2 years ago: as ‘Ned’.

The problem with imagining a moneyless society is the result of being hung up on the question of barter or trade.

That question always revolves around: who owes whom how much?

Once the question of ‘owing’ comes in, then we have already accepted a basic paradigm of social organization: we are individual jungle animals that have to fight or negotiate for our survival.

If this is the way you see humanity then yes, you do need money.

However: is this the only way to imagine human societies?

Many of the most prominent science fiction writers said: no.

That vision is expressed in Captain Picard’s speech to a group of earthmen from the 20th century, who had been in suspended animation. He told them that money had no meaning in the 24th century, and the only challenge was realizing one’s creative potential (Star Trek The Next Generation, Season 1 episode 26 “The Neutral Zone”).

You see: when humanity reaches a scientific and technological level where no scarcity is realistic to expect for all the goods and services necessary for healthy survival (and we have reached that point by now) , then regulating consumption by the monetary system is totally unnecessary and it would mean an up to 90% waste of humanity’s resources, as I explained in my blog. Have you read it? At that point only intelligent planning is required and human beings are very good at planning huge projects (word wars, moon shots, etc.)

I know that it is impossible at the moment to imagine a direct path from where we are to that level of sanity, but maybe an intermediate step can be imagined, as I outlined in the essay Alias quoted in the “Proposal for a New Social Contrcact” thread in the Politics Forum.
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Re: Money - a blessing or a curse?

Post by Lagayscienza »

Alias wrote:Yes - if you have a reliable standard for evaluating those things. If a monetary value is assigned to everything that a society does, and the assigning is done by those who control the [intrinsically worthless] money, the entire value system, as well as the functions of the society are adversely affected. All values are distorted.

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. The services on which people depend every day (teaching, healing, cleaning, rescuing) become undervalued, and eventually done only through organized charity, while the disservices (blowing stuff up, wiping out species, poisoning rivers, stripping off the ozone) are rewarded. And that's just within the legal limits. You end up with the absurdity of an insurance form that puts a precise dollar value on each of your limbs and relatives.
Yes, I can see that it adversely skews the value of things.

Alias wrote:What dentist doesn't need wheat? Besides, that's not a barter system , that's a single trade. In the system, you have so many credits and the dentist has so many credits - provided only that you've put so much value, in the form of goods and/or services into the system - and you exchange your credits for whatever you want at the moment. It works like money, only without carrying the bankers, etc.
But aren't those credits just a virtual form of money that could be accumulated like money? As you say, "it works like money". I agree it would be great if we could rid us of the bankers and the skewed values caused by money. But if I wanted to borrow to, say, build a house or start a widget factory how would credit work? Why would anyone lend me some of their credits if there were no profit motive to do so?
Alias wrote:...capital is the Grandmother of all Frauds in the civilized world (Guess what the Grandfather is).
Ok, I give up. Who's the grandmother? Sorry, I'm virtually illiterate economically.
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Re: Money - a blessing or a curse?

Post by Londoner »

Alias
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.
That has nothing to do with money. It was also true under the feudal system that those who worked on the land were poorer than those that owned it. This was because there was not enough productive land (under the technology of the period) but plenty of labour. But after the great plague, labour got scarcer, so labour got relatively more valuable.

There is nothing, certainly not the existence of money, to stop us regulating wages, profits, pollution or anything else. We already do it; we just don't do it in the way that you (or I) would like.
What dentist doesn't need wheat? Besides, that's not a barter system , that's a single trade. In the system, you have so many credits and the dentist has so many credits - provided only that you've put so much value, in the form of goods and/or services into the system - and you exchange your credits for whatever you want at the moment. It works like money, only without carrying the bankers, etc.
We already have that system; it is money.

You will have to explain what you mean by 'carrying the bankers' and how some alternative system would avoid it but not create worse problems.
It wouldn't that's one of the big advantages. Because capital is the Grandmother of all Frauds in the civilized world (Guess what the Grandfather is).
It is a fraud because...?
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Re: Money - a blessing or a curse?

