Economists to me: abolition of money

[saskganesh]

Favours are not "banked" in the same way as cash, with an exact accounting. Rather, they are "banked" in the form of status. It is all based on sharing food and other goods. If I have food to share, and I hand it out to everyone, I am in essence putting everyone under an obligation; if I do so more often than other people, my status goes up. A free rider, who always gets but does not give - their status goes down.

Though remember, in foraging societies, those who can and provide more (a better hunter, forager, maker of nets, whatever) are often ritually and communally ridiculed and their efforts are belittled in order to keep these who can provide more closer in status than might happen.

Such leveling mechanism are an important part of small group dynamics.

on a related note, in some societies, rich men and big men, and wannabee rich men and big men, gave away their wealth in an ceremonial effort to elevate and/or maintain their status. Potlatches are one example of this redistribution.

[Malthus]

on a related note, in some societies, rich men and big men, and wannabee rich men and big men, gave away their wealth in an ceremonial effort to elevate and/or maintain their status. Potlatches are one example of this redistribution.

Good point: the sort of behaviour that makes sense in a society where status and not money is the "currency".

Part of the point of a potlatch or a New Guinean pig feast is that the property given away was not solely the property of the one guy - it was that guy's ability to command resources from others (to breed the pigs for the feast or to make the goods) which was tested and demonstrated.

Obviously in a future society of abundance a literal potlatch would make no sense, since goods would be essentially free. Rather, it would be the person's ability to organize or inspire others to some sort of communal effort, such as arranging an elaborate party, which would be analogous.

[Monoriu]

I think the size of the society matters.  Things like status and prestige work in small communities where everybody knows each other.  But the human mind can only "know" so many people.  As soon as you start dealing with strangers on a regular basis, you need something else as a store of value.

The internet, globalization and other advances make sure that we cannot go back to ancient communal ways, and thank hod for that.

[Faeelin]

I think the size of the society matters.  Things like status and prestige work in small communities where everybody knows each other.  But the human mind can only "know" so many people.  As soon as you start dealing with strangers on a regular basis, you need something else as a store of value.

In general I agree, but I'm wondering about a Yelp for other people. A lot of ways for that to be abused, though.

[Jacob]

I think the size of the society matters.  Things like status and prestige work in small communities where everybody knows each other.  But the human mind can only "know" so many people.  As soon as you start dealing with strangers on a regular basis, you need something else as a store of value.

Perhaps, or perhaps in can be scaled up.

I can rely on ten dudes to do shit for me.  I have status.  The guy who can rely on me and ten guys like me will have even more status.  The guy who can call on ten guys who can call on ten guys who can each call on a hundred has even more status, and so on.

Even when relating to strangers you may be able to tell where they stand locally and how many people owe them favour, through the judgement of various mutually collected peers and outside status symbols.

[Martinus]

Heh, that's an interesting concept. And not unlike living under communism in Poland. 

The difference is having a society of abundance rather than scarsity. 

Actually, I was thinking of another model - the "economy" of being a hunter-gatherer (also a society of scarsity of course).

Hunter-gatherers lack money and, more significantly, any ability to store posessions above what they can carry. They nonetheless have an economy of sorts - based on "storing" favours.

Favours are not "banked" in the same way as cash, with an exact accounting. Rather, they are "banked" in the form of status. It is all based on sharing food and other goods. If I have food to share, and I hand it out to everyone, I am in essence putting everyone under an obligation; if I do so more often than other people, my status goes up. A free rider, who always gets but does not give - their status goes down.

I don't believe in the "society of abundance" - once your basic needs are satisfied, need is based on perception. Assuming the society would not stop all progress, there will be constantly new goods and services developed, and no society could make these available to everybody immediately upon their emergence.

In that sense, the communist Poland was a society of "abundance" as much as it was a society of "scarcity". Sure, people lacked stuff like Coca Cola and prettier clothes, but people were fed, clothed, had free access to higher education and full health care coverage, and probably a better access to higher culture than they have today (theatres and Polish movie making were thriving and despite censorship making much better productions than they do today, and popular access to art was subsidized by the government). The scarcity was only relative, in comparison to the capitalistic societies of the West - and I assume any society based on the concept of "abundance" would suffer from such relative scarcity in one form or another.

