A world without money.

[Stewie7Griffin]

Originally Posted by foilman8805

Sure, the NBA player is pretty heavily overpaid, but when you made this analogy you definitely didn't realize how much CEOs are overpaid as well, especially in the United States.

They may be overpaid, but I believe they should be paid way more than the NBA players. Not to bump up their salary, but to dumb down the NBA's salary.

[mhss1992]

Originally Posted by Reincarnate

Your system doesn't solve anything. How is saying "with 10,000 credits you can buy a house" any different from saying "with X dollars I can buy a house" -- only now you're limiting what people can buy as a way to keep resources at bay?

You didn't pay attention. You can own one house, but your credits won't go down. You'll still have 10000 credits if you get the house. The number of credits only says what your privileges are.

[Reincarnate]

Originally Posted by mhss1992

You didn't pay attention. You can own one house, but your credits won't go down. You'll still have 10000 credits if you get the house. The number of credits only says what your privileges are.

You didn't pay attention. Your system doesn't solve anything. What do you think credit *is* to begin with?

[mhss1992]

And I bet you'd give that answer to any system I proposed.

The difference is that there would be no direct exchange. Your privileges would be based on your credit level, but there would be no paper to give others when you acquired something. Perhaps a card like an ID would be enough.

Most basic services would be free, research would be free and there would still exist an incentive for work. There would have to be boundaries due to material limitations, but still, why wouldn't it be better?

[Reincarnate]

Originally Posted by mhss1992

And I bet you'd give that answer to any system I proposed.

If the system doesn't solve anything, then yeah, I'm going to say it doesn't solve anything.

Originally Posted by mhss1992

The difference is that there would be no direct exchange. Your privileges would be based on your credit level, but there would be no paper to give others when you acquired something. Perhaps a card like an ID would be enough.

Most basic services would be free, research would be free and there would still exist an incentive for work. There would have to be boundaries due to material limitations, but still, why wouldn't it be better?

It doesn't matter how you word this stuff. You cannot handwave costs by just making random assumptions and redefining things.

You're basically saying "Work X amount and you'll have a score increase -- and this score determines what you can buy." We hit a score of 100,000 or something and now we can buy a house. It doesn't matter that this variable isn't "exchangeable." If you're going to say "these are all the items you can achieve with this score," then it's the same as if we had a monetary system where we could pay a dollar amount equal to the sum of the prices of the items in question.

Renaming the system to be in terms of "nonexchangeable credits" doesn't get us anywhere. It's still an exchange -- we're exchanging goods and services. The utility increase of my work output results in an ability to purchase the outputs of others. Only now you're basically limiting what people can actually have.

[mhss1992]

Originally Posted by Reincarnate

It doesn't matter how you word this stuff. You cannot handwave costs by just making random assumptions and redefining things.

You're basically saying "Work X amount and you'll have a score increase -- and this score determines what you can buy." We hit a score of 100,000 or something and now we can buy a house. It doesn't matter that this variable isn't "exchangeable." If you're going to say "these are all the items you can achieve with this score," then it's the same as if we had a monetary system where we could pay a dollar amount equal to the sum of the prices of the items in question.

Renaming the system to be in terms of "nonexchangeable credits" doesn't get us anywhere. It's still an exchange -- we're exchanging goods and services. The utility increase of my work output results in an ability to purchase the outputs of others. Only now you're basically limiting what people can actually have.

On the contrary... People would be able to get a lot more.
If you had a justification to get certain materials, you'd be able to get it for free. You'd be supervisionated and stuff, but, still, you'd get it.

E.g.: if you had enough education and could prove it, you'd be able to get permission to obtain materials for your research on teleportation for you university.

You could gain credits for even going to school, instead of having to pay for education, since going to school is useful to the world.

People who produced food would gain credits just for producing it, and people who needed the food would get it for free. The ammount of food you could get would be calculated depending on your weight, number of people living with you and you could get extra food with enough credits if you wanted to make a party or be a bodybuilder or something. (obesity rate would also go down)

No one would be homeless unless they wanted to.

Nobody would lose credits in order for someone else to gain.

Of course, it's still possible that the database which said how many credits each people had could be hacked and stuff, but it isn't any less safe than our current banks.


What are you complaining about? Of course goods would be limited. They are limited now, too. But they would be more fairly distributed. In what aspect, exactly, is the system I described inferior to our current capitalism?

