No acquisition of wealth

[TimeTraveler]

I know this is very unlikely to happen anytime soon, but just speculate with me for a second.

 

Do you think it is possible for man-kind to go without economics as we know them? What if we got rid of all the currency in the world and the acquisition of wealth did not exist?

 

For example, in the science fictional world of Star Trek the acquisition of wealth is irrelevant, humanity works to better itself as a whole. Now I know there are many things to consider, food, resources ect ect. Everything money buys really. And in the Star Trek world they have replicators which can make anything they want or need.

 

Could and would humanity be able to handle the distrabution of food, resources and need without currency?

 

If it was able to, would that be an end to poverty, and extremely rich, putting everyone on an equal level?

 

I appreciate any thoughts or ideas!

[YT2095]

it is a very pleasant utopian ideal, but the basic Greed "instinct" in some people will always come through eventualy, whether there`s any need to be greedy or not.

 

 

we could learn alot from Animals in that respect.

 

edit: Ferengi, that`s the word I was after to describe the Mentality

[Spaceman]

I know this is very unlikely to happen anytime soon' date=' but just speculate with me for a second.

 

Do you think it is possible for man-kind to go without economics as we know them? What if we got rid of all the currency in the world and the acquisition of wealth did not exist?

 

For example, in the science fictional world of [i']Star Trek[/i] the acquisition of wealth is irrelevant, humanity works to better itself as a whole. Now I know there are many things to consider, food, resources ect ect. Everything money buys really. And in the Star Trek world they have replicators which can make anything they want or need.

 

Could and would humanity be able to handle the distrabution of food, resources and need without currency?

 

If it was able to, would that be an end to poverty, and extremely rich, putting everyone on an equal level?

 

I appreciate any thoughts or ideas!

 

The history of our species throughout the ages has answered that!! we need currency to perpetuate in a civilised world.Its not some new concept,people bartering with a pig didnt work.And as agriculture launched us forward from cavemen to developed communities and cities currency was and is a neccessity.You wouldnt go to work all week for nothing would you, or for two goats and a sheeps testicle.

just by holding a few dollars or pounds in your hand (metal and paper)you can buy food,houses whatever,when all your really holding is a promise that with this paper you can buy stuff and if i give it to you so can you.

[Ophiolite]

Even if we all became wholly altrusitic overnight I suspect we would still find money a usefull, indeed, an essential tool, to aid us in the efficient application of resources.

[Sayonara]

Currency is a necessary abstraction layer if you have resources with vastly different intrinsic values.

[jsatan]

lol. Some of the posts in this thread just show why we need money, I for one would love to live in a world with out money and greed, but this is what underlines all life. Ones own survival.

 

and even we humans with our big brains can not see pass or animal instincts. Which in many ways makes us no batter?

 

What do you really buy with money, others time of life. That’s why you get paid per hr.

 

The main problem is helping others is all good, but there are always the scum that don’t pull their weight, take others money and never put back into that pot.

My brother is one for a start, you know the sort I speak of.

 

It is a possible dream, but as long you remember not to let the USA know about it, or they will start a war with you.

 

edit, lol. imaging that you didnt know what money was or looked like, to make it easy think of 2 rocks.

1 rock is worth nothing while the other is worth something, sems pretty funny when you think about it.

[Spaceman]

Currency is a necessary abstraction layer if you have resources with vastly different intrinsic values.

 

Your comments are callow,could you provide exegesis to this imbroglio?

 

its only a bit of fun saya but its my belief if you cannot make yourself understood by an audience of people,in simple words and phrases,then your full of shite.Dont take that as an attack,as i said its just fun

[RICHARDBATTY]

I thought about this quite a bit before and the main problem would be getting people with money to give up the power it gives them. I suppose if money were made worthless then they couldn't do any thing about it but as they are generaly in the positions of power you better bet they'd find a way. I think the best thing to do would be for every one to be tested to see what their abilitys are and then to use those abilitys for the greater good and, as a reward you receive anything you want within your alocated resource quota. As for the advancement of science and technology, if the research and equipment was free and the people working on it had nothing to gain other than the enjoyment of a new discovery, I think we would advance faster than ever.

[Sayonara]

Your comments are callow' date='could you provide exegesis to this imbroglio?

 

its only a bit of fun saya but its my belief if you cannot make yourself understood by an audience of people,in simple words and phrases,then your full of shite.Dont take that as an attack,as i said its just fun[/quote']

I used simple words in a simple phrase.

 

If you can't understand it, then it must be because you are as thick as shit. Don't take that as an attack, as I said it's just fun.

[Spaceman]

hahaha nice reply but there is no reason to react like that,I said it for the simple or less educated here.You could have just said we need currency because resourses vary in value,as in no i want 3 cocks for 1 siemese pusssiee

[Rasori]

There is a human instinct for greed. We all have it, to varying extents. However, I used to think that if money was something no one had ever heard of, a concept like this could work. But humans don't work without incentives- most who do voluteer work are trying to get into a good college. If you were to take all of those people who were actually volunteers, you might be able to work this out. Or, if you were having people do work that will, in the end, protect them or allow them to get more food, clothes, etc, then you could probably even get a bunch of the less greedy to agree to this. Or, if you just have a robot workforce and make no one work, you could get everyone to .

