A world without money.

[DossarLX ODI]

This is something I've been thinking about for some time now. What would happen if money didn't exist? If the absence of money caused problems, what do you think could be done to rectify the situation (without bringing money back)? Do you think the world would be better without money?

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).

[Shikari]

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).

Wait a second... Never crossed your mind that people like medics, professors, even lawyers, would be their job for a favor, and not for free?

Humanity is greedy, it'll always find a way to make profit with anything, that's why you have prostitutes, for example, making money with intercourse. In a world without money, favors would be the new money, physical/bellical power would be the money, and so on. Yes, it could be a good thing in some ways, like no more inflation, poverty in any case, and situations like that, but it doesn't mean that people would start to give and do things for free, it'll always has something else involved.

[foilman8805]

Originally Posted by DossarLX ODI

This is something I've been thinking about for some time now. What would happen if money didn't exist? If the absence of money caused problems, what do you think could be done to rectify the situation (without bringing money back)? Do you think the world would be better without money?

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).

Without really picking this apart, I feel like you're unknowingly suggesting or maybe aiming at some kind of Utopia. Here are a couple concerns I have with this idea:

When you eliminate money from every day society, you are essentially equating everything. The worth of the complicated brain surgery to remove a malignant tumor from your head is nothing (or as you've implied worth the same as everything else) when you remove money from the equation (this is obviously excluding the intrinsic value of life, which can't be valued by money or currency anyways). So is the effort the garbage man puts in to sit in his truck and remotely operate a robotic arm that catapults trash into the back of the truck. These are two vastly different tasks with enormously different qualifications that have for all intents and purposes become equal. This brings us to the real problem: is that fair?

I think a whole separate thread could be started and discussed on simply the fairness of eliminating money from society. A lot of things would need to change if money were not to exist, most notably the very nature of the human being.

Additionally, proposing limits on what people can and cannot have is a problem that you probably haven't thought about very deeply. It would most likely require some very totalitarian governmental actions to control what people have. You can bet your ass that no one is going to willingly give up the things they have purchased and acquired for the sake of collectivism (this is called communism btw and make sure to note that this has never been successful). Humans are innately individualistic and I do not see that ever changing. Whether you admit it or not, this will forever prevent money or currency from becoming extinct.

[qqwref]

Problem is, we just don't have the resources right now to give people whatever they want. So we need a system like money to prevent every resource from being either (a) completely first-come-first-serve, or (b) doled out equally to everyone by the government. Money is also an incentive, to get people to do work, or help someone out, or whatever.

In the far future, we might have enough resources to give everyone what they want (maybe we have some kind of matter replicator, and enough energy is being produced to easily power everything, including that). I imagine we'd also need a pretty strong legal presence to make sure enough work gets done to keep the society running, and to make sure people don't just spend all day being mean to each other. In that case we could do away with money entirely, if we wanted.

[justaguy]

tradeoffs

the entire premise of this is uhhh brainless (quite literally)

[Izzy]

This reminds me of communism. Or at least the concept of it. I think it might be called marxism, but I don't think it has ever worked in reality though.

[Reincarnate]

Wow holy **** massive misunderstanding of how money/economics work ITT

[Reincarnate]

Money is a standardization. It's a way we can judge the relative worth and value of things in a form that everyone can exchange on. Even in ancient civilizations, economies existed without money ("If you kill these boar for me, I'll protect your family"). The "problem" arises when people start trying to maximize their utility functions. Am I really getting a fair deal in this boar/family protection exchange? Is protecting a family worth this price in boar? How much boar? How much protection? Am I working too hard for what I'm providing or getting? Could I be getting a better deal elsewhere?

When you start adding entire societies into this mix, you have a wide range of services intermingled amidst the supplies and demands. The easiest thing to do is to make an intermediary -- money -- as a way to normalize it all.

Without money, you're basically operating on this sort of premise that suddenly everything will be easier to acquire. Just because you eliminate money, that doesn't mean you're making everything free. NOTHING is "free" because there's always an underlying cost. That cost comes in the form of underlying RESOURCES which are usually scarce (and therefore more valuable). Rarer materials are scarce. Skill is scarce.

