Moneyless society : Would it benefit society?

[belovelife]

i think we should have a credit society where the amount of credits you have is proportional to education and moral status

 

and all the kids in school have the same credits

althought spcifically ood students get bonuses

[scottk]

But this is still commerce.

You are basically just calling 'money' by another name 'reward points'.

All money is, is an exchange of trust. The community already agrees upon the value of items in the 'units of trust' that are exchanged.

With your system, you are just adding limits to what people can do with the 'trust units' they have earned.

While this in and of itself would be difficult to get people to accept, it is far easier than the OP which does away with the idea of value all-together.

So while I like you idea, to an extent, it seems to be for a 'cashless' society, not a moneyless society the original poster proposed.

Another interesting idea, I just want to make sure any readers (as well as myself) are clear about what you are proposing. If I am off base, please let me know.

 

 

Perhaps you're right except for the use of the word exchange. My main desires with this system are 1. Non-transferability. The only person who can accumulate it is the person who earned it. No one can steal it, no one can manipulate it, etc, and it cannot be handed down which means that the children have to earn it just as the parents did. 2. Basics are without requirement other than to be a part of the system. 3. Some form of reward is given for people to have a built-in set of incentives to do their best in life.

 

I don't want any changing of hands of the "currency" or "credit" in any way.

[pgrmdave]

I can understand your point but how will there be a black market if cash ceases to exist? All basic needs will be essentially free and all other items would essentially be "status symbols" if you will, indicating that the person has contributed something of a certain level. There may be some abuses to the system that would need to be taken into account, but I don't think a "black market" will be one of them. There are also checks and balances that I have in mind that I think would help.

 

Besides, I'm not claiming to have all of the necessary details but I do have the vision of how it would operate. The details would need to be written down and researched and discussed at length until most if not all issues have been addressed.

 

There would need to be people like you involved to point out possible flaws or holes which would then be resolved.

 

If everybody's needs are met, are their wants met as well? Let's say that there's a lot of stuff I want. I don't need it, but I really want it. A big screen television. A nice car. Maybe there are other things I have that I don't want as much that somebody else wants. So, we decide that it makes sense to trade them without the go-between of these credits.

 

Maybe I want to do some illegal drugs. I clearly can't use my credits for that, so I have to come up with some other way to pay for them. Either I'm going to have to develop another system of money, or I'm going to have to barter - either way it's a black market.

 

 

Anybody can come up with an economic system that gets everybody what they need. That's not difficult. What's difficult is coming up with an economic system that deals with what people want.

[pgrmdave]

Perhaps you're right except for the use of the word exchange. My main desires with this system are 1. Non-transferability. The only person who can accumulate it is the person who earned it. No one can steal it, no one can manipulate it, etc, and it cannot be handed down which means that the children have to earn it just as the parents did. 2. Basics are without requirement other than to be a part of the system. 3. Some form of reward is given for people to have a built-in set of incentives to do their best in life.

 

I don't want any changing of hands of the "currency" or "credit" in any way.

 

Non-transferability isn't inherent in that system, it merely makes it more awkward to do so. I have to use my credit to buy something to transfer to somebody else if I want to give them money. More than likely, some form of currency would emerge, like in this story about prisoners:

Mackerel Economics in Prison Leads to Appreciation for Oily Fillets - WSJ.com

[scottk]

Non-transferability isn't inherent in that system, it merely makes it more awkward to do so. I have to use my credit to buy something to transfer to somebody else if I want to give them money. More than likely, some form of currency would emerge, like in this story about prisoners:

 

There might be some small amount of this but it would never take off due to it's limitations. It would be necessary to find participants which would not be so easy to do as it is in a prison since it would be fairly easy for someone to earn their way to what they want.

 

The question of "wants" is a difficult question to address since it brings out a lot of emotions, specifically ego and pride if you can call those emotions. We have become a "want" nation and even a "want" world to the detriment of everything else, including our health. We WANT cigarettes, we WANT huge TV's, we WANT destructive video games and horror movies, (I say "we" loosely since most of these things are not what I personally want) we want money, we want power, we want freedom to do whatever the f#$% we want to do. We can tell this because we put our wants above our needs at every stage. We need health and food and shelter, but the big screen TV comes first. We need a good education, but the $150 sneakers come first. We need good mentors, but the f-word laced rap music comes first (I have no idea why on this one - it sucks in my opinion).

