Someday...an Economy Without Money

[exchemist]

Saint Thomas More, Chancellor of England under Henry VIII, envisaged a 'moneyless' society in his famous book Utopia (1516), in which he also coined the neologism itself. "The basis of their whole system," More told us in the text was, "their communal living and their moneyless economy.”

He constructed the term from Greek prefix "ou-" (οὐ), meaning "not", and topos (τόπος), "place", with the suffix -iā (-ία): the name literally meaning "nowhere", which was to highlight the fictional and fantastical nature of 'utopianism'; imaging an ideal society that exists 'nowhere' in our primary world.

A quotation from that work:

“And yet when these insatiably greedy and evil men [Europeans] have divided among themselves goods which would have sufficed for the entire people, how far they remain from the happiness of the Utopian Republic, which has abolished not only money but with it greed!

What a mass of trouble was cut away by that one step! What a thicket of crimes was uprooted! Everyone knows that if money were abolished, fraud, theft, robbery, quarrels, brawls, seditions, murders, treasons, poisonings and a whole set of crimes which are avenged but not prevented by the hangman would at once die out.

If money disappeared, so would fear, anxiety, worry, toil, and sleepless nights. Even poverty, which seems to need money more than anything else, would vanish if money were entirely done away with.”​

That was over 400 years ago. Still no 'utopic' moneyless, post-scarcity, classless and perfectly egalitarian society anywhere in sight.

But More had his tongue in his cheek when writing this, did he not? Not for nothing is it Utopia rather than Eutopia. The imaginary society of Utopia is unattainable, in any practical reality.

 

[exchemist]

What's a cow worth, in axles? Or is it what's an axle worth, in cows? That was just about the most important thing that money did for us -- it allowed us to establish a common means of valuation for exchange.

Exactly. The notion that one can do away with money is absurd, in any kind of free society in which people carry out specialised tasks in exchange for other benefits they receive.

 

[Vouthon]

But More had his tongue in his cheek when writing this, did he not? Not for nothing is it Utopia rather than Eutopia. The imaginary society of Utopia is unattainable, in any practical reality.

Precisely, a vista of human longing for 'temporal perfection' that exists nowhere.

Scholars are divided on whether he expected any of his idealizations of society to ever transpire (he did base them, partly, on Christian monasticism), but the balance of evidence - in spite of More's careful ambiguity in the text - would seem to favour his thinking it 'unattainable', as you say.

 

[Revoltingest]

I couldn't make sense of that paragraph.

So, what's your point?


As I wrote, corruption and greed are facilitated by money just as easily as trade is facilitated by money.

I'll clarify...
- Money is fundamentally resource allocation, ie, a tool to
quantitatively allocate resources, eg, $5 for paint $5 for caulk.
- Quantitative resource allocation will never go away. This is
because resources are limited, but demand is not..
- Any quantitative method of allocating resources functions
exactly like money....even if it's called something else.

 

[Revoltingest]

What's a cow worth, in axles? Or is it what's an axle worth, in cows? That was just about the most important thing that money did for us -- it allowed us to establish a common means of valuation for exchange.

What if she needs the cow, but has no axles?
Or doesn't need a cow, but has axles?
It's more than quantitative valuation...it's a highly
fungible & convenient medium of exchange
That's life without money.

 

[Revoltingest]

No, but most of us humans have yet to actually consider greed to be a real taboo -- especially where it concerns the accumulation of property and wealth. At the table, maybe, when somebody takes more than their fair share -- and as a consequence, to avoid social opprobrium, most people don't take more.

Greed per se isn't bad.
But when it inspires unethical behavior, that's bad.

If we did, indeed, ever create a world in which most or all commodities could be easily produced (as with a Star Trek replicator), the only way the world could really function well is that all humans would have to develop the sense that taking more than you need, and acquiring things and property for the mere sake of having them for yourself, really was taboo, and would truly result in social censure.

I suppose that is possible, but it does seem unlikely, as I look at the humans around me today.