Post by Elder »

Lagayscienza wrote:Elder, is there any other convenient way to store value and exchange goods and services that does not have the downsides of money? I'm not sure there is. If anyone has any such alternative I'd love to hear about it.
Lagayscienza, the problem with imagining a moneyless society is the result of being hung up on the question of barter or trade.

That question always revolves around: who owes whom how much?

Once the question of ‘owing’ comes in, then we have already accepted a basic paradigm of social organization: we are individual jungle animals that have to fight or negotiate for our survival.

If this is the way you see humanity then yes, you do need money.

However: is this the only way to imagine human societies?

Many of the most prominent science fiction writers said: no.

That vision is expressed in Captain Picard’s speech to a group of earthmen from the 20th century, who had been in suspended animation. He told them that money had no meaning in the 24th century, and the only challenge was realizing one’s creative potential (Star Trek The Next Generation, Season 1 episode 26 “The Neutral Zone”).

You see: when humanity reaches a scientific and technological level where no scarcity is realistic to expect for all the goods and services necessary for healthy survival (and we have reached that point by now) , then regulating consumption by the monetary system is totally unnecessary and it would mean an up to 90% waste of humanity’s resources, as I explained in my blog I linked to in the OP. Have you read it?

At that point only intelligent planning is necessary and human beings are very good at that (world wars, moon shots, etc.)

I know that it is impossible at the moment to imagine a direct path from where we are to that level of sanity, but maybe an intermediate step can be imagined, as I outlined in the essay Alias quoted in the “Proposal for a New Social Contrcact” thread. onlinephilosophyclub.com/forums/viewtop ... amp;t=7667
I don't debate with the evaders, the hopelessly 'confused' or the too lazy to think -- life is too short!
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Re: Money - a blessing or a curse?

Post by Londoner »

You see: when humanity reaches a scientific and technological level where no scarcity is realistic to expect for all the goods and services necessary for healthy survival (and we have reached that point by now) , then regulating consumption by the monetary system is totally unnecessary and it would mean an up to 90% waste of humanity’s resources, as I explained in my blog I linked to in the OP. Have you read it?
It depends on the degree to which people are allowed choice. A society can allocate resources using any criteria it likes - equal shares for everyone, or give more or less according to age, educational achievement, popularity, need, moral worth - anything.

When that society has decided how it wants to allocate resources it can either do it by giving out the resources directly, or by giving out money to buy the resources. The advantage of money is that individuals can to some extent choose what they want - nicer clothes, a bigger house, heroin, whatever they prefer.

Another advantage of money is that not everybody consumes the same amount. If they are paid in money that they have no immediate use for, they can lend it to other people. The amount of resources are not fixed, so the spare money can be used to find new resources or improve the ones we already have.

True, we wouldn't need this flexibility if we had an all-wise dictator, who could tell us how we ought to live our lives and who will perfectly allocate the world's resources into investment or consumption. But we don't have one, different people have different ideas, so people prefer a system that gives individuals a level of choice i.e. money.
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Re: Money - a blessing or a curse?

Post by Elder »

Londoner wrote:True, we wouldn't need this flexibility if we had an all-wise dictator, who could tell us how we ought to live our lives and who will perfectly allocate the world's resources into investment or consumption. But we don't have one, different people have different ideas, so people prefer a system that gives individuals a level of choice i.e. money.
That is why I suggested a compromise, an interim solution in the "Proposal for a New Social Contract" thread.

No point repeating it here.
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Re: Money - a blessing or a curse?

Post by Alias »

Lagayscienza wrote: Yes, I can see that it adversely skews the value of things.
It also skews the entire structure of society. As more of the resources and effort are monaterized, less is devoted to the care and maintenance of people. The very citizen is devalued; allowed his risible little moment in the polling booth, then ignored; he becomes a function in the machine. (It's not as if literature and cinema haven't brought this problem to people's attention before.) Society becomes a vehicle for the money instead of an organization of humans. And all of nature becomes an open sewer.
Alias wrote:But aren't those credits just a virtual form of money that could be accumulated like money? As you say, "it works like money". I agree it would be great if we could rid us of the bankers and the skewed values caused by money.
That's a barter system; a hybrid. It's still tied to the larger economy, but at least it cuts out some of the waste and makes an attempt, however imperfect, at minimizing exploitation and disparity.
But if I wanted to borrow to, say, build a house or start a widget factory how would credit work? Why would anyone lend me some of their credits if there were no profit motive to do so?
There is the nub of the Grandmother con. Why would you want to borrow? Why would anyone want to borrow? We don't want to; we're forced or manipulated into borrowing, because the system was skewed before we got here and we don't even question

how comes it that he who has much when I have none has much and I have none? We don't even question that that he who has much should get even more by lending to those who have even less.