 

I think much of this will be tamed when the top rewards in society come from doing positive things such as teaching and there is no need unmet. We'll never eliminate all negativity, since some people are just wired that way, but we can eliminate the motivation behind the positive people turning negative.

 

The comment that it's easy to create an economy that meets the needs is unfounded since none have done so completely. We have huge populations in the world, including within the US that don't get enough food to eat nor a good enough education nor adequate health care and shelter. If it were so easy to deal with that list then we wouldn't have these conditions.

[Michaelangelica]

3. National currencies. What do these odd numismatic relics have to do with today's roiling global economy? There is no national currency remotely strong enough to resist persecution by speculators. They're all potential bubbles — panics in the making.

 

If cash becomes king, what happens when market forces smash the cash?

Was that inky paper really, truly supposed to be worth more than real estate, or unreal intellectual property, or shares in productive companies?

Why should anyone honestly believe that local treasury departments are somehow more credible than global bankers?

What on earth were people thinking?

Flee for the hills!

Seed: 2009 Will Be a Year of Panic

[irockhrdface]

A moneyless society is indeed possible. Of course it will not be perfect, but it would be a whole lot better than what we have now.

whats wrong?

We can feed the world, we have the resources but we don't, all because of money. :phones: People around the world kill each other over money. Technology is slowed down because of money (think alternative energy or giant corporations destroying a good idea). Money is primitive and used to be needed, but not so much anymore and someday I hope it will not be used.

guidelines

Eventually, technology will run mostly everything. Of course engineers and scientists will always be needed, but thats all. The service industry can all be automated, transportation can be provided along with healthcare and energy. Pretty much a self sustaining world, a world which no money is needed to live and no jobs needed to fill.

[TheBigDog]

Eventually, technology will run mostly everything. Of course engineers and scientists will always be needed, but thats all. The service industry can all be automated, transportation can be provided along with healthcare and energy. Pretty much a self sustaining world, a world which no money is needed to live and no jobs needed to fill.

Automated maintenance of the automation? Automated maintenance of the automated maintenance of the automation? Demand decides what needs to be supplied. People want jobs. People want to deal with people. The world you describe is as unlikely as perpetual motion.

 

Bill

[ABRanger375]

People make a lot of valid points in how to get such a society to work or why it wouldn't work. But lets look at the benefits of having it work and then we can decide weather or not it's worth trying. We could eliminate 90% of all crime as we know it today. We could greatly ruduce criminal gangs. We could ensure that no one goes hungry cause they can't afford to feed thier children. We could almost eliminate drugs. We could greatly reduce stress in the nuclear family and improve the way of life for families. We could provide a better educational system based on merit and achievement for all. We could improve the health care system immensely. We could focus eduactional requiremnets on the sciences thus improving mankind rather then focusing on financial careers. These are just a few but worthy reasons in my opinion to find away to incorperate a moneyless society into our lives.

[Buffy]

People make a lot of valid points in how to get such a society to work or why it wouldn't work. But lets look at the benefits of having it work and then we can decide weather or not it's worth trying...

Well, you're making the rather offensive argument that the people who state objections about why it won't work don't want it to work.

 

Everyone would love to have peace and love and goodwill toward men, and the folks who are arguing in the negative here don't question it's *value*, but they are arguing that the claimed benefits are impossible to achieve, thus meaning that no progress could be achieved, in fact many of the arguments are that the attempt would make things worse.

 

You're welcome to try to provide ways to solve these objections in a way that does not result in costs that simply can't be borne by society, but realize that that comes *first*, not some argument about the abstract "value" of a perfect society: that simply becomes a way to unjustifiably support even the most preposterous costs.

 

Anything not worth doing is worth not doing well,

Buffy

[E-Maither]

Hi,

I have just stumbled upon this website, and to my great joy I find many like minded people. I have been proposing a moneyless society for years, but always come up against the same objections from people who while they hate the present system, or are indifferent to it, will not even consider any alternative.

They know that money lies at the bottom of all poverty, greed, most crime, wars, hardship, and suffering. They are aware that it is used as the ultimate means of control by the few over the many. They even realise that it is a totally man made concept, and has nothing to do with nature's plan--you don;t see the animal kingdom hurting, abusing, and controlling one another for the love of money.

They come out with the old lines like, 'Yes I know it's bad, but better the devil you know...' or ' How can we possibly change the status quo, it's always been there...' (That one from the school of the bloody obvious!)