 

The truth is, though, that even if you have a society that didn't know currency ever existed, they'll still come up with it. Obviously it's happened before, and it wouldn't take much to make it happen again.

[jsatan]

its not just humans who are greedy, its everything that lives on this planet.

[Rasori]

...Could you back that up, please?

 

I don't see chimps taking land from other animals unless they need more. And they sure as heck don't eat too many bananas, do they? They leave plenty for us. And the only animals making use (greedy use, at that) of the planet's resources is...what, humans, isn't it? I don't see 'fat' whales, they're all pretty close to the same size because they all eat what they need (pregnant ones not included). And did wolves ever kill off all the other animals in an area because they wanted to expand their territory? No, but humans did. The majority of animals that kill other animals kill the old, weak, and sick ones. So how is THAT greedy, if we humans only eat the healthiest of the bunch?

 

And I don't see any animals walking around giving paper certificates to take what they want, so they obviously don't steal anything since it's not stealing if its free. And yet, animals don't wipe each other out, like we do. Were we not on this planet, there wouldn't be any extinctions (aside from mass-extinctions).

 

So where do you decide that "everything that lives on this planet" is greedy? And don't get me started on plants, because those are things living on this planet, too.

[jsatan]

We must remember that other animals etc haven’t the brain power to know the hell to do with land anyway.

 

We take land because it’s worth money, the underlining idea is ones self survival, in our modern world getting as much as you can.

 

Why don’t most animals go around killing for what ever reason, well the same reason we haven’t gone to another planet and kill alien, too far for us to get there, I'd like to see a lion cross the sea.

When you talk about humans kill others etc, this is due to our population; it’s so big it’s out of control.

 

We are greedy for things that make our life better (money is just a means to an end, money wouldn’t be wanted if you couldn’t get things with it), this is true for every living thing on this planet.

 

You are trying to apply reasons to a reason-less world. This is your view of the world clouding your view.

 

We as humans get fat due to no competitions with other animals etc, top of the food chain. Nothing can eat us. This is what keeps other animals in equilibrium with their environment. If a lion of chimp learned to farm they too would in time become fat and then start to take more land to grow more food.

There is a million and one reason around what I say.

 

Wild dogs have their territory, if the pack gets bigger so does the territory to provide them with the resources they need.

 

As I've said with Humans our problem is over population.

 

Animals are stupid, we don’t just do something for no reason, there is always an underlining reason, and would gold be something you wanted if you didn’t know what it was?

 

Just think for more than one minute and you will some get the idea, if you think the humans are the only greedy thing in this world then you really need to study biology and read on Darwin.

 

If you want me to say more on this subject I'm more than happy to explain it to you, as it’s a very simple concept.

[Sayonara]

hahaha nice reply but there is no reason to react like that,I said it for the simple or less educated here.You could have just said we need currency because resourses vary in value,as in no i want 3 cocks for 1 siemese pusssiee

Don't try to sneak crude euphemisms under the radar by attaching them to the end of a troll - you don't contribute enough worthwhile posts for the mods to risk turning a blind eye to you.

 

Now, seeing as you've given your brain the day off, let's go through that post of mine that you're having such a hard time understanding:

 

Currency is a necessary abstraction layer if you have resources with vastly different intrinsic values.

 

Resources have intrinsic values. At minimum this is the energy investment required to produce the resource, although in realistic terms it will also probably include time-dependent costs, such as those caused by storage or handling requirements.

 

Assume for the sake of argument you are a weasel farmer. You have all the equipment a weasel farmer needs, which you inherited from your daddy. However what you really need is a car, so you can get your weasels to the market and swap them for food (weasel pie gets boring after a while, and reduces your ability to barter for sausages with Amos the pig farmer).

 

Luckily, just up the road from you lives Joseph, a car dealer. You trot off on your merry way to arrange for him to deliver a car to you.

 

"What will you give me for the car?" He asks when you arrive and pick out the one you want.

 

"How about some weasels? They're all I realistically have to offer." You reply.

 

"How many weasels do you think this car is worth?" He responds.

 

Well, now that's a good question. Clearly the intrinsic value of the car is very high compared to that of a weasel. All that metal and engineering. Hmmmm. 10,000 weasels maybe? 100,000?

 

"Aaaaah!" You cry. "If only there were some abstract layer between the intrinsic value of things and the transaction itself!"

 

"Indeed," says Joseph. "Being abstract, it would not rely on any one commodity to set its value. Well, except for gold, but then the value of that is fairly arbitrary in national terms."

 

"Yes, that would be ideal," you reflect. "Everyone would be able to use such a system to conduct transactions that make sense."

 

"But since we live in a world where exchanges happen directly, that means that even if we can decide on a value in weasels for this car, I will need to charge you extra for the time and effort involved in finding someone with whom I can exchange said weasels for resources I need. I may also have to charge an extra fee as insurance against be not being able to find such a person."