A lot of people would opt out of doing work because, well, why bother if everything's free? Even if you require that people work something, people will take the route of least effort. Why bother going to school for years and years to become a banker/doctor/lawyer who works 24/7 if you can just test video games all day and be just as wealthy? Why invest anything for no return? A lot of the things we would WANT to acquire for free would no longer be available because nobody would bother making them anymore. The products we COULD acquire would be of ****ty quality because the few people that would bother to make such products would have no incentive to optimize their performance.

Limiting what people can own doesn't work in practice, either. In communism, everyone gets equal share of the fruits of labor and the government controls everything. It's not exactly a great life.

We need currency as a way to fix most of these issues.

[Cavernio]

Just more of what everyone else has been saying. If we just eliminate money without some other sort of system to dole out goods, people will still want payment for things. Literally paying someone in peanuts and cheese and cows and chickens and then a song is rather...odd. Money just makes all those transactions a lot easier and make much more sense, and gives perhaps a better value of what things are worth.

As other people have pointed out, money also gives incentive. This is where I think money fails though, personally. If someone needs money as an incentive to do something, then they shouldn't be doing that thing anyways. If this means that most people won't work, then so be it. Most people won't sit on their beds the rest of their lives either though. Unfortunately you can't really know someone's true drive to do one thing versus another in a society centered around money. Like, if we were to switch over to a money-free society, some sort of communism or something, initially, people would be lazy. I think that over a few years, and definitely over a generation, people would adjust their values, their ideals, and place more weight on things like honor, friendship, duty, doing the right thing, and what they like to do, in order to do things. Like I said earlier, people aren't just going to lie around and do nothing. Some people see this as ridiculous and not probable, but I disagree. For example, most people on this cite don't get paid much to run it, but they still do. I'll stay late at work, when they need someone, not because I need the money, but because I feel bad for the people who have to work short-staffed, and for those people who have to wait in line a long time. Sure, money's nice, but is only one of the reasons I'll stay.

But then there's also how our resources are going to get divided. This I think could be a real issue, especially if people are used to being greedy, (which they would be if we were to switch over from capitalism), and is also a more serious issue when there's not enough of a necessary resource to go around. I do, however, think that outside of healthcare, society and the globe possess enough resources to house, feed and clothe everyone, and give every household cellphones and laptops and TVs. Of course, we likely wouldn't have so many of these things being made, because I think that most factory work is not what most people would choose to do. I suppose we could also have some sort of strategy for rotating the ****ty jobs (that don't require a whole lot of skill) to different people if we wanted to get that organized though too.

I think we're fast coming up, or have reached, a point in human history where adopting some sort of communism would be very feasible. The internet makes the exchange of anything that can be transferred digitally so easy, and that basically means infinite digital resources for everyone. In fact, there's still issues with how to fit the internet into capitalism successfully, a task which, if you think about it, really is ludicrous. We only do it because we're set on being capitalist, and its not fair for people who used to make a living doing something suddenly lose it. We DO have enough food to feed everyone, and I already opt to work less and play more, just because of the multitude of things we produce for fun.

Also, can we please ban justaguy or at least delete his posts or something?

[Reincarnate]

Originally Posted by Cavernio

As other people have pointed out, money also gives incentive. This is where I think money fails though, personally. If someone needs money as an incentive to do something, then they shouldn't be doing that thing anyways. If this means that most people won't work, then so be it. Most people won't sit on their beds the rest of their lives either though. Unfortunately you can't really know someone's true drive to do one thing versus another in a society centered around money. Like, if we were to switch over to a money-free society, some sort of communism or something, initially, people would be lazy. I think that over a few years, and definitely over a generation, people would adjust their values, their ideals, and place more weight on things like honor, friendship, duty, doing the right thing, and what they like to do, in order to do things. Like I said earlier, people aren't just going to lie around and do nothing. Some people see this as ridiculous and not probable, but I disagree. For example, most people on this cite don't get paid much to run it, but they still do. I'll stay late at work, when they need someone, not because I need the money, but because I feel bad for the people who have to work short-staffed, and for those people who have to wait in line a long time. Sure, money's nice, but is only one of the reasons I'll stay.