But by far the most common objection is 'it CAN'T work! How would you get anyone to work if there was no money?'

What a blinkered short-sighted response! Like there is nothing in life worth doing unless it's for monetary gain. These people don;t seem to understand that (A) this greed based attitude is BORN of a monetary based economy, and (:hal_jackolantern: Believe it or not, people do have a sense of vocation--look at the lifeboatmen for an example of people instinctively doing something just because it's the right thing to do. Given the chance to be rewarded in other ways than by means of filthy lucre, most of us would be happy to work for the good of all, including ourselves, instead of working for money that can and is so easily taken away from us.

OK, so how do we persuade people to do the less attractive, but equally important things necessary for society to function?

I got the anser from a little book I read called Windfall of the Wise, by Max Speed. In it the author suggests that everyone works for no more than twenty years and becuse they work they are entitled to everything they need to enjoy a fulfilled and contented life. And EVERYONE does the menial/boring/unpleasant jobs for one day of their working week. In other words, if you work, it is noted (electronically) and you get anything you need from a bowl of soup to a house to live in. If you don't work, you get nothing. Quite simple really.

Greed is greatly frowned upon, no one is allowed to take more than they need otherwise they risk enduring public distain--much like drink driving is viewed with great distain by many people, and apart from the legal consequences, people find that distain a deterrent in itself.

You retire at forty, because without money, everyone can afford to do so, and that allows young people to step into the workboots of the older generation of retirees. There would be 100% full employment.

Children are brought up learning these new values.

I can see that the biggest problem would be first of all convincing people to change things, and overcoming their fear of the unknown would probably be the biggest challenge to creating the new society, and that aspect is not very clearly emphasised in the book. It seems to look at the successful working of the new system at some point in the future when those hurdles have been jumped.

Maybe this set up is not perfect, and no doubt someone could spend a little time highlighting a few more problems with it, but to dismiss it in favour of keeping the venal old system that we all presently endure would surely be great folly, and will I'm sure, lead to our eventual demise.

It may be an utopian ideal, but apart from the authors arguments being a very good starting point for debating reform, it has GOT to be better than what we have now.

Has anyone else out there read this book? I would be keen to hear your views on it.

[Zythryn]

E-Maither, and others. You are working from a premise that money causes greed.

I do not believe that is valid, I think greed was the cause of money.

If that is the case, your entire argument falls apart.

Why do you believe money causes greed?

[Buffy]

:rolleyes:

 

Think about it this way: all the "bad" things that we point to in our own societies that have money exist in "moneyless" ones as well.

 

Do the anthropological research and in primitive societies you will still find hierarchies, discrimination, outcasts, "poor", wars, fighting for survival. etc.

 

I find that folks who have dreamy visions of what a Moneyless Society would be like are very much like the Conservatives who think that the 1950's or the 1800's or whatever represents "traditional values where everyone was moral and upright" were a perfect ideal to "go back to."

 

Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows, :phones:

Buffy

[Boerseun]

Money the cause of greed?

 

Now that's just wrong.

 

Money is just a placeholder. If you want to trade a leg of mutton for my nice string of beads, you can give me a leg of mutton - if I'm willing to take you up on the deal. If I do not want a leg of mutton for my beads, or you don't happen to have one handy at the time, we invent money, and the money acts as a proxy mutton leg, to be swapped for a leg of fresh mutton at my convenience with anybody else who's in on the "money" system at a later date.

 

The real question is why you wanted a string of beads in the first place.

 

Is it because your neighbour has got one, and your wife now thinks him more powerful than you? Envy and greed springs from the same source, and predates money.

 

Beads? Trinkets? This planet was colonised and opened up based on greed - and not necessarily only the greed of the colonists.

 

Money is not the cause of greed. If anything, money is a symptom of greed, and just makes it easier to satisfy our evil greedy human nature.

[lawcat]

Money, according to one of the most brilliant economists, is the measure of production--namely labor and resources. Labor to extract resources and provide a product has cost. The cost of me doing the labor and providing a product, is abstaining from reading my favorite book, running, or sleeping. To produce, I need to be moved to produce. That is done through economic incentive or through forced labor.

