Economists to me: abolition of money

[The Minsky Moment]

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.

Nah the real Keynes was a genius; that other guy was just some fool poser on Paradox.

[Malthus]

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.

I don't agree, at least not in much of the West: right now it is perfectly possible to live at a subsistance level and essentially do nothing at all other than fill out forms, and still get basic food, shelter, education and medical care paid for by the state. You may not live in any sort of comfort or luxury, but compared with (say) the life of a medieval peasant, it's a paradise - no-one starves or dies of easily cured diseases, everyone who seriously wants it and is willing to conform to a minimum of acceptable behaviour has shelter of sorts. It isn't totally beyond the realm of possibility that this trend will accellerate (barring global disasters of various sorts).

While our collective notions of what the necessary basics of life are have clearly increased substantially, I do not think that a society of abundance is impossible.

The fact that many services are now impersonal - because they are automated - is an example of how the mechanisms of such a society would work; occupations that used to require a human (say, bank teller) are now done by a machine, with a net increase in productivity (in now takes two minutes to do what used to require an hour or more of going to the bank and waiting in line, and a machine uses a fraction of a cent in energy and amortization/servicing of the machine, rather than say a couple of dollars of a human tellers' time).

As time goes on (the theory goes), the occupations that *require* humans will become fewer and fewer; more and more people will require support through various forms of subsidy and social services, which they will vote for; actual occupations will grow fewer and harder to obtain, and consequently have higher status.

Right now of course this status is still represented by money, and maybe it always will be. But it is possible at least to imagine a point when it is not. 

[Martinus]

Yeah, that's not inconceivable.

At least in Poland (and I suspect in many countries), politics has become that kind of status-based profession, for example. Politicians earn peanuts (for example I earn 2-3 times more than the President of Poland) and yet people flock to it, because it gives them status (again, in a democratic society the "power" they have is not as big as the status benefit). Similar situation exists in more sophisticated arts or at least some forms of media (like journalism) or academia.

One can imagine that as the society progresses and more and more of the "day-to-day" non-creative work is automated, such jobs will become more and more popular.

[Viking]

Ah, but I'd like to hear how a cashless, technologically advanced society could work without money and without state/communal ownership of production. Any idea?

It couldn't. At least not with humans.

The Borg scenario remains the only one where we can overcome our selfish destructive animalistic nature.  Thus we would no longer be burdened by emotions such as greed, avarice and lust for power that underpin all human systems of governance and resource management.




G.

Borg: You will be assimilated.
Picard: Been there; done that. We disbanded money, go away.

[alfred russel]

As time goes on (the theory goes), the occupations that *require* humans will become fewer and fewer; more and more people will require support through various forms of subsidy and social services, which they will vote for; actual occupations will grow fewer and harder to obtain, and consequently have higher status.

Right now of course this status is still represented by money, and maybe it always will be. But it is possible at least to imagine a point when it is not.

I'm with you until this point. The "player piano" theory that machines are going to lead to mass unemployement has been predicted for a very long time but unemployment now is much lower than at most other points after the industrial revolution. Those bank tellers that lost their jobs haven't been reduced to the dole--they have found new jobs.

[Martinus]

As time goes on (the theory goes), the occupations that *require* humans will become fewer and fewer; more and more people will require support through various forms of subsidy and social services, which they will vote for; actual occupations will grow fewer and harder to obtain, and consequently have higher status.

Right now of course this status is still represented by money, and maybe it always will be. But it is possible at least to imagine a point when it is not.

I'm with you until this point. The "player piano" theory that machines are going to lead to mass unemployement has been predicted for a very long time but unemployment now is much lower than at most other points after the industrial revolution. Those bank tellers that lost their jobs haven't been reduced to the dole--they have found new jobs.

Malthus is right, though, that even now jobs are becoming more and more about status than sustenance. You do not get a job to survive - you get it to buy a wide screen TV or go to some nice place for holidays. And many of these new jobs are exactly about convincing people that they really *need* these status symbols - so this becoming a recurring loop.

Get rid of all the marketing people, sales people and people whose job it is to resolve conflicts over limited resources (as neither type will be needed in the economy of abundance) and you have huge unemployment.