[Mechablob]

Originally Posted by DossarLX ODI

A few things I can see about having no money is that insurance won't be needed, surgery would be free, nobody needs funding for medical research, and everyone has a chance at attending a higher level of education (college). To prevent the laziness, there could be some law passed that makes it so every person is required to have some type of job. And there would be limit to what you can have too - even though things would be free, you can't and don't need 500 cars unless you wanted to loan out or sell them (which isn't really necessary since you're not selling for currency).

Well, there are definitely the positive elements of a world without money, I guess, and I see you've highlighted a key one: "everyone has a chance at attending a higher level of education." That sort of equality reminds me of (maybe it's just me - not that it's a negative thing either) the foundation of communism - that was intended for equality.

However, a world without money might be flawed, right? I say this because, well, to speak plainly: if one man had a physical item that was of worth to him, and another person was wanting this item, they could maybe come to a trade - a trade of items, maybe? I guess that's where currency comes in. Many of us humans are quite materialistic, really, and without money, we can't exactly earn something due to kindness of heart - not every person on the planet is like that; willing to give out of kindness. Maybe currency is there as a status of worth?

I guess you're probably right, though: if we lived in a world without currency, we might be better off as equality would definitely be emphasised in the society we live in. I mean, various tribes around the planet manage to live without money, right? It wouldn't be a necessity if the society we were in completely dismissed of currency. Swings and roundabouts. Positives and negatives.

[Reincarnate]

mhss1992: I don't understand your argument style sometimes. It's like you completely ignore the points that render your argument invalid and continue along with the same line of flawed reasoning.

You cannot create value out of thin air. At the end of the day you always have to ask "Who is paying for this?" You want to make education free, food free, etc -- without considering that these have implicit costs. You *have to compensate these costs in some way or these things won't get done*.

"People who produced food would gain credits just for producing it, and people who needed the food would get it for free."
-This is the same as the government subsidizing food purchases. Farmer A grows apples and gets paid X dollars by the government so that the average consumer B can partake in the food as dictated by the government. And where do you think the government is going to get this money?

"The ammount of food you could get would be calculated depending on your weight, number of people living with you and you could get extra food with enough credits if you wanted to make a party or be a bodybuilder or something. (obesity rate would also go down)"
-Just another example of the government controlling what and how you can spend your money. You're still going to run into "unfair cases." What if I want to eat for the pleasure of eating? Could I not just say I am constantly bodybuilding/throwing parties? How would you enforce such a silly thing?

"No one would be homeless unless they wanted to."
-More accurately, no one would be homeless if they worked to earn credits. Same can be said for this current economy. If you don't work, you don't earn any money. If you don't provide any value, you don't gain any value in return.

"Nobody would lose credits in order for someone else to gain."
-You're making the same mistake Dossar did. Just because you're "renaming" your system to cater to a "score" system doesn't mean you aren't still making some underlying exchange of goods. If I am gaining X items/services in exchange for your Y items/services, we're both losing something and gaining something. Any expenditure or deliverance of a good/service is a cost/loss that you desire compensation for.

"What are you complaining about? Of course goods would be limited. They are limited now, too. But they would be more fairly distributed. In what aspect, exactly, is the system I described inferior to our current capitalism?"
-Because *you are not solving anything* and are basically giving the government more say in how we can spend our money. I'd rather be able to spend my money on what I want without the government getting in the way of dictating what kind of lifestyle I choose to lead. You define it as "fairly distributed," but it's never going to be perfectly fair. If you divide resources among everyone with controlled limits, you punish fair-value compensation and live in a society with a lower standard of living and devalued incentives to work hard/innovate/etc. If you divide resources to those who provide value, you punish those who are either lazy, unintelligent, unskilled, born into poverty/abuse, born without opportunity, etc.

[Reincarnate]

Originally Posted by Mechablob

I guess you're probably right, though: if we lived in a world without currency, we might be better off as equality would definitely be emphasised in the society we live in. I mean, various tribes around the planet manage to live without money, right? It wouldn't be a necessity if the society we were in completely dismissed of currency. Swings and roundabouts. Positives and negatives.

We got along for plenty of years without currency, sure. But the lack of standardization and the larger inherent transaction costs and heightened levels of information asymmetry means we also got by with a much lower standard of living.

