Forum Post: Abolish Money? Then what?
Posted 13 years ago on Oct. 17, 2011, 11:51 a.m. EST by Cindy
(197)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
How can we possibly live in a world without money? Really now.
If there was a better way to live people would have thought of it by now. Right?
I'm not sure people would want to cooperate in a volunteer sort of way to make sure all of the needs are met. I'm not sure if people would want to invent stuff and share it if there was not a wallet with paper and plastic involved. That would just be weird.
If a guy or girl goes to school for a long time to learn to heal people and help them to be healthy and happier why would he or she want to do THIS without paper or plastic?
Abolishing money would be like abolishing slavery sort of. The slave owners didn't want that and there was fighting.
Why on earth would anyone want to share resources in a fair way when we can fight, have really poor people and have power plays instead?
Anyways, would a majority in the world really prefer living in a voluntary cooperative setting rather than this slightly flawed system we currently have? A how many bums wouldn't participate?
If there was some sort of unifying way to live with each other that would be weird too cause a lot of peeps like to separate you know. Acourse if there wasn't money involved the world might be different.
Idk, what should we do?
Money is the reason behind crime, hate, corruption, lies, mistrust, backstabbing, divorce, war, inequality, and even death to a certain degree. Why is our world so concerned with keeping this system in place. What percentage of people are in prison over money? People sell drugs, steal, cook the books, lie about company profits, and even kill to provide for their family and earn more money. If there was no incentive to have money how many people would be occupying our privately owned and operated jails?
Money is only symbolic. The reason behind crime, hate, corruption, lies, mistrust, backstabbing etc is the desire for power. Material possessions are simply an outward symbol of power. Taking away money is removing the symptom but failing to treat the disease.
There seems like a lot of eerie similarities between abolishing slavery and abolishing money. On both sides of this equation.
Gradually transition to a resource based economy, an money/currency won't be needed.
I agree. Money is our enemy in our economy and Gov't. Take that out of the picture and corruption diminishes.
what exactly does that mean....cause it sounds like really similar to the system we have....almost like cousins. Not exactly father and son but definitely still in the family.
Here's a good short video explaining a resource based economy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDhSgCsD_x8
you know which communities have no money??
prisons.
guess what they use instead? cigarettes
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Who says abolish money? What we should not worry about is short term debt. We need continued stimulus to milk the lack of demand.
Try thinking outside the box for one minute. We've been programmed to think we need money - but we don't. It would be a great jump forward to a truly cililized and spiritual would to end money. It's (fiat) money, private banking (usury) free markets and capitalism that got us into this incredible mess. Jesus kicked the money changers out of the temple - that's what we have to do, His message is very clear. The temple is this world we were supposed to look after; the moneychangers - well, I don't have to tell you, do I.
"Abolish Money? Then What?"
Democracy.
No money? No problem.... say hello to your new currency! 800 lbs chariot wheels! Tradable for goods and services everywhere!
Huh?
I'm being facetious.... the reason we use paper currency (or, indeed, any "currency") is because it's much easier than the methods of payment we used to use throughout history. I use chariot wheels as an extreme example, but without currency of some type that's more or less what we'd be back to.
That's what I knew you meant...I was just hoping you'd think for a moment before explaining. I don't think the idea put forth(non-monetary ) has anything at all to do with going back. The opposite in fact. It seems sometimes education works in the reverse. People cannot see beyond what they already have knowledge of or have already read.
While you meant to be facetious, you were actually being facile.
The vast majority of people through human history never touched a piece of currency. Up until the 17th and 18th Centuries money was primarily used on the boarders of nations. Most people either bartered or paid in kind.
Anyways, this Smithian idea that humans have a natural propensity to 'truck, barter and trade' is historically bankrupt. Resist the urge to take our modern world and thrust it back into history. Before you condescend to other posters you should do your homework.
Whoa! That one gives me so much to work with!
I remind you, I was being funny in my original post, but you've given me such a wonderful opening, allow me then, to undress your rather crude remarks.
