Money? Is it even necessary?

[SEVERUSMAX]

Is money necessary for a large civilization? Hell, is a large civilization even necessary? Which is better, a world with or one without the existence of some form of money? Would barter be better?

 

[Evil Alpaca]

I'm kinda unhappy about money these days.

 

[JamesSD]

Is money necessary for a large civilization? Hell, is a large civilization even necessary? Which is better, a world with or one without the existence of some form of money? Would barter be better?

Currency is pretty damn convienient.

That said, I think the US is close to getting rid of actual physical cash.

 

[elsol]

How exactly does a corporation employing 100K workers pay them in barter?

You're getting carried away here, severus.


Sincerely,
ElSol

 

[the captians wench]

I think with the way things are set up barter is unrealistic. Let's just try to put this into practice at my McHell. Okay person comes up to the counter and wants a double cheese burger. What can I accept for in exchange? and some how There has to be guidelines so that one person isn't giving a cow for a double cheese burger and another trading a chicken for a double QPC. Paying the employees in this case is obvious, McyD's would pay in food. Which is one of the "beniffits" of working there now, a free meal every day you work, and half price food on your hours off. I just don't see it working. Now at my other job, the consignment people trade goods all of the time. I've even traded costumes for blades and floggers, or even floggings as the case may be. Because I make a good that some one else wants, and they make a good, or provide a service that I want, it works. But if I had to use something other than money to buy the fabric and other materials to make the costume, then I'd be in trouble. And then comes the issues of rent and electricity and it just goes on. I love the barter system, and like I said at the shop we use it all the time, but I don't think it's practical for every day life, not at this point in time.

 

[Munachi]

i'd like to pay my phone bills with potatoes.

 

[SEVERUSMAX]

It's a question. And, yes, I know it's extreme. I was curious about your thoughts. I personally doubt that a large civilization could survive without money. My slave thinks that the world would be better off without money, though. It was an issue that we discussed. She is clearly in favor of barter. She thinks that greed is the reason for using money. I am not so sure. However, if I were willing to accept less tech, then money could be abolished. Just depends. I like my thyroid meds, while I wouldn't miss fashion or bills.

 

[Wildcard Ky]

Hell yes money is necessary. You should see all the shit I want to buy, and them fellas want cash!

 

[Liar]

Money is just a tool to make bartering easier anyway.

Me, I want stuff for free.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

What was the last major civilization that operated on a barter economy?

It's impractical, from a stand point of major urban centers. It makes travel damn near impossible. Barter works well for a mostly sedentary society. Once industiralization begins, it becomes impracticle in the extreme.

 

[Guest]

when you dont have it, money is boring
but see how thrilled i would be with a squillion dallahs.

 

[Huckleman2000]

Is it too rude to point out that, in a barter economy, a pussy is worth a hell of a lot more than a dick?

 

[SEVERUSMAX]

Well, barter only appeals to the 10% of me that is Anarcho-Syndicalist. The rest of me thinks that it's unlikely to work (for those of you keeping track, that's the 5% Paleo-Conservative, 5% Jacobin, 10% Social Darwinist, 25% Centrist, and 45% Libertarian). It's one of those things that I discuss with my slave, where she and I don't completely agree. She knows that I have reservations. However, whenever we find out that we don't agree on a topic, we generally drop it and never bring it up again. No sense in having the same argument twice. If we were in a TPE (total power exchange) relationship, it might be different, but we're regular Master/slave, so she can still speak her mind, just like me.

 

[the captians wench]

Well, barter only appeals to the 10% of me that is Anarcho-Syndicalist. The rest of me thinks that it's unlikely to work (for those of you keeping track, that's the 5% Paleo-Conservative, 5% Jacobin, 10% Social Darwinist, 25% Centrist, and 45% Libertarian). It's one of those things that I discuss with my slave, where she and I don't completely agree. She knows that I have reservations. However, whenever we find out that we don't agree on a topic, we generally drop it and never bring it up again. No sense in having the same argument twice. If we were in a TPE (total power exchange) relationship, it might be different, but we're regular Master/slave, so she can still speak her mind, just like me.

*giggles*

 

[BlackShanglan]

To throw a Marxist dart at the question, money is absolutely necessary to the concept of capital, and therein Marx is tempted to see the root of all evil. Without money, it's difficult to have theoretical ownership of things one neither makes nor uses, and so it is more difficult to evolve the idea of capital.

Of course, as Colly observes, this presence of capital and ease of exchange via money seems to be requisite to an industrial society. Marx hems and haws about workers jointly owning the means of production, but I'm not convinced that he hasn't painted himself into a corner on the topic of industry. If there is no private property, then there can be no capital; if there is no capital, there is no need for money, but also no easy means of accumulating concentrations of goods and labor to create larger or more expensive means of production (like factories) and no clear system for their supply, use, and maintenance. His focus on alienation of labor seems to envision a world in which self-sufficiency is still a large part of the worker's ideal, and that is not something that fits together easily with industrialization and the connected emphasis on labor specialization.

Whether we'd be better without industry is an intriguing question. I actually agree with Marx that certain human virtues and natures are bent and twisted in an industrialized world, and that industry has a way of forcing all things to conform to a sort of ruthless efficiency. It is, as Morris observed, excellent at churning out great quantities of cheaply made and cheaply designed things, but not very good at producing beauty or happiness for either the laborer or the consumer. However, looking back to what food and clothing used to cost (percentage-wise) before industrialization, there is certainly somethng to be said for that flood of cheap goods - and looking at the world now, it's hard to unwish the advances medicine has achieved as a result of industrialization and specialization. Capital would seem to have its uses.