The only way a moneyless system would function is if we were willing to work for potentially no return where resources are considered.

Take a really, really basic example: An economy of two people. You grow apples. I grow oranges. Everything is free. But I don't like apples and have no desire to acquire them from you. However, you'd still be able to take my oranges since they're free. Why would I ever want to agree to this sort of system?

How about a system where you provide apples and I provide cars -- only I put countless years of effort into educating myself into developing the technology, gathering materials, testing, etc -- and let's say it's something I really dislike doing. And say I *still* don't want apples. Still a fair trade?

Now expand that to a community of a greater population with a greater number of goods/services with different levels of inherent costs.

[~kitty~]

Sorry I didn't read everything, but I wanted to say that if everything was free, there would be no motivation at all for improvement (assuming we could work a way where we could make this "Utopia") and the quality of life will start declining. Money doesn't have to be currency, money can be things we have given value to, and if your problem was getting rid of CURRENCY, that also brings up the problem of how money should be regulated. Who gets to decide? There will arise many conflicts, as it is human nature to do so for such things. Example: I'll trade you my pokemon card for your lunch.

[mhss1992]

Originally Posted by Reincarnate

mhss1992: I don't understand your argument style sometimes. It's like you completely ignore the points that render your argument invalid and continue along with the same line of flawed reasoning.

No, that's what you want to believe. Seriously, sometimes you never answer some of my arguments. It happened several times in the last discussion.

You have to understand something: it's not because one of us is necessarily wrong. It's simply because we disagree. That's why the other seems like an idiot sometimes, but we are both not idiots. Sometimes the other side misinterprets something and thinks the other side's wrong.

Excuse me, what rendered my argument invalid? We discussed almost nothing on this subject. You understood the system as superficially as someone could possibly have, and I'll show you:

Originally Posted by Reincarnate

You cannot create value out of thin air. At the end of the day you always have to ask "Who is paying for this?" You want to make education free, food free, etc -- without considering that these have implicit costs. You *have to compensate these costs in some way or these things won't get done*.

Yeah, you're using capitalist logic in this other system, when it's completely different.

It's like this: People get incentive (credits) for working and producing goods. These credits would be attributed to people, but they wouldn't be stored anywhere.

Just like that. The credits don't come from anywhere. The government wouldn't own the credits, it'd just attribute them to people's names.

Think of a university: it doesn't own a "certain ammount" of degrees it can give. People study and receive these degrees based on their grades. Nobody needs to lose a degree for you to obtain one. There's no limit to how many degrees can be given. Same thing with these credits here.

It's like a card that gives you access to certain places depending on it's level.

Maybe it does sound absurd to someone who lives in a capitalist system, but work would still be done.

Originally Posted by Reincarnate

"People who produced food would gain credits just for producing it, and people who needed the food would get it for free."
-This is the same as the government subsidizing food purchases. Farmer A grows apples and gets paid X dollars by the government so that the average consumer B can partake in the food as dictated by the government. And where do you think the government is going to get this money?

From nowhere, like I said. They can give as many credits as necessary. That's because there's no transference of credits.

"The ammount of food you could get would be calculated depending on your weight, number of people living with you and you could get extra food with enough credits if you wanted to make a party or be a bodybuilder or something. (obesity rate would also go down)"
-Just another example of the government controlling what and how you can spend your money. You're still going to run into "unfair cases." What if I want to eat for the pleasure of eating? Could I not just say I am constantly bodybuilding/throwing parties? How would you enforce such a silly thing?

You wouldn't have to justify by saying you're a bodybuilder, it's just an example.

It's like this: you can have a basic ammount of food for free, and you can eat a lot more if you work and gain credits. For the pleasure of eating, too.

"No one would be homeless unless they wanted to."
-More accurately, no one would be homeless if they worked to earn credits. Same can be said for this current economy. If you don't work, you don't earn any money. If you don't provide any value, you don't gain any value in return.

Capitalist logic again... Listen, you can't judge systems if your own judgment is already determined by the current system. You have to judge from outside, think outside the box.

Certain things could be stipulated as being free, such as small houses and food in certain quantities. The producers of houses and foods would still be gaining credits.

Why couldn't it work exactly as I'm saying? The producers are still gaining!

