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The Concept of Currency

obyron said:
Some of the oldest examples of writing historians/paleontologists/anthropologists have found-- notwithstanding the much-bandied Sumerian beer recipe-- were clay tablets which had been carved with what appeared to be tax records, levied in the form of X amount of grain to be remitted to the local ruler. That is a currency transaction in the form of a commodity, just as much as trading oil futures is a currency transaction.
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1. This is because paleolithic societies tended not to create the same types of endurable records as their more recent counterparts. Furthermore, writing is a rare and recent invention. We invented syllabic or logographic writing just six times and phonetic writing but once. However, most human societies have been paleolithic and currencyless.
2. The use of currency prior to capitalism was drastically different from how currency is deployed in capitalist trade.

Homo sapien sapiens is only around 200,000 years old. Anything before that is about as human as a chimpanzee. We spent the greater part of that 200,000 years foraging, herding, planting, and painting shit in caves. If that is your ideal culture, you're welcome to it. You are only able to have this conversation because of modern conveniences, and you are only intelligent enough to articulate your ideas because of modern society and modern education.

I'm sure there were many cultures that did not have money or what have you until we "imposed" it on them. They also lived in dirt-walled hovels, got mauled by cheetahs, and died of malaria. They're welcome. I'm no kind of believer in this frankly racist and insensitive idea of the "noble savage" who was somehow so much better off Before The White Man Came. I am not discrediting primitive people, I'm just not giving them more credit than they're due just because they had the forbearance to shit in the woods, live their entire lives shrouded in nonsense religions and superstition, and hunt and kill their own food; while occasionally taking a break to rape and pillage the next tribe over. In fact, primitive society sounds pretty much exactly like modern society, except we have indoor plumbing and supermarkets.
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Your view of paleolithic humans is drastically inaccurate, bordering on colonialist propaganda.

Money is a consequence of Trade. Trade is a consequence of civilization.
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I don't think that this is quite right.
I think that money was an out-growth of social relationships of creditor and debtor, in terms of labor being performed. I also think that currency co-evolved with class-based systems of production. I believe these to have co-evolved empirically, not as necessary consequences.

idler said:
money represents the entire productivity of a nation, divided by the total number of units of currency
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I think that this is about right. I also think that this is they key in linking analysis of concrete production to analysis of monetary transactions and policies (eg, interest rates, national debt, issuing of bonds, etc.).

No, game theory is logically, beautifully perfect.
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... logically perfect, but empirically inadequate or outright inapplicable.
 
The_Idler said:
but humanity is defined by the collective achievements of humans.
would be too fundamentally different without money.

it is true, for humanity, generally,
therefore precluding the possibility of humanity, without money.
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You're begging the question. "Humanity would be too different without money. Therefore humanity would not be humanity without money." You're just arguing tautologically. I disagree with you and have pointed out why, and at this point we're just going in circles.
 
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2 Quick questions:

Are the giving and receiving of favours considered transactions and the thoughts of, "I owe you a favour"/"you owe me a favour", considered currency?

Would pre-currency people have used the favour system?
 
Just so you know I just recently moved back in to my house. I was living up at a campsite near my girlfriends work since april. We started to get real cold so we came back to the house. Let me tell you we are still struggling with money. AT times we were down to change to rely on. It gets scary at times like this. Not knowing what your going to do to get by. Or if your house is going to be taken away. For me though after thinking and worrying time after again. I started to just forget that the problem was even there. Money, finnacial burden.
I started to realize what was important was that the people who cared about us. The people who understood that life was real ,and real as ever. With out money or anyone who cared you would die most likley. currency to me is a system based on money, work, ambition and management. If we get our national debt up our currency will be worth more. Its like our house in my head if we get out of our foreclosure we will be able to make money if not we will have to give up the house. I love our system in america I think we are super free with out restrictions. We just have to be more green and be more smart and more bold in my opinion.
 
ebola? said:
1 I think that a currency-less economic system would be LESS efficient than capitalist production, sacrificing productive efficiency for enhanced justice.
.......
2 I don't really believe in this. I think that a functional anarcho-communist system of production would require a shift in cultural meanings and practices.
.......
3 To the extent that we really are hoarding animals with insatiable lust for material consumption, anarcho-communism would not work.
.......
4 It wouldn't be. I think that there are concerns as or more important than raw simplicity and efficiency.

ebola
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1 well that is my point.
Currency is the most efficient way to lubricate complex trade and production systems for humanity,
therefore it is inevitably what will naturally occur and propagate throughout human society...
since when has humanity taken control of the path of its development in the name of "justice", over efficiency?
certain sections have, but they will be less efficient than everyone else and die out.
please consider evolution in every system. it is a logical inevitability.
Nature abhors inefficiency,
and we are Natural.