 

Moneyless society is a society of forced labor and slavery, because labor is not rewarded except to the extent deemed necessary by the administrative authorites for sustenance of life. Now, we can talk about profitless society, and how that should be defined, which is essentially communism, because to Adam Smith profit is the third part of output, in addition to labor and resources. We can talk about what is reasonable profit. But let's not be enthusiastic about moneyless society. It's not only unreasonable and foolish, but dangerous as well.

 

It is one of the fundamental principles of liberty that a person is entitled to the fruits of her labor. Implicit in that is that a person is entitled to produce as much as they are able to and be rewarded accordingly for that industry. Whereas, a not industrious person is entitled to her labor as well, to the extent of that labor. I prefer that freedom over dependence and slavery.

 

The mechanism we use to reward the output fairly is the free market economy--capitalism--a system of free bargaining in the market for the determination of value of the output. Here, we can talk about whether the reward system has some unfair characteristics and what to do to make it more fair. Whether the government or a cartel controls the field and individuals are not fairly compensated; or, whether individual output is not fairly incentivized to produced greatest societal good.

 

Our system may need fixing in some areas, but it is a shallow inquiry in a complex field of politics, commerce and economy to say moneyless society is the answer.

[Illiad]

If there is no money, why would the farmers in my country continue to grow rice other than to feed their own families? why would office workers even turn up? who will work in the factories? My fish I'm having for dinner tonight would be free but the only problem with it that it is not there because the fishermen did not go out to sea yesterday or this morning. Demand will severely increase and production will severely drop. People would live well beyond their contribution and the planet's resources will deplete quickly. This COULD be avoided if humans realize their roles they need to play and their responsibilities. But then it won't matter if money exist or not, will it?

[Baldershymn]

If there is no money, why would the farmers in my country continue to grow rice other than to feed their own families? why would office workers even turn up? who will work in the factories? My fish I'm having for dinner tonight would be free but the only problem with it that it is not there because the fishermen did not go out to sea yesterday or this morning. Demand will severely increase and production will severely drop. People would live well beyond their contribution and the planet's resources will deplete quickly. This COULD be avoided if humans realize their roles they need to play and their responsibilities. But then it won't matter if money exist or not, will it?

 

Money will cease to exist due to a few ongoing trends which are inevitable. One is the technological unemployment. That is human labour being replaced by more efficient machines doing the monotonous work of humans. Fifty years ago over 60% of the workforce was in agriculture, today it is less than 7%, but the production of foods are doubled.

 

Money was created to be a legal tender for human labour. Money is labour. Today we get paid by hourly work, money which we use to buy goods and consume. But when we are laid off due to technological replacement, we dont get paid, goods wont be purchased and hence the whole system will collapse.

 

The solution is not to stop this technological progress, but rather embrace it and automate food production and other productive industries. This way technological unemployment could be the emancipation of humankind.

 

We would get goods with the highest quality material, not kept cheap and made with planned obsolessence so you can go buy another one. We would have a system that would keep track of planetary resources, not depleting it, but change and find new materials to replace depleting ones.

 

Human wellbeing always comes second to profit. In a moneyless society human wellbeing will come first. Quality living, quality food, quality travel, everything will be made of the finest we know of today. There will be no property. But you will have access to everything you need to live. You can "borrow" a house until you want to move or until you die, then it becomes available for another human. If you want to move to Bahamas, a house will be ready for you to move in. No countries, as we realize we are symbiotic with the ecosystem and the planet as a whole.

 

As for your fish, I imagine you could go fishing as much as you like. There may be automated fish-harvest although how, I dont know yet. But in the future I also imagine we realize that we put a lot lesser imprint on enviroment if we dont eat meat. It takes many times more amount of wheat to produce meat. It is not sustainable in the long run.

 

Food production will happen in large greenhouses fully automated with hydroponics systems. This is possible, and is happening today.

 

Plans and blueprints are being made today to construct such a greenhouse, fully automated and monitored by computers. These greenhouses will produce the first food to be given away for free. The shift to moneyless society is already happening.

 

One thing also that will mark the paradigm-shift, is the announcement of a free-energy device. There are many machines made which claim to produce more energy than they use. The law of thermodynamics have been broken so many times now, that it is just a matter of time now before something comes to the marked. Problem with this is of course, that the economy will implode should such a machine be available to the public. We await. The triggers for an economic meltdown are many. One thing is for certain, one cannot deflate a debt-based bubble with either more debt, or by moneytizing it. So wether you believe in a moneyless society or not, it doesn´t matter, it will happen some time sooner than later.