"Nobody would lose credits in order for someone else to gain."
-You're making the same mistake Dossar did. Just because you're "renaming" your system to cater to a "score" system doesn't mean you aren't still making some underlying exchange of goods. If I am gaining X items/services in exchange for your Y items/services, we're both losing something and gaining something. Any expenditure or deliverance of a good/service is a cost/loss that you desire compensation for.

Degrees example, again.

"What are you complaining about? Of course goods would be limited. They are limited now, too. But they would be more fairly distributed. In what aspect, exactly, is the system I described inferior to our current capitalism?"
-Because *you are not solving anything* and are basically giving the government more say in how we can spend our money. I'd rather be able to spend my money on what I want without the government getting in the way of dictating what kind of lifestyle I choose to lead. You define it as "fairly distributed," but it's never going to be perfectly fair. If you divide resources among everyone with controlled limits, you punish fair-value compensation and live in a society with a lower standard of living and devalued incentives to work hard/innovate/etc. If you divide resources to those who provide value, you punish those who are either lazy, unintelligent, unskilled, born into poverty/abuse, born without opportunity, etc.

I am giving equal opportunities to everyone!
The punishment system you've described is more what capitalism is like. Many people are born without opportunities and live in poverty.

You'd be able to do anything you can currently do with capitalism (well, perhaps not gaining in the lottery or stealing credits), only without the many limitations it imposes.

[Reincarnate]

Originally Posted by mhss1992

No, that's what you want to believe. Seriously, sometimes you never answer some of my arguments. It happened several times in the last discussion.

You have to understand something: it's not because one of us is necessarily wrong. It's simply because we disagree. That's why the other seems like an idiot sometimes, but we are both not idiots. Sometimes the other side misinterprets something and thinks the other side's wrong.

No, it's not that we just disagree. It is *because you are wrong*. I am not misinterpreting you. You are not understanding why your argument doesn't make sense because you do not seem to be aware of basic economic principles.

Originally Posted by mhss1992

Excuse me, what rendered my argument invalid? We discussed almost nothing on this subject. You understood the system as superficially as someone could possibly have, and I'll show you:

Do I need to explain why a toothpick bridge won't hold up cars? It's not "superficial" to dismiss an idea as silly when it's obviously silly. The analogy here is that you don't seem to understand that your idea is made out of toothpicks.

Originally Posted by mhss1992

Yeah, you're using capitalist logic in this other system, when it's completely different.

Yeah, and you're using communist/socialist logic. It doesn't exactly have a great track record, unless your idea of living life involves lots of oppression, hunger, and lower standards.

Originally Posted by mhss1992

It's like this: People get incentive (credits) for working and producing goods. These credits would be attributed to people, but they wouldn't be stored anywhere.

Just like that. The credits don't come from anywhere. The government wouldn't own the credits, it just attributes them to people.

Think of a university: it doesn't own a "certain ammount" of degrees it can give. People study and receive these degrees based on their grades. There's no limit to how many degrees can be given. Same thing with these credits here.

Maybe it does sound absurd to someone who lives in a capitalist system, but work would still be done.

Education comes at a cost. It doesn't own a certain number of degrees, but it costs money to house/feed/teach students and to ensure a certain standard of quality, especially when a degree gives you educational/earning power. You can't just pull credits out of your ass and say "they came from nowhere and nobody owns it." You're giving someone a metric for which it is a compensation metric for their work output to be used to achieve the output of others. Only now you're trying to make things free without explaining who is paying for it or why people should bother working hard. This is just bleeding obvious and you're missing it every time.

Originally Posted by mhss1992

From nowhere, like I said. They can give as many credits as necessary. That's because there's no transference of credits.

Okay, so this is the equivalent of the government printing money to repay debts. It's the same as farmer A growing apples... and then for consumer B to enjoy the apples for free, the government is paying the farmer in the form of credits. The government is exchanging the fruit output for a credit increase for the benefit of the consumer who pays nothing for the fruit. You can't just say "well there's no direct farmer/consumer exchange of credits and the government can just give credits constantly to compensate the farmer."

Do you know what happens when you repay your debts by just printing money in this situation? INFLATION.

This is basic, basic economics. Prices go up after an increase in money supply because when people have money they'll spend some portion of it, meaning that retailers have to raise their prices to either profit or avoid running out of product. If the goal is to not run out of product if you hold the prices constant, that means they have to make MORE product. That means, in turn, that you run into potential capacity constraints, labor shortages, product shortages, etc.