2 Yes, we would have to be completely different,
in a way that almost all humanity would not like the idea of.
Hence, no currency is generally not going to work, for humanity.

3 Hence, anarcho-communism would not work.

4 Perhaps you are basing your analysis of possibilities on some kind of "moral" framework.....
you think that humans should have greater concerns than efficiency and simplicity....
hmm, well with our unusual degree of consciousness, you think it might be possible.
For an individual, or individuals, that may be the case.
Agent K says: "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it. "
Humanity is natural.
We like to think we have some kind of special control over Nature,
that we have a special place in the Universe,
especially those trapped within the structured denial of religion.
Humanity is (probably) entirely part of the universe, an entirely natural product of probability and logical extrapolation of possibilities and inevitabilities->evolution.
And, as such, is entirely under the influence of the laws of the universe.

In this universe, inefficient systems, and those, unnecessarily complex to the point of being redundant,
get replaced by any new system, which is better at surviving and propagating,
like money.

Now, until someone comes up with a system, MORE CONDUCIVE to complex trade and production, which is desirable by humanity, generally*,
money is inevitably going to be accepted and used by humanity, generally.


*I explained earlier why a prevailing desire for personal and genetic empowerment is a logical inevitability of life on Earth.
Basically, because genetics, which precipitate the desire to empower oneself and others, based on their genetic similarity to you,
are more successfully propagated throughout the systems as a whole,
from beings in those positions of power.

Even in the context of society, rather than genetics,
those, for whom the use of money is anathema, will naturally be less powerful than those who embrace the most efficient system, money,
and, consequently, will be less able to propagate their ideas through society.

For the same reason the most successful hunter does not slowly walk after the prey, as it sprints away,
and the most successful sniffer dogs do not have bad senses of smell,
successful (and therefore lasting and dominant and defining) sections of humanity do not reject the most efficient systems of production.

That is, if they DID do those things,
they would NOT be the most successful,
and would, consequently, not propagate that trend,
via genetics, or any other means, other than force!
 
EBOLA: "To the extent that we really are hoarding animals with insatiable lust for material consumption, anarcho-communism would not work."
we really are, so it would not.

he said it, not me.
 
The Idler:
Currency is the most efficient way to lubricate complex trade and production systems for humanity,
therefore it is inevitably what will naturally occur and propagate throughout human society...
since when has humanity taken control of the path of its development in the name of "justice", over efficiency?
certain sections have, but they will be less efficient than everyone else and die out.
please consider evolution in every system. it is a logical inevitability.
Nature abhors inefficiency,
and we are Natural.
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I disagree. I don't think that changes in human cultures are analogous to processes of natural selection in biology. Cultural development is to some degree self-conscious. In waging revolution or preserving the status quo, efficiency did not come to dominate all other concerns until the classical economists made their mark. This is corroborated by the fact that once invented (in Sumeria, as you say), currency took an extremely long time to dominate all other aspects of productive organization.

Yes, we would have to be completely different,
in a way that almost all humanity would not like the idea of.
Hence, no currency is generally not going to work, for humanity.
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Why would we expect people's ideas of what they want to remain fixed in time?

EBOLA: "To the extent that we really are hoarding animals with insatiable lust for material consumption, anarcho-communism would not work."
we really are, so it would not.
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Like I said, I don't think that this idea of human nature is well substantiated.

Humanity is (probably) entirely part of the universe, an entirely natural product of probability and logical extrapolation of possibilities and inevitabilities->evolution.
And, as such, is entirely under the influence of the laws of the universe.
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BUT we, set apart from other aspects of the universe, act self-consciously. This entails that novel and distinct laws of the universe governing human behavior emerge along with us.

ebola
 
ebola? said:
BUT we, set apart from other aspects of the universe, act self-consciously. This entails that novel and distinct laws of the universe governing human behavior emerge along with us.
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like i said:

Individually, certainly,
but I don't think humanity CAN be organized to act as one conscious entity.
As a mass, we are still subject to the nascent natural laws of the universe,
which do not favour inefficiency....
 
Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water... I finished up reading Richard Dawkins's "The God Delusion" about a week ago, and I bookmarked a passage that, when I read it, floored me; because of how much it reminded me of this thread. I wanted to give things some time to settle before I posted it, but also work up the mental wherewithal to go ahead and quote it, because it's a pain in the ass to type from a book, but here goes. Keep in mind that quote tags smash formatting, such as italics, but I'll do my best to preserve the original structure.