 

"This keeps getting worse and worse," you complain. "I don't think I want the car any more - it's clearly inaccessible to me."

 

"Too bad we live in bartering world," says Joseph. "Oh well, maybe you can train your weasels to pull you on roller skates".

[Spaceman]

As i said in post 7 see!!!,point made

As for trolling i dont,but the very way you come across insights negative comments.I cannot be held responsible for your personality problems,or lack of humour

[Sayonara]

As i said in post 7 see!!!,[u']point made[/u]

Post 10 clearly indicates you still did not understand.

 

If you're going to claim you said the point was made in post 7, you don't have an excuse for continuing the trolling (ref "full of shite"). You can't have it both ways.

 

 

As for trolling i dont,but the very way you come across insights* negative comments.I cannot be held responsible for your personality problems,or lack of humour

And yet the trolling continues!

 

You can and will be held responsible for what you post. Not the person you are replying to, not Saddam Hussein, and not Marvin the Martian. YOU.

 

* incites.

[Aardvark]

I think the best thing to do would be for every one to be tested to see what their abilitys are and then to use those abilitys for the greater good and, as a reward you receive anything you want within your alocated resource quota.

 

 

That sounds seriously impractical. Firstly you have to quantify someones abilities. Then to place a value on those abilities (without using money as a system of value). Then make people use those abilities in a way someone has defined as beneficial for the greater good. Then someone to decide and distribute a quota.

 

It would require a very large bueacracy to administer. It would be difficult to enforce, inefficent and open to abuse.

[Rasori]

jsatan, I see points you've made, and they are (amazingly, compared to many on this site) sensible. Even so, I'd like to continue. I don't want to disrupt this thread though (after all, we're going into psychology and biology here in a General Science thread) so I suggest we continue in a PM. Tell me if you're willing- I see fun in things like this, but others don't always

 

And, BTW, I think Sayonara's post about weasel farming shows that he does indeed have a sense of humor, Spaceman. And, Sayo, we all know that the exchange rate between weasels and cars is more of a 1:10 (respectively, of course) ratio, right?

[Ophiolite]

hahaha nice reply but there is no reason to react like that,I said it for the simple or less educated here.You could have just said we need currency because resourses vary in value,as in no i want 3 cocks for 1 siemese pusssiee

So, in a nutshell, you are saying eschew obfuscation?

[TimeTraveler]

Resources would be a huge problem. Without a way to provide unlimited resources it is difficult to get rid of currency.

 

The reason I ask this question is I am writing a sci-fi story and I am trying to make it as realistic as possible however, I would like to have a society that would not need currency. I know its possible somehow, even if not perfect it could work I just cannot think of how.

[RICHARDBATTY]

Resources would be a huge problem. Without a way to provide unlimited resources it is difficult to get rid of currency.

 

The reason I ask this question is I am writing a sci-fi story and I am trying to make it as realistic as possible however' date=' I would like to have a society that would not need currency. I know its possible somehow, even if not perfect it could work I just cannot think of how.[/quote']

Every body has a role which has been determined by there ability/desire. Builders build, waste handlers recycle waste( no cost would make recycling more efficient) etc. Every one is valued equaly for there contribution to society. Every one has resources alocated according to their needs ie a family gets a family car of their choice a single person gets a smaller car. The designers design a choice of products based on the best of technology and materials and for the love of doing it not because it makes a profit and that part is cheaper than the other. If you don't contribute you don't get the resources alocated.

[Aardvark]

The designers design a choice of products based on the best of technology and materials and for the love of doing it not because it makes a profit and that part is cheaper than the other.

 

He asked for something realistic.

[Aardvark]

Resources would be a huge problem. Without a way to provide unlimited resources it is difficult to get rid of currency.

 

The reason I ask this question is I am writing a sci-fi story and I am trying to make it as realistic as possible however' date=' I would like to have a society that would not need currency. I know its possible somehow, even if not perfect it could work I just cannot think of how.[/quote']

 

Currency is the means of rationing and allocating finite resources. In order for a civilisation this needs to take place.

 

Therefore you either have currency or an arbitary, centrally enforced system of rationing, similiar to the system now in operation in North Korea or to a lesser extent Cuba.

 

The only alternative i can think of in the future would involve some sort of all controlling computer/AI which directed and ordered humanity in a dictatorial fashion. This wouldn't automatically be a negative thing. The AI could be benign, with such an overarching intellect that it would make sense to delegate authority and power to it. The society would be a bit like a crew of a naval ship, all doing their bit.

 

A society in an Asteroid or deep space generation ship would probably be the most likely to follow this type of scenario. In such conditions it would make quite a lot of sense as a lot of effort would need to be directed merely to ensure the communities survivial, profit and loss would not be relevant concepts.

 

But it would need to be a relatively small, hermatically sealed society to function like that.

[TimeTraveler]

All very good replies, I will have to develop this further as I go. So I will be back asking more questions. One thing I am not very good at is economics so, I will need alot of help here.