And yeah, the society worked a lot based on exchange of favors and status, with "bribes" very rarely taking a pecuniary form.

[Martinus]

I think the size of the society matters.  Things like status and prestige work in small communities where everybody knows each other.  But the human mind can only "know" so many people.  As soon as you start dealing with strangers on a regular basis, you need something else as a store of value.

Perhaps, or perhaps in can be scaled up.

I can rely on ten dudes to do shit for me.  I have status.  The guy who can rely on me and ten guys like me will have even more status.  The guy who can call on ten guys who can call on ten guys who can each call on a hundred has even more status, and so on.

Even when relating to strangers you may be able to tell where they stand locally and how many people owe them favour, through the judgement of various mutually collected peers and outside status symbols.

Six Degrees of Separation. 

[Malthus]

I think the size of the society matters.  Things like status and prestige work in small communities where everybody knows each other.  But the human mind can only "know" so many people.  As soon as you start dealing with strangers on a regular basis, you need something else as a store of value.

The internet, globalization and other advances make sure that we cannot go back to ancient communal ways, and thank hod for that.

I disagree, in part - the Internet extends the reach of those you "know" or who "know" of you exponentially. Just look at what we're doing here ... 

In a society of abundance, I suspect that self-chosen social circles will play a greater role in production and securing of truly scarce things (I suspect mostly services, as presumably robots will make all sorts of goods free - other than say works of art).

Most transactions in this society would take the form of "I'll give you my new holograph instillation painting as a gift, on the unspoken assumption that you will display it at your costume party - to which you will invite me - enhancing the status of both of us; I'm expecting the other invitees to be important and interesting (i.e. persons with high-prestige goods and services to bestow in turn, whom I'd like to know)".

Money would simply not be required in such a world, which in part already exists - or at least, in some situations people like to *pretend* or *act* as if it does.

[Malthus]

Heh, that's an interesting concept. And not unlike living under communism in Poland. 

The difference is having a society of abundance rather than scarsity. 

Actually, I was thinking of another model - the "economy" of being a hunter-gatherer (also a society of scarsity of course).

Hunter-gatherers lack money and, more significantly, any ability to store posessions above what they can carry. They nonetheless have an economy of sorts - based on "storing" favours.

Favours are not "banked" in the same way as cash, with an exact accounting. Rather, they are "banked" in the form of status. It is all based on sharing food and other goods. If I have food to share, and I hand it out to everyone, I am in essence putting everyone under an obligation; if I do so more often than other people, my status goes up. A free rider, who always gets but does not give - their status goes down.

I don't believe in the "society of abundance" - once your basic needs are satisfied, need is based on perception. Assuming the society would not stop all progress, there will be constantly new goods and services developed, and no society could make these available to everybody immediately upon their emergence.

In that sense, the communist Poland was a society of "abundance" as much as it was a society of "scarcity". Sure, people lacked stuff like Coca Cola and prettier clothes, but people were fed, clothed, had free access to higher education and full health care coverage, and probably a better access to higher culture than they have today (theatres and Polish movie making were thriving and despite censorship making much better productions than they do today, and popular access to art was subsidized by the government). The scarcity was only relative, in comparison to the capitalistic societies of the West - and I assume any society based on the concept of "abundance" would suffer from such relative scarcity in one form or another.

And yeah, the society worked a lot based on exchange of favors and status, with "bribes" very rarely taking a pecuniary form.

Oh I agree that there will never be an end of new things - only the things people value will be different. If you like, higher up on the so called "hierarchy of needs":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hierarchy_of_needs

In our purely hypothetical future, where we as a species have at last solved our internal problems, presumably materal goods required for the lower eschelons of the hierarchy would be as free as air - no-one would have to work to live; there may be some sort of accounting used for allocation of resources for the purpose of keeping the system running, but it would not be "money" as we know it, since it would be largely invisible to the citizens. That will not end striving of course, as people would now strive for status, self-articulation, etc.