Even in the Star Trek universe, there's money, greed,
lust for power, & limited resources. Not every captain
gets a Galaxy Class starship.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

What if she needs the cow, but has no axles?
Or doesn't need a cow, but has axles?
It's more than quantitative valuation...it's a highly
fungible & convenient medium of exchange
That's life without money.

Well, with some work, you may find that there's someone down the street that needs an axle, doesn't have a cow, but does have an orchard full of apples. You don't want apples, but perhaps he could exchange his apples with the cobbler for boots, which you might be able to exchange in the next village for a cow, and then...

Cows, axles, apples, boots are not very fungible at all, are they? And yes, that's why the fungibility of money works so very well.

I guess, however, if we consider a world in which whatever is needed is readily available (imagine that a replicator is actually possible), there's no need for trade at all -- just take what you want and go home. Fungibility and exchange become suddenly useless in such a scenario.

 

[Revoltingest]

Well, with some work, you may find that there's someone down the street that needs an axle, doesn't have a cow, but does have an orchard full of apples. You don't want apples, but perhaps he could exchange his apples with the cobbler for boots, which you might be able to exchange in the next village for a cow, and then...

Cows, axles, apples, boots are not very fungible at all, are they? And yes, that's why the fungibility of money works so very well.

I guess, however, if we consider a world in which whatever is needed is readily available (imagine that a replicator is actually possible), there's no need for trade at all -- just take what you want and go home. Fungibility and exchange become suddenly useless in such a scenario.

I predict a long & productive life for money.

 

[Audie]

Life without money:
I'd like to trade you a cow for a new axle for Mr Van.
Whaddaya say?

No axle and no place for a cow.

When I was in Alaska I picked up a book,
"On the edge of nowhere " (Huntington)

Very interesting!! But mentioned here for
Its description of the elaborate ritual between
an Indian and an Eskimo traders.

Highly recommended reading!

 

[Audie]

Well, with some work, you may find that there's someone down the street that needs an axle, doesn't have a cow, but does have an orchard full of apples. You don't want apples, but perhaps he could exchange his apples with the cobbler for boots, which you might be able to exchange in the next village for a cow, and then...

Cows, axles, apples, boots are not very fungible at all, are they? And yes, that's why the fungibility of money works so very well.

I guess, however, if we consider a world in which whatever is needed is readily available (imagine that a replicator is actually possible), there's no need for trade at all -- just take what you want and go home. Fungibility and exchange become suddenly useless in such a scenario.

Everyone then gets fat and dies of boredom.

 

[joe1776]

Money is a tool that aligns interests and makes trade transparent and quantifiable. It can facilitate greed but it can also facilitate cooperation. It facilitates human interactions. It’s up to humans whether those interactions are for good or evil. The money itself is merely a tool.

When the "good" can be done without money, that is when governments are capable of managing economic benefits fairly, why keep it?

Democracy and voting has a similar problem: it can facilitate politicians who lie and pander to win votes and achieve power. It can facilitate a majority taking power and stomping all over the rights of the minority.
Should we have a world without voting?

Probably, yes. Voting is a really dumb way to choose decision-makers. The people four years ago elected a buffoon to lead us. We should want a government for the people but elections aren't the only way to achieve that.

The reason democracy works is because it acknowledges the fact that people tend to work in their own interests. It does not celebrate greed but it does try to align the interests of government and the governed.

Democracies work better than autocracies. I put that under the heading of damning with faint praise.

People would tend to pursue their own interests in any world, with or without voting and with or without money. The key is to align interests, make them transparent instead of hidden, let the best ones win and reign in the worst ones. Both free trade and democracy share these assumptions and that is why the American founders were very interested in Adam Smith’s work.

The combination of high intelligence and greed makes it possible for a fairly small group, with the aid of laws, and facilitated by money to take far more than their share of the benefits of this society which is intended to be a cooperative endeavor.

Perhaps the best example of an economic relationship without money, frankly, is a slave to his master. Instead of coin and greed, you had the lash and violence. I think we can still improve over coin and greed, but let’s not forget how we got to a society with money and how that was an improvement.