Having more money doesn't mean we are more wealthy.

Originally Posted by mhss1992

You wouldn't have to justify by saying you're a bodybuilder, it's just an example.

It's like this: you can have a basic ammount of food for free, and you can eat a lot more if you work and gain credits. For the pleasure of eating, too.

Still the same as paying money for marginal consumption. Nothing is solved here.

Originally Posted by mhss1992

Capitalist logic again... Listen, you can't judge systems if your own judgment is already determined by the current system. You have to judge from outside, think outside the box.

Certain things could be stipulated as being free, such as small houses and food in certain quantities. The producers of houses and foods would still be gaining credits.

Why couldn't it work exactly as I'm saying? The producers are still gaining!

Sweet lord man, take a goddamned Econ class.

"Thinking outside the box" doesn't work if your ideas are stupid. You're not thinking this through.

You can't just make certain things free without compensating for that cost somewhere. Otherwise there is simply no incentive to produce. It doesn't work to simply make things free by printing money (or as you call it, distributing non-exchangeable credits) to cover those debts.

Originally Posted by mhss1992

Degrees example, again.

No, it's "misunderstanding of value and compensation," again.

Originally Posted by mhss1992

I am giving equal opportunities to everyone!
The punishment system you've described is more what capitalism is like. Many people are born without opportunities and live in poverty.

You'd be able to do anything you can currently do with capitalism, only without the many limitations it imposes.

Yeah, because communist societies are totally not stricken with all sorts of poverty. 9_9
You can't do everything we can currently do with capitalism under your system because you aren't taking into account the fact that COST IS COST. You *cannot circumvent cost*. Nothing is ever "free" -- it has to get *compensated somewhere*. You cannot handwave this fact away and build a system around the notion of ignoring cost. You also need to understand what a cost IS to begin with.

[mhss1992]

Yeah, I know what cost is. I know what inflation is, too. What I'm suggesting is similar to socialism in some aspects, but not exactly.

OBVIOUSLY, if I just gave 100000000 credits to every human being on earth, those credits would be meaningless. That's why they have to WORK for it.

Everyone could have many credits, why not? they produced enough goods to make up for it, inflation doesn't need to happen.

Naturally, to avoid inflation, the "free" stuff would have to be very limited. And even people with lots of credits still wouldn't be able to have whatever they wanted.

For example: there could be laws that prevented each person from having 5000 rockets, 27000 computers and 987989 cars in their garages.

Certain things would need proven justifications other than just "credits". Or else everyone would be able to own an airplane.

If we reach the point where everyone has an absurdly high ammount of credits, things would have to be divided evenly. Of course, there would be many things, since credits can't come without work.

Oh, but you want people to have whatever they want with enough credits, right? Just like you would be able to if you had enough money. Well, it's impossible.

You have to choose: equal opportunities for everyone and limitations, or the possibility to own a whole planet with enough money. You obviously can't have both.

[Reincarnate]

Originally Posted by mhss1992

Yeah, I know what cost is. I know what inflation is, too. What I'm suggesting is similar to socialism in some aspects, but not exactly.

OBVIOUSLY, if I just gave 100000000 credits to every human being on earth, those credits would be meaningless. That's why they have to WORK for it.

Everyone could have many credits, why not? they produced enough goods to make up for it, inflation doesn't need to happen.

Naturally, to avoid inflation, the "free" stuff would have to be very limited. And even people with lots of credits still wouldn't be able to have whatever they wanted.

For example: there could be laws that prevented each person from having 5000 rockets, 27000 computers and 987989 cars in their garages.

Certain things would need proven justifications other than just "credits". Or else everyone would be able to own an airplane.


Oh, but you want people to have whatever they want with enough credits, right? Just like you would be able to if you had enough money. Well, it's impossible.

You have to choose: equal opportunities for everyone and limitations, or the possibility to own a whole planet with enough money. You obviously can't have both.

Doesn't matter if you give 10000000 credits or 1000 credits or 10 credits. Any time you inject money like this, you're just devaluing what it can actually acquire. In the end, it all comes down to the actual goods and services being exchanged. Money is just a way to grease the wheels and make exchange easier and normalized.