[PDH]

The internet, globalization and other advances make sure that we cannot go back to ancient communal ways, and thank hod for that.

While I agree that there can be no going back to ways that work in small scale foraging groups (not ancient, by the way, just practiced less and less until later last century [at least]), I would argue that the triumphal idea that we know what cannot happen to human society in the future is a bit much...

[The Minsky Moment]

In our purely hypothetical future, where we as a species have at last solved our internal problems, presumably materal goods required for the lower eschelons of the hierarchy would be as free as air - no-one would have to work to live; there may be some sort of accounting used for allocation of resources for the purpose of keeping the system running, but it would not be "money" as we know it, since it would be largely invisible to the citizens. That will not end striving of course, as people would now strive for status, self-articulation, etc.

Keynes wrote an essay about this in the 30s; he foresaw this happening in the not-so-distant future.  In fact, in terms of production capabilities, most of the OECD world has reached this stage already; yet the pursuit for status and positional goods is so fierce that there is no feasible way to abandon the traditional monetary economy without massive social changes.

[grumbler]

Keynes wrote an essay about this in the 30s; he foresaw this happening in the not-so-distant future.  In fact, in terms of production capabilities, most of the OECD world has reached this stage already; yet the pursuit for status and positional goods is so fierce that there is no feasible way to abandon the traditional monetary economy without massive social changes.

I hope the real Keynes didn't engage in the absurd and, frankly, embarrassingly erroneous speculation that the poster by that name did, back in the day.

[Monoriu]

I disagree, in part - the Internet extends the reach of those you "know" or who "know" of you exponentially. Just look at what we're doing here ... 

In a society of abundance, I suspect that self-chosen social circles will play a greater role in production and securing of truly scarce things (I suspect mostly services, as presumably robots will make all sorts of goods free - other than say works of art).

Most transactions in this society would take the form of "I'll give you my new holograph instillation painting as a gift, on the unspoken assumption that you will display it at your costume party - to which you will invite me - enhancing the status of both of us; I'm expecting the other invitees to be important and interesting (i.e. persons with high-prestige goods and services to bestow in turn, whom I'd like to know)".

Money would simply not be required in such a world, which in part already exists - or at least, in some situations people like to *pretend* or *act* as if it does.

I think the internet forces us to deal with strangers much more regularly than before, further removing the human element from transactions.  Take banking for example.  In the past, people needed to visit branches, and bank staff would at least meet them personally.  Nowadays everybody gets an internet connection.  Instead of catering to individual needs of clients, banks will need to standardize their services over the internet. 

And I don't really understand how we can have a society of abundance.  Humanity already possesses the technology and resources to provide for the basic needs (food, water, shelter, basic clothing etc) of everybody on earth easily.  Yet we clearly do not have a society of abundance where most goods are free. 

In order to qualify to receive the goods that meet my basic needs, I also need to take part in the production process - that's what earning money means.  In an increasingly specialized and competitive world, that is not easy to do.  In fact, it is getting harder.  What's more, it is not enough to simply join.  One also has to stay there, no easy feat. 

[Martinus]

I think you are wrong about the society removing human element - in fact, reality seems to point to the contrary. After the initial "enthusiasm" for internet anonymity, that marked the 1990s, the internet community has seen a remarkable renaissance of identity - from Facebook, to Twitter, to video blogging people are finding more ways to be recognized and known, to the point that is quite stunning to be honest. People seem to care about opinions of and share their personal lifes with other people, who they had not even known existed before.

Nb, one thing to consider is that in a future society based on status, group identity may become much more deliberate - rather than based on ethnicity or nationality, it will be based instead on ideology or a common interest - think "Diamond Age" or "Snowcrash." In fact, Internet offers a stark insight into such a possible future. Just think of Languish as a society.

[PDH]

Just think of Languish as a society.

I already do.