That's a false analogy. You seem to be aware that, when first introduced, the concept of money was useful. You don't seem to be open to the idea that human progress isn't over. With a wisely-managed economy, money will be unnecessary and, with it, the crime and corruption it facilitated.

 

[joe1776]

Saint Thomas More, Chancellor of England under Henry VIII, envisaged a 'moneyless' society in his famous book Utopia (1516), in which he also coined the neologism itself. "The basis of their whole system," More told us in the text was, "their communal living and their moneyless economy.”

He constructed the term from Greek prefix "ou-" (οὐ), meaning "not", and topos (τόπος), "place", with the suffix -iā (-ία): the name literally meaning "nowhere", which was to highlight the fictional and fantastical nature of 'utopianism'; imaging an ideal society that exists 'nowhere' in our primary world.

A quotation from that work:

“And yet when these insatiably greedy and evil men [Europeans] have divided among themselves goods which would have sufficed for the entire people, how far they remain from the happiness of the Utopian Republic, which has abolished not only money but with it greed!

What a mass of trouble was cut away by that one step! What a thicket of crimes was uprooted! Everyone knows that if money were abolished, fraud, theft, robbery, quarrels, brawls, seditions, murders, treasons, poisonings and a whole set of crimes which are avenged but not prevented by the hangman would at once die out.

If money disappeared, so would fear, anxiety, worry, toil, and sleepless nights. Even poverty, which seems to need money more than anything else, would vanish if money were entirely done away with.”​

That was over 400 years ago. Still no 'utopic' moneyless, post-scarcity, classless and perfectly egalitarian society anywhere in sight.

Utopian? My premise is that, before a moneyless economy is possible, we humans have to first invent a system of governing that isn't both corrupt and ineffective. Are you saying that isn't possible because it hasn't been done yet in 400 years?

If that's not what you are saying, why is my premise Utopian?

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

Everyone then gets fat and dies of boredom.

Not everyone -- but probably many, for a while.

There are always people who wish to know, who can't help but create, and so on. And although it may be possible to have most of our needs met for free, I doubt that will be all of them -- you know, diseases, aging and dying, the quest for intellectual stimulation, and so forth.

So there would be lots to do -- for those who are self-motivated. And I can't help but wonder how long indolence can last before boredom actually generates a sort of self-motivation to do something, anything, other than drink beer and participate in holo-scenarios.

 

[joe1776]

Exactly. The notion that one can do away with money is absurd, in any kind of free society in which people carry out specialised tasks in exchange for other benefits they receive.

Support your claim. Why is it impossible that a future government free of corruption and making wise decisions would be able to manage an economy without money?

They won't need to facilitate trade if they can implement their decisions on the use and fair distribution of resources.

 

[Audie]

Not everyone -- but probably many, for a while.

There are always people who wish to know, who can't help but create, and so on. And although it may be possible to have most of our needs met for free, I doubt that will be all of them -- you know, diseases, aging and dying, the quest for intellectual stimulation, and so forth.

So there would be lots to do -- for those who are self-motivated. And I can't help but wonder how long indolence can last before boredom actually generates a sort of self-motivation to do something, anything, other than drink beer and participate in holo-scenarios.

Might be a good opportunity for people to darwinize themselves.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

Utopian? My premise is that, before a moneyless economy is possible, we humans have to first invent a system of governing that isn't both corrupt and ineffective. Are you saying that isn't possible because it hasn't been done yet in 400 years?

If that's not what you are saying, why is my premise Utopian?

You are not considering the most important thing of all -- human nature.

I recommend reading "On Human Nature" (Second edition 2004) by Edward O. Wilson, but also go back 244 years before that and read "A Treatise on Human Nature" by David Hume.

The problem is, we really do have an evolved nature, and while we are quite malleable, there are aspects to human nature that do not respond to training and social pressures.

 

[joe1776]

I'll clarify...
- Money is fundamentally resource allocation, ie, a tool to
quantitatively allocate resources, eg, $5 for paint $5 for caulk.
- Quantitative resource allocation will never go away. This is
because resources are limited, but demand is not..
- Any quantitative method of allocating resources functions
exactly like money....even if it's called something else.