I think we're fast coming up, or have reached, a point in human history where adopting some sort of communism would be very feasible. The internet makes the exchange of anything that can be transferred digitally so easy, and that basically means infinite digital resources for everyone. In fact, there's still issues with how to fit the internet into capitalism successfully, a task which, if you think about it, really is ludicrous. We only do it because we're set on being capitalist, and its not fair for people who used to make a living doing something suddenly lose it. We DO have enough food to feed everyone, and I already opt to work less and play more, just because of the multitude of things we produce for fun.

Errr, money gives plenty of incentive. Why SHOULDN'T it be sufficient incentive? If you want a money-free society where people "change their values" and do what they want, that doesn't mean they're going to provide value. You cite examples of people running this site. How do you think Synth is able to keep this site up? It's certainly not self-sustainable. It's Synth's server -- servers don't operate for free. They leverage resources to operate, and these resources come at an underlying cost. People who volunteer here do it because it's fun and they enjoy the community -- but it's not ALL they do (aperson, for instance, works as a sysadmin for hostgator). At the end of the day, you still need a paycheck -- you need a way to pay for your resource use. If you're not old enough to work or go to college, then you're likely being supported by parents. If you're in college, you're likely supported by scholarship and/or financial aid and/or parents still. If you've graduated, you're likely supported by the fruits of your labor.

Furthermore, online resources are not "infinite." The internet lowers transaction costs. It makes information easier to acquire, and there is value to that. It makes economic deals easier to excute and process and manage. I can trade stocks, manage my finances, purchase things, buy food, sell products, start businesses, play games, design things, explore, learn, communicate and plan, etc -- online. These services are not, again, self-sustainable. They are all driven by PEOPLE who design and maintain the frameworks you leverage. The underlying OBJECTS of these services are still real, tangible items in most cases.

[qqwref]

Originally Posted by Cavernio

This is where I think money fails though, personally. If someone needs money as an incentive to do something, then they shouldn't be doing that thing anyways. If this means that most people won't work, then so be it.

While this sounds at first to be better, think about it a bit more. Society would collapse.

At this point, we need plenty of people to do jobs that nobody would do if they had free time and could do anything. We still need garbagemen, data entry/management people in companies, factory workers, cleaners, fast food workers... in fact I'd say that most jobs nowadays would fall under the category of something almost nobody would even consider doing without a serious reward. There's just too much that needs to be done that we can't automate. Maybe in a few hundred years we'll be beyond that, and everything tedious/dangerous/unpleasant will be done by machines (or won't need to be done at all), but right now it is very important to have a clear incentive (money) available.

[DossarLX ODI]

First off, I'd like to point out that when I made this thread, I understand that money won't ever be abolished and that this is a totally utopian idea. Just trying to abolish money itself is what would be the focus if this idea really were to take place - I just wanted you guys to think about a world without it.

Now with that out of the way, I just want to say a few things after reading these posts.

I definitely have to agree that a legal system would have to be set up if money were to be abolished - but at the same time I do understand that value is not always money, and that underlying cost still exists. We could pass a law that everyone must have a job or be in school. Since nobody has to pay you anything, I'm sure any business would love to have somebody come in to sweep the floor, wash the dishes, take out the trash, or whatever else. No matter what you do, you must be employed. All you'd need is verifiable employment, and welfare won't be needed when you can just pick out a house, a car, some toys for your kids maybe, and all the food you need.

This raises another point: Nothing will get done? I think more would get done, actually - say someone wanted to be an electrician or go to a medical school. With this system, those fields would not require costs - if you're tired of power outages, you can go to a free university and become an electrical engineer and work for a power company and take care of those types of problems. With this being said, getting rid of money could possibly make more jobs available.

If money is abolished, demand for nearly everything would skyrocket. As the demand goes up, there would be a near frantic need to increase supply to keep up with the ever-rising demand. In order to increase supplies, every industry would have to drastically increase their workforce, which is not a problem since it costs nothing to do so. With all the unemployed people out there, they can be trained and they can all be employed.

The biggest problem I see with this though, like previously mentioned in other posts, is that a whole new division of the government would have to be opened to regulate this.

