What if Money Was No Object?

[Myshkin]

^ That's why I specified technology as the measure I was using. Not saying it's the best measure but it's the one that seems most directly linked to money that we probably wouldn't have with barter-type systems.

Yeah, I see what you're saying. Though I think it's jumping the gun a little to definitively state that "we wouldn't have 'x' or 'y' without money". Maybe that's the case, but it'd be interesting to see just how the world would have developed under an entirely different model.

The way things are, we'll have to change anyway, it's just a question of what the turning point will be. Not that I'm especially keen to find out, because given how entrenched the military-industrial complex has become, it's going to require a major catastrophe to prompt any real action (or rather reaction) from the powers that be.

Maybe if enough people were to re-evaluate their lives and their aspirations, it'd be that little bit easier, but I suppose that's moot - in every possible sense.

I've not watched the video either, quelle surprise.

 

[Shambles]

Yeah, I see what you're saying. Though I think it's jumping the gun a little to definitively state that "we wouldn't have 'x' or 'y' without money". Maybe that's the case, but it'd be interesting to see just how the world would have developed under an entirely different model.

That's why I said "probably wouldn't have" - seems hard to imagine it coming about if we'd stayed a barter economy but given we didn't and only have the one history to look at it's tricky to speculate too much really.

I agree it would be fascinating to turn the clock back and see what other possibilities could arise but genie has left the bottle so we'll never know.

I also agree that change of some description is necessary and probably inevitible... eventually inevitible. But again, I've got no answers nor predictions about how, when or why (other than the very broad version of why maybe).

Oh, and I did watch the video - 3 minutes of quasi-spiritual, New Agey motivational speech about happiness being worth more than money essentially. Exactly what you'd expect from Alan Watts really. Some nice ideas, no original ideas. But goes down well with hippyfolk and New Agers.

 

[DSP-2230]

Wise words there from Danny weed.

Like a modern day jesus h christ.

 

[Mugz]

I think that there could be a world without money, similar to how the zeitgeist/venus project people propose, but it would require a radical change in us "normal folks" thinking and pretty much all governments being dissolved or reorganised in such a way that they don't seem the same at all and it would be much more like what communism was supposed to be like before the facists took over it. It's possible for the change but as someone said earlier, it would need some sort of radical change, and with all the military that the world has now and the firepower, that change would most likely be us destroying ourselves and then the remaining few starting up with a new way of doing things rather than a big general change, which is kinda sad really.

edit-shambles, no not recommended by my sponsor, my dad actually

 

[Mendo_K]

Work still existed before money, now its just that we are doing a different kind of work. You still had to work all day hunting to feed yourself, work building your home etc. Its just easier than certain people became specialised at certain jobs, instead of everyone trying to do everything. And thus created money to buy these services. Like all ready said, if we had the whole world just specialised in painting, writing and whatever else they like to do then who is going to build there home, get them food etc.

 

[Mugz]

^^That's half the problem with our society, we've been at it like this for long enough to think it is impossible for their to be any sensible alternative that will work so we will continue as we have been because it just about works but keeps most of the people miserable and depressed with their jobs. There has to be a better way, it's just we seem to have lost the capacity for abstract thought and the big corporations and the government will not be behind any suggestions for change because it wont benefit them as they are in the positions of power and they are afraid to lose it.

 

[knock]

Indeed, Knock. But would society (more specifically the technological aspect) have been able to advance to the stage we are now at if we'd stuck with bartering? I suspect not. Would we advance or stagnate if we went back to bartering? Dunno but probably more the latter. Yes people did kindasorta get on okay before money but was it really all that different? Still had appalling inequalities of wealth only in a different form. I don't think barter was any better than money really... but it does have some good features inasmuch as things have both intrinsic value as well as inferred value. A sheep can clothe and feed you or make a nice pet depending on how you place value in it. Advantage of money being that it's essentially universal in our society - you can use it for more or less any purpose rather than having to find somebody who wants it that has something you want. Nobody is likely to refuse cashmoney but if the fella selling the nice sparkly earrings you crave is allergic to wool and vegetarian he probably doesn't want to make with the sheep swapsies.

You're assuming the only alternative to money is barter, which we had before. I was trying to point out the flexibility of the human species, that we can create and adapt to new economic systems. I wasn't suggesting we went back to an old one.

 

[Mugz]

I agree with you knock, there are other ways, none that come to the top of my head in a good way to present them but I've read about other ways, it's as the video says and also it's demonstrated kinda in the film "Office Space" things are so far gone now that it is almost impossible to think of a radical change of the economics and industry system . There is too much at stake in how it is run now that it will likely take a massive catastrophe to change our thoughts, as most people are happy with their 9-5s doing jobs that they dislike and just "getting on" and then passing this down to their children. Awareness needs to be aroused first and then acceptance and only then can change happen, and that's when someone has a fucking good idea of what we should change things to.

 

[knock]

The first step on the path to change is recognising that it is possible! The future is what we make it, things don't need to be as they are now, nor as they were some time ago.

 

[Shambles]

Nup. Not assuming that at all, Knock. Just can't think of any obvious alternatives meself really. Barter is kinda the starting point though - I have something you want, you have something I want. Money is more practical but has made inequalities even worse despite (arguably) rasing standard of living for everyone in "the developed world". I actually think money would be fine if some people weren't so obsessed with hoarding it, keeping it within families for generations and the like rather than making good use of it. Or even just spending it. I think the problem is probably more one of attitudes than economics. There's plenty for everybody. It's just that some pigs want to be more equal than others. Don't even have a problem with that as such - people deserve more if they contribute more. But that's not how it works in practice. The sheer magnitude of the gulf between rich and poor - especially on a worldwide basis - is just ridiculous and totally unnecessary.