If the resource allocation is done by a decision made by an efficient resource management process, money wouldn't be necessary. Would it?

 

[joe1776]

You are not considering the most important thing of all -- human nature.

I recommend reading "On Human Nature" (Second edition 2004) by Edward O. Wilson, but also go back 244 years before that and read "A Treatise on Human Nature" by David Hume.

The problem is, we really do have an evolved nature, and while we are quite malleable, there are aspects to human nature that do not respond to training and social pressures.

Is it possible for you to be more specific? What aspect of human nature is in conflict with what I've written?

I envision a future that works better than the present, one in which the basic needs in Maslow's hierarchy are taken care of in a system in which people and tasks can be matched intelligently, a system which allows the individual the time to pursue higher needs or to simply relax.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

Is it possible for you to be more specific? What aspect of human nature is in conflict with what I've written?

I envision a future that works better than the present, one in which the basic needs in Maslow's hierarchy are taken care of in a system in which people and tasks can be matched intelligently, a system which allows the individual the time to pursue higher needs.

At the very simplest, you are arguing for something that is essentially rational. Human nature is guided much, much more by passions and emotions than it is by reason. You can see this by noting that you are right now arguing in what is mostly a religious forum, and religion is not rational -- in spite of what many would like to contend.

You are human, and therefore you are a social animal -- one that depends upon others of its kind for its very existence. Yet, you are also an animal that can default on the normal rules of social coexistence -- you can covet, as the Bible says, and you can cheat. The objects of our desires are very often those things we need, but they are also very often things we don't need, but want anyway, and we find it all too easy to bend and break the social conventions that bind us together to get those things -- and that often has nothing to do with money. Think, for example, rape, or revenge, or simple malice.

For most people, the "higher needs" consist of not only "keeping up with the Jones's" but besting them.

Before this "better world" you seek can work, you have to change the very nature of the denizens of that world -- us.

 

[Mr Spinkles]

When the "good" can be done without money, that is when governments are capable of managing economic benefits fairly, why keep it?

Amen. Let me know when that happens!

Kidding aside, how does one manage economic benefits fairly without money? What does that look like? Money at its most fundamental level is simply accounting. It’s a list of who has what, how much, and who owes what to whom. How can government manage anything at all without keeping lists and records? And how is a list or record of “economic benefits” different from money?

These are not rhetorical questions. I sincerely lack the imagination to picture a society with a large population where money does not exist. When I try to picture it, the society in my imagination ends up inventing something similar to money, out of necessity.

I admit, this may be a failure of imagination on my part - hence I ask for your help.

Probably, yes. Voting is a really dumb way to choose decision-makers. The people four years ago elected a buffoon to lead us. We should want a government for the people but elections aren't the only way to achieve that.

I agree voting is insufficient to guarantee a good outcome. What would you suggest as an alternative - a hereditary monarchy? A divine voice from a burning bush?

You may have noticed the same system of voting that have us a buffoon in 2016, also gave him the boot in 2020.

What democracy, and science, and free markets have in common is not that they are perfect. It’s that when they err, as humans inevitably do under any system, there are mechanisms for self-correction.

The combination of high intelligence and greed makes it possible for a fairly small group, with the aid of laws, and facilitated by money to take far more than their share of the benefits of this society which is intended to be a cooperative endeavor.

I acknowledge you have a point. But one could also make the exact opposite argument. The combination of laws and money makes it possible for the weak, including widows and orphans, to protect their share of the benefits of society. In ancient times the physically strong took what they wanted from the weak. Today the most frail elderly woman can put her money in a bank account. And there is an almost 0% chance that a group of screaming warriors from another tribe will take it from her, or that the merchant holding her savings for her will jump on a sailing ship with her money and never be heard from again.

That's a false analogy. You seem to be aware that, when first introduced, the concept of money was useful. You don't seem to be open to the idea that human progress isn't over. With a wisely-managed economy, money will be unnecessary and, with it, the crime and corruption it facilitated.

To clarify: I am open to the possibility. I just am also open to the opposite possibility. I am trying to learn more about your view to try to assess which possibility is more likely.