We don't even question the concept of profit. That's what the 'owner' class walks off with after the resource-retrieval, the energy, the infrastructure, the tools, supplies, labour, garbage removal, packing and shipping, insurance, taxes and bookkeeping have been paid for. The free-floating cream. How does it get to the surface - up there, where no miner, janitor, shipping clerk or line-welder has ever been able to look? Where does profit comes from?

You don't need to understand economics to see a discrepancy between the reality of a finite world and the infinite growth required by profit. But if you wanted to learn more, I recommend John Kenneth Galbraith, particularly Economics in Perspective - A Critical History.

[...capital is the Grandmother of all Frauds in the civilized world (Guess what the Grandfather is) Establishment Religion, of course. Work for the boss till you drop; then sing for The Boss for eternity. ]

-- Updated July 7th, 2015, 11:09 am to add the following --
Londoner wrote: That has nothing to do with money. It was also true under the feudal system that those who worked on the land were poorer than those that owned it.
If I'm not sorely misinformed, money predates the feudal system by a millennium or so.
This was because there was not enough productive land (under the technology of the period) but plenty of labour.
You mean there is more land now? Per capita, or just the ex-rain-forests given over to making beef for obese Americans? Actually, just before the Little Ice Age, there was a period (1100-1300 the epitome of feudalism) when Europe enjoyed unprecedented good weather, when arable land was extended and extremely productive. (Of course, there is and was more to the world than Europe, and other civilizations had money.)

No, it's because all the land ownership was abrogated - in big part through protection rackets, in the form of money, which the peasants didn't have and couldn't get, so they had to pay in produce, labour and land; fell into debt and indentured to the warlords. They, in turn, supported the king, who could dispense favours, both in land and license to collect tax, build fortified castles or take tolls on the road. Royal favours were, of course, bestowed according to whichever warlord contributed most soldiers and gold coins to 'the realm'. The warlords could recruit soldiers, because there was money to pay them with, and some men would rather fight than work.
There is nothing, certainly not the existence of money, to stop us regulating wages, profits, pollution or anything else.
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.
You will have to explain what you mean by 'carrying the bankers' and how some alternative system would avoid it but not create worse problems.
I already have. Not just the bankers - the whole financial apparatus. They add nothing to the economy: no food, shelter, medicine or information - yet they take the most profit out of it. A central computer allocating actual resources where they're needed instead of a six- or seven-tier system of money-shuffling (with some sticking to every hand along the way) to get any goods or services to the end user, would be way more efficient, as well as providing fewer loci for error and theft. Also, of course, the simple fact of dealing with the real potatoes and drill-bits, instead of a symbol for their market value, reduces the very desire for theft. How many computer operators really want a truck-load of drill-bits?
[capital is the Grandmother of all Frauds in the civilized world]

It is a fraud because...?
You're told that you have unlimited choice by the same people who make you wear white shirt, grey jacket and black socks five days a week. Why do you believe them?
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Re: Money - a blessing or a curse?

Post by Londoner »

Alias
If I'm not sorely misinformed, money predates the feudal system by a millennium or so.
Certainly, but it wasn't used to pay labourers, so the fact they were not as well-off as the land-owner was not because of the existence of money. Nor was it money in the modern sense.
Me: This was because there was not enough productive land (under the technology of the period) but plenty of labour.