Richard Dawkins said:
The other main type of altruism for which we have a well-worked-out Darwinian rationale is reciprocal altruism ('You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours'). This theory, first introduced to evolutionary biology by Robert Trivers and often expressed in the mathematical language of game theory, does not depend upon shared genes. Indeed, it works just as well, probably even better, between members of widely different species, when it is often called symbiosis. The principle is the basis of all trade and barter in humans too. The hunter needs a spear and the smith wants meat. The asymmetry brokers a deal. [Ed: Emphasis mine. --Oby] The bee needs nectar and the flower needs pollinating. Flowers can't fly so they pay bees, in the currency of nectar, for the hire of their wings. Birds called honeyguides can find bees' nests but can't break into them. Honey badgers (ratels) can break into bees' nests, but lack wings with which to search for them. Honeyguides lead ratels (and sometimes men) to honey by a special enticing flight, used for no other purpose. Both sides benefit from the transaction. A crock of gold may lie under a large stone, too heavy for its discoverer to move. He enlists the help of others even though he then has to share the gold, because without their help he would get none. The living kingdoms are rich in such mutualistic relationships; buffaloes and oxpeckers, red tubular flowers and hummingbirds, groupers and cleaner wrasses, cows and their gut micro-organisms. Reciprocal altruism works because of asymmetries in needs and in capacities to meet them. That is why it works especially well between different species: the asymmetries are greater.

In humans, IOUs and money are devices that permit delays in the transactions. The parties to the trade don't hand over the good simultaneously but can hold a debt over to the future, or even trade the debt on to others. As far as I know, no non-human animals in the wild have any direct equivalent of money. But memory of individual identity plays the same role more informally. Vampire bats learn which other individuals of their social group can be relied upon to pay their debts (in regurgitated blood) and which individuals cheat. Natural selection favours genes that predispose individuals, in relationships of asymmetric need and opportunity, to give when they can, and to solicit giving when they can't. [Ed: Emphasis mine. --Oby] It also favours tendencies to remember obligations, bear grudges, police exchange relationships and punish cheats who take, but don't give when their turn comes.

For there will always be cheats, and stable solutions to the game-theoretic conundrums of reciprocal altruism always involve an element of punishment of cheats. Mathematical theory allows two broad classes of stable solution to 'games' of this kind. 'Always be nasty' is stable in that, if everybody else is doing it, a single nice individual can not do better. But there is another strategy which is also stable. ('Stable' means that, once it exceeds a critical frequency in the population, no alternative does better.) This is the strategy, 'Start out being nice, and give others the benefit of the doubt. Then repay good deeds with good, but avenge bad deeds.' In game theory language, this strategy (or family of related strategies) goes under various names, including Tit-for-Tat, Retaliator, and Reciprocator. It is evolutionarily stable under some conditions in the sense that, given a population dominated by reciprocators, no single nasty individual, and no single unconditionally nice individual, will do better. there are other, more complicated variants of Tit-for-Tat which can in some circumstances do better.

I have mentioned kinship and reciprocation as the twin pillars of altruism in a Darwinian world, but there are secondary structures which rest atop those main pillars. Especially in human society, with language and gossip, reputation is important. One individual may have a reputation for kindness and generosity. Another individual may have a reputation for unreliability, for cheating and reneging on deals. Another may have a reputation for generosity when trust has been built up, but for ruthless punishment of cheating. The unadorned theory of reciprocal altruism expects animals of any species to base their behaviour upon unconscious responsiveness to such traits in their fellows. In human societies we add the power of language to spread reputations, usually in the form of gossip. You don't need to have suffered personally from X's failure to buy his round at the pub. You hear 'on the grapevine' that X is a tightwad, or -- to add an ironic complication to the example -- that Y is a terrible gossip. Reputation is important, and biologists can acknowledge a Darwinian survival value in not just being a good reciprocator but fostering a /reputation/ [Ed: Italics in original. --Oby] as a good reciprocator too.
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This is the entire subset of behavior that I was referring to when I was groping for my definition of "money," and Dawkins went and phrased it about a thousand times better than I ever could've.

Richard Dawkins
"The God Delusion"
Houghton Mifflin Trade Paperback, copyright 2006
pp. 247-250

It is my firm believe that, as this text represents less than two whole pages of a nearly 500 page work of which this topic is a very brief diversion; and given that our purpose here is certainly scholarly discussion and education, that my quotation constitutes Fair Use.
 
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Altruism, a word I haven't heard in awhile, like "There's No Such Thing as a Free Lunch."

Whenever u do something for someone, U owe them something. That's karma.

If we eliminated $$$ it would take some education and example but teach & show children, altruism.
 
lol @ not having a gold standard. US money is not even worth anything because it's not backed by anything. it's just paper.

currency terrifies me. having money is so important in modern society, yet, wouldn't it be easier if we traded goods and services for other goods and services? using social capital to create monetary capital is a pretty stupid idea if you think about it.
 
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