Shanglan

 

[SEVERUSMAX]

To throw a Marxist dart at the question, money is absolutely necessary to the concept of capital, and therein Marx is tempted to see the root of all evil. Without money, it's difficult to have theoretical ownership of things one neither makes nor uses, and so it is more difficult to evolve the idea of capital.

Of course, as Colly observes, this presence of capital and ease of exchange via money seems to be requisite to an industrial society. Marx hems and haws about workers jointly owning the means of production, but I'm not convinced that he hasn't painted himself into a corner on the topic of industry. If there is no private property, then there can be no capital; if there is no capital, there is no need for money, but also no easy means of accumulating concentrations of goods and labor to create larger or more expensive means of production (like factories) and no clear system for their supply, use, and maintenance. His focus on alienation of labor seems to envision a world in which self-sufficiency is still a large part of the worker's ideal, and that is not something that fits together easily with industrialization and the connected emphasis on labor specialization.

Whether we'd be better without industry is an intriguing question. I actually agree with Marx that certain human virtues and natures are bent and twisted in an industrialized world, and that industry has a way of forcing all things to conform to a sort of ruthless efficiency. It is, as Morris observed, excellent at churning out great quantities of cheaply made and cheaply designed things, but not very good at producing beauty or happiness for either the laborer or the consumer. However, looking back to what food and clothing used to cost (percentage-wise) before industrialization, there is certainly somethng to be said for that flood of cheap goods - and looking at the world now, it's hard to unwish the advances medicine has achieved as a result of industrialization and specialization. Capital would seem to have its uses.

Shanglan

An excellent demonstration of the quandary presented by the virtues and vices of industrial capitalism. And, since Communism proved a dismal failure, Marx's solution thus discredited, his question leads back to the very system that he spurned, unless one is willing to accept a return to at most the Amish way of life.

 

[rgraham666]

Money is simply a tool. As such it has no ethical qualities whatsoever. And it is entirely imaginary, an idea.

But a damned useful idea.

Major problems start when we invest it with ethical qualities, make it good or evil. If we make it good, then we start using it as a measure of a person's worth. Leading to the money grubbing, take no prisoners form of economy that does so much damage physically and psychologically. If we make it evil, we don't use it when we could, which would cause us to lose the advantages that our industry gives us.

More major problems when we treat money as if it was real. Then any method of creating it becomes useful. This causes things like Enron. Or the mad stock market we suffer from. Such methods of 'creating money' are inflationary, and when the schemes collapse a lot of 'real money', that is money actually connected to people goes with it.

Money's a very useful tool. But all tools have their limitations. And some aren't appropriate for some tasks.

Personally, I love civilization. Clean water, readily available food, education, efficient judicial and bureaucratic systems, good roads. What's not to like?

 

[gauchecritic]

Money is barter. We sell our services for which we are given promisary notes that others recognise and will give us goods or services for. In effect whatever we take from the shops we have 'paid' for with the sweat of our brow. (or the spread of our fat arses in some cases)

The problem with capitalism is that money is seen and used as a commodity when it has no intrinsic value at all.

Again, (how many times?) communism is a theory of economy, nothing more, nothing is proven, nothing has failed in the theory of communism. If you look at capitalism, taking other values into account (class systems, power hoarding, famine, death and the ever present underclass) then you can count it as a failure in those terms. (all civilisations which depend entirely on a monetary structure are always doomed to failure)

Give me a government I at least voted against rather than "microsoft" to police my streets, collect my rubbish and teach my kids.

For the anti communists. (not anti Russians or anti chinese) Where in the idea of communism is progress denied?

Do you honestly imagine that universities, teaching hospitals, football clubs, boy scouts, pure research and original art or music can't exist in a society where they have a governernment of, by and for the people, where the workers control the means of production and that those who have give happily to those who do not?

Capitalism is a natural progression of barter. Barter eventually requires a common currency in order to gain things for which we have no products/services to offer. (When you've exchanged your pigs for chickens you end up with only chickens) When people start paying for chickens with chickens (money) that's when the chicken becomes valueless.

Money is neither a skill nor a product and therefore capitalism is built entirely on promises.

 

[SlickTony]

You've said it in a nutshell, RGraham. One of the less pleasant effects of a money-based culture is that if you have less of it than other people around you, you feel inauthentic. When I am particularly strapped, I don't even want to go outside.

 

[elsol]

deleted.

 

[SEVERUSMAX]

Money is simply a tool. As such it has no ethical qualities whatsoever. And it is entirely imaginary, an idea.

But a damned useful idea.

Major problems start when we invest it with ethical qualities, make it good or evil. If we make it good, then we start using it as a measure of a person's worth. Leading to the money grubbing, take no prisoners form of economy that does so much damage physically and psychologically. If we make it evil, we don't use it when we could, which would cause us to lose the advantages that our industry gives us.

More major problems when we treat money as if it was real. Then any method of creating it becomes useful. This causes things like Enron. Or the mad stock market we suffer from. Such methods of 'creating money' are inflationary, and when the schemes collapse a lot of 'real money', that is money actually connected to people goes with it.

Money's a very useful tool. But all tools have their limitations. And some aren't appropriate for some tasks.

Personally, I love civilization. Clean water, readily available food, education, efficient judicial and bureaucratic systems, good roads. What's not to like?

Damn, I think that's twice I have agreed with you in one day! Once again, waiting for the Gotterdammerung to happen!