[alfred russel]

As time goes on (the theory goes), the occupations that *require* humans will become fewer and fewer; more and more people will require support through various forms of subsidy and social services, which they will vote for; actual occupations will grow fewer and harder to obtain, and consequently have higher status.

Right now of course this status is still represented by money, and maybe it always will be. But it is possible at least to imagine a point when it is not.

I'm with you until this point. The "player piano" theory that machines are going to lead to mass unemployement has been predicted for a very long time but unemployment now is much lower than at most other points after the industrial revolution. Those bank tellers that lost their jobs haven't been reduced to the dole--they have found new jobs.

Malthus is right, though, that even now jobs are becoming more and more about status than sustenance. You do not get a job to survive - you get it to buy a wide screen TV or go to some nice place for holidays. And many of these new jobs are exactly about convincing people that they really *need* these status symbols - so this becoming a recurring loop.

Get rid of all the marketing people, sales people and people whose job it is to resolve conflicts over limited resources (as neither type will be needed in the economy of abundance) and you have huge unemployment.

I agree that we are no longer a subsistence level society, I just disagree that huge unemployment is around the corner.

It has been the case for some time that people can live a basic existence without much work, but for whatever reason most people are willing to work hard for that big screen TV.

[Josquius]

I dunno, I still think there'd be a need (well...not need but a opening) for marketing and sales and all that sort of thing- the entire population can have a awesome mega TV, sure. But which TV will they choose to have? The Sony or the LG?
Even if there are no profits to actually be made I think that status could even extend here to having your designs being the most popular.
With products like TVs this is well out there but its pretty easy to imagine with artists; just think of all those people writing fiction on the web, they just want people to read it an give them respect. Even though authors, musicians, etc... won't be making money they still want their work out there and so there will be people who will offer to help them do that for the perks that come with being connected to the famous.

[Grallon]

Picard: Been there; done that. We disbanded money, go away.

If you think humans will let go of their need for status symbols willingly you are delusional.



G.

[Monoriu]

I don't agree, at least not in much of the West: right now it is perfectly possible to live at a subsistance level and essentially do nothing at all other than fill out forms, and still get basic food, shelter, education and medical care paid for by the state. You may not live in any sort of comfort or luxury, but compared with (say) the life of a medieval peasant, it's a paradise - no-one starves or dies of easily cured diseases, everyone who seriously wants it and is willing to conform to a minimum of acceptable behaviour has shelter of sorts. It isn't totally beyond the realm of possibility that this trend will accellerate (barring global disasters of various sorts).

While our collective notions of what the necessary basics of life are have clearly increased substantially, I do not think that a society of abundance is impossible.

The fact that many services are now impersonal - because they are automated - is an example of how the mechanisms of such a society would work; occupations that used to require a human (say, bank teller) are now done by a machine, with a net increase in productivity (in now takes two minutes to do what used to require an hour or more of going to the bank and waiting in line, and a machine uses a fraction of a cent in energy and amortization/servicing of the machine, rather than say a couple of dollars of a human tellers' time).

As time goes on (the theory goes), the occupations that *require* humans will become fewer and fewer; more and more people will require support through various forms of subsidy and social services, which they will vote for; actual occupations will grow fewer and harder to obtain, and consequently have higher status.

Right now of course this status is still represented by money, and maybe it always will be. But it is possible at least to imagine a point when it is not.

I think there are a lot of forces at work that may make the western welfare state unsustainable - mounting debt, unfavourable demographics, globalization and competition from developing countries, to name a few. 

I don't buy that a society of abundance is possible, or even desirable.  We are not one big happy family on earth.  Humanity is deeply divided.  If every worker in a particular trade form a union and demand better conditions, they'll probably get it.  But if a sufficiently large chunk of the workers refuse to cooperate, the party will be over, and they'll engage in a race to the bottom.  The welfare states of the west worked in the previous decades because there was a lack of competition from the developing world.  This is beginning to change. 

Our struggle for survival and the fight against scarcity will never end.  Not until everyone is content with what they have.  As long as some people are not content, they'll compete with the rest for limited resources.