As for communisim, this economy is not an assurance that you'll get everything your neighbor has. Unlike in a communist system, the government isn't going to step in and take away your neighbor's TV just because you didn't get one too - you'll get one later, so just wait lol. Granted, there will be the communist aspect that a man who licks stamps for a living can have all the same stuff as a guy who does tough labor like loading concrete blocks. But so what? It's time for people to get over the idea that they're entitled to "more" for doing a job that needs to be done. The job won't do itself and if you don't do it, you won't get anything.

But then, wouldn't everyone just take the easy jobs then? I can see that happening for a few weeks. But once the power goes out, the people will get back to work or they'll get replaced by all the people who want their power back on. Once the water stops working, the people from those works will go back to their jobs or they'll be replaced. Once the trash piles up, garbage men will go back to work. After all, supply can't meet demand if there's nobody boosting the supply. Most people will learn that very quickly if they don't know it already.

If you don't work to earn things, you get nothing. In fact, I think this would prevent people from being spoiled. Under a non-monetary system, their trust fund is worthless and they too will have to work for the things they want. This could also prevent illegal employment from surviving.

However, the biggest flaw is...... money is not the only type of value. Greed will somehow come back in a different form. Again I know this is probably a really insane idea but I've really put some thought into it and I understand it does have its flaws. Feedback?

[Cavernio]

DossarLX: Although it seems like you may carry a view similar to mine Dossar, I think I'd rather be in a capitalism than have the government say I need a job as defined by them. A lot of people nowadays don't have what most people would call a 'job', that would be hard to classify as a job from a government standpoint. Like pretty much any artist. Most of them don't 'art' 24/7, many of them don't perceptively work at them full-time either, yet by saying they'd HAVE to have a job could very well decrease their overall art output. Also, you'd have to label all those things people do as work, that people already do for 'free', like their own dishes, laundry, looking after their kids, etc. If you didn't, your system isn't fair, but if you did, your system now has exchanged the motivation of 'I get a clean house' to 'I need to eat this week so I need to clean my house'. That's pretty ****ed up. I hate money because it makes motivation, and ergo I definitely would hate something that essentially works just like money, except instead of giving me a positive motivation for doing something (ie: I get money and then I get some extra money so I can go on a trip) to simply negative motivation because I HAVE to work OR ELSE I don't get anything.
Your supply demand thing, although outwardly making sense, falls apart because without money, or without another motivating factor to cause people to supply more to someone other than themselves, there's no guarantee supply will rise to meet demand. I mean, the hope would be that we'd sort everything out so that it would work, but I have no statements that it would necessarily just have to work because of supply and demand.

Reincarnate: Money shouldn't be 'sufficient' incentive because its outward incentive. Its shallow. To be cliche-(ay), it doesn't make people happy, especially when it overpowers one's own inner incentives. (Which is essentially what all outward incentive does according to what I learned 5 years ago in school.) This is all totally a personal opinion here though, in regards to not wanting to have money get in the way of what I actually want. I would just love to see more people doing things because they're internally motivated to rather than externally motivated to.
I'm very aware that this cite isn't self-sustaining, and that a lot of effort is put into it; that just makes the point of what I was so saying that much stronger. I cited it (ah haha I mades a pun) because its a clear example that people WILL put effort into things they WANT to. Any example I can give where people are putting in free or cheap hours on something, especially when to do so is actually counter monetary gains, or where someone puts money into doing something most people would consider 'work', strongly supports my ideals and makes me see that something closer to utopia might actually be possible. I wasn't trying to say that this cite runs for 'free' to make it seem like there's no effort involved into keeping it up and running it. I didn't include all the background needed for the internet to exist at all because that's, well, not part of what I was trying to get at.

As far as I'm concerned, the information on the internet minus the hardware necessary to keep all the information on it up and flowing, IS infinite. Art, information, games... they're not like food where if I eat something, someone else doesn't get to eat it. Its the perfect medium for share and share a-like. Yes yes, people still work to keep things up and things that are sold and whatnot that actually have a physicality to them aren't, but all that stuff is really more about 'but who will do all this stuff if we don't get paid to?'

"If you want a money-free society where people "change their values" and do what they want, that doesn't mean they're going to provide value."