To the first point, yes, I was being superficial with my original comment, I'm glad you noticed, that was the entire point. I'm glad to see such self apparent things do not escape your keen crasp. I am pointing out the absurdity of those posting here that would suggest we do away with currency.
The next: "The vast majority of people through human history never touched a piece of currency...."
This is, of course, completely true. Humans have been on Earth for atleast 100,000 years, and indeed, for most of that time we got by without currency. So you're right, the majority of people in human history never did touch currency, because it didn't exist.
However - and this is where, perhaps, you need to brush up on your own homework before you suppose to lecture others do the same - currency, of some form, has been in common use for most of the last 4000 years. So if we want to debate neolithic human subsistence economies, we can speak as if there's no currency in this equation, but if you want to touch subjects related to economics within the last, oh, let's say 500 years to keep it even vaguely relevant, it's not possible to discuss that without the concept of currency being involved.
read bitcoin the answer
Indeed. But, my idea of creating an American Public Fund to buy all the banks, in my mind, remains very feasible. Let us all be bankers!
Yuck....go back to the drawing board!
Seriously why not, fight evil with evil?
[Deleted]
Hahaha, I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess you haven't been to the rallies.
Correct, although highly supportive and equally outrage.
"If there was a better way to live people would have thought of it by now. Right?"
This is the kind of logic that stops people from thinking outside the box. Think of the number of inventions that would never have happened if there weren't some people who refused to accept limitations. It is this type of malignant whispering that kills the spirit. Remember 'worm tongue' in Lord Of The Rings?
We are on the cusp of societal evolution. Will all wimps please get the hell out of the way.
Ppl must be educated about the idea of eliminating money.
Most ppl I talk to don't realize how practical it is and that many famous/wise ppl, including Jesus believed in eliminating money.
http://666ismoney.com/MoneyQuotes.html
Half the ppl in U$A work at unnecessary jobs (banker, cashier, insurance, etc.)
With abundance (modern machinery) barter & hoarding is unnecessary.
Technocracy is what we need, not politicians.
Ya, good point. Y'all are smart.
I honestly am in no mood for up and scrapping our current system of government or our current economic system. I'm here because I believe that some variation on the New Deal is the best way to fix this country and OWS offers the best chance at getting something like that through (or at least bringing it to the public consciousness) out of everyone right now.
Yeah, and it's kinda hard to even imagine a world so different than what we have. It seems like stability to keep it at least similar to what we already have. It would really be a complete overhaul, a revolution of sorts and we'd be going way out on like a limb.
That would be great, but how much support do you think you'll be able to garner for such a revolution. OWS already has a reputation among one whole group of Americans as a bunch of crazy hippies and communist loons; so far this movement has managed to avoid being co-opted by the communists and has remained remarkably sane, drug-free, etc. If we start supporting proposals that are too far out there we'll lose a lot of supporters and a lot of our voice.
Over time a complete overhaul of society would probably be a good thing; I never said that human society could ever really stop evolving. The thing is that social revolutions like the one you suggested don't really work out so well; I would much prefer that society eventually evolve to a point where large corporations and high finance are not necessary for all of us to have happy and prosperous lives, but trying to force it through a revolution is most likely going to backfire badly.
I see. They probably are all hippies and communist loons. Nevermind.
We've got to get unlimited, unidentified Wall Street and corporate money out of political election campaigns!!
Hear Hear....should we go any further?
use your imagination;)
For everyone that keeps saying we need to get rid of money. I tell you, money is a tool. It allows me to trade my time, efforts and intelligence for money, which I can later trade for food, shelter and security. If there was no money, I would have to trade my time for food. If I wanted to eat, I would have to find someone with food that also wanted my services. And I would have to do this 3 times a day, every day.
Money/currency is simply a tool that allows me to trade my time, efforts and intelligence for food, shelter and security.
Oh really, you haven't noticed that were in the 21st century yet? Did you think these people are speaking of going backward not forward?
Put on your thinking cap....imagine no need for the tool or maybe we could call it the middle man. Have you ever done volunteer work? It's quite popular in some parts of the country so some people are more advanced along these lines with an understanding of how it works.