You mean there is more land now? Per capita, or just the ex-rain-forests given over to making beef for obese Americans? Actually, just before the Little Ice Age, there was a period (1100-1300 the epitome of feudalism) when Europe enjoyed unprecedented good weather...
I mean there is effectively more land now because the factors that limited land use in feudal times have been solved through technology, notably the use of fertilisers. We can also transport and store agricultural products better, so we can make use of land that is distant from markets, and so on.
No, it's because all the land ownership was abrogated - in big part through protection rackets, in the form of money, which the peasants didn't have and couldn't get, so they had to pay in produce, labour and land; fell into debt and indentured to the warlords.
Yes, except not because of money. Not all land ownership was in the hands of the warlords, it depended where you were. But an independent peasant (as distinct from a commune) was only one bad harvest away from loosing their independence. After that, because they had to borrow seed they were reduced to some form of share-cropping. But it is unlikely that money was involved; in a subsistance economy, where you eat what you grow, money has a limited use.
They, in turn, supported the king, who could dispense favours, both in land and license to collect tax, build fortified castles or take tolls on the road. Royal favours were, of course, bestowed according to whichever warlord contributed most soldiers and gold coins to 'the realm'. The warlords could recruit soldiers, because there was money to pay them with, and some men would rather fight than work.
Again, not really. Feudalism is a system of relationships based on land, not money. A knight holds land from the king; in return he owes the king military service. It is a personal, not a money, bargain. Similarly, the peasants, the burghers in the towns, the priests and everyone else are part of a complicated system of rights and duties. That interplay of rights and duties has today been replaced by money relationships, but not then.

Taxes are generally paid in kind; by service or in goods. As you say, money is useful for foreign wars if you need mercenaries and have to buy locally, but it does not drive the system.

But the point we are discussing here is that you could have the same inequalities then without money having the place it does today. I think it is about the society, not money.
Me:There is nothing, certainly not the existence of money, to stop us regulating wages, profits, pollution or anything else.

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.
Absolutely, but that isn't caused by money. Wealth creates power, power creates wealth. Whether that wealth is in gold, or bits of paper, or land, or soldiers doesn't really matter.
Me: You will have to explain what you mean by 'carrying the bankers' and how some alternative system would avoid it but not create worse problems.
I already have. Not just the bankers - the whole financial apparatus. They add nothing to the economy: no food, shelter, medicine or information - yet they take the most profit out of it. A central computer allocating actual resources where they're needed instead of a six- or seven-tier system of money-shuffling (with some sticking to every hand along the way) to get any goods or services to the end user, would be way more efficient, as well as providing fewer loci for error and theft.
If bankers add nothing to the economy, then why would you need a computer to replace them? That is not an argument against bankers - it is a claim you could devise a system that would do banking better! (Not saying you couldn't)

I am sceptical that computers are up to the job, but anyway that supposes we agree the optimum way of getting goods or services to the end user. We don't. For example, some would do so according to need, others would say we need to reward those who are most productive, and so on.
Also, of course, the simple fact of dealing with the real potatoes and drill-bits, instead of a symbol for their market value, reduces the very desire for theft. How many computer operators really want a truck-load of drill-bits?
Very few, so instead of giving them a truck load of drill-bits we give them money, then an individual computer operators can decide how many drill-bits they need. There is an argument that this works better than any central computer allocating the distribution of drill bits.
capital is the Grandmother of all Frauds in the civilized world

Me: It is a fraud because...?

You're told that you have unlimited choice by the same people who make you wear white shirt, grey jacket and black socks five days a week. Why do you believe them?
I don't think having a dress code for work can be described as fraud. If I have some money, I can choose what to wear in my own time. If I have lots of money, I don't have to work at all.

OK, people are persuaded that there are no options, that capitalism is somehow natural, that things have to be this way. But I wouldn't blame capital for this; capital is just a thing, it has no motives.

As I say, I expect I agree with you about a lot of things; I just don't think the existence of money is the significant factor in creating the evils of society.

-- Updated July 7th, 2015, 1:42 pm to add the following --
Elder wrote: That is why I suggested a compromise, an interim solution in the "Proposal for a New Social Contract" thread.

No point repeating it here.
I cannot tell what problem you are solving. It seems to involve lots of different things and it isn't clear how you think they are related to each other or to money.
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Re: Money - a blessing or a curse?