I think addressing this line also addresses qqwref too, so here it goes. I guess I haven't thought about this too much, so I could not be considering many aspects of this, but I really think that your quote is just wrong. People will find things to live for, and I'll try to show it. Without values, people have no reason to live. Of course this doesn't mean that people will necessarily adopt them, but seeing as we've evolved into who we are, it seems pretty fail of evolution to create such beings that intellectually want reasons for doing things, and then have the species NOT try and find reasons to live. To not just be totally rhetorical here though, there's quite a few examples to use. Religion is the biggest one. People for some reason adopted religion, and to me its just people giving themselves something to value. And its a reason/value still in use today! A specific subset of people who have been known to have nothing, or not a whole lot, would be poor black teenagers. I'm specifically thinking about LA gangs (I recently watched a thing on TV about it, so its on my mind), or any other type of 'street group' or whatever. These people, these teenagers, people growing and becoming adults, have **** to live for. Drug addicted parents, no money. Gangs specifically give someone something to live for. Sure they morals of the group are in question with societal norms and perhaps an even 'higher' morality (like just don't kill anyone), but to the people in those groups, they have a 'family' now, they have expectations to meet, and they belong. I really think that people join these groups is so that there's something to live for. People who already have something to live for generally avoid joining a group like that, but its the people who value nothing who find that something, even something that involves killing, is better than valuing nothing.
Heh, I'm painting a pretty picture here, do away with money and we'll just end up with fanatical street gangs, yay~! But its not just negative values that people will create. I mean, most of ALL of our values are 'created'. Something like pride. Pride doesn't really seem to be valued very much in our society these days, so it makes it something easy to see as really not being much of anything. Its just a way someone acts that can actually be kinda dumb and in fact be more harmful than anything, but some people still value it. Why? I dunno, we just made it something that people do and that's valued. Family? I guess there's claer biological incentive for this one, but to value something like having a mother and father and eating around the dinner table each night, that's just a made-up value we've adopted.

And finally, to address qqwref's stuff about there being more mundane jobs now than ever before, oh I soooo disagree. It feels like society 'creates' jobs so that people can work. Beaurocracy feels like that, that's why its like a dirty word to some people. But beyond that, most growth in the north american job market is for things that require thinking and brains, which I think at least, are going to be more interesting jobs. Sure factory jobs are on the rise globally, but if a factory is run well, its still better than plowing your fields by hand or some other such archaic job. Besides which, there are A LOT of factories which will opt to have jobs that machines can easily do, actually be done by people, just so that they support the economy, because we DO lose unskilled labor jobs as technology takes over.

[kommisar]

monopoly would be based off manipulative power and trade. that's all there is to it. rather than inventing legal tender out of thin air, this would be an interesting concept to go back to. lets make our own country and see if it works out in 10 years

[foilman8805]

Dossar, you assume a lot about the nature of the human being that you clearly just don't know, or can't predict. You assume a person will happily work a job moving concrete blocks while their buddy has a job licking stamps and both will be satisfied with having the same things as a result. As I said above, it ultimately raises a question of fairness. After a short time the concrete block mover will become pretty pissed off when he comes home sore every day and with jacked up hands while his buddy kicks back and licks stamps all day.

The only way something like this would work is to establish a society that has never had previous experience with money and form a government and the society around the concept of no currency. It can't be introduced into a society that's already working with money. Just can't happen.

[Without A Contraceptive]

this thread doesnt work right


like foil said; people wont work without compensation. what incentive do i have to go to college if there is no money for me to earn to enable me to buy all the cars houses hoes drugs etc?

[Reincarnate]

dossar never become an economist

[Arch0wl]

Most people have covered what I was going to say ("if there wasn't money, something would take its place") but there's one other thing I'd like to add:

People do not always do things for strict monetary compensation. Sometimes the 'compensation' is more indirect. On the internet, for example, recognition goes a long way. In fact, the entire open source community runs on recognition. Community service runs on the feeling that you've accomplished something good and made someone's life better. Though, calling this 'compensation' is really stretching the term.