Streeeetch your imagination....no need for the broken tool.
Nothing has ever began without the imagination....no business has ever started without the imagination....no invention etc.....
All fiat currencies (unbacked currency) through history have eventually failed. Our dollar is on the same path. Nixon took the gold backing off.
Hard to eliminate greed, but when you take away a failsafe backstop like gold, then we head down that slippery slope of eventual failure. Big question is when.
What about when the gold standard failed during the Great Depression?
All fiat currencies (unbacked currency) through history have eventually failed. Our dollar is on the same path. Nixon took the gold backing off.
Hard to eliminate greed, but when you take away a failsafe backstop like gold, then we head down that slippery slope of eventual failure. Big question is when.
All fiat currencies (unbacked currency) through history have eventually failed. Our dollar is on the same path. Nixon took the gold backing off.
Hard to eliminate greed, but when you take away a failsafe backstop like gold, then we head down that slippery slope of eventual failure. Big question is when.
Wikipedia already succeeded without paying everybody to write those articles. People working on Wikipedia traded information for free. Why can't you do it with goods?
Here's my idea: http://occupywallst.org/forum/to-help-small-businesses-and-the-community-an-idea/#comment-114776
I'm not saying that we're hippies or loonies, and I'm sorry if that's how I came off; I've been to Zucotti Park and most of what you have there are hardworking Americans who lost their jobs and can't support themselves, students whose student loans are enough that they're looking at having to pay them off for the rest of their lives, and people who dropped out to avoid loans and now have no employment prospects. All of these people want something better for this country and OWS is their venue to agitate for it.
Here's where you and I don't seem to be on the same page: I believe that a purely technical fix based on Keynesian economics and New Deal-type federal policies are fully capable of providing a better, more stable, and more prosperous country. I believe that a combination of relief, regulation, and reinvestment spurred by an active public sector has the potential to kick-start the economy again and fix the mess we're in. See this for a better articulation of my policy ideas: http://nycga.cc/2011/09/22/the-demand-is-a-process/#comment-3839
The problem is that people are incredibly leery of anything that requires government involvement or intervention, and would dismantle the government at the first opportunity rather than give it both the opportunity and the responsibility to clean up this mess. The very idea of a New Deal 2.0 scares even a large group of people on this forum, let alone whole chunks of the American electorate (whom we're eventually going to have to convince to get on board if we want to get this stuff through.) If we come out and actually try to get behind the abolition of money the backlash is going to be enormous. OWS would be a laughingstock at best and subject to demonization at worst, and our ability to push ideas through would instantly go to zero. I'd much rather see a moderate solution gain traction and be implemented than have something like this destroy our credibility.
the laughing stock and backlash kinda sorta like President Lincoln went through to free the slaves.......Hmmmm.
...And we lost a full 2% of our population, laid waste to half the country, and then wound up leaving that half to fester in its own racism and resentment for nearly a century that way. By the way, I'm not impugning the civil war in any way, shape, or form here. I am, however, pointing out that even fully justified changes have quite a cost associated with them and should not be undertaken lightly.
Besides, I don't think we need to abolish money to clean this mess up and nor do I think that this country is ready to take that big a step. Money is not inherently evil; it simply has an incredibly strong tendency to aggregate and that tendency is a double-edged sword. On the up side, if there's money in a particular industry that's doing something important for society, more money will try to follow it in and that industry will have everything it needs to make a difference. The other side of that is when money decides to procreate without doing any work (i.e. high finance). Then we get incredibly concentrated wealth and power in the hands of a small group and life for the rest of us gets very difficult.
The point of regulations that I've put forth is allowing growth of the first kind to continue while shutting down "growth" of the second kind. What I'm curious about is what you think of those ideas as a start. If they are enough to fix things, then we stop there. If not, then ideas such as the abolition of money will have their day in the limelight simply because nothing else is working.
It reminds me when my mama tells me that I can't have a new coat but she'll put another patch on the one I have. If that's the best we can do mama, I say.