Post by Elder »

Londoner wrote:I cannot tell what problem you are solving. It seems to involve lots of different things and it isn't clear how you think they are related to each other or to money.
I told you at the beginning of this thread: MAJOR thinking outside the box is required.

You probably didn't read through the whole "Social Contract" thread -- a lot of interesting comments were made by some very interesting people.

And it had to do everything with money.

Maybe, give it a second chance and think it over, give it time -- it might make sense. :)
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Re: Money - a blessing or a curse?

Post by Alias »

Londoner wrote:[money predates the feudal system]

Certainly, but it wasn't used to pay labourers,
Of course it was! The potters who made the Chinese emperor's toy soldiers, the masons who built the pyramids, the blacksmiths who forged the knights' swords and the coopers who made the barrels for their ale. Also midwives, prostitutes and priests for first, passage and last rites.
so the fact they were not as well-off as the land-owner was not because of the existence of money.
Only serfs didn't get paid, and that's because they were chattels indentured to the land.
Nor was it money in the modern sense.
How does the modern sense of money differ from the medieval sense?
I mean there is effectively more land now because the factors that limited land use in feudal times have been solved through technology, notably the use of fertilisers. We can also transport and store agricultural products better, so we can make use of land that is distant from markets, and so on.
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. They produced enough food for everybody. But they also had to carry their own parasite classes.
... Not all land ownership was in the hands of the warlords, it depended where you were. But an independent peasant (as distinct from a commune) was only one bad harvest away from loosing their independence.
Why??
After that, because they had to borrow seed
From whom?
they were reduced to some form of share-cropping.
By whom? By what means?
But it is unlikely that money was involved; in a subsistance economy, where you eat what you grow, money has a limited use.
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.
Feudalism is a system of relationships based on land, not money. A knight holds land from the king; in return he owes the king military service.
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.
It is a personal, not a money, bargain.
It's personal only in that the soldiers, crafters, labourers and peasants don't get a vote: they're pledged to service by their lord. But what do you suppose happens when soldiers and crafters don't get paid? The army evaporates and you lose the king's favour and he lets your rival build a fortified castle while you're left vulnerable to attack, and pretty soon, your land belongs to your poxy cousin and you have to hire out as a mercenary.
Similarly, the peasants, the burghers in the towns, the priests and everyone else are part of a complicated system of rights and duties. That interplay of rights and duties has today been replaced by money relationships, but not then.
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. Always causing trouble. eh.net/book_reviews/money-in-the-mediev ... -973-1489/
... As you say, money is useful for foreign wars if you need mercenaries and have to buy locally, but it does not drive the system.
From absent entirely to 'driving' the system is a big step. I haven't claimed either.
But the point we are discussing here is that you could have the same inequalities then without money having the place it does today. I think it is about the society, not money.
Not quite the same inequalities. 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. The biggest problem though, is an ever-more-bloated superstructure that exists for no other purpose than to move money around.
L: 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.

Absolutely, but that isn't caused by money. Wealth creates power, power creates wealth. Whether that wealth is in gold, or bits of paper, or land, or soldiers doesn't really matter.
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. Power doesn't create wealth; it accumulates wealth. It takes wealth out of the nation and hands it over to private enterprise. It takes the labour and time, health and happiness of the citizen and puts in the service of the corporation. And the way it does this is through employment and debt. They don't need the soldiers anymore strutting up and down Main street to strike a little fear into a shepherd with ideas above his station; they've conned people into working extra hours and handing over the fruits of their labour voluntarily. That's a whole lot easier to do with an invisible, magical, infinitely malleable medium of exchange.
If bankers add nothing to the economy, then why would you need a computer to replace them?
You don't. The computer is for planning and administration, so that appropriate goods and services are where they're needed.
I am sceptical that computers are up to the job, but anyway that supposes we agree the optimum way of getting goods or services to the end user. We don't. For example, some would do so according to need, others would say we need to reward those who are most productive, and so on.
I didn't say people would stop arguing. But they might have more substantial issues to vote for than which party could afford the flashier advertisements.
so instead of giving them a truck load of drill-bits we give them money,
Nonono! I said he's not motivated to embezzle a truckload of drill-bits. He is - very much! - motivated to misdirect a truckload of money.
I don't think having a dress code for work can be described as fraud.
Well, I just did. In juxtaposition with being told how much free choice you have.
If I have some money, I can choose what to wear in my own time.
If they let you save both money and time... sure.
If I have lots of money, I don't have to work at all.
How does one get lots of money and lots of free time? Not by working in a sawmill.
... But I wouldn't blame capital for this; capital is just a thing, it has no motives.
A tank is just a thing without motives, too. Even so, I'd want to take it away from the guy who used it to flatten my village and kill my family.
Those who can induce you to believe absurdities can induce you to commit atrocities. - Voltaire
Logic_ill
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Re: Money - a blessing or a curse?