[justaguy]

i'll contribute something that's more than one line. if you missed the key point earlier then here it is again:

tradeoffs

elaborated eloquently:

Money is a standardization. It's a way we can judge the relative worth and value of things in a form that everyone can exchange on.

essentially all individuals have their own preference (modeled by utility for you economics wizards, as rubix also explained) for anything. i prefer that, you prefer this, etc. it's a fundamental behavioral concept. the goal any individual is to attain their preference by whatever means they choose, with employment being the most common means. by attaining a preference, the implication is that you are trying to make yourself better off relative to your current state. if money ceases to exist you're suddenly faced with fewer means of attaining your preference, making it more difficult to seek out. in other words, if one man grows apples and another oranges, how would the man with oranges get apples if the man with apples did not prefer oranges? he would need to trade his oranges for another good that the apple grower preferred. the apple grower's preference is inconvenient for orange grower because it adds an extra step in trade. would trade not be more efficient if all steps were condensed to one? which brings us back to:

Money is a standardization. It's a way we can judge the relative worth and value of things in a form that everyone can exchange on.

and further:

tradeoffs

you're maximizing the efficiency of tradeoffs by developing a medium that everyone prefers. aka doing the rational thing.

and:

This is where I think money fails though, personally. If someone needs money as an incentive to do something, then they shouldn't be doing that thing anyways.

are you kidding me? if unknown student left their steaming feces in the middle of a high school bathroom, you're telling me the simple satisfaction of cleaning it up is enough of an incentive?

If this means that most people won't work, then so be it. Most people won't sit on their beds the rest of their lives either though.

and uh, what gives you that impression? you're implying that satisfaction of performing work should be an individual's only incentive and suddenly they'll be shifted into gear once they've realized their "drive." why are you presupposing something like drive within the context of work? they are not coupled entities.

Unfortunately you can't really know someone's true drive to do one thing versus another in a society centered around money.

really, you're implying those driven by money are less productive than those driven by their "true drive"?

Like, if we were to switch over to a money-free society, some sort of communism or something, initially, people would be lazy. I think that over a few years, and definitely over a generation, people would adjust their values, their ideals, and place more weight on things like honor, friendship, duty, doing the right thing, and what they like to do, in order to do things.

i think your short run analysis is incredibly naive. place more weight on honor? and why would they do that? why would they place any more weight on friendship than they had already? at what point does removing money from the societal equation suddenly motivate people to "do the right thing" (i won't even start the right vs. wrong debate)? i think you're under the impression that underneath the evil that is money there exists the bunnies and rainbows of passion and community.

Like I said earlier, people aren't just going to lie around and do nothing. Some people see this as ridiculous and not probable, but I disagree. For example, most people on this cite don't get paid much to run it, but they still do. I'll stay late at work, when they need someone, not because I need the money, but because I feel bad for the people who have to work short-staffed, and for those people who have to wait in line a long time. Sure, money's nice, but is only one of the reasons I'll stay.

you're using FFR as an example to rationalize your reasoning...? here's a sizable anecdote that maybe makes sense to you: for example, most people that work late do it because they need the money. this may come as a surprise to you, but golly gee, why is overtime sometimes pay and a half? is it because employers have modeled human behavior and realized employees need a greater incentive to work more hours than they originally preferred? or because they really feel like people should be rewarded for staying around late and helping the short staffed?

Your supply demand thing, although outwardly making sense, falls apart because without money, or without another motivating factor to cause people to supply more to someone other than themselves, there's no guarantee supply will rise to meet demand. I mean, the hope would be that we'd sort everything out so that it would work, but I have no statements that it would necessarily just have to work because of supply and demand.

woah woah pump the brakes, i thought you were riding the satisfaction wave? suddenly everyone is doing things for themselves and not for the good of other people? supply and demand falls apart without money? lol.

Reincarnate: Money shouldn't be 'sufficient' incentive because its outward incentive. Its shallow. To be cliche-(ay), it doesn't make people happy, especially when it overpowers one's own inner incentives.

uh, how is money shallow? money appeals to my emotions because it relieves my stress and permits a comfortable lifestyle, does this make me shallow? money is a means to an end, not an end in itself. for the few that consider money an end, shouldn't they be more passionate and productive than anyone else? they aren't confined to any specific means of employment, they just simply want money, so would they be diligent in any context?