 

[Mugz]

It's just getting the drones/sheep to recognise that it is possible that seems impossible but I guess is possible, the real first step is convincing the people with ideas for change that convincing the general public that change is possible is possible.

I'm a big fan of the venus project and the prototype cities that they show virtually on their websites, totally self sufficient cities where we could all live a much more utopian lifestyle. Convincing the rest of the world that this is the answer to all our problems and convincing people that they can let go of their desire and crazy need for money if there was a good enough alternative seems almost impossible to me which makes me sad sometimes but most of the time I just get on with my own life now and leave other people to get on with theirs, if change is going to happen, it will. I am not going to be a preacher for it on the streets on soapboxes.

I am going to be doing what I want from now and that is writing and if I can get some money or get into this WWOOFFing thing travelling like that and I don't ever plan on getting a full time 9-5 job again in the future.

 

[knock]

Nup. Not assuming that at all, Knock. Just can't think of any obvious alternatives meself really. Barter is kinda the starting point though - I have something you want, you have something I want. Money is more practical but has made inequalities even worse despite (arguably) rasing standard of living for everyone in "the developed world". I actually think money would be fine if some people weren't so obsessed with hoarding it, keeping it within families for generations and the like rather than making good use of it. Or even just spending it. I think the problem is probably more one of attitudes than economics. There's plenty for everybody. It's just that some pigs want to be more equal than others. Don't even have a problem with that as such - people deserve more if they contribute more. But that's not how it works in practice. The sheer magnitude of the gulf between rich and poor - especially on a worldwide basis - is just ridiculous and totally unnecessary.

OK you may not be assuming that but that was the only possibility you mentioned in your post, which is why I assumed that was your assumption

I am also speed reading/typing as I've been to Ikea and that means I have to spend the next few hours assembling and mounting a bathroom cabinet so I can clear my window sill and the top of my toilet cistern, as well as the existing cabinet which is as old as me but smaller than the cat...

so forgive me not addressing the rest of your post except to say I agree with the bit in bold, very much.

 

[Mugz]

I'd say that this is the best idea floating around at the moment for a whole new way of living.

The Best that Money Can't Buy

Jacque Fresco envisions a global civilization in which science and technology are applied with human and environmental concern to secure, protect, and encourage a more humane world for all people. This book offers a possible way out of our recurring cycles of boom and recession, famine, poverty, a declining environment, and territorial conflicts where peace is merely the interval between wars. It outlines an attainable, humane social design of the near future where human rights are no longer paper proclamations but a way of life. The Best That Money Can't Buy is a challenge to all people to work towards a society in which all of the world's resources become the common heritage of all of the earth's people. It is accompanied by 70 color photos of Fresco's original designs, which illuminate the fulfilling lifestyle of a global, resource-based economy. 176 pages, published 2002.

 

[Bearlove]

When money is no object the 'fun' things we dream about become as easy as us going for a walk on the beach. If you talk to some people who are scraping a living they would dream of having a life like most of us would take for vantage.

 

[Mugz]

^^Which makes it even more important that those people are aware that there are other options out there, a resource based economy being the best without the need for cash, then they could stroll on the beach too when they are not contributing to society.

 

[Red Arrow]

I like doing fuck all really. Getting in stupid mind altering states, socialising with friends/family, seeing the world. If they can turn that into a proffesion that I guess im on to a winner.

lol

 

[Bearlove]

^^Which makes it even more important that those people are aware that there are other options out there, a resource based economy being the best without the need for cash, then they could stroll on the beach too when they are not contributing to society.

The problem with this is your replacing money for resources - people would then be thinking (in this culture) IF I had 100 chickens / logs of wood etc then I would be better off. If you could simply remove consumerism and social 'classes' then ....

 

[Mugz]

If you read up more on "The Venus Project" they have a lot of good ideas to negate that happening, over lots of time people would live in pretty much self sufficient cities with a hub at the centre, and most work wouldn't be needed, people would choose to become doctors and teachers because they want to, and the other work needed to keep the cities up in order would be done by regular people who would have had the opportunity to learn skills as there would be a lot more free time in these cities.

 

[StoneHappyMonday]

Bhutan has just become the first country in the world to be self-sufficient in organic food. That's pretty cool.

As for money...you wouldn't change that much if you just got rid of money overnight. You need to change peoples mindsets. As Bearlove suggested, getting rid of consumerist philosophy. And it is a philosophy, a clever policy of capitalism. Artificial need has been created in people's minds in order to get them to buy 'stuff'. People aren't born with an inherit need to buy 'stuff'.

 

[Bearlove]

If you read up more on "The Venus Project" they have a lot of good ideas to negate that happening, over lots of time people would live in pretty much self sufficient cities with a hub at the centre, and most work wouldn't be needed, people would choose to become doctors and teachers because they want to, and the other work needed to keep the cities up in order would be done by regular people who would have had the opportunity to learn skills as there would be a lot more free time in these cities.

Get me a ticket - I would move there tomorrow. When you think about it, a lot of the unemployed people around the globe exchange skills for skills - Ill paint your fence, you cut my hair etc. When you see these super rich people who are worth 19zillion Euros - what 'fun' have they had? Would I exchange my days of wandering around an industrial estate tracking the music - for a weekend of eating truffle stuffed quail. You can't define 'fun' !

(Nice to see you back online )