Post by Logic_ill »

Money has probably been a curse but it wasn't meant to be so.

My question regarding incentive to work and be rewarded is, whether or not people who have access to goods and their basic needs met and are at the same level as everyone else would want to go through medical school, or attain a degree in engineering, chemistry, biology, etc? Some subjects may be of interest to fewer people because they might require more effort to learn. If that's the case, and there's no hierarchy in society, then there may be fewer and fewer doctors, chemists, etc. but a growing need for them. The work of medical doctors can be gruelling, especially if there are so few.

Another thing that many people may not want to do is clean up or other jobs that cannot be automated, if they are always the ones who have to do it. I suppose these types of duties should be equally distributed among the able. But you cannot do that with the professional jobs. Sports is another area that might decline because it requires much effort. If it's not rewarded, then people may want to play sports for fun but will not see so much reward in being the best.

Yes, people might work in a moneyless society, but they may not want to overachieve or work too hard, if they are not rewarded somehow. The level of competency might lower. Some people may have a natural inclination to work hard, but if it's too hard and everyone else doesn't have to and are in the same position, then the hard worker might resent it.
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Elder
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Re: Money - a blessing or a curse?

Post by Elder »

Logic_ill wrote:Yes, people might work in a moneyless society, but they may not want to overachieve or work too hard, if they are not rewarded somehow. The level of competency might lower. Some people may have a natural inclination to work hard, but if it's too hard and everyone else doesn't have to and are in the same position, then the hard worker might resent it.
What is your motivation?

Since you are not working for money, you are doing as good a job as you know how. Your motivation is pride and the respect of your fellow workers.

If you don’t like your chosen profession, you experiment with different skills and decide what you would like to do next. You can have further education at any time during your lifetime, you can retrain to do other things. The system supports you during retraining because it is society’s interest that you do what you are best at and enjoy doing.

Nobody wants you to do shoddy work, just because you are bored or frustrated. If you did, everybody would be harmed by the result.

Some people may try 3-4-5 different things before they find the one they enjoy most and are best at. Many people will stay with what they trained for at the first time. It all works out statistically.

In a money-based economy, most people’s aim is to acquire the largest amount of money, in the shortest possible time, with the minimum of effort, by whatever means, not necessarily honest and productive ones. This includes many non-productive, shoddy or downright destructive methods.

If money doesn’t exist, then the aim is to produce the best quality, most durable, useful products with minimum resources wasted, best methods and technologies used.

In a sizable society (like a country) the distribution of individual talents, interests and skills over the population should cover society's needs. Not much external motivation is required other than letting people be themselves and allowing talent to thrive. Everybody is good at something. It will all work out.

At the other end of the spectrum:

For intelligent, middle class, highly educated citizens it is hard to imagine that there are people with very limited skill-potential, at the low end of the Bell curve. It is not a put-down of people with lesser abilities, just a description of reality.

These people, who find it hard to learn more complex skills, still want to have their place in society, they still want to be appreciated and not looked down on as parasites. They still enjoy the company of their own social strata and will seek out opportunities to contribute.

By statistical distribution, chance and accident, all the lower skill-level jobs will find people wanting to do them. They can do them well or badly and they will know which of the two they are. They still can feel pride in a task well performed and recognized by their peers.

As technology improves and resources get liberated, most of the unpleasant jobs will be either automated to some degree or, at the least, made as unpleasant as possible by providing helpful tools.
I don't debate with the evaders, the hopelessly 'confused' or the too lazy to think -- life is too short!
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