What would a society without money be like?

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KT67
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14 Dec 2020, 6:01 am

You've basically taken the advantages of an unmoneyed society away from it.

I think the hierarchy is mostly in the wrong order.

People who do crap work should get most credit. Yes, it's something that everyone can do. But it's also something nobody actually enjoys. Also vocations like medical work should count here & get the MOST credit.
People who do vocational work should still get medium credit. Stuff like working as a social worker, back bench mp, secretary, teacher. It's enjoyable but still actual work. People feel called to it and have to study for it.
People who are just excellent at what others would have as hobbies need the least credit. So what, you're good at football/acting? I love football & TV but honestly? I'd rather have a team full of Scotsmen and Irishmen who genuinely support my team & want to win or watch a show made out of passion than have money dictate that stuff.

Too much money goes towards celebrities and I'm not convinced there wouldn't be such entertainment if we just kept them comfortable. I think it would become more passion based. Writers write because of that kind of passion, artists draw/paint out of it, I think it's the same kind of thing.


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Dial1194
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15 Dec 2020, 8:11 am

While a no-money society would be possible, particularly in a post-scarcity society (much as the Star Trek one appears to be for all day-to-day intents and purposes), there are good and bad variations. Some of the variants I've seen proposed are just as bad or worse than money - social credit systems, for instance, based either on what the government deems acceptable or non-acceptable (see China for the beginnings of such a system, where people lacking social credit cannot access many services), or how people are regarded by other people (see Cory Doctorow's "Whuffie" system), which I don't have to tell you could be disastrous for those who can't dance the social dance all that well, as it's literally just a popularity contest.

Any truly acceptable no-money system would need to be able to provide, more than adequately, for people with extensive family responsibilities, for people with extreme physical and/or mental disabilities, for people who could not speak the local language, for people with no economic skills, for people requiring intense medical care (not just hospital patients), for people whose ability to perform 'work' - however you care to define that - fluctuates significantly and without warning, for people who have had limited access to education, for people who were or had the 'wrong' color, religion, sex, personal preferences, and so on and so forth. Effectively, any person or group for whom poverty and its side effects is an issue in today's society and economy. It could not be centrally controlled, as there would always be groups of people who sought to gain that control for themselves. It could not be negatively affected by social perceptions either local or national/globally, or there would forever be groups who could literally never escape poverty-equivalent simply because they were perceived as different. It could never be tied to bureaucracy or red tape (i.e. ID cards or other paperwork, or even fingerprints/biometrics), because that too could be seized as a means to social power.

In short, it would most likely - at least in its full form - need something akin to the post-scarcity society, where adequate resources for survival, living, and flourishing could be summoned at any time by any person, regardless of their legal or social status, and without the oversight (or even the ability to acquire oversight) of the kinds of people who seem to exist only to exult in denying other people access to resources, even ones necessary to basic survival, based on the requester's "worthiness" in the eyes of the self-appointed social judges.

So the problem is a little more intricate than simply "Would a no-money system work?" Similar to "Does a money-based system work?", it's really a matter of implementation more than the inherent underlying system itself. And in either case, a system would require quite a lot of anti-human-interference mechanisms designed into it from the outset, including mechanisms designed to prevent it being added onto or warped or hacked later to allow human power-grabbing and resource denial to others in favor of the self and the in-group, which is a regrettably prominent feature of human psychology. Intellectual and social education would have to be redesigned, for starters, to emphasize improving the larger group as socially and emotionally desirable. At the same time, you'd have to absolutely avoid the potential pitfalls of such systems, where people are expected to subsume themselves to a rigid cultural framework or the proclamations of a ruling class or party.

In other words, it ain't easy.



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15 Dec 2020, 9:11 am

A no-money society is one answer to the problem of mass unemployment due to automation. And that's a problem which is coming for us. Decouple the ability to afford to live from wealth creation completely. It's why a surprsing number of tech billionaires have spoken out in favour of Universal Basic Income, which is another solution. They know damn well that they're in the business of putting millions out of work.

I'd agree there needs to be an element of rationing to make sure everyone has access to the basics. How to organise this is a thorny problem... the Soviets and Mao gave centrally controlled command economies a bad name for good reason, and corrupt decision-making is common in democracies too. I wonder if some kind of "bottom-up" democracy would be the best political system to deal with this. There have been experiments along those lines in various Latin American cities, where assemblies of ordinary people have taken over local government and done a better job of it than the institutionally corrupt regional politicians.

Not sure how to get people to do the hard, essential jobs that haven't been automated yet. Mind you, humans do a surprising amount of volunteer work, not all of it pleasant or easy. Even in the age of Reagan and Thatcher, the public spirit isn't completely dead. Alternatively, Universal Basic Income would give people the option to earn more money if they wanted to- it wouldn't level society as much as abolishing money altogether, but would create more incentive to do what needs doing.


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PhosphorusDecree
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15 Dec 2020, 9:12 am

....My, this thread has been unbelievably civil so far! (crosses fingers.)


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nick007
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21 Dec 2020, 1:41 am

I have an idea which might perhaps be more obtainable rite now than a society without money or a society with Universal Basic Income. We can invest in the workforce. Give people good free health care & free quality education so they would have a better chance of being able to perform various jobs. We could also have more programs that help people find jobs. Lots of jobs are becoming automated nowadays but it takes people to create, design, maintain, & run those systems. iPhones do not create new versions of themselves every few months. It takes various people to create & improve the technology. We could also make some investments in protecting workers like raising the minimum wage & requiring bigger companies to have family & medical leave policies. Providing health care, education, & job coaches/finders would create jobs by themselves because people have to work in health care, education, & be job coaches. The programs would cost a lot to implement in the begging but they would pay for themselves over time. Having more people working means less people would need to be on gov benefits & assistance programs long term. Also income is taxable so more workers means more tax revenue coming in. We should be helping people become independent instead of forcing them to rely on gov benefits & assistance programs long term. It's like the saying~ "Give a man to fish & he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish & he will eat for a lifetime". Of corse we should still allow people to stay on gov benefits & assistance programs long term if they really can not handle a regular job because of physical &/or mental conditions.


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21 Dec 2020, 5:07 am

A gift economy and no inherent promise of disturbing the hierarchy.


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