If you give everyone credits, but only allow them to leverage these credits if they work and produce value, and the addition of credits is a function of the utility of their output, then this isn't any different from a system where you just spend money on goods and services. I seriously have no idea why you aren't grasping this.

You can't "avoid inflation" by making free stuff "in limited quantities." It's still a COST. Your "credits" will devalue in accordance with however many credits you inject into the economy without any real-goods exchange. If you're going to just reduce inflation by not increasing credit counts without underlying goods, then you must increase the counts WITH an underlying goods exchange. Yet again, the new proposed system isn't solving anything.

Limiting what people can achieve/own typically results in a ****ty life for everyone. It's generally seen as unfair by those who are capable of striving for something better, and it doesn't incentivize a lot of the utility synergies and value additions we'd like to have in our average lives. It also assumes people are OK with being held to a bound average and that the government has perfect information -- and you also assume the government won't also pursue self-interest and oppress the working classes.

You're basically trying to argue that your retarded "credit systems" will somehow result in cost savings, when it doesn't. That aside, you're otherwise advocating a socialist/communist economy.

The guy below average is going to like communism whereas the guy above average is going to dislike it. This is a separate debate. This thread is about a "world without money" -- which your credit system doesn't even address directly, and even if it did, it still doesn't solve anything. Communism vs socialism vs capitalism etc. are really just different ideologies that dictate how resources/money/power/etc should be distributed.

This thread should probably be brought to a close. It's been more-than-thoroughly addressed why a world without money wouldn't work for us at this point.

[Mechablob]

Originally Posted by Reincarnate

How about a system where you provide apples and I provide cars -- only I put countless years of effort into educating myself into developing the technology, gathering materials, testing, etc -- and let's say it's something I really dislike doing. And say I *still* don't want apples. Still a fair trade?

Now expand that to a community of a greater population with a greater number of goods/services with different levels of inherent costs.

A fantastic point, that I tried referencing similarly in my post (although I guess I probably didn't type it out with such clarity). I also agree with what you have said, but as I tried hinting with my post, there will definitely be positives and negatives to the whole idea. You've highlighted a fair example of the negativity that could form. I think equality (equality would surely form in areas of society if we all were of the same financial disposition - sure, you will probably still have people thinking they are better than others in intellect or physique, but financial status wouldn't be an issue) is a positive example that could form in a society without money too, though.

[Reincarnate]

Originally Posted by Mechablob

A fantastic point, that I tried referencing similarly in my post (although I guess I probably didn't type it out with such clarity). I also agree with what you have said, but as I tried hinting with my post, there will definitely be positives and negatives to the whole idea. You've highlighted a fair example of the negativity that could form. I think equality (equality would surely form in areas of society if we all were of the same financial disposition - sure, you will probably still have people thinking they are better than others in intellect or physique, but financial status wouldn't be an issue) is a positive example that could form in a society without money too, though.

The more and more we move towards a world without money, the more idealistic we have to become with our assumptions. Economics is a function of scarcity. For money to not be needed, we need to make everything wildly available. If we were all skilled, moralistic individuals with ample resouces, health, and automation for things we wouldn't want to do ourselves (cleaning streets, managing waste, etc) -- we wouldn't need an economy to divvy anything up because we'd all get as much of the pie as we desired.

However, these are pretty huge assumptions... and even with these assumptions, there are problems.

We enjoy things like reading books or watching TV or eating out at restaurants or using computer technology -- but these things are all managed by people at the most basic level. It would be impossible to get everyone to agree that all these people should have equal purchasing power. Some work is harder, some work is easier. Some work takes skill, some work doesn't require as much skill. We gain utility from plenty of things ranging from low skill requirements to high skill requirements. That means we ultimately need people who provide these services -- but these services have different perceptions of fair compensation and value contribution.

For a moneyless society to work in this case, we'd need to be willing to work more for no return when compared to someone else working something "easier."

So, we'd not only have to be intelligent, healthy, moral, and with ample resources, but we'd also need to be okay with the notion of everyone having the same purchasing power regardless of effort. We'd have to be okay with potential freeloaders. Alternatively, we could simply NOT desire these things and only desire things that require little effort to develop/maintain/create/etc.

We ultimately have to start invoking a lot of assumptions for our society to operate without any sort of money requirements.