Exactly; that is the best we can do for now. Actually abolishing money and starting over would be equivalent to taking the funds for the new coat out of the rent money. Now you're warmer, but we're spending the next month in the homeless shelter because we couldn't make rent. The analogy actually hits home a bit; my mom had to watch the money really carefully because there was't much of it to go around. If patching the system we already have does the job, then we start there and see what grows out of it.
I forgot to tell you that mama bought a new diamond ring for her pinky finger the day before the patch got sewn on my coat. : (
Hold on a sec. I agree with you that our current system serves only a very small group, and it does so largely at the expense of the rest of us. However, I don't believe that our problem is the existence of money. I believe that our problem was allowing a bunch of greedy fools to set the direction of our economy and then refusing to discipline them or even to bring them back down to earth. I say deal with those responsible for the crisis, make restitution as best we can to those who got screwed, and then regulate the financial services industry and criminalize destructive tomfoolery of the type we saw on Wall Street over the past decade. Do that, and I guarantee you things will definitely improve.
okay
Im all for going back to a barter system, i grow vegetables, and have goats, can trade food far everything i need, can break out my AR15 and tale whatever else i want, its all good
Why do so many people jump to a going back idea when the new system would be going forward?
Imagine......how would that look? How would that be accomplished? They didn't teach it in school. Not even in the advanced degrees department....think...think...give up?
Ok so we go forward to a barter system, hard though because there are allllll these professionals that think their time is worth so much more, i think more people need kale and zucchini than they do a doctor! Or a quack dentist that just screws you up more! Anyway, am i going the right direction? :0)
Awakening Full movie by Douglas Mallette (explains current problems):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOO_AVwfZ9Q
Project Earth: A Resource Based Economy Explained (explains a possible solution)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDhSgCsD_x8
But we are not ready just yet. We need to free the world of extreme corruption and help many more people understand this idea. (A RBE) Then we can seriously discuss how to implement current technologies on a global scale. And of course, we absolutely must accomplish this while maintaining each person's autonomy.
I don't think money is inherently wrong. It is just a form of currency, just like a loaf of bread except it doesn't get stale. I think instead of abandoning money, we need caps on interest people can charge and a more transparent banking/lending system with open competition.
abolishing money makes no sense, and if you magically abolished money today, a new system of money would start tomorrow because people natrually need it.
kinda like how abolishing slavery just morphed into a new sense of slavery. i see.
"Money is a new and terrible form of slavery, and like the old form of personal slavery it demoralizes both slave and slave-owner, only much more, for it frees the slave and the slave-owner from personal, human relations with one another." — Nikoli Tolstoy, What Must We Do?, 1886
Not only that...sometimes I think we all seem like beggars of a sort. Those ads all over begging us to buy. If you want to start a business or have a successful one you still have to beg for customers....more and more clients, customers, members, investors whatever you happen to deal in....you gotta beg in one form or another...then others out beggin' for jobs.....it's all sorta demoralizing if ya ask me but then who am I...no one.
We will trade and bargain with loaves of bread instead
You can make more bread and bread rots. The breadmaker would be rich unless there is someway of making the ingredients of the bread worth more than the bread. Still an interesting concept. Is there a version of your idea with technology instead?
Worth.....worth....worth..............
It wouldnt work. Humans are not mentally advanced enough to work as a collective for the common good without having some type of reward system. If we did we would advance much faster because money hinders progress by quite a bit. But we just cant do it. Especially on a worldwide scale. Thus it is nothing but a pipe dream.
I guess dog treats won't be a sufficient reward. But, if only...
Yes and no.. Its not really the money.. Its the ego. Energy and the ego are represented in Money. Its a matter of changing the perception of ego. Thus resource based economy can work. Its just going to take baby steps. This movment might take decades to see change.
I suppose it might depend on the person cuz people who live from the ego I thinks can get a boost in different ways if that beez whats important. Some people's ego would be boosted by living a voluntarily interdependent life with the rest of society, having the ability to co-exist in a productive and satisfying way.
I have this wacky friend who thinks serving the needs of each other is like a human thing to do and could be quite natural if we are raised in such a way...hmmm
Not wacky at all, its just her way. As you said no one is the same.