I would just love to see more people doing things because they're internally motivated to rather than externally motivated to.

ah, here we go, it's that darn projecting thing. stop projecting this promising image you have of humanity on realistic situations.

"If you want a money-free society where people "change their values" and do what they want, that doesn't mean they're going to provide value."

woop woop. in other words, even if people do what they want that doesn't necessarily mean they're contributing anything worthwhile to society.

Without values, people have no reason to live. Of course this doesn't mean that people will necessarily adopt them, but seeing as we've evolved into who we are, it seems pretty fail of evolution to create such beings that intellectually want reasons for doing things, and then have the species NOT try and find reasons to live.

regardless of how poorly you interpreted the previous quote, your analysis of your own interpretation is still bad. people can rationalize reasons within the context of humanity but cannot rationalize their existence within the context of the universe, though they will try. people have been pondering their own existence since they were cognizant enough to ask why. it seems pretty fail of evolution to produce stupid people. why'd evolution do a thing like that?

Religion is the biggest one. People for some reason adopted religion, and to me its just people giving themselves something to value. And its a reason/value still in use today!

lol

A specific subset of people who have been known to have nothing, or not a whole lot, would be poor black teenagers. I'm specifically thinking about LA gangs (I recently watched a thing on TV about it, so its on my mind), or any other type of 'street group' or whatever. These people, these teenagers, people growing and becoming adults, have **** to live for. Drug addicted parents, no money. Gangs specifically give someone something to live for. Sure they morals of the group are in question with societal norms and perhaps an even 'higher' morality (like just don't kill anyone), but to the people in those groups, they have a 'family' now, they have expectations to meet, and they belong. I really think that people join these groups is so that there's something to live for. People who already have something to live for generally avoid joining a group like that, but its the people who value nothing who find that something, even something that involves killing, is better than valuing nothing.

i don't even know the relevance of this at all. this doesn't have anything to do with the social impact of removing money it just kind of says that youth with no direction are impressionable. thanks though.

Something like pride. Pride doesn't really seem to be valued very much in our society these days, so it makes it something easy to see as really not being much of anything

what is even the significance of this?

Why? I dunno, we just made it something that people do and that's valued.

right, that's it, you got it dogg. where the hell did pride come from? we just made that **** up. nobody knew how to be proud of themselves before i made it glaringly obvious to everyone that it was something they could feel.

Family? I guess there's claer biological incentive for this one, but to value something like having a mother and father and eating around the dinner table each night, that's just a made-up value we've adopted.

i think you just keep writing random words in your posts completely unaware of how little sense they make and how irrelevant they are.

And finally, to address qqwref's stuff about there being more mundane jobs now than ever before, oh I soooo disagree. It feels like society 'creates' jobs so that people can work. Beaurocracy feels like that, that's why its like a dirty word to some people. But beyond that, most growth in the north american job market is for things that require thinking and brains, which I think at least, are going to be more interesting jobs. Sure factory jobs are on the rise globally, but if a factory is run well, its still better than plowing your fields by hand or some other such archaic job. Besides which, there are A LOT of factories which will opt to have jobs that machines can easily do, actually be done by people, just so that they support the economy, because we DO lose unskilled labor jobs as technology takes over.

you soooo disagree? you're saying that the majority of jobs could be worked without a reward? uhhhh? you wrote a wall of text about one line of his post that didn't even showcase the point being made (that i made earlier also) which was that people aren't going to work without a valid incentive. and... they aren't.

and for future ref: if you're going to PM me about my (surprisingly relevant) two line post in a thread and then request a ban about at least be able to "critically think" so you don't **** out walls of useless text.

[Arch0wl]

also, I had some Fridge Logic a second ago: even if you got rid of all money and went back to the tribal level where of Maslow's basic needs were satisfied, people would still compete over other people. As in, romantically. I'm not even saying this in the pop-evolutionary-psychology "lol alpha males" nonsense that you read on PUA websites--just look at any circle of friends with a surplus of men and deficit of women. Humans have a rapacious inner dickwad and until our technology is sufficient enough to make "better" humans (i.e. transhumanism) we're stuck with all of our evolutionary baggage.