[mhss1992]

Originally Posted by Reincarnate

Doesn't matter if you give 10000000 credits or 1000 credits or 10 credits. Any time you inject money like this, you're just devaluing what it can actually acquire. In the end, it all comes down to the actual goods and services being exchanged. Money is just a way to grease the wheels and make exchange easier and normalized.

But it's NOT MONEY. THERE IS NO EXCHANGE BETWEEN PEOPLE.

You're not even trying to picture it. It's like a level-based privilege system in which everything is, essentially, FREE.

You still get incentive for the goods you produce, but you're not receiving this payment from who consumes it.

Originally Posted by Reincarnate

If you give everyone credits, but only allow them to leverage these credits if they work and produce value, and the addition of credits is a function of the utility of their output, then this isn't any different from a system where you just spend money on goods and services. I seriously have no idea why you aren't grasping this.

Of course, because we live in a world where money is always obtained through work, right?

You can't "avoid inflation" by making free stuff "in limited quantities." It's still a COST. Your "credits" will devalue in accordance with however many credits you inject into the economy without any real-goods exchange. If you're going to just reduce inflation by not increasing credit counts without underlying goods, then you must increase the counts WITH an underlying goods exchange. Yet again, the new proposed system isn't solving anything.

Credits don't need to devaluate by themselves, but the ammount of credits needed for specific products could increase depending on the availability/difficulty to obtain the product, while other prices remained the same. And, like I said, laws.

Limiting what people can achieve/own typically results in a ****ty life for everyone. It's generally seen as unfair by those who are capable of striving for something better, and it doesn't incentivize a lot of the utility synergies and value additions we'd like to have in our average lives. It also assumes people are OK with being held to a bound average and that the government has perfect information -- and you also assume the government won't also pursue self-interest and oppress the working classes.

This is a seriously asinine argument.
Things are already NATURALLY limited, because they exist in a limited quantity in nature.
You can't allow everyone to buy as many apples as they want when there is only ONE apple in the world.

Also, problems with the government exist independently from the economical system.

You're basically trying to argue that your retarded "credit systems" will somehow result in cost savings, when it doesn't. That aside, you're otherwise advocating a socialist/communist economy.

All that is needed to produce something is material and effort. These will be the same whether I pay 100 or 100000 dollars for a product.

What exactly define money's value? It's a function of the ammount of riches a country possesses divided by the amount of money?
What exactly measures riches, then? Why can't I say that I found a cool, really pretty and valuable stone and then create a new currency that can buy the entire rest of the universe?

There's no absolute referential. Every "value" is always relative to the person interested.

My point is that you treat certain concepts as real, concrete things, when they're not.

You're right when you say that money makes exchanges easier, but it doesn't change the fact that exchange itself will always be flawed because cost cannot be measured. Certain people like working and giving things for free. Others ask for too much or steal.

What I propose is a system where exchange between people is not necessary. And, in reality, it's not necessary. In this system, anyone could work and produce for free if they wanted, but that's too unlikely. Incentive still exists, only in a different form.

[justaguy]

Originally Posted by mhss1992

What I propose is a system where exchange between people is not necessary. And, in reality, it's not necessary. In this system, anyone could work and produce for free if they wanted, but that's too unlikely. Incentive still exists, only in a different form.

ummmmmmm, a system where exchange between people is not necessary? do you understand the implications of that at all? lmfao. i think you have a very shallow understanding of life...

[mhss1992]

Originally Posted by justaguy

ummmmmmm, a system where exchange between people is not necessary? do you understand the implications of that at all? lmfao. i think you have a very shallow understanding of life...

But I don't...
Of course there would still be exchange on some level, but this exchange wouldn't have to directly happen between the producer and consumer of a product. Your reward could come from the government.

[Reincarnate]

Okay, then where is the government going to get this wealth from? How will the government provide?

At the end of the chain it's ALWAYS an exchange between people... you solve nothing with crap like "Well, you're being paid in the form of government-dispersed credits. There's no direct interpersonal exchange! Voila! Everything is free!" You're completely ignoring cost. I can't tell if you're trolling me or if you're a blatant moron. If you have to work in order to acquire something, then it isn't free. You're probably the kind of idiot that would try to run an infomercial offering something as being "free" under condition of purchase. Free is free. If I am giving away something for free, that means I am dispersing the outputs of my labor for nothing in return.